LEAD WORLD TO DISARMAMENT
Bliss, Major General Tasker H.
Lead World to Disarmament Building of Military Machine Was Cause of World War, Says Military Expert; Limitation Should be Placed at Once By MAJOR GENERAL TASKER H. BLISS Major General Tasker H....
...I myself, in Paris after an air raid, have heard it said how much more the Germans .would accomplish if they used toxic gas bombs in those raids...
...with an additional $50,000,-000,000 of previously accumulated material wealth destroyed and to be replaced...
...No submarines were allowed...
...We had prohibited the use of toxic gases, the ruthless use of the submarine, had restricted the use of aerial bombing and put limitations on the ruthless blockade...
...One of the things that they did—so far as I know without a dissenting protest—was to create a chemical warfare bureau, the sole function of which is to employ the genius of our chemists in devising formulae for newer and more effective methods for their use...
...And that status will grow to be so intolerable that war itself may come to be regarded as a relief...
...I mean the problem of general disarmament, or, more properly speaking, the general limitation of armaments...
...In future no nation can rely upon its preparedness unless it conducts these activities in time of peace with a view to their best employment in war...
...Finally, says the treaty, "the armed forces of Germany must not include any military or naval air forces...
...Because, if their refusal to abide by their solemn agreement in the treaty of peace forces us also to continue in the mad race for armaments, the time may come when they will have more fear of us than they have had of themselves...
...Is not that phrase pregnant with hope to every father and mother present here tonight, whose son gave his life in order that that ideal might be realized...
...The resulting conditions will be economically wasteful, and thus increase indirectly the cost of maintenance of armaments...
...death...
...Nor did any of them advocate reduction in their own for an indefinite future...
...No business man here needs more than these figures to understand the world convulsions in industrial life due to the readjustment of this labor in normal productive channels...
...All of these restrictions were violated by both sides during the war...
...But more than once during the progress of the war I have heard one and another of them say with an implied feeling of dread "How long can civilization stand this thing ?" and I think that they accept, as I do, the full import of that preamble...
...The total force proposed to be allowed for Germany was so small, in the scale of existing European armaments, that they had no fear of it so long as their own were maintained...
...And that is true everywhere...
...THE basic reason for the ruthless blockade" is not far to seek...
...To maintain these same establishments now will cost approximately double that sum, or near $7,000,000,000...
...in the production of material a large part of which was to be immediately destroyed after accomplishing its own sole purpose of destroying life and the slowly accumulated wealth of centuries, the rest of it lying idle and useless in time of peace...
...It represents the judgment, without dissent of any, of the representatives of twenty-seven nations, including the United States, and I, having part as One of the latter's commissioners in this expression of our judgment, feel that this one preamble counterbalances a good many of what you may think to be errors in the treaty...
...The author and his audience accepted without question the use in future wars of all weapons and agencies developed in the late war...
...Simple as they are I shall dwell for a moment on the essential military peace terms with Germany, inasmuch as I find the subject of my thesis in the preamble to those terms, which reads as follows: "In order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations, Germany undertakes strictly to observe the military, naval and air clauses which follow...
...Germany is compelled to limit her armament in order that the other nations may be able to do likewise...
...It is safe to say that only a little while ago every person in this audience was crying out against the inherent wickedness in the use of toxic gases, and saying that when we have won the war, that at least, is one of the things that we will have to put a stop to...
...Now we have crushed Germany that originated the evil system and we have crushed her system...
...We have cheerfully withdrawn from productive labor, year in and out, a great number of our best men and have borne the burden of constantly increasing taxation falling on the reduced productive labor...
...They confined themselves, as was their duty, to the cold-blood-ed statements of the military clauses...
...And those are mistaken who think that, so long as the present military system exists, there can be any successful international court of...
...This difference of opinion had finally to be decided by the Council of the Powers, which wisely, in my opinion, ruled in favor of the army of 100,000 men, of voluntary enlistment, and the abolition of conscription...
...Under the guise of a penalty you have bestowed upon Germany the blessing that we have longed for and we demand a share in it, too...
...So we have staring us in the face a total annual bill of about $16,000,000,000, and this only for a very small number of nations, for many others are staggering under lesser similar burdens which are all that they can bear...
...its failure of solution made such a war possible and directly brought it on...
...It becomes a war almost, if not literally, for life and...
...No new war vessels can be constructed or acquired except to replace those that are allowed...
...By the very necessities of war one side or each of them begins to put restrictions on neutrals, with a tendency, sometimes with the object of forcing them into it...
...NOTE another thing: The antagonism grow- ing out of opposing commercial interests or out of racial differences is no longer confined to any two nations...
...every child able to knit a mitten...
...It was inserted after long deliberation...
...I make no reference here to numerous clauses relating to details and methods of execution...
...And just here I wish you to carefully note that it was not the military men who wrote that preamble...
...Therefore, in all good faith and honor these nations have pledged themselves to initiate, as soon as practicable, a general limitation of armaments after Germany shall have complied with her first obligation...
...This may be done in the next war, but it must be said that not even the Germans did it in the last one...
...He approves and defends the use of bombing planes for the attack of cities, and his only criticism of such action by the Germans is to the effect that he thinks they made a mistake in using explosive instead of incendiary bombs...
...The kinds of wars which we have passed through, to be repeated if they are to continue, you know only too well...
...It is a very cup of salvation—and I say it with all reverence—offered to the lips of a longing, war-weary world...
...Had Germany and her allies belonged to such a league with such a court in 1914 they could have said, "With our preparedness we can defy the league and the decisions of the court," as they did say then, "We can defy the world...
...He assumed that the use of gas will be continued and extended and, with the approval of his audience, defends this use...
...Who can do it better than we...
...THE QUESTION was, how to protect the peace of the world from disturbance, for an indefinite time to come, by the existing military machine and military system of Germany or by any revival of it...
...Well, a short time ago an act of Congress reorganized the military establishment of the United States in...
...If, in the future, nations are to rely for their security upon their individual preparedness for war, it will not suffice if the measures taken for this are confined, as heretofore, to the training and equipment of armed forces...
...So it is natural enough that men who believed it unwise for their governments to change their present military systems should hesitate to put such an argument into the mouths of their people, which perhaps those governments could not withstand...
...Limitation Should be Placed at Once By MAJOR GENERAL TASKER H. BLISS Major General Tasker H. Bliss, recognized as our most distinguished military authority, who, at the time of his retirement by operation of law, was chief of staff of the United States Army, who as Military Representative of the United States on the Supreme War Council, was, next to President Wilson, recognized as the highest official of this nation at the Paris Peace Conference, delivered an address in Philadel-phia on December 10th last, urging the United States to lead the world in the move for disarmament...
...the farmer sows the crops that the government orders him...
...It will be interesting to note what we compelled Germany to do, as throwing light on what it was intended that all the rest of the world should do as rapidly as is practicable...
...The Peace Conference did not attempt to solve it, but in its final work there are one or two references to it couched in phrases which, to me at least, glow with the rays of a radium light, illuminating the document from within through the densest covers with which you may bind it...
...With the modern nation in arms every woman, old and young, who can knit a woolen sock for the soldier at the front...
...But the fear, guardedly expressed, was this: The common people will say "for forty years we have patiently and loyally endured a blighting military system because we believed it necessary in order to meet the menace of the German system...
...But now the war of two nations in arms is so serious that the victor feels he must leave the enemy powerless for generations to come...
...Nor does this take into account the accumulation of military material of expensive types in far greater quantities than has been deemed necessary heretofore...
...This number was not capable of mathematical demonstration...
...Why should we bear it any longer...
...To further guard this restriction, no vessel can be replaced unless it has been totally lost in the hazards of the sea or otherwise, or unless, for one class of vessels, it has been in service for twenty years, and, for the other class, for fifteen years...
...And you would have represented the average sentiment of the United States...
...His audience consisted not only of the most distinguished British military men, but of civilians of rank and influence...
...order to profit by the teachings of the war...
...Why should not the United States take the lead in a definite proposal and demand for a reasonable limitation of armaments...
...If these armaments are to be maintained you must note that the military and naval expenditures of the great powers for the year 1913 amounted in round numbers to $2,300,000,000...
...These interests bind them together in groups on each side...
...But there are others who are vitally interested in preventing it...
...It was provided that there should be only the amount of arms, ammunition and equipment necessary for the small authorized army to perform its function of maintaining internal order...
...Now you will note that when Germany affixed her signature to one side of the last page of that document twenty-seven other nations of the earth, including all the great powers, signed it on the other side...
...I recently read a lecture delivered in London by an English officer of high rank during the war on the subject of "The Possibilities of the Next War...
...But it was natural enough...
...And more than these are the millions, mostly women and children, who died as a direct result of the hardships of the war...
...arbitration...
...IT WAS unanimously agreed that the force must be reasonably sufficient to maintain internal order and too weak for external aggression...
...But, some will say, in future wars we will prohibit the things that made this one so horrible...
...It was written by the Peace Conference...
...That meant a total annual loss due to the mere maintenance of military establishments of $3,300,000,000...
...In order to complete the destruction of the military system it was provided that universal military service and training should be abolished...
...Perhaps the most striking development of the recent war was that which imposed upon each belligerent the necessity of mobilizing all its civil activities for war purposes...
...The only thing was to destroy it, root and branch, and to exact guarantees that, so far as human measures could do, would prevent its revival...
...And all of the conscripted labor thus conscripted wa3 engaged...
...The merchant deals in the goods that the government permits him...
...and, until it Is solved, other similar wars are as certain to come as the sun is to rise, with their grim threat of destruction of all modern civilization...
...Some nations may thin 'they have an interest in bringing this about for one or the other of the contestants...
...while 4,041,870 were captured or reported missing, a large part of whom were dead at the time of the armistice...
...Now I think that we have sufficient reason to apprehend that future wars, whether more infrequent or not, will come with increasing suddenness, will be of increasing magnitude and intensity, and will be an increasing menace to our civilization...
...What I have given comprises the essentials of the conditions imposed upon Germany by the unanimous judgment of the world, "in order"— to quote again those words of far-reaching meaning in the preamble which I have already read—"in order to render impossible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations...
...The status of the civilized part of the world will be literally that of an armed truce with its entire population ready for prompt mobilization, industrial as well as military...
...His discussion evidences profound statesmanship...
...The tendency has been to abolish the distinction between combatants and noncombat-ants, to treat all as soldiers, the mother rocking the cradle at home as the husband or son in the trenches...
...The remaining matters involved no difficulty...
...So there is a tendency to bring one after the other into the maelstrom until, as I have said, the war of two nations in arms becomes one of the world in arms...
...We regret that our space permits only a partial reproduction of this remarkable address, which was published in full in the Philadelphia Public Ledger of December 11th.—Editor's Note...
...Not all of them, of course, served under arms, though many millions of them did...
...But it was unanimously agreed that the number should be 200,-000 men, provided that they were to be raised by conscription with a very short term of service, and a much smaller number if they were to be long-service men under voluntary enlistment...
...The issue thus raised by differences of opinion as to short-term conscription and long-term voluntary enlistment is the very heart of the great question of the limitation of armaments...
...It antedated the world war...
...Of the number mobilized by all nations, 4,705,665 were killed outright in battle, 10,870,025 were wounded, and an unknown number of millions of these have had their lives shortened or will continue a burden upon others...
...The repetition of come figures may be of interest in focusing your attention on this phase...
...All fortifications commanding the maritime routes between the North Sea and the Baltic shall be demolished nor shall any such be hereafter erected...
...And it is to be feared that it will be as bad, ox worse, in the next, unless the good God gives us sense to at least try some plan by which another such war may be made impossible...
...When the relations of all kinds between the nations, especially the great ones, were not so close as now, when war meant generally a relatively small indemnity, with or without a relatively small loss of territory for the defeated side, other nations found it not difficult to keep out of it...
...Everyone is drafted for the war—the labor of some at the front, the labor of others at the rear in order to enable the former to stay at the front...
...Moreover, they will keep the threat of war more constantly in the minds of the people than was the case even under pre-war conditions, the result of which will be to produce national and popular tensions which will be a material factor in bringing on war...
...It may seem a curious thing that the military men of those nations that had had most reason to fear Germany should favor conscription and short service...
...If all armaments could be abolished tomorrow there would still be an annual interest bill of at least $9,000,000,000 to be paid by the belligerent nations on the debts incurred in the last war alone...
...The result is great alliances bound to stand together until changed conditions result in new alliances, because the interest of one is the interest of all...
...The central powers and the United States did, more or less, the same to the extent of many additional millions, probably doubling the above figure...
...THOSE of you are mistaken who may think that there can be an enduring and effective association of the nations for the maintenance of peace so long as those nations are armed to the teeth solely against each other...
...Naturally it has attracted world wide attention and will exercise world wide influence...
...It underlies the possibility of the existence of an association of nations (call it by what name you please) for the maintenance of international peace, and of the successful operation of an international court of justice and arbitral court...
...Whatever else we may reject, shall we reject this...
...By another Hague convention...
...To kill and wound these men it cost in money actually raised by taxation and in debts yet to be paid something like $200, 000,000,000...
...I doubt if many of you know that, for this war, the allies of Europe and Japan, and excluding the United States and the central powers, mobilized 35,-404,864 men...
...their work is commandeered andj directed by the government for the purposes of the war...
...NOW, I have said that it is just this kind of war that will be repeated, only with increasing intensity, if the present system continues...
...The economic loss due to the withdrawal from productive industry could then have been assessed at $1,000,000,000...
...On reflection it seemed to me that this small matter was closely connected with the one great problem of the age...
...Military utility will then be a large and frequently a controlling factor in determining the nature of its industries, the training of its workmen and even the use of its land for agricultural purposes...
...All war vessels not authorized must be delivered to the powers or broken up...
...IN SUBSEQUENT clauses the German navy was reduced to a force sufficient only for a coast guard, and sufficient for that, it may be remarked, only in case other navies should be similarly reduced...
...every old man who can cultivate a bushel of potatoes or wheat beyond his own needs—each of them] is a soldier...
Vol. 13 • January 1921 • No. 1
