Digest of the Law of Evidence. Sir James Fitz-James Stephen. Macmillan & Co. 1877.

Hints to Courts-Martial. By T. C. O'Dowd. London. Clowes & Son. 1883.

The work of the Deputy-Judge-Advocate.

Military Law. By Lieut.-Colonel S. C. Pratt, R.A. London. Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co. 1889.

A valuable précis.

ago

NOTE.-In my preface I have spoken of the effect of the introduction of "high explosives." I reserve, however, for this note to Major Clarke's volume a reference to the changes in fortification which are now rapidly taking place on the Continent in consequenee of the introduction of the new explosives. Both France and Germany are spending enormous sums of money in altering their fortifications. The purpose is to relieve them from that condition which a few years made many of the most experienced officers of both armies believe, as I have put it in the preface, that in their former condition the fortifications might be destroyed even by field-artillery armed with high explosives. Major Clarke, in his very able work, appears to me to have passed the subject by with an indifference which does not inspire confidence in the conclusions at which he has in this matter arrived. Neither France nor Germany spend vast sums of money under the advice of men who are likely to be affected by "unreasoning panic" (p. 113). Moreover, I happen to have been the "recent speaker at the R.A.S. Institution who appeared to contemplate the practicability of clearing the Channel by picrates."

If "practicability" means that I suggested that the thing was at present reduced to a condition of mathematical precision, certainly that neither represented my views nor my argument. But I do share with many of our ablest sailors considerable anxiety on the subject, and I should have been very grateful to Major Clarke if he could have relieved my doubts about it. He has, however, shown conclusively that he misunderstands the cause of the anxiety which he pooh-poohs. He thinks it sufficient to pass the subject by, saying that it is "by no means certain that the French have overcome the difficulties which surround the use of this material." Those difficulties consist in the fact that it is deteriorated and made dangerous by much transport from point to point, and that no one has yet discovered a picrate or other high explosive which is permanent for a lengthened period.

Now the French are meeting this difficulty by vast storage at different

centres of the materials of mélinite. They make it fresh, and they load their shells fresh each year.

That being so, the point to which I want to get an answer, for which I have as yet asked in vain, is this: What is there to prevent a French Channel fleet being stored with shells recently filled with fresh-made explosives? Would those shells not, under those circumstances, be good for a week's work? Would any Admiral like to meet a fleet armed with them if he had no high explosive shells himself? Could an English fleet, which must necessarily be gathered from many distant points, be as easily supplied with fresh-made roborite and fresh-filled shells as a French fleet, which had only to issue direct from ports in which mélanite is made, could be stored with shells freshly filled with new mélanite?

The subject is not one which directly concerns either my subject or Major Clarke's; but the indirect effect which its solution will have upon all warfare in which an English army may be engaged induces me to notice it in this note. It is therefore important that, as I have done so, I should state the purpose for which, in the discussion to which Major Clarke refers, I raised the point about the risks involved for us in the present condition of the high-explosive question. It was only as an illustration, though a serious one, of the uncertainties which attend the future of naval warfare. This particular danger may or may not be serious. I think it very serious. I shall continue to think so as long as I cannot succeed any better in getting an answer to my question about it than Lord Charles Beresford succeeded when he tried to draw the attention of the House of Commons to it as a matter vital to the interests of the country. But even if there be an answer to this point, it would not affect the value of it as an illustration of the uncertainties which hang over the whole future of naval warfare. It is very difficult to foresee what will happen in the next land-war; but there the future is open and certain if it be compared with the utter darkness into which our best sailors have to gaze when they contemplate the circumstances of the next great naval engagement. That is

a fact with which I am not sorry to close this volume, because the public, for whom it is chiefly intended, is apt to think that they may safely ignore the questions which are raised in it, because of their confidence in the security provided by the "silver streak."

K

INDEX.

ABILITY, military, not to be gauged | Army. See also British, Prussian,

147

Battle, organisation replaces drill in, 6 | Cavalry weapon, the proper, 63

normal course of a modern, 77
Battlefield the province of tactics, 7
Battles brought on in 1870 by subor-
dinate leaders, 18
Bayazid, 33, 34

Benedek, Austrian commander, 39
Blucher, 39

Boers, an ideal body of mounted in-
fantry, 65

Boguslawshi's "Tactical Deductions,”