New !Yays

of WARTOM WINTRINGHAM

NEW WAYS OF WAR

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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

THe world has changed since Tom Wintringham wroteNew Ways of Wor just two years ago, and there arepeople, like myself, who think that many changes forthe better in British tactics are due directly to Wintring-ham's teachings as set forth in this book.

After the fall of France, the British Home Guard,formerly an unofficial outfit, grew rapidly, and it is nowofficially a branch of the Army consisting of 2,000,000or more men who know how to use their rifles, handgrenades, machine guns, and other weapons. Thisgreat fighting outfit has learned its improvisati'on andtactics from Wintringham's Osterley Park TrainingSchool for the Home Guard and from New Ways oJ'War. Weapons have been learned from the No. I WarOffice School for Home Guard Instructors, under Lt.Col. H. J. Pollock, D.S.O. This school is a continua-tion of the Osterley Park School, which was taken overby the War Office in September, 1940. While the HomeGuard was still cutting its eyeteeth, many responsibleBritish officers, from generals on down, were also put-ting in time at Osterley and at the No. I War OfficeSchool to learn Wintringham's lesson. As a result, theentire British Army is now being schooled to fight inthe most modern manner, along the lines recommendedby Wintringham. Individual initiative is the keynoteof this teaching. Under the auspices of the U.S. Army,State Guards in various states are now being taught thesame lesson. This is one of the most encouraging de-velopments of the past several months.

Proba.bly the most impoftant new feature of the pres-ent war is the attack in depth which is made possibie (l)by specialized weapons (tanks, mobile artillery, divebombers, etc.) and troops which, when concentratedand properly co-ordinated, deliver devastating hammerUJ9.t r against any.weak point and (2) by piratroops,gliders, belly-crashing planes (as in Creie), and fanksborne by plane (as in Bessarabia, where the Russianslanded eight and ten-ton tanks from the air). Thesenew techniques enable an army on the offensive to smashthrough and to ju*p over organized lines of defense.Once a defending army has been by-passed, smashed, orjr-p"a over, the advancing enemy can attack in whathas traditionally been the most vulnerable spot-the.s9ft lear-<utting lines of communication andiupplies,blowing up bridges, rail heads and ammunition duhps,attacking and capturing air fields and telegraph, rcie-pho.ne, and radio nerve centers. All this can Ui carriedoff very rapidly, especially if the invader has the co-operation of fifth columnists.

This roughly is the picture of attack in depth, devel-oped by " mobile hard-hitting, swiftly mineuveringmodern war machine. Inevitable dem6ratization anddefeat awaits the nation which has not devised newmethods of defense to combat the new type of offense.Fortunately, the United States, Britafi; China, andRussia have all taken up such new methods and areconstantly improving on them.

The answer to attack in depth is defense in depth, andthis defense must cover thswhole area of the nationunder attack. Yet we know that every army lackssufficient manpower to defend at one time every footof ground against the modern form of attack. tf tnerear is soft, it is always"espeially vulnerable. A splen-

NEW WAYS OF WAR NEW WAYS OF WARaia.elalple of the development and the organizationof this all-important defense in depth is siien bv theHome Guard of Great Britain. In order'to fruJtrateand smash any enemy landing in their rear, all the civil-lanmanpowercapable of fighting is organized, equipped,and trained to be on the spot as a conitant hindiance tothe invaders. This is yhy Great Britain can no longerbe successfully invaded.

The British Home Guard is organized as an elasticweb which will seriously slow up any invader no matterfrom what direction he comes. Wherever the enemymay land, he will immediately b" confronted by a nu_cleus of men born and bred in the district, kirowingr-n:ry footof topogrlphy, fighting fromeverycity, town,village and hamlet, from every ditch, copse wood, hilland valley- The Home Guaid will harass, worry andchew the invader by sniping, by sub.artillery, by ma-chine gun and by using 1tt lfnei of grenad.r lo,"igt inglrom

.one- pggnd to ++ lbs.) capable of smashing anytank landed by-air, by hurlinf ZO lb. high-expiosivishells which will smash any tank to smitf,'ereetis. Inother words, the Home Guard of Great Britain isequipp{

-with the hitting and fire power to kill the

elemy before he can dig in. Because of the existenceof this powgrfyl {efense in depth, the regular army isleft free to deal with the invadirs in the irost stratigi-cally important areas where they may try to land aidconcentrate for a formidable purich. 'Th;

regulars willbe able to devote themselvei runy to their -particularjob with a ggealer ease of mind, knowing that the

"ne*ycannot outflank them and attack by hank and rear:for the Home Guard has turned Greit Britain into onecomplete front, without rear or flank, one all-arounddeplh protection against fifth columnists, against infil-tration, spearhead and air attacks.

NEW WAYS OF WARIn its exercises and maneuvers with general service

battalions, the Home Guard has consistently proved itsability to wage successful guerrilla and irregular war-fare against any invaders. While the regulars mustworry with compass and map as to where this road andthat patch converge, the Home Guard commandersimply tells his men to slip around John Brown's oldcow field, taking the enemy by surprise from flank orrear.

The question now arises, "Where does the HomeGuard get its manpower and how are the weaponsdistributed so that Home Guardsmen can be at theirstrategic positions without loss of time?"

The leadership and the rank and file come fromevery walk of life, from the mines, from the farms, fromthe House of Lords, from the factories. The Post Of-fice has its own Home Guaid of postmen, sorters andwhite collar workers who spend two or three eveningsa week in their drill halls,learning all about their weap-ons and the tactical usages of their weapons. ThePost Office Home Guard has its own central adminis-tration in London. The railroad workers are organ-ized in the Railroad Home Guard. The workers inindustry who work ten, twelve and fourteen hours aday also give two or three nights to drill. Sundays(their day off) they devote to tactics and maneuvers.They learn tank destruction, village and street fighting,guerrilla warfare, etc., and they know how to improviseexplosives.

In the rural areas men keep their weapons at home.In villages and towns men carry their weapons homeand to the factories. There are small arsenals distrib-uted throughout the factories, so that a bomb hit onone arsenal does not destroy all the weapons. In in-

NHW WAYS OF WARdustries where there are two or three shifts and thefactory works 24 hours a day, the rifles and machineguns remain in the factory arsenals, since that is theplace the manpower ls collected and the men can grabl!r.:ir fire pnwer.and;er to .their posts immediaiely.where there are insufficient rifles foi all the men, riflisremain in the factory"

The imporrance of the Home Guard idea in woddpolitics is vast. For instance, this approach to war isproof that where a government truiis its people, itspeople trust and pratecl their government.

- pioof ofthis point is found in the casJ of the Filipinos, whoknew when their day of independence was forthcoming,who had their own arrny, navy and air force, their ownPresident and Congress. They were a people and knewit. Therefore thgy fought tlie invading Japanese aswell.as they eould with the means at lheii disposal.Furtherurore, the honne guard organizations of

^Great

Britain and Russia also.prgve that government of, byT{ for the peopl* can in full safety arm its citizenry.only natinns which can do this will survive. The Nazisand Fascists cannot do it.

In Malaya and Burma an entirely different set-up ledto continued and sudden defbats.

-The Malayanjand

Burmese were not trusted and were never grven hope ofself-determination,lld they were not interEsted in fight-ing the Japanese. This situation should also be ctn-trasted with that in the Soviet Union, where every man,woman and child has a stake in a Soviet victory and isprepared to die in the fight against Fascism.

^9f gl"3t importance is the fact that, with the power

of the British Home Guard co-ordinated with about sixhard-hitting, well-armed, and highly trained regulararmy divisions, the rest of the regular army can l-eave

NEW WAYS OF WAR

Britain in complete confidence that Britain is able to

orotect itself. This means that British troops can oPen

I n.* front and thus aid Russia in defeating Fascism

and Nazism and bring peace to the world the sooner.

The improvementsiuirict have takT Pla:1 in.mili-tary thoujtrt ana practice since the writing of this book

haie beei matchid by the improvement in war-Pro-

duction in both Britain and the U. S. The 4,000 planes

and 1,500 tanks which President Roosevelt says^were

oroduced in America in the month of May, 1942, are

tnlv a sample of the total Allied war o,tput right now.

Wiit rorrnd military theoqy, plenty of the tools of mod-

ern war, and the support-of our armed civilian PopY-iations, it i. irnpot.iUt" to see how we can fail to win

this war sooner or later. The important thing now is

to see that we win it sooner and not later'

INTRODUCTION

IN September, 1939, the Germans overran Poland.In April, 1940, they seized almost the whole of Norway.In May they broke through Belgium and France,reaching the sea. In June they took Paris and de-feated France. In each of these campaigns they haveshown us new ways of war, which we must learn.

We can learn from these and other campaigns notonly the methods of the Germans, but how to counterthese methods and improve on them for our own use.

M. Reynaud, then Prime Minister of France, saidon May 2lst, 1940:

" The truth is that our classic conception of thecpnduct of war has come up against a new conception.At the basis of this conception there is not only themassive use of heavy armoured divisions or co-operation between them and aeroplanes, but thecreation of disorder in the enemy's rear by means ofparachute raids, which in Holland nearly caused thefall of the Hague, and in Belgium seized the strongestfort of Li6ge.

" I will not speak to you of the false news and theorders given by means of the telephone to the civilauthorities with the object, for example, of causinghurried evacuations.

" You will understand that of all the tasks whichconfront us the most important is clear thinking.We must think of the new type of warfare which weare facing and take immediate decisions."

This book has one aim only-clear thinking. This,

Brnr LnwWashington, July I, 1942.

NEW WAYS OF WARas M. Reynaud said-unfortunately, too late:is thefirst need when faced with new methods of warfare.

But how is the reader to feel sure that the newmethods are correctly described in these pages, andthe right antidotes suggested ? In many ne\trspapersand some booklets there are articles that pick outthis or that feature of the German attacks as theessential keys to their success. Why should what Iwrite here be believed, rather than the soothing state-ments of retired generals in some papers and thebright thoughts of journalists without military experi-ence in others ? Without wanting to boast, it isnecessary for mo to give my own credentials in thismatter.

One thing aclmitted by all observers of the Germanattacks is that they use most of their bombers as aflying artillery. Five years ago, in a book calledThe Coming World War, I wrote that:

" The aeroplane in the next war will not mainlybe a special sort of scout; it will mainly be a specialsort of artillery."

Then, fighting in Spain, I experienced this use offlying artillery, and found its chief point of differencefrom the. older forms of artillery. In a pamphletcalled " Battle Training in Word and Picture," pub-lished soon after the beginning of the war, with theapproval of the War Office, I wrote:

" This seemed to us the principal vaiue of theaeroplane against a trained infantry: it is a sort ofartillery that can be concentrated very quickly to checkan enemy break-through or to hammer at a centre ofresistance when your enemy is retreating."

Those who have listened to the B.B.C. news serviceduring the nine montts since Poland was invaded

NEW WAYS OF WARwill remember how many times the reports of ourAir Ministry have dwelt mainly on reconnaissanceflights. Over the Siegfried Line, deep into Germany,over Norway and over the swaying battles of Mayand June, 1940, many of our aeroplanes have beenused as " a special sort of scout." Many others havebeen used for long-range bombing raids away fromthe centres of fighting. How many have been usedas " a sort of artillery that can be concentrated veryquickly," smashing at the enemy troops who areactually doing the fighting on the ground we donot know. All we know is that this use of the bomberis seldom reported. If we judge from the reports,our planes are too seldom the flying artillery that Ipredicted and that the Germans employ to the full.

The second thing that enters into the Germauformula of warfare, all observers agree, is the use ofheavy tanks, so powerfully armoured that they arenot vulnerable to light anti-tank weapons. In theDaily Herald for September 7th, 1939,I described theIighter German tanks that had not done well in Spain,and went on to describe some of the bigger machinesthat have clawed their way through our lines:

" Perhaps because of experience gained in Spain anew tank of about twenty-five tons* has been de-veloped in Germany mounting a field-gun of aboutthree inches and a smaller gun of 37 mm. besidesmachine-guns."

These are the machines that the French anti-tankguns failed to stop.

In a book called Deadlock Wor, published in* I know now that the German heavy medium tank of

about 25 tons has been reinforced by a sniall number of veryheaqy models, probably 70 to 80 t6ns.

i

1

NEW WAYS OF WARMarch, 1940,I wrote that : " there seems good reasontherefore for developing a relatively large size of anti-tank gun." In this book I praised the German88 mm. gun, which is used for anti-aircraft work, anti-tank work, and'as field artillery. This gun is slightlylarger than the French 75 field-gun, which, accordingto Frenchofficial reports, was found the best substitutefor dealing with tanks, when the littlo anti-tank gunwas found to be too light.

My " credentials " on this point are my puttingin print, before there was any fighting in France, theneed for a bigger and better anti-tank gun.

The third main factor in the success of the Germantactics and strategy is that they have employed anddeveloped the tactics known as " deep infiltration."This means that their army does not attack strungout in a line, and maintaining contact all the timebetween its advanced units and its main forces. Itdoes not hit like a fist, but like long probing fingerswith armoured finger-nails. Each separate claw seeksa weak spot; if it can drive through this weak spoLit does not worry about its flanks, or about continuouscommunications with the forces following it. Itrelies for safety upon surprise, upon the disorganisa-tion of its opponents due to the fact that it has brokenthrough to the rear of their position.

Since the war in Spain, where I found that bothsides had to adopt this tactic when trnng to advance-using, if they had no armoured divisions, theirstrongest units to form the " probing fingers "-Ihave been advocating this tactic of inflltration. It isnot part of the doctrine of the French or Britisharmies. But, as I have continually pointed out, itis part of the doctrine of the German army, part

NEW WAYS OF WARof the " s@ret " of their su@esses, wo have tolearn.

One final point, not so much as to the methodsthat the Germans employ as to the methods by whichwe can resist them. From Spain f drew the con-clusion that in defence as well as in attack the initiativeof the subordinate commander and of the ordinarysoldier is the most vital quality to be cultivated.

I pointed out, in print, before this war, that underattack from the air regular systems of command breakdown : " the officer can no longer content himselfwith giving definite orders and seeing that they arecarried out. Every man under him must be giventhe indispensable minimum of 'general idea,, so thateach man can act on his own initiative if need be, fora period, when isolated from @mmand ,' (How toReform the Army).

And I demanded, as the key-note in the trainingand organisation of troops, .. intelligencg, inde--pendence, initiative."

The need for just the qualities I demanded hasbeen strikingly confirmed by the analysis of the Frenchdefeats of May, lg4[', made by the 4ilitary corre-spondent of The Times, who rvrote on May 2lst,1940:

" There is also some reason to believe that the{r91ch Army is shaking offthe effects of the extremelyrigid tactics which are the fruit of an ultra-cautiouidoctrine, and undoubtedly hampered them during thefirst two or three days of the German oflensive on theMeuse. If the initiative which has been most un-fortunately withheld from subordinates should be re-stored, the French ofrcer will soon show that he hasnot lost the inheritance of improvisation and quick

NEW WA YS OF WARaction in-gmergency which come to him from a greatline of military ancestors."

- Let me repeat that these quotations are not givenin the spirit of " f told you so.,, They are not

"Iaim,that I foresaw what would happen in this war : actuallyf was so sure of the possibility of defence againjttanks and aeroplanes that I thought this war wouldbe a deadlock. The claim I make is that I put downin writing before this war began, or during the earlymonths of it, many of the essential things that havlgrven the Germans sucress in Northern France. Thesethings, therefore, were not a surprise to me; I havenot had to find explanations for them based on a hastyanalysis. And my second claim is that I have for sometime been recommending methods by which armiescan fight and cities can live in spite of the bombers;I have been r@ommending metlods by which tankswere in fact stopped in Spain and can be stoppedin France, or in Britain. This book is not simpiy anattempt to describe more accurately than otheri havedescribed the new ways of war; it is an attempt toget, before we are too late, the new methods adoptedthat I feel certain can be victorious in defence.

Britain and the people who live in Britain can bemade safe. But the changes necessary to give usthat safety ar€ enormous. I state my view of thesechanges in the chapters that follow, on our arrny,our auxiliary figtting forces and our policies. On theMvy and Air Force I write nothing here. I was inthe old Flying Corps, the R.F.C., before there wasan Air Force. But that was a long time ago, and fdo not know naval problems and air probiems wellenough to guess at the answers.

But modern war oo land I do feel able to claim

NEW WAYS OF W\Rthat I know something about; in fact I believe thatthere is no officer in iire Briti;h Army *[, nm n"d,within. the past.ten years, a year or more of hardcam.paigning against modern arms and modemtdctics,against tanks and planes. Those who served withme in the Inter:national Brigade in Spain h; thisexperience, which I have triel to summarise.

Parts of some.of the chapters that follow embodypages from mv book, Deadlock War, puUUrn"J UyFaber and Fablr, from, p"*pnfet now out of print,published in the .. Fact i ,riirr, and from "ii.t ,published in picture post and the Daiiy tiil). rhave to thank the editorc o, p,rUtishers of these fortheir permission to reprint thes-e passages.

London, luly, 1940.

All relerencer dre to Britisb neu)tpapefr

T. WtlrrnINcHAM

THE AUTHOR93yg o.f himself:_ " I was born in lggg in a house of solidVictorian brick in a town of solid Viatoritn;-.poitr" Tt;prosperity wa.s ng! elegagti- r! fact, it stink-a t[n-;i nsU.;srowrng up in this provincial town of Grimsby " r absorbedTo.p py par.ents, noqconformists in religion, liberal in tteiiouuook gg life, a tradition of non-politicil ridicalism.",_'r1gygh krr_own tro$ wlqgty to the public through his articlesy-{_i:t!ry fo$z Daily Mirror, etc.,_?s-a military writer, hets_lls9_a__poet aad short-stq,J:g qiter. His books inclirde Co;tnsWorld War, Mutiny, Engltih Captatn, iid, b-eiTtoii-w"i. Hii

ililfl rii'-,"'T*if;#,ff,[r',idff ['S*"'$'ii:Hg#bi"H:yhgre bc commauded the British Battalion ad-d htcr becamermtructor in the officcrs, school.

CHAPTER IAr the moment when these pages are written Britainis in d.anger of invasion by an opponent using newmethods of war. In order to understand thesl newmethods, and find a way of countering them, $re

Turt lrst analyse what they are, and how they havedeveloped.

- It is possible for anyone to judge huw war isdeveloping, changing, the main ti.,"s of its present" progress." A civilian c:rn do this by thi samemethods, using the same courmon-senss attitude tofacts and theories, that he uses to understand the mainIines o{ progress or alteration in trade or transportor production. It is not difficult for any man to seethat there was. a period when almost Lu rransportwas by road or sea; then a period when canal trans-port became an important factor in the world,s wayof.-shifting healy goods about; a later period whenrailways were 1fos main means of doing this, and aperiod now dev$onrnS in which ,oad transport,powered by petrol and diesel engi'es, displaces to someextent the previous methods. These chinges are notcomplete: railways do not destroy the Janals, norare ,all railways entirely bankruptid later by l,orrytraffic. But all the same these ihaoges exist. Andsimilar changes take place in war, andlre just as easyto see.

Sometimes these changes are exacfly parallel to thosegoing on in transport and industry. thus there wasa period when the supplies of armies, and the armies

I3

NEW WAYS OF- WARthemselves, travelled by road or river. Then czrmea period of " railway war." To-day we have .. petrolwar," a period which most of an army,s supplies andmen have to be moved by petrol or diesei vehicles.

To fail to recognise such changes can be fatal. SomeFrench generals judged in May, lg4},that the Germanscould not make their main blow through the Ardennes,because there are few railways in that area. In facithe main German blow did fafl there. fhe Frenchwere surprised, and their main line at Sedan and alongthe Meuse was broken-partly because they had notralised that " petrol war " had replaced ,. railwaywar."

War is nota very certain business. It is not, perhaps,subject to the same natural uncertainties as agricul-ture, though it is almost as dependent on the ficklenessof weather. Yet there are no m.agical mysteries ofwar, any rnore than there are in agriculture. TIreordinary man, finding that some uncertainties arebound to exist, allows for them, and gets beyond themto the things that are fairly certain. The farmerharvests when he can, in spite of the weather'suncertainty, and does not say: .. We can reach nodecision, since it may be raining to-morrow.,,

We see tendencies in war, and separate them out.How do these affect each other ? It is hard to say.It is as if we were given figures, say 2 and 3, butdo not know if they should be added to make 5 ormultipled together to make 6. (It seems just possiblesometimes we should put them one on top of eachother and get two-thirds as the answer to our sunr.)But we are on quite safe ground if we say that howeverthese figures are treatod they do not equal a sardinetin.

NEW WAYS OF WARWithin the experience of m&ny men now living is

a Great war, some knowledge of other smaller wars,such as that in Spain, and knowledge of the presentstruggle. These show certain tendencies. One,clear and obvious to everybody, is that wars nowadaysoften mean trenches. In Julius Casar,s day orNapoleon's, or the elder Moltke,s, soldiers werefairly rarely in trenches. Now they are rarely outof them. That is clear enough. We can take

-many

equally obvious tendencies in warfare that appearbetween 1914 and the present day, and reckon thatour main uncertainty is whether these tendencies willgrow and increase, fade out, add to each other, orpartially cancel each other. But we c:rn see alsofliat however these tendencies are multiplied or sub-tracted, they cannot produce a sort of war in whichit is possible to carry out a .. Charge of the LightBrigade "-s gallop by men on horses, armed withswords, to attack an enemy position.

Yet this manifest impossibility is still part of the" doctrine " of the British Army.

As we shall show in more detail later, the .. Cbargoqf tU: Light Brigade,, idea, and the group of ideisfut fit udth it, still to a large extenidominate thetraining and the tactics of the British Army, even ofsections of it that are equipped with armouredvehicles- This idea is not a small, relativery harmlessvgstige of past ideas and forms embedded in new waysof thought and action. It governs, to a Iarge exten!d.41, discipline, theaims and methods of corimanders,and the attitude of the tnen commanded.

This is an example of the survival, from times longpast, of ideas and methods of warfare that have beenoompletely swept away by the development of modern

15l4

NEW WAYS OF WARweapons and tactics. Clearly one of the first thingsto do, if we are to attempt to understand and answerthe Nazi methods of war, is to strip away this lumberof old-fashioned ideas and scrap the text-books thatembody them.

But this is only a small part of our job; we havealso to get to the roots of the changes that happenin warfare, and see how these changes arise.

The shape of war has changed, throughout history,principally in accordance with changes in civilianmethods of production and transportation. Weaponsand armour developed with the slow discovery ofmethods of working metals. The arts of buildingand drainage are the basis for the arts of fortification.Chemistry, grving propellants and explosives, andengineering, giving the aeroplane and the motorvehicle, affect the actual conduct of battles todaymore than the " systems " of warfare evolved fromexperience and study of war as such. Faraday, thescientist, " inventing electricity," and Clausewitz, themilitary theorist, analysing war, were working at aboutthe same time; Faraday's work-in its present formas the magneto and the wireless valve-has alteredwarfare more than the labours of Clausewitz, war'sgreatest scientist.

Within recent times one of the things that havealtered war most is the general change throughoutthe world's industry from single-acting, simplemachinery, that carries out only one operation andthen must be reset, to automatic machinery that repeatswhat it is doing as often as the man minding it desires.The rifle, that fires a shot and then has to be reloadedby hand to fire the next one, belongs to the old days;the machine-gun, that can go on firing so long as the

NEW WAYS OF WARman handling it presses the trigger, belongs to thepresent, the century of automatic machinery.

This type of machinery, organised in new ways formass-production, can produce almost unlimitedamounts of material of all sorts. The twentiethcentury, therefore, can equip armies of millions, farlarger than the forces ever before brought to battle,and give these millions much greater supplies ofammunition per rnan.

Mass-production factories can also often use womenas their labour power in war-time. All modern pro-duction needs far less labour per article producedthan was needed by older methods. A very largeproportion of the man-power of whole nations is there-fore released, made available for the armies.

Changes in production and in the organisation ofcivil life in these ways not only made possible, but madeinescapable some of the aspects of the last worlcl warand of the present one: forces consisting of .. nationsin arms," able to fling daily at their antagoniststhousands of tons of lead, steel and explosives, andsupplied by crowded railways, crowded roads, withthe products of a greatpart of each nation's industries.

And these aspects in turn rrrake possibie anotheraspect: a trench deadlock, position warfare. This,I know, is not the form of war we are all interestedin now, but we have to deal with it because it precedesand influences the development of the Germantactics of to-day.

Three months after the Great War had begun therewas a continuous line of entrenchments along all thefront from Switzerland to the sea. This Line, thoughbreached at many points during four years of war,was always re-established a few days or weeks after

t6 t7

NEW WAYS OF WARa breach was made in it, until the final battres of thewar.

six months after the war began in spain a rine ofcntrenchments existed from th; pyrenies to a pointnear Gibraltar. This line was rnore than twice ur loogas the western Front of r9r4-rg. rt was not continu-ous, but the-gaps in it were fifled by fortified farms andvillages, and other." strong pointJ." rn two-Grs orwarfare from the tirne when-this line was esta'btishea,it was often breached, but was usualy r.*.t utirnraa few days or weeks after a breach *or -ud" lo it.

The line in spain was estabrished andherd byrorces1ot a quarter of the strength of those on the *esternI*ol twenfy years befbre. The forces in Spai-n atthe time when the trench lines were formini ,o"r3ot puc! Iarger than the forces that Napoleoiha"Ap th9 Spanish peninsula a hundred y"r.-irti.r.rrlapoleon's armies had rittle to do witn trenches.whv did the armies of I93G39 dig them i ffi oiathe main forces of the B,ritish, Fiench and Germanarmies hide themselves, during 1939 and much of1940, in vast entrenchments ?

This business of hiding armies behind earthworksor in prepared ditches has-been done before io nirtory,urhen the armies were concentrate<I foi th, ffi o,dcfence of cities- sma[ ar*,,s, as well as cities,"havebeen defended by_ tpnch lines, such as Weifiogtoo,,[nes of Torres vodras or the Russian lines oitrid"Port Arthur. But these were exception. iln tt

" p"r,

urar has usually consisted of a relaiivery small u-durtdf sieges, and a lot of moving and figtrtG *-tt"surfrce of the ground un.ocrinbered"tv-Jrt*""n-monts.

The great numbers employed in a modern war make

18

NEW WAYS OF WAN.

ry99{ble position warfare, the .. trench deadlock,, of1915-18' But they do not cause it. The cause liesin the amounr of lead, steel and "*pf*iro iilil "r.oa snnall ur,r,it of m9n-crur pour out'in fr""t."]:them

over all the ground they cin see, and to a less extentovcf nnore distant ground they cannot see. Fire-power,the abi:lity to kitl at a distance, has U""o_" ,J gr*,that unarnnoured troops meeting, roughly equal itrforce, reach a halt.. Anyone *hoJtural uir oo, "itnrside dies" Each side is driven to dig in, uri

"Jri .iOeattempts to get round- its oppon.it,r'il"I*. -'Theykeep on widening and widening the battrefront inthis way until they reach a barrier they cannot goround-neutrar ground or the sea. Thus the con_tinuous trench line fornns.

This is a completely new form of warfare comparedwith all cqmpaigns pievious to the twentiettr "ilr*.what used- t* he.a ima, part of, warfare has come todominate, and dictate thi shape o[ much of .. realwar""

^It *1I be objected that the new srrategy and tacticsof the Germans hav_e nothing to do wittr"i.encnes anaposition warfare. What *J ur. interested;;; th;technique of the Blitzkrieg, not the t".nriq", of" Botre w'ar " that preceded"it. nut nut:zriiiiictics

and srrategy are almost_ entirery tlevetofJ- iitn' ta"i9* "f escaping from the trench deadlock that heldthe armies between August, lgl4, uoa-Vfrrrn,-tgt8,and^held__them again from Septembei-rgig, io, April,1940. We can only grasp the^esser.. of th{Blilzk*gif we realise that it isi,n opposit" tq; ;;;";

"L"Lr,the wa' of trenches that^otherwise condemns armiesto practical uselessness.From October, lgl4, to March, lgl7, on the

I9

NEW WAYS OF WARWestern Front, position warfare became more andmore rigid, immovable, and futile. To "attack"meant to lose twice or three times as many men asyour opponent, with no considerable gain in ground,and no decisive effect on anything except your owncannon-fodder. The armies were locked in solid andcontinuous lines of trenches, in which they werepounded and obliterated by an even heavier hail ofshells.

From March, 1917, to March, 1918, position war-fare was in full flower, but some of the factors thatmust lead to its partial decay, its change into a newshape, became apparent. One factor was the tank;another, more important, was a new method of defence

--which inevitably developed into its opposite, a newtactical method for infantry advance. The defensivemethod was known as " elastic defence " or " defencein depth "; the second developed from it, and adoptedbecause it was a success, was called the tactic of" infiltration in attack."

Ludendorff, My War Memories, 1914-18, describesthe development of the first of these, the defensivetactic, during the winter of 1916 :

" In sharp contrast to the form of defencehitherto employed, which had been restricted torigid and easily recognised lines of little depth, anew system was devised which, by distribution indepth and the adoption of a loose formation, enableda more active defence to be maintained. It was, ofcourse, intended that the position should remain inour hands at the end of the battle, but the infantry-man need no longer say to himself, 'Here I muststand or fall,' but had, on the contrary, the right

20

NEW WAYS OF WARwithin certain limits, to retire in any direction beforestrong enemy fire. Any part of the line that waslost was to be recovered by counter-attack. TheBroup, on the importance of which many intelligentofficers had insisted before the war, now becameofficially the tactical unit of the infantry. The posi-tion of the N.C.O. as group leader thus becamemuch more important. Tactics became more andmore individualised. Having regard to the evermore scanty training of our officers, N.C.O.'s andmen, and the consequent falling-off in discipline, itwas a risky business, of the success of which manyeminent soldiers were sceptical, to make ever greaterdemands on the subordinate leaders, and theindividual soldier.

" The controversy raged furiously in my staff; Imyself had to intervene to advocate the new tactics.'

To the civilian reader it may be pointed out that thisparagraph by Ludendorfffirst describes a new methodof defence " deep n' from front to back, scatteredrather than all laid out in lines; it then describes, asits logical counterpart, a new and " revolutionary,'organisation of the army intended to make thisdefence possible. " The group . . . became thetactical unit." This means that the unit whichreceived separate orders, acted " on its ownr" diddifferent things at different times from the unitsalongside it, was now the smallest possible one, a" group " of ten or a dozen men led by a corporal orsergeant.

The importance of this will be seen when it is com-pared with the past. In the days of Frederick theGreat tactics had stiffened so much that the usual

2t

NEW WAYS OF TYARtactical unit in battle was tbe whole infrntrl of anrrmy. Frederick alone had to thin& aud decide;cvoryone etse just obeyed. All the foot soldiersadvanced. at the saurc tilne, in one straight or slantinglin6 and thery tried to keep in rank, even in step, fromone fl+nk of the anny to the other, In Napoleonicdays the taetical unit was thc co{ps, division, orbrigade, more rarely fle battalion" At Waterloo thewhole corps of tlo Young Guard or the Old Guardmoved into action together, doing the same th,ing atthe samc '-'nq Whcn Wellington counter-attacked, heinoved forward the whole ofVivian's brigade of cavalryand Adam's brigade of infantryr, and these bodieimoved in close formation as units. The minorformations of which they were made--squadrons ofcavalry and battalions of infantry-did uot co-operate" in thcir own time," but acted as if the brigades weresingle things commanded by one voice.

In the war of 1870 the development of fire-powermede rnassformations, shoulder to shoulder, no ioog.ruseful. But the tactical unit in action was still thebrigade or battalion, rarely the corrpany.

In the relatively open warfa.re of August-October,19L4, the,tactical unit was usually the same as in 1870.It was sometimes larger during the two followingyears, when generals were beginning to hear abouttrenches and barbed wire and machine-gurs, but hadnot yet begtrn to believe that these things mattered.Whole divisions of BritM infantry ctmbed out of thetrenches to comrait suicide " dressed by the right.,,The official British history sys, for example, of ttre34th Division at the Somme :

" l*t rmo hour'the whole infantry of the divisiron,

22

NEW WAYS OF WARexcept the head of the socond olumq rose as oneman. . . . In a matter of ten minutes g0 per cent,of the men in the leading battalioor *rri casuar-!rJt': (Military Operatioru, Frorce od Belgitmt,Yol. !,_prigadier-General Sir J. E. Edmonas, ig:2,page 379).

But there were also operations planned with morettalism, and carried out with more independence. rnthese the tactical unit became the *-pury, atrdfinalty, as Ludendorffsys, the group.

statistically, it looks rike thii: dgures are for thettsual tactical unit in battle, and not for small outpostactions or exceptional battle conditions:

ltsT1El5

1870

l9l4-16

1917 (German

TacticalUnit.

ArmyBrigade or

Division -Battalion or

BrigadeCompany-

Division -Group

Men in Unit.

15,000-50,000

2,000-6,000

8013,0002(n-15,000

8-16

No. of Men ina whole armyresponsible fortactical deci-

sions.

I

20-30

r00-200200-10,000

100,000-200,000

Ludendorff's phrase, " tactics became more and moreindividualised," did not at first mcan that the in-dividual soldier had to take many desisions on his ouminitiative ; the " individualisation ,' was of command.C-orporals and srgeants had, more and more, to takedesisions without the possibility of reporting to, or

23

NEW WAYS OF WARgetting orders from, their officers. Then, later, thetpical German defensive line in battle became athickly-dotted scatter of machine-gun " pill-boxes ,,and of machine-gunners and riflemen in shell-holes.In daylight there could often be no communicationbetween these " nests " and the larger groups of menin " strong points," trenches and deep augouts behindthem. A machine-gun needs only one or two men towork it, a shell-hole seldom gives cover for more thantwo or three men. The " tactical unit,', the group often or twelve, was now sub-divided into three or foursmaller groups in shell-holes or pill-boxes. Tacticsbecame completely " individualised.',

_ Ask any British infantrymau who went throughPasschendaele: were not thdse " Jerries,' in twosand threes the people who held us up ?

The change in position warfare that took place withthis development can be described as a change from acontinuous " brick wall " of entrenchments to a loosernetwork like that of barbed wire. This networkwould " give " if uecessary; and however hard youpushed at it, it was ahnost impossible to make a realhole in it.

Then in l9l8 the Germans turned to the attack.Thgir troops had received a year's training in .. in-dividualised " tactics. They applied theie to the?!t^!, developed and practised the theory called" infiltration," and with this new method destroyedthe British Fifth Army (March, l9l8), and put theiropponents in such danger that only by the skin oftheir teeth did the latter avoid the loss of the ChannelPorts or of Paris.

Their method can be described by a metaphor : thedefence to be penetrated is, necessarily, a Lriss-cross

24

NEW WAYS OF WARof, strong positions and weak ones. Any line oftrenches, after bombardment, is weaker at ihe pointswhere shells have blown it up; there are also inevit-ably natural weaknesses such as .. dead ground ,,(i.e. ground that cannot be seen) near to it, and coveredwlys of approach, ditches or lines of shell-holes, alongwhich the enemy can penetrate. In oo, meiaphoithis criss-cross is represented by an iron grating suchas that which covers sewer-holes in streeti: thi barsare the strong bits, the spaces between them the weakones.

- Such a grating is almost indestructible by theheaviest of hammers. Nor can you force even

" bo*

full of matches through it-a "o-pany

of men, heldtogether. But take your matches out, set themflaming, and throw them in twos and threes at thegrating; some will get through beyond it. A defenceline is like a badly ventilated sewer : if fire gets downinto it, it blows up.

Infiltration implies that groups and little packets ofinfantry (later, of armoured troops) wriggle their waythrough and beyond the strong positions of the enemy,whether these positions are continuous trenches ornot. They neglect these strong positions, and sheeroff from those of the second and third lines, usingmist, darkness or smoke to get by. They go for theenemy's artillery, his cookhouses, his ammunitiondumps, his airfields, and his command centres. Othergroups try to seize ridges behind his lines, deflles,river-crossings, etc. Other !troups work through thefme gaps, behind them, and try to widen these gapsby attacking the enemy's strong positions from therear or flank. Other groups are always piling inbehind.l

liiiL

1i

NEW WAYS OF WARAt first the infantry groups " filtering " forward, to

get through a " fine-meshed " defence, have to be

finy. Then as gaps are torn in the mesheg wholecompanies c{ln march or crawl or run through thehotei created. Then the gaps are widened, andbattalions push through; but these battalions have tobe ready to " come to pieces," to parcel themselvesout into little independent groups as soon as they hitagainst a formed line of defence through which they,in turn, must fllter.

In such a battle the corporals and sergeants leadinglittle groups forward have to display even moreinitiative and independence than in elastic defence-They must understand the task they have been given,

and use their own wits to find their own way todo it.

By the tactics of infiltration the trench deadlockwas broken in 1918, and " position warfare " becamesomething else again. It was no longer siege warfare,but war of movement under new conditions, and witha new shape. And here we see how the Blitzkricgdevelops directty from its opposite, the stalemate ofthe trenches.

The same process went on in Spain twenty years

later. The continuous and rigid trench lines, mannedby alt available troops, were replaced by a deep net-work of posts and strong points. Advance in waves

was replaced by deep infiltration. At the battle ofthe Ebro in July, 1938, when Republican forcesfiltered twenty to thirty miles forward after crossingthe river, sections of thirty men were grven " operationorders," general directions for movement and anoutlineof tasks, for two days' fighting. These sections

were expected to be ',1on their own " for that period ;

NEW WAYS OF WARthe sergeant leading them was, for that time, his owncolonel and his own general.

Such changes have happened before in warfare, andusually in tbe same direction: the increasing powerof weapons, their ability to kill at distance, has con-tinually enforced on armies tactics that are moreflexible, more open and entail more separation betweenunits or individuals, and a more complex co-operationbetween them. This general process (against whichthere have been periods of reaction) parallels the pro-gressive division of labour and growing complexityof function observable throughout civilisation. Butit derives much more directly from the improvementof industry and its effect on weapons. There hasbeen no stagnation of science and technique since1918 ; industry can produce more and better weapons,able to kill more effectively at greater distances. Thepresent war, therefore, not only includes this" mincing " of armies, but carries it to greaterlengths.

It is, after all, exactly the same process as that notedby Napoleon, who wrote :

" The nature of arms decides the compositionof armies, their plans of campaign, their marches,positions, and encampments, their order of hattle,and the design of their fortifications; this sets inconstant opposition the military system of theancients and that of modern times. The arms ofthe ancient world made necessary depth of rank;modern arms demand extended order (l'ordremince); the former called for upstanding strongpoints with high towers and walls; the latter makenecessary low forts covered with slopes of earth

27x;

ll

NEW WAYS OF WAR

that mask the masonry " (Precis of tlu Wars ofJulitts Casa4 by Napoleon Bonaparte).

To refuse to adopt the tactics of infiltration and ofelastic defence is as out of date as to build walledcastles, or to put your air-raid shelters above tlesurface of the ground.

The first esiential thing about the Nazi blitzkriegtactics is that tley are tactics of infiltration, carriedto much greater lengths than ever before, and speeded

up by the use of the two new technical weapons ofimportance, the tank and the aeroplane.

The word " infiltration " does not occur in thepublished documents of the British War Office thatgovern the training of troops and the policy of com-manders; it does not occur in Infantry Training otField Service Rqulations.

And some dislike of the word " infiltration " isnoticeable in some parts of the British Army. Thismay in part be due to reasons similar to those whichled the French Army authorities, in 1918, to ban theword. When the Germans were boasting of theirnew tactic (and had by means of this tactic strainedthe French and British armies almost to the pointwhere these arrries must split off from each other),French war @rrespondents were strictly forbidden towrite of infiltration. Jean de Pierrefeu, thenan officerat French headquarters, wrote:

" This terrible word, which expressed the latestmoves of the enemy and his method of fighting'was feared on account of the striking light it wouldthrow upon our present inferiority in the countryand the army. },.Iot only has the word a suggestion

NEW WAYS OF WARof cunning, it expresses a treacherous action im-possible to avert, of a kind to cause alarms " (FrencltHeadquarters, l9l5-18, by Jean de Pierrefeu).

But after the experience of the B.E.F. in Franceduring May and June, 1940, it is widely recognisedwithin the British Army that the German tactics arethose of inflltration, such as I have described, andthat from these tactics we have much to learn.

A full acceptance of these tactics as an essentialpart of modern war makes a great difference to allforms of training and equipment. To take one simpleexample that continually recurs in warfare: thebusiness of an advance guard. Advance guards usedto be considered in the British Army mainly as pro-tective organisations. Their job was to go ahead oflarger bodies of troops and to see that these largerbodies were not surprised by some .enemy action.They had a secondary pu{pose, which was to clearout of the way small forces of the enemy which mightdelay the progress of the main body, and to forceLarger forces to disclose their positions.

Now all this is changed. If you accept the tacticsof infiltration, the advance guard of any force movingforward has duties that are in essence very differentfrom these. The business of an advance guard is nolonger mainly protection, exploration and the rapidremoval of small obstacles. To-day the business ofan advanced guard is to probe for weak spots in theenemy's line and to get behind that line.

Naturally, in order to fulfil this very different role,the advance guard of an army practicing the tacticsof infiltration will consist of different troops, differ-ently armed and differently trained, as compared with

2928

I

NEW WAYS OF WARan advance guard carrying out the tactics of thepast.

The Gsrmaus have planned the whole of their armyand its equipment round these tactics. To give anexamph, they have given pieces of artillery to theirinfantry, so that any unit of infantry, of battalionsize or larger, that is filtering forward, has with it acertain amount of artillery fire-power as well as themore normal infantry weapons. We have not gotthis specialised equipment; we have got, for example,no " infantry gun " such as the Germans use, whichis handy enough for the infantry to take it with them,man-handling it forward when it cannot be draggpdby or carried on a lorry. This puts us at a dis-advantage, but the disadvantage is not a great one.The tactics of infiltration are far more a question oftraining, understanding, morale, organisation andleadership than they are a question of sp"cial equip-ment and such special weapons as tanks and divebombers. Once we have learnt the general idea ofthese tactics and fltted ourselves to carry them oufwe shall be able to make do with any equipment thatcan be made sufficiently mobile.

There is one form of weapon that fits very badlyto the tactics of infiltration. That is the heavy gunand heavy howitzer which needs a special emplace-ment, can only be moved slowly, and makes a goodtarget for tank raids, for dive bombing, or for infantryunits fihering forward. Heavy artillery of this sortwas needed in great quantities during the trenchwarfare of 1915-18. It may be needed again if weagaln have a stabilised front at some future periodor in certain area.s. But it is uot a suitable weaponfor the blitzkriq

NEW WAYS OF WARThere are other weapons which fit particularly well

with inflltration, and need the utmoit development.One of these is the lightest form of machir. iifl. o,sub-machine-gun. rn relatively slow-moving warfarethe heavy machine-gun tends to dominate ti'e battle-field; its accuracy, its immense fire power, irs abilityto go on firing for long periods rnake ii tne idealws:rpon for battles such as the Somme or Vimy Ridge.But for infil61s1ien something much lighter, much lessexlrensive in ammunition, and much more a \reaponof opporrunity is desirable for the advance unit, ofthe infantry, including those put behind the "*-y,,lines foy armoured vehicles or from the air.

From all this certain conclusions : if we are tomeet the new Nazi tacticg we must do the following:

l. Understand the tactics of infiltration and trainour troops in them, and in methods of meeting them.

2. Reahse the connection between these tacticsand the trench deadlock; for defensiye purposesrealise that these tactics make linear defbnce andpassive defence no longer valuable, and makecounter-attack the only basis for successful .defence.

3. Clear out of our army the remnants of thepast-ideas, methods of training and organisitionand the men who cannot change-and revive inthe army the qualities necessary for carrying outand meeting iafirtration: qualities of initiitive,independence, the spirit of attack and counter-attack.

- Cle-aring up the past is an essential preliminary;tberefore the next chapter is given to iL

30 3I

CHAPTER II

IN the previous chapter I asserted that the " Charge

of the Ligt t Brigade " was still part of the officialdoctrine of the British Army. Here is the evidencefor this assertion, taken from official manuals whichare in most cases the only ones available for officers

and troops in training."A cfiaracteristic (of cavalry) conferred by the

sword, is the power to press home an attack mounted."

-Cavalry Training (War), 1929, page 135.

" The armament of the individual cavalryman is therifle for use dismounted and the sword for mountedattack. . . . Mounted rifles . . carry no sword, andare thus not equipped for shock [2s[is3."- FieldService Regulation, Vol. II, 1935, page 6.

" The use of the sword in war.' in the charge againstboth cavalry and infantry each man witl ride at his

opponent with the fixed determination of runninghG through and killing bim."-Cavalry Training(Horsed), 1937, page 30.

" In modern war, opportunities for shock action,though they have become less common owing to thepowJt of fire, will still present themselves. - . . Theleaders of squadrons, tioops and sections should be

constantly on the look-out for such opportunities"'-Cavalry Training (Horsed), page 117.

" Shock action i' or shoik lactics is the technicalphrase for riding into or over men, hitting thery withiwords and bayonets,..and similar Stone Age follies.

32

NEW WAYS OF WARThe manual from which the last two remarkable

quotations are taken is dated 31st JuIy, 1937-morethan a year after the opening of the Spanish War.No less than twenty-three pages of the text are devotedto sword and lance* exercises, and these are illustratedby twenty-two drawings (" plates," as they are calledin accordance with Victorian tradition). A furthertwelve " plates " are devoted to drill ; only three aregtven to the formations necessary in action, and one-one !-to the use of fire.

Cavalry, the sceptical reader will answer, is a smallfraction of the Army, unimportant, a plaything.That is true. But the point is that the 'War

Officebelieves that the Charge of the Light Brigade is stillpossible; and this belief colours its training andhan<lling of all other troops. Take, for example,armoured cars. The last handbook I know begins :-

" l. The princrples and system of training will beas laid down in Cavalry Training (Horsed), withcertain modifications . . . laid down in this chapter,'(page 1.) (The chapter contains no mention of swordsor lances.)

" Mounted drill . . ." (by this is meant drill inar4oured cars) " is based on the same principles asthat of cavalry " (page 4).

" The principles of training in field operationsgtven in Cavalry Training (Horced) are, in general,applicable to armoured car regiments." (page l2).

The above three quotations are from CavalryTraining (Mechanised) Pamphlet No. l, 1937.

It is not stated whether armoured cars should begrven lumps of sugar after a good gallop. In this,

. The lance as a weapon was discarded twelve years ago.These are exercises in its ceremonial use.

33

NEW WAYS OF WAR

as in all else, we must presumably follow the authori-tative doctrine that armoured cars are cavalry.

One further quotation is necessary from the same

manual z " It ii of the greatest importance that allleaders sho,uld be trained:

1. To act quickly and make rapid decisions ; withthis object offi.cers wilI be encouraged to huntand ride aoross country-"-Cavalry Training(Mechanised) 1937, Page 13.)

So long as the leadership of the Britilsh Armyconsists mainly of men who find the highest expression

of their energies and interests in fox hunting, it willremain the theory of the army that fox hunting is the

method by which mental alertness can be induced'It will seem abnormal to such leaders that a racingmotor-cyclist from the dirt tracks should be given

command of, a squadron of armoured cars; it willBeem normal that a man who plays polo should be

gtven such command. But in fact, as any sensible

pcrson can see, a dirt track rider is much more liketyio be a good leader of a mechanised advance guard

than a polo player,The doctrine of infiltration implies that the leaders

of a modern army must allow subordinate commandorsto use their own judgment. Each of the units of amechanised striking force must be " given its head-"

But owing to the social structure of Britain in the Pas,and of thi class that rules the army, it is difficult inthe British Army for the higher commanders to trustand encourage their juniors in this way. The leader'ship that hunts foxes cannot belie've that the young

ofrcers from civil life (so charmingly labelled

" temporary genileurih " in the last *ar) can possibly

34

NEW WAYS OF WAR.think for themselves and act for themselves withoutcl,ose and continuous control from above. As forsergeant& corporals, and ordinary nrcn of the ranks,they are unfortunately debarred by birth and incomefrosr polo and fox hunting; how can they possiblyoo'^ given the right and the duty to act on tleir ow:u ?In this way class considerations have in the past madeit difficult for our army to achieve the form of leader-ship necessary for modern war.

In other words the root of the reluctance of theBritish A.my to adopt modern methods of war liesin its snobbery. And this does not only appiy tothe love of horse-flesh (as cumpared with ttre stiueamechanic's love for his machine) it also applies forexample to our Territorial Army, whose offi&rs havebeen chosen o.r have chosen thernselves on a socialbasis. The son of the hnk manager or of a successfulspoulative builder finds it pleasant and useful to bea Territorial officer in time of peace ; he gains therebybtrsiuess contacts and the sort of prestige that will gethim elected to the more select golf club in his town.Persons becorning officers for these reasons do notnecrssarily possess any quality of military leadershipwhatever; and for this reason leaders of the annywho like to tie everything up in red-tape, and refuseto adopt tactics that allow subordinate courmandersto use ir;tiative, often have the perfectly goodargument that the zubordinate commanders appointedto serve under them are in fact unable to use initiative.Our answer to their argument is simply that othersubordinate commanders must be found, not chosenon the basis of snobbery and the old school tie buton their capacity for active responsibility.

Secticns of society left behind by the changes of35

NEW WAYS OF WARsocial life develop myths. The two myths that wehave been examining so far may be described as themyth of the man on horseback and the myth of thegentleman as the natural leader. Atl such mythsonce had a basis in fact. The man on horsebackruled warfare in Europe for a thousand years, fromthe break up of the Roman Empire to the Battle ofCrdcy. The Welsh and English long-bowmen, atCrdcy, defeated the armoured knights who hadhitherto been invincible; from that time cavalrytook a secondary place, and gradually a dwindlingplace, in warfare. The last real cavalry charge inthe history of war was the charge of the 21st Lancersat the Battle of Omdurman, at the end of the lastcentury. This charge has been described by Mr.Winston Churchill, wbo took part in it as a subaltern.It is clear from Mr. Churchill's description that itcould not possibly have succeeded agairrst an enemywith modern arms.

But this myth that was truth in the Middle Ages,and was fading from reality in Queen Victoria's day,still haunts the minds and imaginations of the BritishArmy's leaders to such an extent that sections of ourlank Corps are called " cavalry tanks." Until thismyth has been destroyed, our army can never be amodern instrument.

The second myth that we have mentioned, thegentleman as the natural leader of the people, hadalso a great deal of truth in it at one period, and thisperiod is less far back than that of cavalry.

There was a time in the past when the gentry ofEngland mainly lived on their estates. They werea squirearchy. And in each village the squire andhis sons, and those few others who were accepted as

NEW WAYS OF WARgentry, had a natural and customary relationship withlabourers and poachers, the village craftsman and thecottage families. It was a direct relationship; thesquire and the hedging man talked the same language.used the same oaths, and seldom allowed the farmbailiff or tenant farmer or agent to shut each off fromthe cther. When men of these sorts formed thebulk of the British Army there was also a natural andinborn relationship between the officer and the private.It was not a relationship that we need praise orcondemn; it is past and dead. But it did exist; ina few county battalions you can find it existing still,though in a tepid and half-alive state. To-day thegentry of England, or that section which producesthe ofEcer class, seldom lives on its estates. It worksin offices. Three-quarters of this officer class meetno free craftsmen and no skilled land workers throughall their lives, except at odd week-ends. In theiroffices, at work, they talk to secretaries and trade-union leaders. In their homes they talk to servantsand gardeners. They tell you what the proletaiatthinks by quoting their charwoman. They have never,in civil li[e,learnthow to get the best out of men whoschands know things, whose skill is real but inarticulate.Almost universally you will find these members ofthe officer class consider that garage mechanics-theonly skilled men they know-are infernally surly.They deal with " their " workers through foremen,or through trade-union secretaries. When thesegentry become officers they try to deal with theirmen only through sergeants, which is fatal. Theyhave neither the patriarchal, almost feudal, attitudetowards their men that marked good officers of apast dan nor the identification with their men that

3736

NEW'WAYS OF WAR

marks the officers of an anny hastily built by a people,

such as the army of the French Revolution-There still remain a certain number of people who

play polo and hunt foxcs, and of other gentlemen

from the public schools, who ma^ke very good officersindeed, They have as a natural gift, or they have

acguired, the qualities necessary for leadership in war.I do not suggest that these men should no longer be

officers. We need leadership wherever we can findit. But I do suggest that their most valuable con-tribution to the defence of their country at the present

moment will be for them and their class to give uptle monopoty of military leadership which they haveheld in the past. If they can achieve that effort ofwill and understanding which brings into the leader-ship of the army the right ,nen from the working clasgand from the sections of society that lie between theworking class and those educated at public schools,

they will at the same time be helping to make an annythat is capable of carrying out the defence of thiscountry on modern lines.

There i. a third mYth, not yet mentioned, that we

must decl ,vith faithfully before we turn to the positiveside, the organisation and the morale necessary forvictory. This third myth bulks large in the life ofalmosi every British soldier. It is the myth of the

bayonet. Like the other myths mentioned, this had

full justification in the past. In the battles of Marl-borough and Frederick the Great the bayonet was

often ihe decisive weapon. The musket was such an

inefficient firearm that it could only prepare the wayfor an assault; after an exchange of volleys' a " fire-fight," came the charge with fixed bayonets whichpierced or rolled up the enemy's line.

38

NEW WAYS OF WARBut in the War of American Independence men

trained in these methods came up against moreaccurate musketry. One of the British generals wholost America, Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne,wrote in his " Orderly Book " :

" The Officers will take all proper Opportunities,and especially at the beginning of the Campaign, toinculcate in the men's minds a Reliance upon theBayonet. Men of half their bodily strength, andeven Cowards, may be their match in firing, butthe onset of Bayonets in the hands of the Valiantis irresistible. The Enemy, convinced of this truth,place their whole dependence in Entrenchments andRifle pieces. It will be our Glory and preservationto storm where possible."

Unfortunately for " Gentleman Johnny " Burgo5rne,as he was known to his opponents, entrenchmentsand rifles proved more effective in America thanbayonets. By the time of the American Civil War,nearly a ceptury later, muskets and rifles and artilleryhad become so much more effective that GeneralJohn B. Gordon, of the Confederate Army, wrote inbis Reminiscences of the Civil War:

" I may say that very few bayonets of any kindwere actually used in battle, so far as my observa-tion extended. The one line or the other usuallygave way under the galling fire of small arms, Brape,and canister, before the bayonet could be broughtinto requisition. The bristling points and theglitter of the bayonets were fearful to look uponas they were levelled in front of a charging line;but they were rarely reddened with biood. Theday of the bayonet is passed except for use in

39

NEW WAYS OF WARhollow squares, or in resisting cavalry charges, oras an implement in constructing light and tem-porary fortifications. It may still serve a pu{posein such emergencies or to impress the soldier'simagination, as the loud-sounding and ludicrousgongs are supposed to stiflen the backs and steadythe nerves of the grotesque soldiers of China,"

By 1904, the date of the Russo-Japanese War, itwas possible to put down in actual figures the in-effectiveness of the bayonet. A Captain F. Culmann,in his Etude sur les Caracteres GCndraux de la Guerred'Extreme Orient, stated that the losses of the Russiansfrom bayonets, swords and spears were only 1'7 petcent. of their casualties ; 98'3 per cent. were causedby projectiles of all sorts. The Japanese, who wereattacking, and who had to face a heavier cavalry thanthey possessed, lost 3 per cent. by " armes blanches,"and 97 per cent. by projectiles. In other words, thebayonet was by that time only able to wound or killone man as compared with thirty or fifty wounded byrifles, machine-guns and artillery.

Yet when I was taught warfare, in 1914, I was toldthat attack consisted still of a fire-fight and then-anassault with fixed bayonets. In other words, I wastaught the same infantry tactics as were employed atBlenheim or Fontenoy, and were becoming a little outof date soon after Waterloo. And all too manyEnglish troops, from 1914 up to the present day,have been taught exactly the same thing. They havenot been taught, as the Germans have, that " attackis fire that advances, defence is fire that counter-attacks." The average British soldier has been ledto expect that after. using his weapons for a time he

40

NEW WAYS OF WARwill " get to grips " with his opponents. Our FieldService Regulations have defined infantry as a " forcethat closes with the enemy." And naturally whenthey are unable to close with the enemy, our infantryfeel lost and disappointed.

After the Norwegian campaign, and still more afterthe fighting that ended at Dunkirk, our newspapersreported continually the disappointment of our troopsthat they had not been able to " get at " the Germans.They never had a chance to get to close quarters.They were longing for hand-to-hand fighting, butthey were driven out of Norway and Belgium andFrance without ever meeting their opponents handto hand. And this complaint is typical not of ourIess well-trained fighting units but of those who havereceived the longest and best training available in theBritish Army.

The cult of the bayonet is still in force. Walkdown Whitehall any morning and you will see sentrieswith fixed bayonets. Most of these sentries havebeen placed in Whitehall recently, since the authoritieswoke up to the fact that parachute troops can bedropped by the enemy near centres of command andorganisation. The main purpose of these sentriescan therefore be presumed to be to protect the WarOffice, and other institutions supposed to be of valuein war, from attack by German parachutists. It iswell known that these parachutists carry sub-machineguns or machine-pistols. They also carry handgrenades. Against automatic weapons and againsthand grenades men with bayonets are useless. Clearly,these sentries, therefore, will have to fire their rifles.But the British service rifle fires less accurately withthe bayonet fixed than it does with the bayonet

4l

NEW WAYS OF WAR NEW WAYS OF WARthe main thing needed is to replace them by a saneand serious view of war, of discipline and tactics, andmorale.

As the shortest possible $ununary of, our argumenton the nature of war and its changes, on infiltrationand the need for initiative in modern tactics, we cansay that:

l. Modern war makes imposed, arbitrary a.nd auto-matic discipline and rigid tactics not onlyuseless but harmful, unsuccessful.

2. Modern war makes voluntarily, understood andthinking discipline and elastic tactics basedon initiative and independence, more valuablethan ever before.

3. In the British Army's training tb.ere is insistenceon the discipline and tactics outlined in I, anddisregard for those outlined in 2.

The way to alter that is to inject a large dose ofdemocracy. There is no other way. Democracy is,in its ess€nce, the uray of living, organising ourselves,training and, if necessary, fighting ; that includesvoluntary, understood and thinking disciptine, andmethods of wcrk based on elasticity, initiative andindependence.

It is not the formal framework of de.rnocruey tbatis needed. An arnny cannot elect its officers or voteon what its tactics and strategy shall be. It is the rawstuff of dernocracy that is calkd for : men who feelfree, and feel thernselves by natural right the equalsof their follows; men who accept regulations andorder-restrictions on their individual actions-be-cause they realise the need for these in strengtheningtheir collective actions; men who accept commands

43

removed. so we get the position that our sentries

(in any case inadequately armed) are made' to carry

J-rutnrr ridiculouJ survival from past ages on the

ends of their rifles, which reduces their efficiency

against the actual enemies they may expect to meet'"Ao irrrr" of War Weekly, dated 28th June, 1940-

after two campaigns in which bayonets w9I"- found

useless-gives L picture of an instructor " demon-

strating the bayonet charge." The journal comments :.. The-Germans have already shown their unwilling-

ness to fac;e the shining steel of British bayonet

fighters." They have. They have also shown that

tf,ot" who now try to use the bayonet can be wiped

out by anyone with any modern weapon'

Yef on-the newsreeis you *ay see members ofBritain's new citizens' army, the Local Defence volu-teers, practising bayonet fighting. Sugh films are

pt".,rr*Uly passed 6y the-censorship, in which the

fMar Office h* f.rll .ay. If I had my way such films

would be banned as liable to cause alarm and despond-

;it ; training in bayonet fighting would--be confined

to one platooi in each battalion; and all the rest oftreuyo".tsintheBritishArmywouldbesolemnlymelted down for steel, out of which we could make

sub-machine guns aad hand grenades'

Therc is a iendency in Britain, in this spmmer of1940, to think that our greatest neod is the manu-

facture of weapons and ammunition, of tanks and

ftto"t. I know wpll how badly .thit - equipment is

i,oO.a. No sacrifice can be considered too great forthe procluction of such g@r- But I know also that

iocriasea production is not the first or the main

tniog neeaea by our fighting men. The first thing

"oi"a is the destruction of these bewhiskerd myths ;

o

NEW WAYS OF WAR

as part of inescapable methods by which they them-selves can achieve their own desires and aims-anarmy of free men.

Ii has been a peculiar quality of most of the

successful armies of the past that they have feltthemselves to be relatively freer men than theiropponents. Sometimes this was an illusion, but;;[y their feeling was based on a certain amountof reaiity. At a time when democracy is accused ofinefficiency and a degenerate inability to defend itself,it is worth a couple of paragraphs to remind the

reader of war$ usually considered important byhistorians.

Tiny Greek armies, of citizens, defeated enormous

Persiau forces of slaves. Alexander the Great, withhis " companion cavalry," rode over despo'tisms muchmore autocratic than his Greek-influenced principality.The armies of the Republic of Rome were free men

in form, and more nearly free men in fact than theCarthaginians they destroyed. The Germanic and

Gothic tribes that overran the Roman Empire had aprimitive democracy of their own. The Englishirchers at Cr6cy and Agincourt were already, because

of the looser feudal structure of Eng1and, becomingsemi-independent yeomen; they beat the Frenchserfs and tnigUts who were still in every sense " theirlord's men." Cromwell's army, which appointed its" agitators " and sent them to argue politics withthJtord General, was more democratic than that ofKing Charles. Washington's poorly-trained nationalmitiiia beat the Hessians of King George. The ragged

armies of the Frengh Revolution fought most ofEurope with success, and Napoleon's great armies

were made out of ttibse men of the Revolution and

NEW WAYS OF WARwere fired by its principles-however much Napoleonhimself departed from those principles.

The Great War is recognised now as a war thatwas not " for democracy." Because of this we areapt to forget there was, in fact, rather more democracyavailable in some countries than in others. The armiesthat collapsed were the Russian, the Turkish, theAustrian and the German-in that order. Thecountries with the least democracy collapsed first;the order is also the order and degree ofautocracy.

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule ; thereare exceptions to every generalisation that can be madeabout human history. In spite of Frederick the Greatand General Franco, we can reckon that throughouttwo thousand years of warfare-the majority of successfularmies have been created by communities relativelyfreer and more democratic than their opponents. Theodds, to judge from " form " of the past, are aboutthree to one in favour of a democracy (relative, limited,qualified, even monarchical) beating an autocracy.

This is " wet paint ! " The idea is a new one, orwill be new to most people. It is commonly believedto-day that the totalitarian state is necessarily strongerfor warfare than the democratic one. And it will beargued against this view that the Germans haveachieved an army capable of fighting a modern warby methods very different from those of democracy.That is true, and this I am convinced is the weaknessof the German Army. It consists of a thin crust ofpicked men, admirably trained, who possess initiativeand dash because they have been taught that they arethe masters of Europe and the world, the knights ofto-day. But behind this thin crust, behind thesearmoured finger-nails, the German Army consists

454

NEW WAYS OF WARtargely of over-drilled men doing things automatically,according to the book, incapa,ble of initiative andindeed of any form of fighting except that of theherded mass attack

fotalitarian methods produce an army fit for war.Our own methods of the past have not producedsuch an anny. But we can find ways to make suchan army, which not merely retain democracy but useits vital force to make something far better than theNaais can ever produce. We do not need to modelourselves on and copy the Crermans, however muchw€ may need to reach their level in tactics; Crom-well's New Model Army is still the best model forBri.tish fighting men.

The essence of democratic discipline is that it isthe self-discipline of rren who agree. It can be veryseyere ; it can be the very opposite of anarchy. Butit cannot exist without a feeling of freedom to discuss,freedom to take responsibility, and a deep and sharedunderstanding of aims held in common. To make suchdiscipline we haveto destroy two solidly based ideas.

One of these ideas is that the young man enteringthe Army " must learn to be silent, uot only when he

is rightly blamed, but also, if necessary, to sufferinjustice in silence. . . "

The other idea is that " if doctrine is actually rightin its general lines, it is less harmful to stick to oneversion of, it, even if it should no longer quite conformto the reality, than-by irnproving it-to expose aprinciple . . . to gsneral discussion with its most evilconsequences. . . . For how can you expect to fillpeople with blind faith in the rightness of a doctrinewhen by constantly altering its external structtrre youcreate uncertainty and' doubt ? "

NEW WAYS OF WAR.

These ideas are part of the " doctrine," the beliefsabout life and war, held by many of those who in thepast have ruled the Britisir Army. I have quoted themfrom a fioreign book because this book putc into out-spoken language the cloudy faiths of Camberley andAldershot.

The book is Herr Hitler's Mein Kampf.These ,ideas are essential to Fascism: injustice

ondured in silence; doctrines maintained, when notfully realistic, because general discussion is evil;blind faith. They are not only out of place in thearmyof a democracy, they are out of place in any annythat has to fight against an alert and modern opponent.They are harmful to that army's fighting power,because this power is necessarily built largely onindependence, initiative, and intelligence. ThesequaLities cannot be combined with the principles I havequoted.

The Germans have made a good army on the basisof blind faith and the acceptance of injustice. Butis only good compared with the armies it has met sofar, armies hampered by folly and the myths of thepast. We can make that army look not so good.

A man who will accept injustice in silence will also,for the same reasons, accept orders tlat do not makesense to him; he will try to carry out these orderswithout understanding than. In the old days that didn'ot matter much; to-day it is fatal. Neither elasticdefence nor infiltration can be carried out well if ordersare obeyed with blind faith and without understand-ing. And the German ways of handling these tacticsare not perfect; they are wooden, and when stronglyfought are over-cautious.

An injustice is an inefficiency. It is unpleasant to

476

NEW WAYS OF WARbe reminded that one can be inefficient; but theofficer or N.C.O. who is unjust, and therefore ineffi-cient, must have this pointed out to him.

Because obedience is necessary, and obedience isimpossible if every man protests at once against ordersthat he misunderstands or that are actually unjust,protest against injustice must normally be made ,. offparade." But a request for explanation of an orderthat " does not make senser" that a man cannot makepart of himself and use all his wits and abilities to€rry out, should always be made by the man himselidirectly and at once. And the officer,must, if he can,explain. If he can't, he must say " no time now, mrryonr" or must say " carry on: you'll see the idea later.;,In no case must he tick a man offfor failing to under-stand the order, or for querying it.

Explanation and command are opposites. Likemost opposites in this puzzhng world, they intermix.Changes in weapons and consequent changes in warmake it necessary that there should now be the maxi-mum possible amount of explanation in the mixture.

It is the duty of the commander to put explanationin with his orders to the Iimits of his time and ability.But it has been proved useful, in armies that have madetheir popular origins and attitudes part of their fightingpower, to have alongside the commander of any butthe smallest units a type of leader whose principle9lty is to explain, to hear complaints, to remedyinjustices and take some part in punishment. H;relieves the commander of many administrative duties,of many concerns about morale and discipline. Hestands closer to the men, in every way, than is possibleto the commander because of the latter,s function,and in the experiences,,of these armies he has been

48

NEW WAYS OF WARproved to be an invaluable link in the machinery ofwarfare.

In Oliver Cromwell,s .. New Model " army he wascalled the- " agitator," because he whipped up thefervour of those godly and dangerous hgt t.rs. Inarmies of the French Revolution he was the ; delegate.,,In the armies of the soviet Republic he is callei the" political commissar." In those of the SpanishRepublic he was often called by the same ou*r as inRussia, but his official title was comisario de guerracommissar of war. ,

fh" Adjutant-General,s branch of the British Army(which some say is a direct descendant from Crom-well's " agitators ") is responsible for the selection ofofficers, care of wounded, health, discipline, burial,welfare, routine and pay of the troops 6.S.R. Vol. I,page 45). I do not suggest that this branch should beencouraged immediately toappoint " political commis-sars " throughout the Army. But I believe that therescue of the British Army from obsolescence cari beeffected most thoroughly and most rapiclly if a corpsof Adjutants can be formed to modernise it frohwithin, beginning usually with an attack on the barrack-square, parrot-rigmarole mentality that must berooted out.

The Adjutant-General's branch has already made astep towards this proposal, which r first pui forwardin April, 1939, by appointing Welfar" Offic"rs andlaying it down that men in t[e ranks may approachsuch officers directly with their complainis oi theirsuggestions. (All other officers, according to ancientcust_o_m, can only be approached by a private if he getsan N.C.O. to accompany him.) But the Weliareofficer can fulfil only part of the job that I believe

49

NEW WAYS OF WARnec€ssary. Men must be persuaded, made to under-stand, grven the enthusiasm that will change theirdiscipline from an acceptance of orders to an eageruse of all their powers in pursuit of a common aim.They must be made to feel that their own contributionhas value and is accepted, that the war is their war.This can only be done on a poiitical basis; a man whosemain concern is welfare can remove grievances of thesmaller sort, but he cannot do this political wofk with-out which a democratic discipline is impossible.

I repeat that in modern battle the corporals andsergeants leading little groups of infantry forward,the junior officers and men of the mechanised units,have to display initiative and independence, and haveto rely on their own judgment. When a small group oftanks has broken through to a point fifty miles behindthe main line of the enemy, when a sergeant has ledhis section to a point near the enemy's artillery, theseunits are cut off from command. The initiative theyneed can come either from very long training alongrigid lines, or from the qualities and beliefs of themen themselves. We have not got time for a longperiod of Nazi training (even if we desired such atraining, which implies the destruction of all that weare fighting for). Our only way to produce an annycapable of doing the job is to use the qualities of themen who form our democracy to the fullest possibiecxtent, releasing them from the hampering mSrths andsnobbery of the past.

CHAPTER III

An important aspect of the Nazi blitzkrieg has beenleft out of the previous chapters, or only mentioned inpassing. It is their use of tanks and planes. In thischapter we attempt to summarise the methods bywhich it is possible to meet German tanks and planes.

The question of air attack is very simple. To meetit you only have to keep your head, keep your morale.It is a weapon against morale. It does not in factkill many men. The dive-bombers sound like all thearchangels of Flell. Theyare literally the most terrify-ing things that exist on earth. And they kill very fewpeople. There is only ono thing to do about bombers.That is stay in a hole and pay attention to yourbusiness. Your business, usually, is not with them,but with men and rnachines on the ground.Always remernber that Hitler is trying to makeyou afraid-or is perhaps succeeding in making youafraid-simply by making various sorts of loud noise,Howeverafraid youmay bg if you run you are in greaterdanger from the bombers than if you stay put. Andif you put your face down and stop watching for theenemy tank or the enemy infantry, you are doingexactly what Hitler wants you to do. And you aredoing what is dangerous for you:-Jf, and for yourside.

When aeroplanes come over, don t look at them.They see faces rnore easily than anything else. Keeplooking where the tanks or the enemy's infantry may

50

51

NEW WAYS OF WARappear. Then the bomber is less likely to spot you.Even if he does spot you, he is absolutely unable tohit you except by accident.

Troops who have not been accustomed to bombingattacks can be frightened, shaken, tired and worriedby such attacks. But if they do not bunch, if theyremain in trenches or fox-holes or under any sort ofcover, they cannot be killed by such attack, There istherefore no need whatever for units to retreat beforeair attack alone. There is some need that the infantryshould be given weapons by which it can hit back atthe dive-bomber; to give men a feeling that theyhave at least a chance to get their own back on thosewho are attacking them is good for morale. But ifthey are gtven such weapons-the light machine gunand the Bofors gun are both useful-it must be wellrubbed into them that these weapons must,be directedfirst against ground targets, and only used against airattackers when no ground targets are available and timeand ammunition is to spare. (The Bofors and otherlight anti-aircraft guns can, of course, be mounted insuch a way as to make them quite useful anti-tankweapons, and the absurd specialisation of theseweapons should be ended.)

The only other thing that needs saying aboutGerman air tactics is that they concenfate theirbombers most heavily at the points where theirarmoured units are held up. Road blocks andstrong points designed to stop the advance of mechan-ised units should therefore be protected to someextent against air attacks. Travelling recently inEngland I have seen too many cases where a road-block has been prepared, but there is no trench, ordug-out, near tfe rbad block in which its defenders

NEW WAYS OF WARcan hide from the bombers and yet still do their job.Such positions should be made as far as possible proofagainst both forms of attack.

It is also quite unnecessary to put road blockswhere they are extremely easy to see from the air.We have plenty of trees alongside our English roads,and cover from the enemy's view is an essential partin any defensive works.

While these seem to me the only points of import-ance with regard to German air tactics, I am doubtfulwhether the British Army has yet fully realised theneed for certain simple rules by which it can protectitself against any form of air attack.

The first rule is that troops must act in the rightway as soon as aircraft come over them. It is notnecessary and usually it is not possible for orders toreach troops in the field in time. They shouldscatter, if moving in close formation; they shouldnot scatter far or attempt to reach cover if that ismore than twenty to fifty yards away; they shouldlie still, keeping their faces down. This procedureshould become the normal one of the army, so thatwherever men are, or whatever they are doing, theyimmediately disappear into the landscape and maketheir unit a bad target as soon as a plane comes over.It will of course be necessary in some cases to ordermen to pay no attention to planes whatever; gunnersmust keep on working their batteries if need be, andmen with particularly urgent work to do must notdrop it. But these exceptions should be speciallyordered; the rule should be to break ranks, scatter,Iie down. And the reason for this rule should becarefully explained to men, so that they understandthat faces and movement show up from the air. They

<) 53

NEW WA YS OF WARmust understand also how much this business of airathck oan hamper the movement of an army, andtherefore how necessary it is for them to rally .i,ii"myas soon as the plane has gone by, or as soon as it isrecognised to be onc ofours.

under conditbns of serrere air pressure the transportof a modern anny moyes mainly at night. In factmost of the work of the army is done at night, and aslittleas possible is done in the day. But a c6mmandershould never hesitate to expose iroops whose moralehe can trust to air attack in dayligLt. srrch attackmay slow down the nnovements of his troops, but wiIInot cause _heavy casualties. if they r*)ve in irregularand open formations, and keep stiil when.u". por-ribl"while bombers are above them.

The tank is a much more serious weapon, at thernoment, than the aeroplane. f must admit that inthings I have written before May, tg4}, I predictedthat tanks in this war would be almost as rlseless asthey were in the Spanish war. But that was becauscI could not conceive that the Allied arrnies wouldcompletely nqglect the lessons of the War in Spain.

To take only one example, the French 3i **.anti-tank gun was tried oui by the Republican forcesin Spain. It was found to be just heavy enough toknoek out most of the German and all the Ilaliantanks used in spain. But clearly its shell vzas tooIight and its muzzle velocity insufficient for heavier1"".Ir. Everyone knew that heavier tanks were beingbuilt. The French thernselves were building tanksof seventy tons, with very heav,'armour. Officers oftbe International Brigade who were mernbers of theFrench Reserve of officers went back to paris andreported that the French anti-tank gun was too lighq

v

NEW WAYS OF WARand that the Soviet gun throwing a shell twice ashcavy was a far better weapon I and others inBritain privately and publicly advocated a muchlarger gun. It remains, I think, rather doubtfulwhether the refusal to listen to us was due to stupidityand incompetence, or whether it was due to the factthat industry in France and Britain is organised solittle for production and so mrrch for profit that iftbe soldiers had wanted a change in the design andsize of their anti-tank weapons, they could not havegot such a change without long delay and very heavycosts.

The Germans on the other hand tried out in Sfarotheir 88 mm. gun which combines the work of aninti-aircraft and anti-tank weapon with that of fieldartillery. Its shell is nine or ten times the weight ofthe French 37 mm. shell, and the fact that it can beused for the three purposes named makes it possiblefor the Germans to have far more of such weaponsper mile than was possessed by the French and Britisharmies.

Early in tJre Spanish War we had no way of stoppingenemy tanks. Then miners ctrme from the coal pitsand iron mines, sometimes carrying brown paperparcels of mining explosives under their arms. Theystrung themselves out across the fields near Madrid,crouching under olive trees or bushes, in roadsideditches or any hole in the ground. They waited forthe tanks. And when these blind machines camenosing into a line of our " dynamiters," one of ourmen \yould throw a packet of explosive with a cracklingfuse, dropping it between the tank and the ground.And there was no tank I

If the tank did not come near enougb, the men on

55

NEW WAYS OF WAReach side of it would watch the direction in whichthe tank's guns were pointing. Bolting from cover,one of them would cut across to get close into the sideof the tank, so that he could sling his ,. present,'under the tracks. A tank's machine-gun can seldomfire downwards sufficiently to catch a man who iscrouchingjust beside its tracks. Sometimes these menblew themselves up on the way to the line, or as theywere blowing up a tank. But they mastered the tanki.

In May, l94c., Iarger and more powerful Germantanks smashed across Belgium and France, caught theBritish Army, the Belgian Army and many Frenchdivisions in a net of steel and flame. The Frenchanti-tank guns lvere too weak; the British too few.And the men who knew how to destroy German tanks,who had practised the job and were confident andproud of it-these men were Spanish refugees orInternational Brigaders, Iocked up in French concen-tration camps ! Or they had been sent to Africa orSyria to make roads, their help refused, their soulsembittered.

And in the French and British and Belgian armiesthere were few hand-grenades; there were none bigenough to stop tanks; there were no men trained forthis job.

These methods were not only used by the opponentsof General Franco in Spain. Brigadier-GeneralP. R. C. Groves, D.S.O., visited General Franco,sforces in 1937, and on November 7th in that year theObseryer printed his account of an attack on GeneralFranco's lines at Fuentes del Ebro, carried out byover eighty Russian-made 14-ton tanks.

" While the men in the front line trenches held

56

NEW WAYS OF WARtheir ground and beat off the advancing infantry,the supports and the reserves from the village closedon the tanks. They closed in with bombs, bottlesof petrol, and rags soaked in the same liquid.Nine of the tanks were captured or destroyed bythis means, and the remainder retired; the fivedisabled in no-man's-land were kuocked out byanti-tank guns."

Brigadier-General Groves then described theRussian tanks, and their vulnerable points. He goeson:

" The armament of this l4-ton tank consists ofa 4|-centimetre quick-firer and a machine-gun, bothmounted in a cupola; both must fire in the samedirection, and neither can be depressed sufficientlyto reach a man close alongside and bent double.However rapidly the cupola may be turned, asimultaneous rush from all directions invariablyends in a number of men reaching the tank un-touched; it is these who use the rags, blankets,petrol, and picks; bombs do the rest."

It is really amazing the British generals, even ifthey refused to learn from the " Reds "-who heldup German tanks and planes for more than two years

-should have also refused to learn from the Fascists !

But it is no use digging up the past, except to makefor ourselves entrenchments against a future danger.

I believe the following points about anti-tankgrenades are correct. Fuses should be very rapid:two to two and a half seconds. fn a second a tankmay travel forty feet, and you cannot afford to have

57

NEW WAYS OF WARyour glenade burst behind the machine. The bestplace from which to throw the grenade is a positionas close to the side of the tank as possible; let themachine go just past you and sling the grenade underthe tank from behind it, dropping flat as you do so.

Don't try to lob the grenade up into the air. as it willprobably bounce off, or waste its punch on annourthat can resist it. The tracks and cog wheels of atank, and in some types the relatively unarmouredbelly, are the machine's weakest points.

Where roads have to be guarded, grenades that willgo off when a tank runs over them are very useful.They are much better than land mines, which haveto be buried where German bombs may set them off.Even the largest grenade can be hidden by the mancarrying it in the bottom of a ditch, or in some sortof hole, until the tank comes along. With these sortof grenades, it is useful to have a string across theroad. The man on one side hauls on the string justas the tank is approaching. On the other side a manrolls the grenade out on to the road. A check string,which must not get tangled, prevents the grenade

from going too far across to the other side. If youhave grenades to spare, string several of them togetherto make a " necklaea" over which the tank cannotpass without detonating at least one grenade.

Remember always that a tank's driver and gunnercan only look out of little slits in the armour plate.If you stay hidden they cannot see you. If youjump out suddenly, the tank gunner has to turn histurret round to bring his guns to bear on you. Themost dangerous distance away from a tank is t'wo

hundred yards; the safest distance is six inches.And remember that bullets bounce off armour. To

58

NEW }VAYS OF WARfre a rifle or machine-gun at a moving tank ouly tellsthe crew where you are. If a tank is stopped, trdyou are a very good shot, you may be able to put abullet into the little slits from which the drirrcr aodgunner look out. But it is not easy.

Men handling grenades against tanks should nothave rifles. They should be supported by one ortwo men with rifles who take a position well awayfrom them, and whose main idea is that they willdistract the tank's attention and make it swing itsguns towards them and away from the hidden" dynamiters."

There is no reason whatever why a great industrialnation such as ours should not make plenty of thesogrenades in a week or ttw. We in Spain had notalways enough, so we used " petrol bombs." I donot recommend these, and I mention them only witha serious warning. At least ten per cent. of thosewho try these nasty things are likely to burn them-selves quite badly.

And the petrol bombs are not much use. Theyseldom can be relied on to stop a tank. If lobbedon to the top of a tank, in the way that is sometimesadvised, they merely warm it slightly. If on theother hand they are tfuown underneath it, the petroljust splashes out on to the road and the tank runsover it without injury. The only method that Iknow that has any chance of success includes a lengthof curtain or blanket wrapped round the petrol bottle,which should be so thrown as to get caught up in thetracks and bogies of the tank ; I believe the only partof a tank that can normally be damaged by flame isthe rubber of the bogie wheels on which the trackruns.

59

NEW WAYS OF WARThese petrol bombs seem to have caught the

imagination of soldiers and public alike. That isprobably because they seem much easier to makethan any form of hand-grenade. And few English-men know much about explosives. Their enthusiasmfor petrol bombs is due to their eagerness to get onwith the job, using whatever materials are ready tohand. But we have great quantities of explosivesin this country. It is not at all difficult for us tomake really enormous quantities of large hand-grenades, each containing a pound or a pound and ahalf of explosives. These, in the hands of brave men,are far more efficient than either anti-tank guns,petrol bombs or tank traps.

In a later section of this book I mention some ofthe other methods by which tanks have been checkedand can be checked again. But for trained soldiers Iam convinced that the use of large hand-grenades isconsiderably the best method. Anti-tank guns, too,seldom seem to be available at the points where tanksbreak through. Anti-tank mines are usually explodedby bombers, or the tanks avoid them. The hand-grenade can, on the other hand, be far more widelydistributed than any gun can ever be. It can begiven to troops whose main work is transport or themaking of roads, as well as to the men of the line.It does not have to be laid out on or just under thesurface of the ground, like the anti-tank mine. Underair bombardment the men responsible for anti-tankwork can hide their grenades in deep slip trenchesor in dug-outs. For these reasons the " grenadiers "are much more likely to get their tanks than are anyother sort of troops.

We have to imbue anti-tank troops with the idea

"60

NEW WAYS OF WARthat tanks are something to be bunted. Tanks stickto roads whenever they can; they lay up at night inwoods or villages. They are most vulnerable whenat rest, but can be checked by any sort of obstacleand attacked when moving relatively slowly:

German mechanised units usually advance undercover oi a screen of motor-cycle scouts. Such scoutscannot bring much fire-power to bear and are excellenttargets, even when riding fast. But they can bechecked and slowed down by any sort of extemporisedobstacle. fn a narrow village street, if a blanket isslung on a rope across the road from one window toanother so that the approaching Nazis canflot seebeyond the blanket, they are going to do very littlerapid advancing until they have had time to cut therope holding the blanket up-probably by means ofhand-grenades lobbed into the windows on each side.Even so simple an obstacle as this therefore willprobably cause them to check in such a way that theycan be attacked with hand-grenades as well as withmachine-gun fire if available.

Broken glass on the roads is bad for the tyres ofmotor-cycles and armoured cars. It is possible tohammer nails through boards so that their pointsproject for an inch or two ; these can be roped togetherand pushed out across the road from the ditch or froma doorway. The aim should be to make it irnpossiblefor the enemy motor-cyclists and lightly armouredcars to get ahead; then the Germans will have tobring up their tanks. If we stop their tanks in theways that I have described, w; have stopped theGerman army. For nowhere has that army shownitself able to make headway without its tanks pre-ceding it.

6l

CHAPTER IV

How should we train the army ? To those who knowthat a German invasion may occur before this booklstis published, this may seem rather a fooiish question.On the contrary, this possibility makes it an eveurnore serious question than it would otherwise havebeen. For invasion does not mean the end of, allthings. It certainly does not necessarily mean theend of the war. But the possibility of invasion doesmean that we may lose a number of troops and haveto replace them quickly; w€ may have to raise arnuch larger army, training rapidly each age groupas it is called up. Theref,ore the possibitity of in-vasion makes necessary a great speeding up of training.It is here that we come against the question of drill.AnC I repeat here arguments that I first put forwardwiren conscription was being discussed in this countrybut had not yet been ingituted.

Infantry Training states that :" Drill is the foundation of discipline and espit de

corps and forms part of the training of a1l infantryunits. Its objects are :

" i. To compel the habit of obedience. Duringdrill it becomes instinctive and automaticfor the leader to impress his will on hissubordinateg and for them to carry outhis intentions exactly.

NBW WAYS OF WAR

" ii. To stimulate, by combined and orderly movo-ment, the man's pride in himself and hisunit.

" iii. To enable bodies of troops to be formed upand moved, rapidly and without confusion-

" iv. To restore the morale of troops which havebeen disorganised."

(page 3l).

It will be seen that ttre objects of drill are almost all" spiritual " : three of the four objects are concerndwith obedience, command, pride and morale. Thereis only one object of drill that is material, physical:to ensure that men can be moved rapidly and withoutconfusion. Certainly this much drill is necess:uy.Men of average intelligence need some three to sixhours of drill in order to make it possible for them toilroye anywhere in sufficient order. In a short trainingschedule it is best to crowd all these hours into a singleweek, towards the middle of the schedule. Let themfall over their feet and their wealrcns for a week ortwo : then give them a blt of drill and they will sce

tle need for it.But to take perfectly good young men and give

them weeks on end of barrack-square, knocks out rrftlcm not only ary " instincts " for fighting they mayhave, but also their ability to think about all ordusreceived and to use their own judgment. Indc'pendence, initiative and intelligenc.e are all groundout of the recrui.t at the averagp training depot.InJantry Training lays down a suitable schedule fmRegular Army depots : in 420 hours work it includes94 hours of dri[ 6 horus bayonet training 6 hoursof gpards and sentrieq atd 95 hours of physical

6362

NEW WAYS OF WA Rtraining-almost half the recruit's first three monthsor more is spent in this way.

Obsolete tactics due to obsolete drill have beforenow destroyed armies. The armies of Austria weredefeated by Frederick the Great largely because theywere " strategically fixed to the alignments on whichthey deployed. . . . The drill-book of the day waspartly responsible for this absurdity,' (Studies inNapoleonic Strategy, by Captain R. A. Hall).

The drill of the British Army, until recently, wasthat of the Crimean War. It suited the tacticr of tt,Crimean War: the men did then in battle in thosedays exactly what they had been taught in drill.

Drill teaches movement of walking pace or quickstep. In modern war men crawl or run, or lie down.Drill teaches movement in unison, with men shoulder-close beside each other. In war men are in loneliness,yards apart, moving separately more often thantogether; men need to learn how to move singly andkeep in touch with their group.

Drill teaches straight lines and use of the smoothestavailable ground. rn war all straight lines are suicidar(because of enfilade fire by hidden machine-guns andobservation from the air) and broken ground is soughtbecause it gives cover.

Drill teaches men to stand up stiflIy until orderedto do otherwise. In war men should lie down, auto-matically, or sit down, when any movement ends.

Y.o standing about waiting for the next thing tohappen can be seen from the air, or from observationposts, far more easily than those whg lie down.

Drill teaches men to obey definite, limited, im-mediate orders. In war, at the crucial moments, theywill not get such orders. Such orders cannot reach

NEW WAYS OF WARthem in time. They have to act and think for them-selves.

Here we reach the " spiritual', or disciplinary dis-advantages of drill. Those who argue fol plenty ofit (and I found them at the base of the InteinationalBrigades, Albacete, using almost the same argumentsasat Aldershot, twenty-one years earlier), usuatiy begintheir thesis with an indisputable proposition: tfiatdiscipline means obedience to command. It is notwillingness to obey but the fact of obeying that counts.And in war it may be necessary to exact obedience toorders that go against a soldier's utter weariness, hisnatural feeling that he is called on to do more thanhis share (" I'm always picked on,') and the desireof his body and mind for continued existence. Menhalf asleep must be made to go on moving; menhalf broken by noise and instinctive fear must bemade to leave relative safety and risk heavy odds incounter-attack. War makes necessary strong nervesand strong will-power in the commander and absoluteobedience by the men commanded. Agreed.

Therefore you must train men to give conditioned,automatic, " instinctive " obedience to the word ofcommand. That is the case for drill.

And the answer to this case is that conditioned,automatic, " instinctive " obedienceis impossible underconditions of actual warfare, if you are going to adoptthe tactics that are most suitable for- modern war.You cannot have such obedience when there can beno minute-by-minute orders to obey.

You can get absolute obedience without drill. Itcan arise from enthusiasm, from a consciousness ofcommon aim, from the desire for efficiency and victory,from the mutual respect that links, in any army,

6sil

NEW WAYS OF WARgood officers to ,good men; these things drill stiflcsand overlays with a grudging reluctance to do a.singlething bepnd what is directly ordered.

In order to keep these really valuable qualities alivgdriH must be cut down in the training of all troops.

For the open air physical exercise that drill grves Inould substitute a certain amount of football, par-ticularly the training of men in games of the type towhich they are not accustomed. Most men knoweither Associatisn or Rugby footbatrl; \ile should tcachthm Northern Urrion and American rules ; ,thc

American game 'has more points of resembl.,ance towa;r than any other that I know.

I would also greatly increase the amount of fieldwork, particularly section and platoon training. Anrrmbe,r of competitions based on Boy Scout gaulcsare useful because they teach men the use of cov,cr,of shadow, and of thir eyes. Special ways of diggingare also use,ftrl. A good infantryman can dig hirmsEffin wheu flat on the ground, withotrt showing hishead or arms abovp a foot-high piece of cover. Thisneeds practice.

Thore are plcnty of other ways, ,beside drill, to givemen exercise. Because of their effioiency againsttanks, water obstacles, such as rivers and canals, areof greater importance in modern war tlan they ussdto be. Why on arth are not all regrrlar troops goodswinrro.ers, so that they can cross such obstadeswithout cu,mbrous boats or pontoons ?

fn recommending sports and swimming as bettsrtraining fharn ";at thc halt on the left form platoon'o(or that ungainly groping :for bayonets that follsrvsthc order " Fix-hipe ! ') I do not feel that I am outof torrch with the British tnadition, @ying fields of

NEW \ryAYS OF WAREton and all that. In advocating the use of fihns fotartical training and military education in general Iam certain that I am in line with all good moderneducational theory. Alt films ever rnade that showwarfare, aacient or modern, in a moderately reatristicfashion, should be available free to troops in training.Even films that show some lack of realism can beusod" if corrected by short lectures. Since I knowno British or American fllms of equal military vatue,I must re@mmend the Russian films, Chopaiev, Menof Kronstadt, and Defmce of Petrograd. The womcopies of these circulating in the training camps ofSpain taught more than days of ordinary instruction;there are probably others of equal rralue.

In suggesting alternatives to drill I have, in thischapter, comfined myself to only one aspect of theproblem: that which can be called the more practicalor materialistic aspect- There is another aspect: themoral. It is the more important. The question isnot so much one of replacing obsolete training bybetter training, as one of replacing the whole " drill "attitude of mind, the attitude towards command. andinitiative, surprise aad orthodox5r, that governs theArmy to-day.

In the final chapter of this book I shall deal witlquestions of courage and morale. Here let me saythat I fully acknowledge the possibility that men czlnbe made as it wereautomatically courageous by a longand careful process of drill But we have not timefor that, and we have a better metiod to hand. Menwho understand what they are fighting for, men whoare in fact fighfing for a country that is theirs and fortheir freedoms and for those they love, will not belacking in courago. AII we have to do is to understand

6

NEW WAYS OF WARtheir qualities and make them understand their tasks.Then, from the moral point of view, there will be noneed for much drill.

Another positive proposal in the matter of training ;as soon as men have had some grounding in the useof their own weapons, they should also learn a littleabout the use of weapons employed by other unitsand other arms. A modern battle is a closely wovenweb of various arms and various services. Thetraining of the British Army has in the past been toodepartmentalised; the infantry knows too little aboutthe capacity and problems of its artillery, of sappersand signallers, of planes and tanks. This trainingis useful from a double aspect; it helps the variousarms to co-operate. It also helps them to know before-hand what the Germans can and will do to them.The British infantryman will not face only Germaninfantry; he comes up against German planes andtanks, artillery and mortars. If he is attacking hemust know how to destroy as efficiently as possible theenemy's supply services, the lines along which reportsand commands travel, the framework of the enemyanny. Therefore he should be taught somethingabout these as they exist in our own army, and shouldat the same time be taught special methods andappliances the Gennans are known to use.

Such a diversification of training will also hold theinterestof themen being trained better than a courseof training that only deals with the technique of theparticular unit or weapons to which the men belong.And an interested man learns far faster than a mansuffering from the natural and inevitable boredom ofmilitary life.

It would be good if this principle of integration of68

NEW WAYS OF WARarms and services could also be carried out in theorganisation of our army as well as in its training.The German Army has carried further than anyother the principle learnt in Spain : that all arms andweapons must be as far as possible integrated withinthe smallbr units of the army. The Germans haveto some extent " artillerised " their infantry. Theyhave provided the infantry with small, horse-drawn,quick-firing weapons which form part of each infantryregiment and are the responsibility of the regimentalcommander,

In Spain we found it necessary to attach a smallunit of engineers, when we could get hold of them,to each infantry brigade. And in the same way wefound that medium tanks were usually best handledif given to the infantry brigade commander; theywere less efficiently handled when not closely linkedup with the infantry.

This integration and co-operation between all armsis an essential development of the modern army. Thetactics needed therefore are not simply those ofself-dependence, of infiltration and of defence bysmall self-contained units. They are also tactics ofco-operation; the fire of each unit must cover thenext unit. The machine-guns must interweave theirfire and they must protect not only their riflemen andother machine-gun posts but also the hidden anti-tank guns mingled with them. The phrase is clumsy,but the best way that I know to describe these tacticsis to call them " the tactics of co-operative self-dependence." Whatever name or label we grvethem, they are clearly essential to the training andorganisation of an army for modern war.

69

NEW WAYS OF WARI have only one more suggestion to make about the

training of troops. And that is that far more timeand care should be given to the training of men inthe use of hand-grenades of all sorts. I have alreadyindicated my reasons for believing that these weapoDsare the best answer to the tank. But clearly men whoare to use them effectively must practice continuallyif they are to get their grenades at the right momentunder moving vehicles.

I should not like to say that it is easy to hold adefensive position simply with men and hand-grenades,But I do know that men in deep narrow trenches,with concrete shelters or deep dug-outs where theycan hide under heavy bombardment, and pill-boxesfor their sentries, can stand up to any amount ofhammering and still keep their position. Then if theenemy attack in armoured vehicles they can use theirlarge hand-grenades ; against enemy inf;antry attackingttrey can use the small ones. And if you have plentyof men and plenty of grenades you can be extremelyhard to shift. The reason why you cannot rely onlyon such a defence is that there is bound to be someweakness in your line; the enemy will force his wayin at some point where the defence cracks underpressure-and he must at once be thrown out againby counter-attack. For counter-attack you needweapons that will hit at a greater distance than ahand-grenade can be thrown. But for purely passivedefence, men with grenades and machine-guns canput up a very good show. Therefore we should givefar more time to training men in throwing this missileat towed targets and at stationary targets, until theycan drop a practice grenade exactly where they wantto and when they want to. It will be very much more

NEW WAYS OF WARuseful than instruction as to how to " BfF? THB

Broopv Boclc rN TrrE Bn rv wITH rrrr BevoNET."In all our training of soldiers, we must encourage

them to use their heads by allowing them plenty ofalternative courses of action, among which they mustthemselves choose.

When war was relatively simple and many soldierswere very simple indeed, it may have been necessarythat the orders given to these soldiers should beentirely plain and straightforward. The rule grewup that in British " operation orders "-orders fordefinite movements on the field of battle, that reachnot only battalion and company commanders but alsoin some cases sergeants and corporals-no alternativecourses, to meet variable contingencies, could beadmitted.

A farmer, speaking to farm labourers, €D give theorder : if it is fine, we will harvest to-morrow; ifnot, we won't. But a captain speaking to his com-psny, cannot say: if the enemy's barbed wire isfound to be fairly well destroyed, by the patrols weare sending out, we shall attack, if not, we won't.

Such alternatives are normal in all ordinary lives.A child has to cross the road to get to school. Youtell it: if the traffic lights are green towards thetraffic, red towards you-wait. When the trafficfights change, cross over-but look out for carsturning across your path.

Alternative courses, dependent on things that mayor may not happen, can be understood by farmlabourers and by children. Clearly they can bcunderstood by soldiers.

The reason why soldiers are not supposed to getorders with " ifs " in them is not that they cannot

7t70

NEW WAYS OF WARunderstand such orders. It is that they have to usetheir own judgment and initiative in deciding whichalternative to choose,

Since they must now be trained to use initiative,we should drop these rules that stand in the way ofsuch training.

And in our actual operation orders, when fighting,we must also trust the men on the spot to do thebest they can with the general directions given ttrem.

72

CHAPTER V

Up to the present we have been dealing only with theways in which our army can prepare itself to meetthe Blitzkrieg. Now we turn to the question of aPeople's War,

Let us define what we mean by this at once. Itdoes not mean the indiscriminate arming of everyone.It means that the efforts of our army for the defenceof this country should be supplemented by sometraining and some arming of about four million men,who continue to live as civilians and to work at theirjobs until invasion occurs or until they are needed.

Among these four milliel there would almostcertainly be over half a million ex-service men.There are ex-servicemen between the ages of fortyand flfty-five who are entirely capable of taking partin local defence. And these men can help in thetraining of the others.

The Local Defence Yolunteers are the beginningsof such a force. They have been gtven too little todo, and often the wrong things to do; their organisa-tion and leadership is not yet that of a People's Army.But the force is growing and developing; it can growuntil the real eagerness of our people to defend theirhomes finds full expression within it.

Those who oppose the idea of a People's War arguethat men are helpless against the machines of modernwarfare. They argue that an amateur army is useless,would lead to confusion and would even hamper

73

NEW WAYS OF WAR

our trained soldiers. But with these arguments ttrey

are going directly against the experiences of the past,

tni [irt":.y of strug[les for freedom in many parts ofthe world.

It has happened several times in the past that apeople's Wiinas broken the most powerful migtarymachine of the Period.

The Dtrtch Ripublic rooe to greatnees by means ofro"U a People's War; Italy was freed largdy by

Garibaldi's fighters.Whea Napoleon ruled Europe from 'Warsaw to

Spain, from Scandinavia to Sicily, a-Peopte's.Jilar$igk"'orrt against hirn in Spain. Each Spanish village

became u fortre$. Each spaniard became a guerrikfighter. This war destropd Nlnolgon's.strength'

-Aboutthesameperidweinthesoislandswere

threatenod with invaiion. Pitt called for the power of

""-Ui.i and arming at a moment's notice the whole of

tti "itir" pop,lation. Sir John Moore, who revolu-

Eonised the iraining of the British Army, and pro-

a"*a wellington,s incomparable soldiers by seeing

that each malr undcrstood-and was interested in his

job, was put in charge of our defenoes. He unote :

" Nothing would damp the enemy's-spirit more

than to see-th" country turned out against him'" He knows the streagth of our army-regular,

militia and reserve-and will come prepared to

meet and maY hoPe to beat it." But how penitrate or subdue a country where

the population are arned and opposed to him f "

That is thc spirit of the People's 'War' And unoe

u

NEW WAYS OF WAR

those days tlere have been marly o(her examples, in-cluding the two 5rears' defence of Madrid.

A battalion that I commanded helped to hold thelast road into Madrid. It consisbd of rcn and hoysno different f,rom you who read these lines. trvlaoy ofthem had received only ten days' training- Noneof them had more than six weeks. They had a fewmachine-guns, all of them over twenty years old- Butthese 5@ men held up 2,000 of Franco's infMry,commanded by Reichswehr officers and backed byGerman guns and Germam planes. Our battalion was

scattered by Gorman tanks- It reformed whm the

tanks had gone and took back tle lost ground- Thatalso is the spirit of the People's War.

And I knonr from, that experience that this in-vincible spirit can be roused and set froe in the people

of this cou,ntry. But only if we are as revolutionaryas Williarn Fitt, and the men whs dard 1s pafte him

Prime Minister wbpn hE was on'try twenty-four years

old. Only if we are as revolutionary ru Sir John

Moore, and dare explain fully to qrr soldiers and ourcitizens thc tesk tbat lies atread of them- You & notmake a kople's War by ordering people to do things.You do it by convincing, arousing, letting loose theirstrengfh.

.A.t the mornent when this is written a Peol$e's Waris beiug waged in Chiaa. The Chinee form includea regular anny, Y/hich is much weakcr in fire-powerthan the Japaneso invaders. But they abo indudegrrerrilla fories that work behind the Japanse lines,

and carry on so continual a pressure that the Japrycse

are n€ver safe away from the eities that thoy hold andthe railways that they patrol in foroe.

Finally thse who oppse tle idea of a Peoplds War

75

NEW WAYS OF WARas " amateur " and " inefficient " should study Luden-dorff's book The Nation at Vlar. Ludendorff was awell-trained Prussian offi.cer, intensely professional,and not in the least an amateur. He advocates thatwhen Germany is faced with a war on two fronts, theGerman Army should be fully concentrated on one ofthese fronts and that a People's War should be wagedby an armed population on the other. And hewrites:

" A 'People's War,' blazing up all over thecountry, will eventually prevent the victor fromreaping the full fruits of his victory."

Since history and the opinions of great generals likeSir John Moore and Ludendorffare against them, theopponents of the idea of a People's War have to fallback on some very strange arguments. They saythat we are demanding " a Tommy-gun for everyvillage idiot."

Do they think that the people of Britain consistmainly or largely of village idiots ? We have rathera different idea about the characteristics of the Britishpeople.

They argue that " much nonsense is talked aboutthe lesson of Spain . . . the true lesson of Spain is thatthe better equipped, better organised side won." Itis possible that these journalists know more aboutSpain than I do. I only fought there.

I, as a soldier, say that we proved in Spain that aPeople's Army can hold up Fascism year after year.And we lost because Hitler and Mussolini had then-and have now-friends in Britain, powerful enough toprevent us getting arms and food. We lost, too,

76

NEW WAYS OF WARbecause the friends of Fascism here were not foughtand rooted out by those who professed to be againstthem.

A final point: defence needs training and fullequipment. We agree with our journalist friends onthis. It does. But if we have not time for fulltraining, if we have not made the arms yet, whatshall we do ? Sit down ? Surrender ? Not whilethese islands have men, metal and explosives.

The plea for defence by fully-trained troops is aplea-almost-for surrender. For we have not gotnearly as many fully-trained troops as France had. InFrance those who feared the French people had theirway. Their way led to capitulation.

Those who ruled France during the first year ofthis war were afraid of their own people. They wereafraid to tell them the truth. They lulled them withstories of impregnable fortifications; they told themthat the French army was nearly five million strong.In fact the FrenchArmy was scarcely half that strength-They suppressed all criticism in the press and jailedthose who might ask awkward questions. If we fallto that level here we shall get the same results ; if onthe other hand we make the change necessary towardsa people arrned, alert, and angrYr wo can hold upFascism no less efficiently than the Spaniards or theChinese. And since we have immensely more in-dustrial power, and resources that cannot be com-pared with the Spanish resources, or the Chinese,after holding up the Fascists we shall soon be in aposition to take the initiative and crumple them up.

There are those who say that the idea of arming thepeople is a revolutionary idea. It certainly is. Andafter what we have seen of the efficiency and patriotism

NEW WAYS OF WARof those who ruled us until recently, most of us canfind plenty of room in this country for some sort ofrevolution, for a change that will sweep away the muckof the past. But arming the people is also com-pletely part of the tradition of the British. It is infrct part of the British Constitution, and tbe fyrd atAnglo-Saxon tirnes, the urilitia or volunteers of laterperiods, have often been called " the ConstitutionalForce," because it is part of the fundarnental law ofthis country that each able-bodied citizen can andshould have arms and training for defence.

The tradition of an armed people in Scotland goasback beyond the days of Wallace and the Bruce; inWales the wars by which the Kings of England wereheld up for more than a hundred years were wagednot by a professional army separate from the ordinarypeople of the country, but by that people acting as anarmy. In England the tradition exists to this day invarious forms. I remember as a child looking at aparish notice-board outside a church and laughing atthe strange name of onE of the areas of local govern-ment to which a notice referred ; it was called " Tb€Wapentake of Thoresby." A Wapentake-I do ndknow if these areas have survived reforms in l,ocalgovernment-was a country area in which the able-bodied men must bring each year their weapons to acentral place, so that the authorities might see thatthese weapons were kept in good coudition, and thatthe men handling them were flt to do so. It is a pitythat these traditions of our past bave been allowed toslide out of existence.

We can, if we choose, go even further back into thehistory of Britain, and still find the tradition of aPeople's Ar-y. King $rthur of the Round Table is

'18

NEW WAYS OF WARreported by Geoffrey of Monrnouth, our first historian,to have called his people together whenuar tlreatene4and spokeo as follows :

"' Comrades,' saith he, 'alike in adversity and inprosperity, whose prowess I have made proof of ingiving of counsel not less than in deeds or arms,now earnestly bethink ye all in common, and makewise provision as to what ye deem best for us todo. . . . The more easily therefore shall we beable to withstand the attack of Lucius, if we shallfirst with one accord have applied us to weighingheedfully the means whereby we may best enfeeblethe effect thereof."'

It is not a small or uninportant thing that we havefar back in our traditions a leader-so far back that he

is the king of the fairy tales andof the poets-whtlaskshis fighting men for theiradviceand speaks to thembsoomrades.

All this, some will say, is very well, but wtat of thepractical side of the mattu ? How should t'hese fourmillion men be armed and how should they be trafuxd ?

Let us take the question of arms first. It is wellknown that there are not yet enougflr arms in Britainto equip fully all the men in the arrry, including thosein training a^nd those registered brr ncrt yet called tp.So wherc are the artns to comp from for a People'sArmy ?

Rifles fust. There are hundreds of tho.usands ofrifles, of various sorts and sizes, to be bought in tbeAmerican continsnt. Our atmy cannot use them-bocause t&ey are of all sorts and sizes. Ammunition

T'

NEW WAYS OF WARwould get mixed. Buy them and let our citizens'anny have them.

The .22 rifle should not be despised. It is morevaluable than most pistols.

But the weapon that every imaginative youth whowants to fight would like to have is the " Tommy-BUo," the sort of sub-machine gun used by gangstersand by G-men in the U.S.A. Why not appeal tothose who make and possess these weapons in theU.S.A. ? A few days after we had asked for theseguDS, and for American and Canadian sporting rifles-some of which are heavy enough to kill grizzlies-weshould find the New York docks piled high with them.Half the farms in North America have weapons ofsome sort. And the little sub-machine guns aremade by the thousands.

During the war in Spain, factories in Catalonia wereable to make these simple sub-machine guns. Fac-tories in Britain can certainly do so. What theCatalans did was to take a captured German gun andcopy it; what we should do (in normal times) is tospend many years discussing the design. That iswhat we did with the Bren gun. The Catalan systemis betfer.

Some years ago those who knew German annspressed on the War Office the idea that some of ourtroops should be armed with " Tommy-guns." Ageneral is said to have answered : " 'We do not intendto introduce the methods of the Chicago gangster intoEuropean warfare." Now someone else has intro-duced these methods, and very effective methodsthey are. Twelve .thousand parachutists, most ofthem carrying sub-machine guns, dropped intoHolland in the three days following May 9th. That

NEW WAYS OF WARwas the moment to wake up ; and if we had wokenup then, we might already have had in this countrythe whole available supply, new or second-hand, ofsuch guns from North America. And within a fewweeks we could be turning out several hundred aweek in this country. If we mean to arm the people,it has got to be done.

Another important weapon is even easier to make"That is the hand-grenade. Our men in France in1914 and 1915 made hand-grenades out of plum-and-apple jam tins. They are noi always perfectly safe,these home-made hand-grenades. We are not advisinganybody to start making them in the kitchen. It isquite considerably unwise for youngsters who knownothing about explosives to experiment with them.But there are in this country not only factories buteven garages, pithead workshops, etc., which arequite capable of turning out effective hand-grenades.They are so easy and so cheap to make that it isreally a miracle of incompetence that this countryhas, at the time of writing, remarkably few availablefor those who must defend it. The small hand-grenade, about the size of an orange, is excellentagainst men. But we also need a much larger grenadeagainst tanks.

I have already published, and I repeat below, thesimplest possible design for a small home-made handgrenade. I do so in order to prove to every one thatthese grenades can, in fact, be made in every townin the country. And that the materials of which theyare made are available everywhere.

It is not the best grenade in the world. But itcan do the job. It is not a tank-stopper. To makea tank-stopper you take the same design and make it

8180

HOUE-MADE GRE}IADE

NEW WAYS OF WAN,much bigger, to hold at least a pormd of explosiie.I prefer l| lbs.

It is dangerous. Do not play with these thingsI realise that in publishing this there is the risk thatsome patriotic mine-ourner will get a few of th€segrenades made, f,or testing. But that is a risk tbsthas to be taken. For if invasion occurred to-morrow,and par,ts of this country \f,ere reparated from otbcrparts, we might need something really " home-made "like this little weapon We should not be abh toget on with it without a design such as that I publishhere.

Here is the way to make it : Take au 8-oz. sthk dordimry cornnercial blasting glycerinel such as thoPolar Brand, made by LCI. Divide it cardully, intwo or three parts. It is sonoewhere near l|-ins. indiameter. Take two metal pipe couplings, of aboutZ-in. bore. Malleable iron or steel are best. Theseare im eyery plum,ber's stock. They should be stuck,togiether with any glue that gfips metalg or wddedtogetler roughly. Wrap tbo explosive in stiff paperand stip it inside the couplings, which form a heavymetal tubc. SCIme of the explosive will probabtystick out at the ends. That's all right. Makc a hrilsin t&e explosive at one end with a pencil, Get ready,Btlr Do Nor TNSERT, a detonator to frt this hols,Modern dotonators are safer thare those of the past,but they should not be handlrd or put near theexplosive until this becmeg necessary.

Attacfo firmly to the detonator a length of bleckquick fnse, the sort that burns ab-ut 2 ft pr miniute.Three inch€s is enmr.gh; that grves yow 7l seconds.Yon shorten th'is fuse as dcsir€al, to give a S-secondor 2$-second interval betweon fighting and burstrsg.

*dynamite82

E I PLO SIIE

NEW WAYS OF WAR

Withtheordinary"Bickford"fuseitisagoodtipio-uttu.t the heads of two matches to the fuse at

the point where you want to light it'--^Ui*p the whlle thing in a piece of waierproof

"lot'4'to be tied at the neck near the fuse' An

ordinary sponge bag would do' And that completes

" g*riAe wh]ch aloyor. accustomed to explosives

"oi _ute, and uoy brane man with a little training

can use.Witlrourenormousmanufacturingresourceswe

can make far better grenades than these' And they

canbemadeinfactoriesandworkshopsthatatpresentur" aoi"g nothing towards the production of war

mat"riurcl rhey witl be handier than this home-

made design; probably it will not be necessary to

Ugfritfrt*"; in"y will have a pin to be pulled out and

a"handte to release, as has the Mills bomb' But itcannot be too strongly emphasised that we need and

*" nurt grenades UV ine hundred million' We need

"J oofy -production on a great scale but also pro-

duction in many centres, so that if bombing or in-

vasion puts out of action a factory-here ani a power

line there, there is no hold-up in the supply of these

handy little weaPons.--i;i.-perfectly true that if these things are made

uv-it. -ittio, and widely distributed, there will be

accidents. There may evin be some cases of murder'

uoA ptoUably more "ui.s

of criminal negligence' But

in" iif. of itris country is at stake; the number of

acciAents will not be iomparable with the accidents

we have every year on our roads' Moving about

thl country in m-otor-cars, etc', we kill some hundreds

olpeople i preparing to A:{.ld ourselves we might killsome dozens.

'Thaiwould be regrettable. But so is

NEW WAYS OF WAR

war. And we should not tie our hands when

threatened by Fascism, because of bye-laws aboutexplosives and the other necessary regulations ofpeace.

A government of a country that has been longaccustomed to peace is naturally reluctant to putexplosives and iethal weapons in the hands of itscitLens. A government that represents propertiedclasses is always terrified by the fear of revolution.If we are to have a People's Army we must break

down this reluctance and this fear, and find for our-selves a government that will entrust to the people

the means for their defence.One final word about weapons. Some u' parashots "

are carrying twelve-bore guns. These are not good

enough -foi

the job. But if they have to be used,

the following can be done: take each cartridge and

remove the cardboard end; shake out the smallpellets of shot. If you can get hold of more powder,

i"move the wad that separates the powder from theshot and add enough extra powder to fiIl half the space

where the shot used to be. Take the pellets, whichwill seldom stop a man at twenty yards, and meltthem down to make large slugs. These should be

about the size of your little finger. Pack three ofthese into the open end of the cartridge, and you

have something that will stop a rnan at fifty yards ormore.

Another way of doing the same thing is to pour

candle-grease into the shot; the candle-grease wiU

solidify and make a single " bullet " out of the shot

which will be dangerous to an enemy at considerablygreater range than the shot normally would be. Butbe"ars" shot-gun barrels are " choked " the candle-

85

NE W WAYS OF WARgreule " bullet " must be made a little smaller thanthe inside of the cartridge.

Still a third way is to slice the cartridge with asharp knife round the middle of the cardboard tube,so that the part containing the lead pellets is almostselnrate from the part containing the powder. Whensuch a cartridge is fired ttre whole end of it goes offas a single bullet.

Some rather absurd things are being done aboutshotguns at the moment when this is written. Insome country areas they have been collected from thefarmers and country people for the L.D.y. Then theyhave been taken to the nearest market townand lockedup in the police station or some other centre. Frankly,this looks more like disarming the people than armingthem. It is the sort of thing that happens when theIocal gentry and the chief constable are far moreafraid of ordinary Englishmen than they are of Ger-rrans. If parachutists landed outside many towns thatI know, they would find that their way had been clearedfor them by the British authorities, who have dis-armed the first people that could get at them. Thereare farmers, farmers' sons and other village peoplewho have joined the. L.D.V. and brought rifles aswell as shotguns to the first parade. Then to theirastonishment they are told that they may not keepthese weapons at home or carry them with them inthe fields. They moy not even go rabbit shooting.It is a good thing that we know from past experiencehow iqomensc is the stupidity of some of the Englishcountry gentry and of most bureaucrats. Otherwiseit would be natural to believe that this disarming ofthc people is definitely treacherous.

Thc next thing to be considered afrcr weapons ie'' 86

NBW WAYS OF ITARtraining in the use of wealrcns. That \dU be dealtwith in the next chapter. But therc are two pointsessential to our present defence that come parttyunder the military authorities, partly under civilauthorities, partly under the L.D.Y. or the People'sArmy of the future. Thesetwopoints are the miningof bridges and ttre placing of obstructions in openspaces so that enemy aeroplanes cannot land on them.

Bridges in Poland, in Belgium, and on the Meusein France were not blown up. England has mnyrivers, and it may be necessary to blow up the bridgesover them, at an hour's notice, if the Germans landtanks from planes or ships. At present many of thescbridges are guarded by men whose job it is to see

that parachutists do not blow them up. But in fewcases are there arrangements made and explosivesready to blow them up ourselves if we need to do so.

If I were in charge of an area of the country I shouldgo to some mineowner and ask him to lend me enoughexplosive to wreck the bridges in my area, and enoughmen to bore the holes necessary, and to fire the shotsif need be. There might be accidents ? Yes. Butbetter several accidents than a failure to blow upbridges in front of a German armoured column.

It is not a question of the l-ocal Defence Yolunteersor civilian authorities taking over this business ofblowing up bridges. The destruction of a bridge isa military decision and must, wherever possible, beleft to a military authority. But the people who liveand work near a bridge, the local L.D.V., and theIocal government body concerned, must help themilitary in two ways. They must when necessary'see to it that the bridge can be bloun up. And ifinvasion happens, and there are landings from the

8?

NEW WAYS OF WARair at unexpected places and bombings that cut com-munications, someone really near the bridge-notmiles away at the end of a telephone wire-must takeresponsibility if military orders do not come through.It is a very serious thing if bridges are blown up toosoon; troops and transport may be cut off on thewrong side of the bridge and may therefore fall intothe enemy's hands. But it is a much more seriousthing for a bridge not to be blown up at all; and

this has happened so often when the Nazis are movingunexpectedly fast in their blitzkrieg w&y, that weought to take this matter seriously at once and be

ready to make our rivers strong lines of defence againstenemy tanks.

Our islands are very well provided with rivers.The Germans have a few amphibian tanks which canswim a river or a canal; but these few machines arerelatively lightly armoured and not of great value inbattle. Alt the rest of their vehicles can be checkedby rivers and canals. But there are many roads inthis country, and therefore many bridges. At themoment when I write the rivers that are our bestlines of defence could in most cases be crossed byany German mechanised division without any delay

whatever. By preparing these bridges for destruc-tion and acting resolutely at the right moment, we

could force them to delay for some hours at each ofthese little rivers, if not for longer periods of time.Where they find the bridge blown up, they have tobring up infantry who swim over or paddle over inrubber boats, secure a wide foothold on the otherside and protect their engineers, who make a bridgeof boats or pontoons across the stream.

A point of equal importance is the obstruction of

88

NBW WAYS OF WAR

landing places where troop-carrying planes etn come

down.- h,utry place where an aeroplan€ can land isa way in for ihJ invader. All who live iri the country

ot *o get into the country for an svsriing or a week-

end, cai help to block up these ways. Some authori-ties are slow to realise

-the danger. Near a town Iknow is a disused aerodrome. This is guarded by afew volunteers not very well armed. It ought to be

made unuseable at once-unless the Air Ministryneeds it. If it is needed, a heavy guard should be puton it.

And it is not only aerodromes, or mainlyaerodromes,that must be madi impossible for Nazi planes to land

on. There are big helds gving a clear space of25A to 3OO yards. There are downs and grass-

covered commons, cricket fields, golf courses'

Here are three methods of making the4 unuseable :

l. Trip wires, securely fastened down, can be strungaitots about 4 feet high. They can be higher ;they must be strong.

2. Where there are crops, take some stout poles

like telegraph poles and bury them well down'They will

-noi interfere much with reaping'

Put them 50 feet apart. They should knockthe wing offany aeroplane that tries to land'

3. Where possible, trench open spaces- q"! as

downJ. Don't worry about the hilty bits,they alre safe. Across the level bits, cuttrenches with one wall straight uP, about3 feet d*p, and the other wall sloping. These

trenches ihould be at least l0 feet wide tocatch the wheels of a fast-moving plane'

E9

NEW WAYS OF WARThere is more to do, and many wtling hands to do

it. It might be as well to make it difficult for Nazieeaplanes to land in some parts of our rivers and onthe Norfolk Broads.

Cars that are not needed for defence units, andare not in use, must be really immsbilised, in such away that a competent mechanic cannot make themworkable. Otherwise the Germans witl be presentedwith all the transport they need if they capture afew towns.

In Poland and in France, German tanks drove upto civilian pctrol stations and took their petrol fromthe pumps. All the stations should be guarded atonce. The guards should be instructed when andhow to burn the petrol. Where it is difficult to setpetrol altght, because of danger to surroundingbuildings, it may in some cases be enough to havemeans ready available for destroying the petrol pumps.In other qlses it should be possible to make the petroltemporarily useless by dumping sugar, linseed oil, orsome similar substance into the storage tank Waterwill not do.

fn some towns it would be wise to close down thepetrol pumps within the town, as an elementaryA.R.P. precaution, as well as a precaution againsttank raids. Supplies for these towns could be madeavailable at roadside petrol stations in relatively opencountry.

But if to-day weappointed volunteers, or half-trainedsoldiers, or even trained men who had not been inthe front line in France, to guard such petrol stations,the first thing they would ask is: " What do thesetanks look Iike ? " It is urgently necessary thatsilhouettes, photognaBhs and drawings of all German

NEW WAYS OF WARand British types of tanks, armoured cars and armytransport vehicles should be circulated to our soldiers,and throughout the civilian population. Then youcan be sure that you do not blow up a British tankor wait smilingly while a German vehicle approacheswaving a Union Jack as camouflage.

In these ways many of us can do much to makeBritain impregnable even before we get arms andlearn how to use them.

9l90

CHAPTER VI

Ttus is a first lesson in modern warfare. It concernsall of you, whoever you are, that live in Britain.Whether you work on the land or in a factory, in acity office or near the sea coast, you may turn roundany morning now and find that the war is within ten,Tl"-r, or a mile, or a hundred yards of you. A studyof the suggestions which follow will not transformyou into a mature soldier.. But it will enable you tobe useful instead of passive in the fight to reiel theinvader.

First you should learn how to take cover.Then learn how to use weapons.Then learn how to move with as much use of cover

as possible; then learn how, and what, to dig.After that, learn the ways in which you cai stop

tanks.Then learn the probable tricks and tactics that the

enemy will use against you.

_ I know that you can learn these things within a fewdays or weeks because I have myself played a con-siderable part in teaching these things to five hundredEnglishmen, Scotch, Welsh and Irish, who withinsix weeks of the first hundred being grouped together,became one of the best battalions oflhe InternitionalBrigade in Spain. The first hundred got six weekstraining, but drafts were coming in untifthe last weskof all, and a few of those who moved up the line withus had only ten days' training. yet in that line the

NEW WAYS OF WARbattalion endured over fifty per cent. in casualties-one man kilted and wounded out of each two menwho went into action. And after this hammeringthey were only 80G900 yards back from the line whercthey had started. They had lostalmostall their twenty-year-old semi-derelict machine-guns; they had beenscattered by tanks and reformed; but they were stillin position as a fighting unit, covering the last roadinto Madrid, despite the continued pressure of anenemy four times greater in man-power and twentytimes greater in fire power.

Became that was done by men no different fromyourselves, by men who taught themselves and becamesoldiers through their desperate eagerness to save theworld from Fascism, I know it can be done by you,since that eagerness now is in you and you also aredefending your homes and your future.

The first thing needed is space on which to practice.Forget the trespassers' boards, and the rules that saythat the parks must be locked, or that you may notgo on the grass. But don't practice only in the opencountry; take also some side streets, or back gardensthat your neighbours will willingly let you tramplethrough if you explain what you are doing. Practicewhat you can in the yard of the factory, in the play-ground of an empty school, anlnvhere you can findthe space.

If there is no cover in the only place where youcan train for war, make some cover. Put a blanket ona couple of sticks to represent a bush, dig a little holoand ttrrow up a foot of earth to one side of it; dragout old packing cases; arrange two bicycles togetherand cover them with waterproof. Sort yourselves out.As a first rough approach to organisation make ten

9392

NEW WAYS OF WARrrcr a section, and thirty men a platoon. Practicesorting yourselves out so that you can fall in quickly

-the section in three ranks of three with the sectionleader in front of it, and three of these together to makea plaloon. Then starton the business of working fromone end to another of au area, first in threes, then insections, then in platoong in such a way that men arenot closely bunched togetler, yd each man uses tothe maximum possible whatever cover is availabler

I put this point of cover first because raw troops,eager to fight, always exposo themselves too much,ept ki[ed too q,uickly, either by neglect of cover orby bunching together too ctrosely.

There are many ganres and competitions which thoBoy Scouts know that teach the use ofcover. Ask yourI'ocal scouts- Don't be ashamed to learn from somecocky kid. If it was onty your life that was in question,you might aot like a fourteen-year-o1d teachingyou how to keep youx head down, when to crawl adwhen to rush. But this is not your personal life only;it is eve4rome else?s tlat you know and the millionsthat ymr don't know; it is defeat or victory.

The next thing is the use of, weapom. There areonly three sorts of weapons that you are likely to begiven at first. One is a rifle or shot-gun, on€ is a pistofone is some sort of hand-grenade.

There are plenty of trained soldiers to handle allthe Tommy-guns, urachioe-gunS, artillery and other\ileapCIns at present availabla So consider first thesethree.

To usc any of these weapons in the right way, youmust be able to gauge the distance between yourselfand the target. Space a few men out at varying dis-terces affiay from b group of othpr rnen. Number

NEW WAYS OF WARthe men spaced out. Tell Number One to signal u'ithhand. Get your group of men to write down theirestimate of how far away that man is from the group-

Do this for short distances, as well as for long ones.

Then when you have actually paced out these distancegchoose those men who are the best natural judges ofdistance. Start them in on the instruction of smallgroups of others. Make use of all sorts of slopes andgradients to exercise their judgment. If it's practic-able, get some ex-Service man to teach you how tojudge distance by the apparent siue of an ordinarywindow, by the relation between the breadth of )lrltlrthumb nail, held out at a^rm's length, and a two'storyor three-story house. In the local Pub., instead ofplaying darts, make the boys guess the distance to any

ieature that can be seen from the door or the window.When it comes to hand-grrnade work, teach your meowhat is the width of a wide street, and a narfi)lv onc;the most important distances for hand-grenade workaxe those from twelve yards to twenty-five yards-

Distances look very different if you are lying down,or if you're in a hole with your eyes on the level of theground, and that's the next thing to get your men torealise.

Get them to make certain of the distances betweenlamp posts, the telegraph poles, etc.n in any area thatthey are likely to be defonding. Then you can judge

distances along a road by counting how urany telegraphpoles are between you and the target.-

Aiming comes next on the list. You must teachyourself how to press the trigger of a rifle withotrtjerking or shaking the barrol, and while keeping your

aim completely firm and steady. You can get on withthis job with the help of any weapon whatsoever ttrat

95%

NEW WAYS OF WARpossessed sights and a trigger. Don't bother to doaiming practice standing up, without cover. Thatsort of method of firing went out years ago. Practicelyrng flat on the ground, kneel or crouch behindsandbags or a wall--or even aim statrding behind awall and let your elbows rest on top of it.

The following is a convenient form of practice:Get or improvise a target of white paper and a smallblack bull's eye. Put this on a stick near the groundso that it remains steady. Get one of your men toaim with the rifle (whichzrasr be empty ofany cartridgeor charge in the breech of the magazine). Get anotherman to lie down and look through a hole in the centreof the bull's eye. Tell him to repeat the usual fuingorders : " Firer" " Re-load," etc. It's his job to see

that the foresight and backsight of the weapon arecorrectly in line with his own eye (and therefore withthe bull's eye of the target) while the other man keepshis aim and fires. There are two main rules for goodaiming : breathe gentlyand naturallywhile takingyouraim, and squeeze the trigger very slowly and firmly.

This practice is likely to be infinitely more valuableto you in the days ahead of us, than any amount ofsloping anns and drilling.

On pistols there are two essential things to remem-ber : Never assume that " it isn't loaded." It may be.And don't expect with any sort of pistol, unless youare a good shot already, to affect a man at twenty yardsrange. Unless you are thoroughly used to a pistofall you can do is wait with it round the door when youknow that an enemy is likely to come through the door,or wait with it round the corner when you know heis likely to come round the corner. Then fire at pointblank range.

NEW WAYS OF WA R

Men who have never used a rifle can, however, fireone fairly well as soon as they have learnt how tojudge distances, how to aim correctly and how to pressthe trigger.

All this can be done without ammunition. Ourammunition is precious. Do not waste it in practisingtoo much at the rifle ranges-if you get any chanceto practice there at all. In Spain few of our men hadmore than five rounds to practice with before theywent into action. And if you know you are not a goodshot but still you get hold of a rifle or shotgun some-how, hand it over to the next man you come acrosswho knows the job.

The hand-grenade is a useful weapon for everyone.Great precision of aim is not required. Any man-and any woman-who can throw a brick, should beable to do valuable damage with a hand-grenade,especially if they can estimate distances up to twenty-five yards. Actually a brick is not a bad instrumentto start practising with, if no gienadeJike objects areavailable.

The commonly used Mills bomb is shaped like arather small orange and weighs l-lb. l0-ozs. It maybe that the grenades we shall make in Britain will beof various weights, sizes and shapes. They may becylindrical in shape, like a nine-inch length of gaspiping, or they may look like a tin of canned fruitor beans. None will be lighter than one pound; thebest weight to practice with is probably two pounds;there- may be some " specials " for rolling underapproaching tanks that will weigh four to six pounds.So practice with different weights. There is an artto master in the throwing of a grenade. It's no usetrying to chuck it as if it were a cricket ball. You must

97

96

Anti-tank trench ry-adg in s.hape of cross. This givesprotection from enfilade fire in'the arms of the croii at

riefit-angles to thedirection of approaCh of tink--

104

protection except where twocome in lihe

Make your loop-holes at different levels so that your headcannot be seen against the loop-hole behind you

105

is solid

,1

lr

$

+

iI

li

NEW WAYS OF WARlob it well up into the air so as to get distance. Youcan do this either under-arm or over-arm, accordingto which comes easier to you. Under-ann is easierwhen standing up ; over-arm when you are in a trenchor a hole in the ground. Try first to get the grenadeto drop on a line some yards away from you. Whenyou've become accurate to within a foot or so, twicein every three throws, increase the distance until youdiscover what your maximum effective distance is witheach weight of grenade. ft's not important,wherethe grenade rolls to after it has dropped, but the pointwhere it drops is very important. When you'veadvanced so far that you feel you can deal with a movingtarget, space your men out in a line, and persuadesome fearless friend to cycle past them towing a pramora filled sack. Then let every man lob his " grenade "on to the target as it passes him.

Digging has several distinct uses in modern warfare.You should forthwith learn how to dig a hole for your-self when lying on your belly. How to make a valuabletrench out of a useless straight ditch by cutting slotsto cover one man in a wall of the ditch, or in both walls.How to make a " fox-hole " for yourself, in whichyou can reduce your personal risks from enemy fireor bombing. If you have no spades, go round to thenearest block of houses and yell out, " Spades for thePeople's Army, please."

Put in as much practice as you can with a pick-axenovr. It's not as simple as it looks. But any pickand shovel nawy wiII put you on the right lines. ft'sthe best possible instrument for giving you depth intrenching. And, when the guns begin, only depthspells safety !

The next thing is how to stop tanks. I have already

tw

ORDERS MEAN SOME.THING

The Spanish RePublican Forceswere taught discipline and the careof arms by means of a vbry PoPularcomic strip describing the -adven'tures of the bad soldier Canuto.In the pages reProduced above(1) Canutb has been on sentrY dutY,izl tre soes to sleep, (3) the enemYidproaEtr in the dark, a.nd

-(4) an

eiimv tank comes uP while Canutois sn6ring, (5) the attack is beatenoff but -poor Canuto has been

completely flattened

t06

NEW WAYS OF WARgiven some ideas on this subject. If you can thinkof a better way, no one will stop you trying. Butdon't do silly things like trying to electrocute themby switching current on to the tram lines. Tram Iineshappen to be a very good " earth."

If you want to try anti-tank ditches, which cannotbe guaranteed, but are sometimes useful, dig a trenchwith one wall vertical and six feet high, and thebottom slanted up gradually to make the other wall,so that from ground level to the foot of the verticalwall is about fifteen feet. If you possibly €n,strengthen the vertical wall with cement, steel railsor railway sleepers. Otherwise the tank will just comeup to the vertical wall, and grind away with its tracks,as if it were butting the wall, until it has broughtdown enough earth to give it something to tread onin order to climb up.

The sloping wall must, of course, be towards thedirection from which tanks are likely to come. Earthdug out should be made into parapets behind whichmen can lie and wait for tanks with their hand-grenades.

Look around your area for railway embankments,canals, marshy places, rows of houses built closelytogether, and other natural obstacles. And alwaysremember that the German bombers co-operate withtheir tanks. If the tanks are held up, the bomberstry to destroy the obstacle that is holding them up.So where you plan a tank trap or a road block havea few holes as shelter from the bombs.

There is another way in which tanks can be stoppedby brave men. Where the path that they will takecomes close to thick cover or consists of a narrowvillage street, you can wait for them with crowbars,

108

NEW WAYS OF WARlengths of tram-line or similar pieces of metal. Thisis a job that is best done from the open doorway ofa house against a tank travelling fairly slowly andvery close to the house. The metal bar must bethrown or l?mmed into the side of the tank so that itgets in amongst the gear wheels and bogie wheels ofthe track. If a tank is travelling fast the bar willprobably be jerked out of your hand, and you willfail to get it in among the works. But if you can getit properly placed, the tank will be stopped, andwill probably block the road for those following it.For smaller tanks a pick slung into the tracks from theside will sometimes do the job.

Besides tanks you have to deal with the Germanmotor-cyclists. Here again I have given somepractical suggestions. If you spill any of them offtheir machines, got on to them quickly. But youraim is not the man so much as the tommy-gun orpistol or whatever weapon he carries. Get it quickbefore an armoured car or tank comes up.

If some of the motor-cyclists stop down the roadand there are no heavier vehicles in sight, you canstalk them with hand-grenades. Their weapons arelikely to be inaccurate. No tommy-gun can possiblyhit you at 500 yards; at 200 yards it will not hit youif you are quick; at 100 yards or less it will cutyou in half with bullets within two seconds. Keepthese qualities in mind when tackling parachutists orinfantry armed with this weapon, as well as the motor-cyclist.

The next thing in German armoured divisions arearmoured cars and light tanks. These usually onlycarry machine-guns, which are dangerous at half amile or less, but cannot drill tfuough a strong brick

t09

NEW WAYS OF WAR,

wil, three feet of earth, or any sort of solid barricade.If they stay out of range of your hand-grenades, keepquiet and let them stay there. Do not try to use

rifles against thern, as it only tells them where youare. An oocasional sniping shot from a Inan who isposted well away from your main position will keepthem sitting inside their vehicles and afraid to liftthe lid and have a good l,ook at your position.

The medium and heavy tanks are armed with lightartillery, and the Germans follow their tanks withlorries which carry mortars and field-guns. The lighttank artillery can knock holes in a house, but ittakes an arvful long time to knock a house down. Itcan chip, but it cannot destroy, a solid barricade.The big mortar can much more easily smash a house

or a barricade. But it has a shorter range than arifle. The Germans bring it up the road as far as

they dare, then they hop over the hedge with it, orplant it bebind a tree and start lobbing their fat,slow-moving shells out of iL Keep a good look-outfor these mortars, and when you see one being putinto position try to get some rifles to pick off the menserving it.

But if two of these big mortars get your range, itis [kely that you may have to move to a flank or toa second Sircsition behind that which you are holding.Under bombing, machine-gun fire, or the fire of lightweapons, such as tanks carry, stay where you are.

But against heavier artillery, including the big mortargyou have to judge sensibly whether too many people

are going to get killed if you stay where you are' orwhether you can stick it for another hour or two andstill keep your fighting power.

My owrr rough trL i, th€ mattcr is : ne\rer errcn to

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NEW WAYS OF WARconsider moving until I know that 20 per cent. of themen with me have been killed or wounded. Anddon't consider the question really urgent tiU youhave had double those casualties. Then get out;otherwise you are losing the chance of remaininga fighting unit that c.an do the same job overagain a yery short distance farther back or to thrflank.

If you must get out, get out quickly. Send yourbest man back firs,t to pick the place where the unitwill rally, and to rally them there.

When the Germans are held up they not only bringup their bombers and the big stuff to hammer at theobstruction, they also try to go round it, outflank it,surround it and attack it from the rear, flow past itand leave it behind while they press on much farther.Lcok out for these tactics; deal with them as bestyou can; keep as much touch as you can with thoseto the right and left of you. But don't retreat becauseoutflanked. Don't even retreat, at any rate in day-Iight, when you are surrounded. Keep on blockingthat road or holding that village or bit of trench untilit is dark enough for your leaders to meet and decidewhether it is better to stay where they are or gostalking Germans, or go looking for some of yourown people.

One of the best bits of practical training that anygroup of men can carry out is to make a detailed planof the ,way in which they would defend the placethey live or work in. After making the plan, why notgo ahead and made the nocessary defences ?

Any village ca.n be made into a fortress. But inPoland, tselgium and France hundreds of villageswere rushed by the Germans before any ddensive

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NEW WAYS OF WARmeasures were taken. This must not happenhere.

One of our essential preparations for defence againstinvasion is a rapid survey of defensive possibilitiesof our villages. And after that survey immediateaction not only by the authorities, but by every citizenable to help. The first defences for a village areroad-blocks. The second are buildings roughly pre-pared and stocked for defence. The third are trenches.

Road-blocks must be powerful enough to hold upmotor-cyclists, armoured cars, and the lightest formsof tank. It is very difficult to hold up medium andheavy tanks, though a solid barricade may delay these.There is one great principle for any road-block. Itis useless unless " covered " by weapons. A coupleof motor-cyclists, if they are not fired at, can smishtheir way through a barricade by means of half adozen hand-grenades.

The purpose of a road-block, therefore, is to stopthe enemy vehicle so that it is a good target for menwho are going to defend the village. If you have notgot such men, or they have not got arms, it is verylittle use holding up your own traffic by means of abarricade. Therefore one of the first things to do isto survey the villages and decide whether or not agarrison of troops in training or other forces can bedefinitely allotted to the defence of each village.

Sentries guarding a road-block from damage byour own traffic may need to stand up in the roadnear the barricade. But it would be better to makethe road-blocks so substantial that traffic will avoidthem for fear of receiving damage. Then you canput sentries where they will be most effective, at leastffiy yards away and off the road. Men with hand-

NEW WAYS OF WARgrenades can be nearer than that. But not on theroad.

The best form of road-block is made with concrete.Next best, use boards or wire netting or sandbags,piled up till they are four feet high, with plenty ofearth packed in between the boards or wire. Eachwall should be three feet thick. If possible, one ofthe parts of the road-block should have walls allround it, making a little square fort by the roadside.A couple of men can shelter there from enemy machine-gun fire, and even from the 4-pounder shells ofenemy tanks. A road-block must face both ways.The enemy may break into the village behind youin the dark or on foot and you must be prepared todefend it from both directions.

Road-blocks leave part of the road open for ourordinary traffic to pass. This bit of road must beblocked if you are to hold up the enemy. Again, itis not enough to put a few strands of barbed wireacross. A good thing to keep handy to block up thisgap is an old derelict motor-car, filled to the roofwith bricks and rubble. It can be pushed into positionby a few men. But then it should be tipped over onits side. Otherwise, if the Germans get up to thebarricade, despite the dofenders' fire, they will simptypush the old car out of the way again. To pull aheavily loaded car over is not easy. Put a stout ropefrom the chassis up over the roof and haul from theother side.

To make a house useful for defence knock loop-holes that command the ways of approach. If thesecan be hidden by creepers, or set in some corner ofthe house where they are not easy to see, so muchthe better. Have buckets of water handy and blankets

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NEW WAYS OF WARor cutains to cover the windows. These should behung somewhat away from the windows, otherwisethe blast from a shell or hand-grenade may drive theglass through them. Two good thick mattresses or athick brick wall will stop a bullel You must beable to get into the attic, and, if possible, on to theroof. Barricade heavily the ground-floor windows,and have stout timber to help the door to stand upto a hand-grenade. If possible, have some way forthe defenders to leave the house. A " crawl trench "just deep enough for a man to crawl along is enough.

We have boasted * an Englishman's home is hiscastle." I,et us plan and prepare to make it so.

CHAPTER VII

Wen is not only a guestion of fighting; it is also aquestion of politics. In fact the classic definition ofurar, made by the greatest German military theorisfClausewita is that war is a continuation of politics byother means. This last chapter therefore contains myview of the political questions involved in the defearceof Britain against Fascist aggressiou.

Those who are only interested in the technical sideof fighting can stop reading my book at this point.But those who want victory should read this chapter.f am not here putting forward political opinions basedon my own desires and feetings; I am not puttingforward tle program,me of any political party. I donot happen to belong to any political party.- What Iam trying to outline here is a simplc and one-sidedview of politics that derives directly from militaryneeds, the needs of victory- My outline gf what Ibelieve is needed for the defence of Britain would beincornplete without it.

For success in war a country needs men, arms,food, brains, allies, and a fighting spirit. I-et us lookat what has happened about some of these things inths past few years.

We need men. For a generation this cormtry hashad between a million and three million uncmployed.Our social systan, our rules about property and ourcustoms abor.t pro,fit have been preventing thesc menfrom working. They have been kept alive. But both

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NEW WAYS OF WARphysically and morally these men have been damagedby unemployment ; they have been made less fit

-for

work and less fit for fighting than they would havebeen. Their children, many of whom are now ofmilitary age, have had too much to worry about andtoo little to eat. Unemployment is an absurdity:there are plenty of things that men need and plenty ofthings out of which men can make what they need.And unemployment is unnecessary; both ths SovietUnion and Nazi Germany have abolished it, and clearlyit is only kept in existence here because we countprofits as more important than the right to work.

During the first nine months of the present war wehave had on the average over a million still unem-ployed. The figure as I write is probably aboutthree-quarters of a million. There are still minersunemployed, while other miners are worked forexhaustingly long hours-not because this is anefficient way of getting coal, but because it is a profit-able way. Clearly it is a military need, vital io thedefence of this country, to see to it that work shouldin future be done because, and in the way that, thecountry needs that work done, not because it willincrease the income of owners or shareholders.

There is a second way in which men are wastedto-day. All ovel the country men are willing tovolunteer for working or fighting, but are kept in ineirpresent occupations because they need a wage to liveon and because volunteers are not wanted. They arekept building houses, offices and cinemas when theywant to be building fortifications. Houses, officesand cinemas are profitable. Men are kept makingsteel into [ibrary book-shelves and office furniture.The steel is needed,f,or war; the steel-workers, skill

NEW WAYS OF WARis ,eeded for war. But furniture and book-shelvesare profitable.

When the B.E.F. had to retreat from Belgium andfrom France, it had to retreat not because of th. pow",of the Fascists but because of the power of profiti. Itlacked the necessary equipment because our rearma-rnent programme had not been designed to get thatequipment; it had been designed to be profiiable tosome groups of banks and some employeis-our steeltrusts and the other great interests that provided notonly our industrial leadership when Mr. chamberlaingoverned us but our political leadership also.

Let us mention two of the weapons ihat the B.E.F.did not possess. -It had very few hand-grenarJes, andnone large enough to stop a tank. yetlhousanhs ofmillions of pounds had been spent on rearmament.Why were these grenades not made ? partly becauseof wrong military theories. But partly also becausethey are not very profltable. Any faciory can makethem; you do not have to be a very laige and im-portant firm in order to make hand-grenadei. Becausefirms outside the " rings', can make them, there is noconsiderable profit to be made from them. The pricecannot be kept up by a sort of monopoly, a ring orprice-fixing agreement. And thererore tney have b..oneglected.

Take another weapon. The Germans, as f havestated, have an all-purpose 88 mm. gun for anti-aircraft work, anti-tank work, and foi use as fieldartillery. We have no such gun; instead we havethree different types, one for each job. To producethree guns is more profitable than to produce one.It is also more costly, and you get fewef guns for thesame amount of money and labour if you are working

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NEW WAYS OF WARon three different types than if you concentrate onone type which can be " mass-produced." Because itis more profitable we made the three types, and madetoo few of them to meet the German mass-produccdfire-power.

Therefore I say that in our use of men and in ourproduction of arms we are hampered by the socialsystem that has as its basis the search for profits andthe protection of private property in the means ofproduction. In other words we are hampered bycapitalism. And what we need, in order to be strong,is a planned use of men, machines, and factories; inother words what we need is socialism.

Those reading these pages who are not socialistsmay object that I am putting forward ideas thatdivide the nation. My answer is that these ideas onlydivide the nation if the opponerrts of socialism insiston continuing to oppose, even when it is clearly seenthat capitalisrn has failed to use the men or producethe weapons---€ven when the House of Commonswith a large Tory majority is forced by the obviousnecessities of war to agree to government measures ofwar socialism more sweeping than the Labour Partyhad been advocating before war broke out. Thenation is only divided on these matters if those whobelieve in or represent the interests of private capitalismchoose to divide it.

And if they do so the people of this country wil!believe that they prefer a victory by Hitler to thesacrifice of their privileges.

This issue may be brought home very sharply to allof us if the Gerrnans succeed in establishing some sortof blockade of our islands, which reduces the amountof food that can be impor{ed. There is still good land

1lt

NEW WAYS OF WARtying idle in Britain. We have not yet won back fromthe thistles and the couch-grass some of the acres thatwere allowed to go out of cultivation during the pastflfty years.

These acres were allowed to go out of cultivationbecause of financial and economic interests; becausesome of our rulers were interested in the export trade,and some of our exports depended on countriesabroad finding in these islands a market for the foodthey produce.

And interests of these sorts, with the interests offinanciers and land-owners and traders, still hamperthe production of food in Grcat Britain. The whobmachinery set up by reoent governments to deal withagriculture was originally machinery for limitingthe output of British agriculture. Naturally, thatmachinery has not worked well when turned over tothe opposite purpose of increasing the output ofBritish agricultura

If we can produce a single ton of potatoes more bydoing so, we should abolish private property in land.If on the other hand some lesser measures would pro-duce more, let us take those measures. But let us notpretend that those interests and those sections of oursociety who have steadily ruined the actual land ofEngland, steadily betrayed it to the weeds and thevermin, are the best pcople to organise the productionof the food we need-

On men and arms and food, this conclusi,on isinescapable : that since we need socialist measures forvictory, these measures will best be carried out bysociialists. A man who really believes in a thing doesit better than the nan who regretfirlly and half-hea*edly accepts it as necessary.

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NEW WAYS OF WARIt would need several world wars to get such a peace.

And it would not last.The whole history of mankind tells us that it would

not last. All the great empires of past ages have beenoverthrown; peoples grow strong and determined toget their freedom. They fight for it.

The other way is by an agreement of free peoples.

That is the way I believe we must choose. And Ibelieve that we are in fact flghting as the front linetroops of the freedom of all peoples-or soon shall be.Those who say that this war is a war between two greatEmpires, each fighting for the right to rule andexploit other peoples without the latter's consent, arespeaking of a war that is past. They are, to be exact,speaking of Mr. Chamberlain's war. Mr. Chamber-lain lost that war. It is over. We are now engaged

on quite a different struggle, a4d it is time we woke upto that fact, and made it clear to the whole world.That we can do by a restatement of our war aims thatembodies a policy glving hope to Europe and to ourown people.

Our war aims should be stated as the freedom ofall peoples-just like that. But to make them real,we must also state that the peoples we conquered inthe past are set free. That means India, and theCrown Colonies. It means a Constituent Assemblyin India and a consultation with representativer; of thecolonies, and possibly with the U.S.A., as to thefuture of those colonies. Unless we state these free-doms that are in our power, we cannot u'ithouthypocrisy claim to be defending the freedoms of peoples

conquered by Hitler and Mussolini in recent yettrs.

We should therefore offer ourselves as allies andassociates to all nations and peoples throughout the

Lzl

NEW WAYS OF WARThe three other things that I have said are necessary

for war are brains, allies and a fighting spirit. In thearmy, and I believe also in the production of warmaterials and of food, we are not using all our bestbrains. For class reasons, because of snobbishness orbecause of " pull," men. who went to the right schoolsbut learned remarkably little at them are given posi-tions above men of ability who come from what usedto be called the lower classes. There are immenseuntouched reserves of qualified people who are cryingout for work, but can only get minor jobs or some-times no job at all. In industry there are many shopstewards who could in fact run their factories far betterthan they are in fact run by the managing directors;too many of the latter have been appointed by banksnot because these managers know the factory orindustry but because the bank will then feel safer aboutan overdraft or an advance.

The question of allies and of the fighting spirit ofour people seems to me mainly a question of our waraims. What are you in fact fighting for, reader ?

What is the aim that you share with almost all thepeople that you know ? You are fighting or readyto fight for your homes, for those you hold dear,and for your right to have a say in your owncountry. But you know this is not enough. Youraim goes beyond this: you want a world inwhich this business of world war is not going tohappen again.

There are two ways to peace that any sensible mancan see. One is a world run by one man, or onegroup of men, or one natiou. It will certainly be apeaceful world-for a time. But to get there, thevictors in Europe will have to fight America and Asia.

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NEW WAYS OF WARworld-whether now neutral or at war, whetherconquered by our own forces in the past, or colonisedby our peoples, or conquered more recently by theFascist dictatorships-in their endeavours to securetheir full rights and equatities as nations, their powerto choose and change their rulers and their ways oflife.

And we should offer opportunity to build up withus and all free men a new order of the world that willensure peace by a world-wide agreement of all peoples.We should direct this appeal in particular to tleinheritors of Garibaldi and Mazzint, of Goethe andthe great scientists of Germany.

I believe that this restatement of our aims andpolicy should be accompanied by a restatement ofhome policy, including full acceptance of the idea ofa People's War. The following four points seem tome to come under t6ir 6sading:

l. A Cmzmx's Anuy. Four million men reinforcingour present army and armed with weapons notneeded by that anny, such as the rifles thatcan be bought in many parts of the world andthe hand-grenades we can make in any garageor small workshop.

2. ARREST rHE Frrrx Coruux. Those who wantto muzzle the press and surrender to Hiflermust be arrested; those who are unable touse the forces of the people (red-tape civilservants, the Pdtain sort of generals) must beremoved.

3. A New LsADERsHrp. Mr. Chamberlain andthose who helped to build up the strength ofFascism must go from the government; the

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NEW WAYS OF WARpeople must be organised in new ways throughsome sort of committees of public safety orcouncils of action so that they can give theirshare to the new leadership.

4. THs Hour FnoNr. To help those who areremaking our industry, producers must havea wider voice in administration; the methodsof Whitehall must be abandoned or thoroughlyrevised. The government's powers must behandled by men not afraid to use them, andthe morale of the nation must be raised by aprogressive programme that embodies obviousneeds, such as the ending of unemploymentand the national use of the nation's resources.

A policy on these lines would release the energyand confirm the courage and fighting spirit of theBritish people. There is no need for us to talk heroicson this subject. The British people are stubborn andcourageous and have the will to fight. But Nazimethods of war are methods of terrorism. Theirweapons and their tactics are directed towards breakingmorale. We cannot possibly have too much stubborn-ness, too much courage and endurance and will tovictory. We may need all of these qualities that wecan summon up.

The tactics of the dive-bombers are tactics of the" war of nerves " carried to a new level. Their pro-jectiles kill few people, but the horrifying noises thatthey make can shake anyone. If we remain as weare, with much of our eagerness to fight and workcontinually thwarted, with men and women soured bythe feeling that they are not wanted, not consulted,

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NEW WAYS OF WARnot given a chance, there will be cracks in our moralewhich will deepen when the full force or tt. c.Luowar machine is turned against us. But if we have apllicy such as I hu-u: sketihed, and thaipofi.y iJ_ua"clear and alive in all of us, *. ,hull ur-o* oi, .oorut"ToI" strongly than the Germans can possibly armourtheir troops.

on this question of morare ret me add also a fewwords to those men and women wno muy-f"O1oonbe fighting, or be close to fighting, for th; fir;; time.The first taste of fire is Ortrr6irg to

-"*rVUoOV.

Your inside turns over. your tongue feels dry.Things don't seem right somehow. pl.arc take mywgrd for it; everybody feels like that. Some of theold sweats and some of the lads with swank in-ihemmay pretend that they are not afraid. But eve.ryoneis afraid the first time, and most people all the time,in battle. This fear is nothing to worry about or beashamed of. You are not a coward or u-seress br*rrr.your breath comes quick and your reft knee twitches.Ttul is_ normal, it happens to V.C.'s and D.S.O.,s.So don't worry about-it, and keep busy if V"" ar.If you can't be busy and have just to *uii, *ni.f,often happens in war,- watch your tongue and keep agr-ip on yourself, so that any speciall/loud ooi*, ".the squeal of a w-ounded man, doej not make youjump up-apd be silly. It is useful sometimes to havesome trifling phrase in your mind that you keep onsaying over to yourself while you are waiting, espetailyif yo: are a few yards away fro- the next iirr,-u, vouusually should be when in action. I remembersaying

- to myself .. why die crying ?,, you_can

probably make tgT. betier phrase thin that, or youcan turn yqur mind to someone you are fightirg ior.

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NEW WAYS OF WAROr, if you are a politician, think of Mr. Chamberlain.Be angry instead of being afraid.

A battle is always a muddle. But you can keepyour head as well as the unarmoured bowmen ofCrdcy, who destroyed the knights, hitherto invincible,who tried to ride over them. Your weapon may be atin can of explosive or a shot-gun that will only hit atfifty yards. Treasure it until you have a good chanceto kill a German. Even if you only get one, you havehelped to beat Hitler.

To teach people not to be afraid of being afraid isone of the most necessary and most neglected thingsin war. Youngsters who feel as almost all soldiersfeel during battle imagine that these feelings areabnormal, and become obsessed with the idea thatthey have a yellow streak in them. If they can bereassured on this point they will do their job well;but they will do it still better if they are inspired bythe feeling that they are fighting for something sogreat and so hopeful that it masters and lifts them up.And in this country freedom, made real in new forms,is still as powerful afid as heartening as it was in thedays when Milton wrote that liberty

" hath enfranchis'd, enlarg'd and lifted up ourapprehensions degrees above themselves. . . ."

Finally, to shape and unify us all into a people thatknows and feels not only what we are fighting butwhat we are living for, I end this book with thesuggestion that an agreement of the whole nationshould be put to the whole nation, should be put tomeetings and parades of civilians and soldiers, toevery organisation within the country and to every

125

NEW WAYS OF \ryARhousehold. And I believe that it should be put togovernments and peoples throughout the wholsworldfor their assent or for their modification. rt shouldbe put also to t!9.r. opponents of Fascism who, withremarkable stupidity-, we keep in concentration campsor shackled to their homes in Britain and the Empiie,simply because their birth or parentage make, ih"*" enemy aliens." Those refugees from the Fascismthey have struggled against who would accept thisagreement, and were vouched for by known oppbnentsof Fascism should, I hold, be sei free to work anAlght with us, becoming our most trusted allies andfinding for us new allies in the countries ruled by thedictatorships.

The form of words that I give berow is a draft thatI shall be submitting to others for criticism andamendment while this book is being printed. It mayor may not find publication elsewfere; it may orm3y no! be improved by the amendments my frilndswill make in it. But as I see it now it is somlthing atleast equally important, for the winning of this war,as arry of the things I have tried to hamrner home inprevious chapters.

We need an army revitalised and reformed; wenped support for that anny from millions of ciiizenswho can defend tlis cguntry, so ttrat parts of the armyare freed to take the initiative againsi Hitlet,s sprawl-ing empire. We need a restaterleut of oo, w*^ aimsin terms of hurman freedom, and a restatement of ourpolicy that will bring eagerness and enthusiasm toour own people and to free men everywhere. And weneed to clinch this determination of orrr, so that weno longer feel shut off from our neighbours by un_certainty of their views or lack of clearness of oui own

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NEW WAYS OF. WARviews; we need the strengfh and mlease of comrade-ship. With that aim I ptrt to you, and ask you to putto others, this:

OUR AGREEMENT

We are going to fight Fascism, and its friendswherever we flnd them, until Fascism is destroyedt\roughout the earth.

We shall do this because Fascism organises oppres-sion, delights in warfare, and lays waste homeJ andarts, sciences and the ordinary lives of men.

As soldiers, or as civilians who from now on countthemselves soldiers, we shall glve in the commondisciplined effort all our initiative and abilities,including our ability to hang on as our soldiers hungon at Calais and Dunkirk. We will stick by what-ever we find to do or are told to do, in spite ofinvasion, bombardment, wounds, hunger or whatevermay be the price of victory. We will take all thatcomes courageously; and we will not do anythingthat may endanger victory.

Knowing that science and the riches of the earthmake possible an abundance of material things for all,and trusting our fellows and ourselves to achieve thatabundance after we have won, we are willing to throweverything we now possess into the common lot, towin this fight. We will allow no personal considera-

!9rr of rights, privileges, property, income, family orfriendship to stand in our way or hamper us.

Finally we take this oath : that whatever the futuremay hold we will continue our war for liberty byevery means, open or secret, that we can use; weshall go on, stubbornly and doggedly, until we have

t27

NEW WAYS OF }VARoverthrown Fascism, with the aid of all free menand men who seek freedom anywhere across theearth.

Men of the past made our nation by conqueringtyranny; like them we shall conquer. This is ourdecision, our free choice, our agreement.

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