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Aviation History
1932
1932 - 1120.PDF
FLIGHT, NOVEMBER 10, 1931' promises as so many '' scraps of paper '' ? Our answer is that we are not such cynics by any means. Germany set a very bad example in 1914, but we do not believe that that example has vitiated all national honour. Sensibly framed rules of war have in the past been for the most part honourably observed by belligerents even in the Great War. In the future, too, they will be generally observed, provided that the condition " sensibly framed " is fulfilled. On that one point hangs everything. In the days of duels there were stringent and some times fantastic codes of honour, and in modern prize fighting the rules are also very stringent. Such artificial rules cannot be applied to warfare. If the Disarmament Conference of the League of Nations were to ordain, and the High Contracting Parties were to append their signatures to the Ordinance, that soldiers when fighting with bayonets must not thrust below the belt, do they imagine for one moment that such a rule would be observed? Of course they do not imagine any such thing; and equally, of course, such an ordinance would not be worth the paper on which it was written. It would be an attempt to deprive belligerents of their legiti mate rights. The last phrase may astonish our pacificists, but it ig a perfectly reasonable expression. A belligerent undoubtedly has certain rights, and agreements which attempt to deprive him of those rights will never be observed. They are so certainly ineffective that they might almost be described as bad international law. They will be as unanimously dis regarded by all belligerents from the first as was the 20 miles an hour speed limit for motor cars while it was in force. It was condemned by the common sense of the community, and unreasonable inter national laws of war will likewise be condemned. Bombing is on all fours with the example of the bayonet fighter. The bombing aeroplane is in effect only a means of extending the range of the guns. Imagine an ammunition dump or a munitions factory at the rear of an army just out of the range of the enemy's artillery. If the enemy can raise a bomber aeroplane which will destroy that dump or factory, will any General hesitate to use it? And will he be unjustified in using it? Its use is so obviously within the rights of a belligerent—rights which have been recognised through all the ages—-that no enactment of any body can possibly deprive him of those rights The enactment would merely stultify its authors. We do not wish any of our readers to imagine that we believe all international agreements can rightly or lightly be disregarded in time of war. There must be international rules governing war, and so long as they are reasonable they will be observed by all belligerents who retain any self-respect or any com mon sense. Absolutely unrestricted warfare has been contemplated by no civilised nation, and has been practised by none. Prisoners of war, for example, have their well-known rights, and cases in which those rights have not been respected have been excep tional. As yet, no nation has ever attempted to spread disease germs among the enemy's army or civil population. The worst which has been done and it is quite bad enough—has been the use of asphyxiating gas. In the Great War that gas was only used on one front. Its use was begun by the Germans at Ypres on April 22, 1915, and we believe that all the better-minded Germans now regret that action. The Allies, of course were obliged to retaliate. But there was no gas used by either side on the Turkish front or the Bulgarian front; and in the Afghan War of 1919 the British again refrained from using gas, although to have done so would have saved the lives of many soldiers. Here there is a fair chance for the exponents of qualitative disarma ment to do good work. No one can claim seriously that the use of gas is a reasonable right of a bel ligerent, and Geneva may legitimately forbid its use, in full expectation that the rule will be kept by all signatories. All chemical warfare can be treated in the same way. It should not be a difficult matter to classify bombs which are designed to destroy a civil population rather than to wreck military objec tives, and these, too, should be forbidden. Let us suppose, however, that the infatuates have their own way at Geneva and forbid the possession of all bomber aircraft, or of aircraft above some fixed size. What would be the result? No single nation would believe that the rule would be kept for one moment in war, and, therefore, everyone would have to prepare to evade the prohibition as best he could. Every attempt which ingenuity could devise would be made to design civil aeroplanes which could be converted into bombers as easily as possible. It has been suggested that a system of international inspection would defeat such attempts. The idea seems to us fantastic. No aircraft designers would submit their private designs to the view of international inspectors, which would mean foreign inspectors. Again Geneva would be attempting the impossible, and inviting defeat of its well-meaning schemes. In the second place, the cause of air transport would suffer, for the passenger machines and freight machines would not be designed with a single eye towards economic effici ency. The hybrid machines which would be the result would not be very good civil aeroplanes and would not be very good bombers. Perhaps air transport would benefit by some artificial " doping,'' for if the aircraft trade were to be kept in existence, orders would have to be found for it somehow by the Government; and probably subsidies would be paid for opening all sorts of air lines for which there was no real economic demand. We cannot imagine any one nation being more altruistic than the rest in taking these and similar steps; but the net result would be a thoroughly unhealthy condition of the air transport of the world. For Great Britain the one thing which must always be vitally necessary is to maintain her air defence organisation. We can no more believe that other nations which may in the future be our opponents will not use bombers than we can believe that we should ourselves refrain from their use. It follows, if we wish to preserve the lives of our citizens and all that makes those lives worth living, that we must on no consideration whatever permit the efficiency of our Fighting Area, of our searchlights and anti-aircraft guns, of our Corps of Observers, to fall below the very highest pitch of efficiency. On these the life of London and of our other great industrial towns depends, and we must never be so mad as to leave those centres without the best possible defence which we can provide. Politicians, who may try to deprive us of our shield, will some day or other have to pay a very heavy reckoning. That there is a real danger of that happening should be clear to all sceptics from the facts and figures put forward by Capt. Guest and Wing-Corn. James last week in a letter to the Press, which is reproduced elsewhere in this issue of FLIGHT.
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