transport. The greatest triumph of this engine was in motor trans- 
port. It was our main agent throughout the war in supplying our 
armies with necessaries. In one respect the Germans outdistanced 
the Allies throughout—in the attention they paid to strategical rail- 
ways. 
In this part of their organization the Allies were inferior to the 
enemy, and motor transport had to make up for their deficiencies. 
On one critical occasion it saved the war. In 1916 the Germans 
concentrated their efforts on Verdun. ‘he Germans had ten strategic 
railways on their side; the French had but one second-class railway 
and road communication. Yet their heroic defence was successful. 
Along the main road leading to Verdun the French organized a motor 
transport system which was a marvel. 
CuemicaAL WARFARE. 
The next great scientific discovery which had proved a formative 
factor in this war was wireless telegraphy. ‘The most hateful chapter 
of the work of science in war was the introduction of chemical war- 
fare. The first gas attack on 22nd April, 1915, and the five others 
that followed within little more than a month found us wholly unpre- 
pared, and it was not until September that we were able in any way to 
retaliate. But our immediate reply was one that did honour to science. 
Due to the splendid work of the late Colonel Harrison a system of ° 
defence by gas mask was established, in which we were for the greater 
part of the war far ahead of our adversaries, who only succeeded in 
coming up to us by learning and copying our methods It was impossible 
to estimate what would have been the destruction caused by toxic 
gases but for these defensive measures. 
Treranus AND Sporrep Frver. 
The use of the anti-tetanus serum became a routine treatment, and 
proved so successful that unless it was administered too late so that 
the work of the microbe was already too far advanced it might be 
relied on to prevent any development of the disease. The rate of 
. mortality in spotted fever had been reduced to about one-tenth of its 
former value. The crowning triumph in this field was the complete 
elucidation of the mode of transmission of bilharzia, a disease with 
which we were faced through the presence of large contingents of our 
troops in Lower Egypt. 
Forty AND WARNING. 
Jn all these instances both combatants had to a more or less equal. 
degree shared in the help that science had given. But there was a 
glaring exception. All explosives, with a few unimportant exceptions, 
depended on the use of nitrates, and until a few years ago they were 
supplied from the natural deposits of nitrates found in Chile. Science 
then showed that they could be made directly from the nitrogen of the 
atmosphere. ‘Our Government and our industrials took no heed of 
these discoveries; it involved less trouble and less expense to continue 
to get them from Chile. It was otherwise with Germany. - They 
realized that to be able to make their nitrates at home rendered them 
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