April 29, 1920] 



NATURE 



2^9 



I warfare, at a cost of two years' delay, of intoler- 

 able waste and slaughter, before it could.be per- 

 suaded to take up this new revolutionary idea. 

 The German advance walked over our trench war- 

 fare system in the spring of 1918, and took all 

 our guns. 

 Technically bold as a lion, our military soul 

 was intellectually a very timid bird, and shuddered 

 at any suggestion of novelty and progress. 

 Whenever I asked an artillery officer : " What 

 did you learn as a cadet at the Royal Military 

 Academy? " the answer came in the invariable 

 formula : " I learnt nothing when I was at the 

 Shop." 



The Shop ! Not a workshop, except so far as 

 the "ca' canny " slogan would carry. And yet we 

 find this nickname, full of meaning and con- 

 temptuous, is countenanced by authority, from 

 the Governor downward, as a surrender of all 

 Prestige. It should be made a crime of a military 

 nature ever to use such a derisory, contemptu- 

 ous alias, too descriptive of the obsolete, decadent 

 traditions of the place. 



The Army List gives a whole page to the cata- 

 logue of the staff of the Royal Military Academy, 

 Woolwich, full of official Army titles. Low down 

 on the page a line is to be seen, and under it a 

 list of half a dozen names, the civilian instructors 

 who should carry out the real work of the 

 place. 



Nothing was ever so Prussian, not even in 

 Prussia. But the line has a more sinister mean- 

 ing still ; it emphasises one of the important 

 reforms of the Cardwell scheme, and excludes all 

 those appearing under it from retiring allowance, 

 while every Civil Service clerk is />Mfefea, subsidised 

 and covenanted, on the strength of a Civil Service 

 examination, medical or otherwise. A sailor would 

 compare the Academy to a boat trimming too 

 much by the stern, with too many cocked hats in 

 the stern sheets. 



This the only source of supply of our artillery 

 officer does not run clear ; it commissions him with 

 the brand of second class, with all the mental 

 outlook implied of indolence and apathy. 



Thinking officers among them deplore the 

 arrangement, and are beginning to confess to 

 their deficiency of all artillery science in the war ; 

 but, with military docility, they are afraid to say 

 much, and formerly, before the war, would bring 

 upon themselves the scowl of the senior officer, 

 and the disparaging epithet of "scientific." 



The old school aimed at being as close an imita- 

 tion of cavalry as possible, and a stable boy was 

 the noblest gunner of them all, prepared to carry 

 out a gallop of a few seconds over Woolwich 

 Common, with a little gun on wheels behind. 

 The idea was deprecated of firing off his gun, 

 in imitation of the practice exacted in real war- 

 fare, as likely to wear the gun out, and so pro- 

 vided a good excuse. 



But here is a Disadvantage of Durability, espe- 

 cially in artillery, and most of all in its traditions. 

 NO. 2635, VOL. 105] 



Our guns were always obsolete when they were 

 most wanted. 



So this gunner preferred to. seek the seclusioq 



of his stable before the guns laegan to shoot; h^ 



was encouragedto be gun-shy, and to despise any 



I sort of artillery that could not go at a. gallop 



j behind horses. His favourite arm was this corps 



d'dlite, the plaything of the I.R.C. (Wle Rich 



Class), very expensive to maintain in peace^ aqd 



of little proved utility in Avar commensurate with, 



the cost. ; ■ , , . r 



I But motor artillery has come to stay as the real 



I artillery, unless "bilked " by the old school. This 



was the sort required in the war, and in peace it 



is not eating its head off, like horses in a staible, 



and is never tired on the march. De Wet was run 



to earth very soon by a squadron of motor-cars 



never giving his horses any rest : what our old 



cavalry tactics never could effect. - :'. a-:,, . 



The civilian has grasped the paramount- im*, 

 portance in modern warfare of heavy long-range 

 artillery; and he must be careful that the lesson 

 has not been lost on the regular gunner, or allow 

 him to return to his ancient, worn-out traditions. 

 Such long-range fire was declared officially of no 

 military value, until our poor fellows came under 

 the accurate fire of the long-range Germaa 

 howitzer, with no protection from our own 

 side. 



German science could always astonish our 

 sleepy regular gunner, in providing a gun 

 that could bombard Paris, and London too, when 

 it could be brought up as near as Calais. How 

 much longer would the war have lasted then? 

 although the fire was declared of no military im- 

 portance by those who did not suffer under it. 



This advanced German artillery science, as well 

 as of the chemical and aeronautical science, was 

 the outcome and product of the Military Technical 

 Academy in Berlin, a magnificent institution such 

 as our Ministers thought England was too poor 

 to afford. Sixty officers were under instruction 

 there in a three years' course more thorough than 

 exacted to-day for honours in the university. No 

 wonder our feeble amateur military science went 

 down before such superior training. 



I was once privileged to visit the Berlin Academy, 

 under the guidance of Prof. Cranz, and to inspect 

 the instruction in all branches — ballistics, aero- 

 nautics, and electricity. There, for one thing, I 

 remember seeing the electrical class occupied in 

 making the antennae of wireless telegraphy. This 

 was ten years ago, when aeronautical science and 

 flight were derided by our War Office authority, 

 and opposed on the score of economy. We shall 

 not feel safe in England until we set up a rival 

 institution, but it must be as far apart as pos- 

 sible from the Woolwich tradition. South Ken- 

 sington would be an ideal site, say in the building 

 of the old School of Mines and Naval Architecture 

 and alongside the Imperial College of Science, as 

 the Berlin Academy is a neighbour of the Char- 

 lottenburg Technical High School, with the same 



