Twentieth Century Inventions Part 9

WARFARE.

The last notable war of the nineteenth century has falsified the antic.i.p.ations of nearly all the makers of small arms. The magazine rifle was held to be so perfect in its trajectory, and in the rapidity with which it could discharge its convenient store of cartridges in succession, that the bayonet charge had been put outside of the region of possibility in warfare. Those who reasoned thus were forgetting, to a large extent, that while small arms have been improving so also has artillery, and that a bayonet charge covered by a demoralising fire of field-pieces, mortars, and quick-firing artillery is a very different thing from one in which the a.s.sailants alone are the targets exposed to fire. Given that two opposing armies are possessed of weapons of about equal capacity for striking from a distance, they may do one another a great deal of harm without coming to close quarters at all.

Yet victory will rest with the men who have sufficient bravery, skill and ingenuity to cross the fire-zone and tackle their enemies hand to hand.

Smoke-producing sh.e.l.ls and other forms of projected cover, designed to mask the advance of cavalry and infantry, will greatly a.s.sist in the work of rendering this task of crossing the fire-zone less dangerous, notwithstanding any possible improvement that may be effected in the magazine-rifle. Already it has been observed that much of the surprise and confusion which terrifies those who have no bayonets, when subjected to a cannonade and at the same time brought face to face with a bayonet charge, arises from the fact that they cannot see to shoot straight, owing to the haze produced by the smoke and its blinding effects upon the eyes.

Special smoke-producing sh.e.l.ls, made for the express purpose of covering a charge, will soon be evolved from the laboratory of the chemist in pursuance of this clue. In addition to sh.e.l.ls and other missiles, small pieces of steel-piping will be projected by mortars into the fire-swept zone, in order to supplement the defects of natural cover which, of course, are nearly always as great as possible, seeing that the ground has generally been selected by the side against which the attack is being directed.

The task of enabling a rifleman to shoot straight has been taken up with extraordinary zeal and ability compared with the amount of skill and effort devoted to the corresponding or opposing object of spoiling his aim and preventing him from getting a shot in. When this latter has been to some extent accomplished, mainly by the agency of artillery, the bayonet and other weapons for use at close quarters will once more be in the ascendant. Thin shields of hard steel will be affixed to the rifles of the attacking party, so as to deflect the bullets wherever possible.

This baffling of the rifleman by the artillery supporting the cavalry and bayonet charge will produce momentous changes, not only in the future of war, but also in that of international relations. Anything which tends to discount the value of personal bravery and to elevate the tactics of the ambuscade and the sharp-shooting expedition gives, _pro tanto_, an advantage to the meaner-spirited races of mankind, and places them more or less in a position of mastery over those who hold higher racial traditions. The man who will face the risk of being shot in the open generally belongs to a higher type of humanity than he who only shoots from behind cover.

Moreover, the nations which have the skill and ingenuity to manufacture new weapons of self-defence belong to a higher cla.s.s than those which only acquire advanced warlike munitions by purchase. One of the early international movements of the twentieth century will be directed towards the prohibition of the sale of such weapons as magazine-rifles, quick-firing field guns, and torpedoes to any savage or barbarous race. It will be accounted as treason to civilisation for any member of the international family to permit its manufacturers to sell the latest patterns of weapons to races whose ascendency might possibly become a menace to civilisation. As factors in determining the survival of the fittest, the elements of high character, bravery, and intellectual development must be conserved in their maximum efficiency at all hazards.

Another potent element in the safeguards of civilisation may be seen in the increased effectiveness of weapons for coastal defence. The hideous nightmare of a barbarian irruption, such as those which almost erased culture and intellect from the face of Europe during the dark ages of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, may occasionally be seen exercising its influence in the pessimistic writings which are from time to time issued from the Press predicting the coming ascendency of the yellow man.

However the case may be in regard to nations which are accessible by land to the encroachments of the Asiatic, there is no doubt that those countries which are divided off by the sea have been rendered much more secure through the rapid advances which have been made in the modern appliances for defending coasts and harbours. In naval tactics, also, it will be more and more clearly seen that to possess and defend the harbours where coaling can be carried out is practically to possess and defend the trade of the high seas; and the essence of good maritime policy will be to so locate the defended harbours that they may afford the greatest amount of protection, having in view the harm that may be done by an enemy's harbours in the vicinity.

The most effective naval weapon in the future will undoubtedly be the torpedo, but, like the bayonet, it requires to be in the hands of brave men before its value as the ultimate arbiter of naval conflict can be demonstrated. Much fallacious teaching has arisen from what has been called the lessons of certain naval wars which occurred on the coasts of South America and China--international embroilments in which mercenaries, or only half-trained seamen and engineers, were engaged.

On similar fallacious grounds it was argued that the magazine-rifle had put the bayonet out of the court of military arbitrament, and the South African war has proved conclusively how erroneous was that idea.

The use of the torpedo-boat and of the weapons which it carries must always demand, like that of the bayonet, men of the strongest nerve, and of the greatest devotion to their duty and to their country.

Fifty miles an hour is a rate which is already in sight as the speed of the future torpedo-boat, the first turbine steamer of the British Navy having achieved forty-three miles an hour before the end of the nineteenth century. It should be distinctly understood, however, that such a speed cannot be kept up for any great length of time and that long voyages are out of the question. The role of the turbine torpedo-boat will be to "get home" with its weapon in the shortest practicable time. Hence its great value for the defence of harbours by striking at distances of perhaps two or three hours' steaming.

On the high seas the battle-ships, which will virtually be the cruisers of the future, will be provided with turbine torpedo-boats, carried slung in convenient positions and ready at short notice to be let slip like greyhounds. During the hazardous run of the torpedo-boat towards the enemy, various devices will be employed for the purpose of baffling his aim, such for instance as the emission of volumes of smoke from the bows and the erection of broad network blinds covering the sight of the little craft, but capable of being shifted from side to side, so that the enemy's marksmen may never know exactly what part of the object in sight is to be aimed at. The torpedo will be carried on a mast, which at the right moment can be lowered to form a projecting spar like a bowsprit; and the explosion that will take place on its impact with the enemy's hull will be enough to blow a fatal breach in any warship afloat.

For harbour defence and the safety of the battle-ship the wire-guided and propelled torpedo will form a second line behind the fast torpedo-boat. This type of weapon strikes with more unerring accuracy than any other yet included in the armoury of naval warfare, because it is under the control of the marksman from the time of its launching until it fulfils its deadly mission. Its range, of course, is strictly limited; but it may be worked to advantage within the distances at which the best naval artillery can be depended upon to make good practice.

The least costly and the lightest form is that in which the backward pulling of two wires, unwinding two drums on the torpedo, actuates two screws at greater or less speeds according to the rapidity of the motion imparted, any advantage of speed in one screw over the other being responded to by an alteration in the direction taken by the weapon. The torpedo may be set so as to dive from the surface at any desired interval; but, of course, an appearance in the form of at least a flash is necessary to enable the operator to judge in what direction he is sending his missile. Small torpedo-boats, not manned but sticking to the surface, may be used in the same manner. Each one no doubt runs a very great risk of being hit by shot or sh.e.l.l aimed at them; but out of half a dozen, discharged at short intervals, it would be practically impossible for an enemy to make certain that one at least did not find its billet.

The submarine boat will have some useful applications in peace; but its range of utility in warfare is likely to be very limited. It is hopeless to expect the eyes of sailors to see any great distance under the water; therefore the descent must be made within sight of the enemy, who has only to surround himself with placed contact-torpedoes hanging to a depth, and to pollute the water in order to render the a.s.sault an absolutely desperate enterprise.

Military aeronautics, like submarine operations in naval warfare, have been somewhat overrated. Visions of air-ships hovering over a doomed city and devastating it with missiles dropped from above are mere fairy tales. Indeed the whole subject of aeronautics as an element in future human progress has excited far more attention than its intrinsic merits deserve.

A balloon is at the mercy of the wind and must remain so, while a true flying machine, which supports itself in the air by the operation of fans or similar devices, may be interesting as a toy, but cannot have much economical importance for the future. When man has the solid earth upon which to conduct his traffic, without the necessity of overcoming the force of gravitation by costly power, he would be foolish in the extreme to attempt to abandon the advantage which this gives him, and to commit himself to such an element as the air, in which the power required to lift himself and his goods would be immeasurably greater than that needed to transport them from place to place.

The amount of misdirected ingenuity that has been expended on these two problems of submarine and aerial navigation during the nineteenth century will offer one of the most curious and interesting studies to the future historian of technological progress. Unfortunately that faculty of the constructive imagination upon which inventive talent depends may too frequently be indulged by its possessor without any serious reference to the question of utility. Fancy paints a picture in which the inventor appears disporting himself at unheard-of depths below the surface of the sea or at extraordinary heights above the level of the land, while his friends, his rivals, and all manner of men and women besides, gaze with amazement! Patent agents are only too well aware how often an inordinate desire for self-glorification goes along with real inventive talent, and how many of the brotherhood of inventors make light of the losses which may be inflicted upon trusting investors so long as they themselves may get well talked about.

Nations may at times be infected with this unpractical vainglory of inventiveness; and on these occasions there is need of all the restraining influence of the hard-headed business man to prevent the waste of enormous sums of money. The idea that military ascendency in the future is to be secured by the ability to fly through the air and to dive for long distances under the water has taken possession of certain sections in France, Germany, Russia, Great Britain and the United States. Large numbers of voluble "Boulevardiers" in Paris have, during the last years of the nineteenth century, made it an article of their patriotic faith that the future success of the French navy depends upon the submarine boat. The question as to what an enemy would do with such a boat in actual warfare seems hardly ever to occur to them; and, indeed, any one who should venture to put such a query would run the risk of being set down as a traitor to his country!

More important to the student of the practical details of naval preparation is the great question as to the point at which the contest between shot and armour will be brought to a standstill. That it cannot proceed indefinitely may be confidently taken for granted. The plate-makers thicken their armour while the gun-makers enlarge the size and increase the penetrative power of their weapons, until the weight that has to be carried on a battle-ship renders the attainment of speed practically impossible.

Meanwhile there is going forward, in the hull of the vessel itself, a gradual course of evolution which will eventually place the policy of increasing strength of armour and of guns at a discount. The division of the air-s.p.a.ce of a warship into water-tight compartments will doubtless prove to be, in actual naval conflict, a more effectual means of keeping the vessel afloat than the indefinite increase in the thickness and consequent weight of her armour.

The most advanced naval architects of modern times are bestowing more and more attention upon this feature, as affording a prospect of rendering ships unsinkable, whether through accidents or through injury in warfare. No doubt, for merchant steamers, it will be seen that development along the lines already laid down in this department will suffice for all practical purposes. The water-tight bulkheads, with readily closed or automatically shutting doorways, ensure the maintenance of buoyancy in case of any ordinary accident from collision or grounding, while the duplication of engines, shafts and propellers--without which no steamship of the middle twentieth century will be pa.s.sed by marine surveyors as fit for carrying pa.s.sengers on long ocean voyages--will make provision against all excepting the most extremely improbable mishaps to the machinery.

If the numerical estimate of the chance of the disablement of a single engine and its propeller during a certain voyage be stated at one to a thousand, then the risk of helplessness through the break down of both systems in a vessel having twin screws and entirely separate engines will be represented by the proportion of one to a million.

This mode of reckoning, of course, a.s.sumes that the two systems could be made absolutely independent in relation to all possible disasters; and some deduction must be made on account of the impossibility of attaining this ideal. Yet it is evident that when every practicable device has been adopted for rendering a double accident improbable the chances against such a disaster will not be far from the proportion stated.

When we come to consider the evolution of the warship as compared with that of the merchant steamer, we are at once confronted with the fact that the infliction of injury upon the boilers, the engine, or the propellers of a hostile vessel is the great object aimed at by the gunners. The evolution of the warship in the direction of ensuring safety, therefore, will not stop at the duplication of the engines, boilers and propellers. In fact it must sooner or later be apparent that the interests of a great naval power demand the working out of a type of warlike craft that shall be almost entirely dest.i.tute of armour, but constructed on such a principle--both as to hull and machinery--that she can be raked fore and aft, and shot through in all directions without becoming either water-logged or deprived of her motive power.

A torpedo-boat built on this system may consist essentially of a series of steel tubes of large section grouped longitudinally, and divided into compartments like those of a bamboo cane. Each of these has its own small but powerful boilers and engines, and each its separate propeller at the stern. Care also is taken to place the machinery of each tube in such a position that no two are abreast. In fact, the principle of construction is such as to render just as remote as may be the possibility of any shot pa.s.sing through the vessel and disabling two at the same time.

If a boat of this description has each tube furnished not only with a separate screw at the stern, but also with a torpedo at the bows, it can offer a most serious menace to even the most powerful battle-ship afloat, because its power of "getting home" with a missile depends not upon its protective precautions, but upon an appeal to the law of averages, which makes it practically impossible for any gunners, however skilful, to disable all its independent sections during the run from long range to torpedo-striking distance. The attacked warship is like an animal exposed to the onslaught of one of those fabled reptiles possessing a separate life and a separate sting in each of its myriad sections; so that what would be a mortal injury to a creature having its vital organs concentrated in one spot produces only the most limited effect in diminishing its strength and powers of offence.

Or this cla.s.s of naval fighter may be regarded as a combined fleet of small torpedo-boats, bound together for mutual purposes of offence and defence. Singly, they would present defects of coal-carrying capacity, sea-going qualities, and accommodation for crew which would render them comparatively helpless and innocuous; but in combination they possess all the travelling capacities of a large warship, conjoined with the deadly powers at close quarters of a number of torpedo boats, all acting closely in concert upon a single plan.

The chief naval lesson taught during the Spanish-American War was the need for improving the sea-going qualities of the torpedo-boat before it can be regarded as a truly effective weapon in naval warfare. It was announced at one stage that if the Spanish torpedo-boat fleet could have been coaled and re-coaled at the Azores, and two or three other points on the pa.s.sage across to America, it might have been brought within striking distance of the United States cruisers operating against Santiago. This hypothetical statement provided but cold comfort for the Spaniards, who had been persuaded to put so much of their available naval strength into a type of craft utterly unsuited for operations complying with the first great requirement of naval warfare, namely, that the proper limit of the campaign coincides with the sh.o.r.es of the enemy's country.

But when the naval architect and the engineer have evolved a cla.s.s of torpedo-using vessel which can both travel far and strike hard, and which, moreover, can stand a few well-directed shots penetrating her without succ.u.mbing to their effect, a new era will have been opened up in naval warfare--an era of high explosive weapons requiring to strike home with dash and bravery in spite of risk from shot and sh.e.l.l; but, like the bayonet on land, capable of overthrowing all war-machines which can only strike from a considerable distance.

CHAPTER XII.

MUSIC.

A perfect _sostenuto_ piano has been the dream of many a musician whose ardent desire it was to perform his music exactly as it was written. A sustained piano note is, indeed, the great mechanical desideratum for the music of the future. In music, as at present written and published for the piano, which is, and must continue to be, the real "King of Instruments," there is a good deal of make-believe. A long note--or two notes tied in a certain method--is intended to be played as a continued sound, like the note of an organ; whereas there is no piano in existence which will produce anything even approximately approaching to that effect. The characteristic of the piano as an instrument is _percussion_, producing, at the moment of striking the note, a loud sound which almost immediately dies away and leaves but a faint vibration.

The phonographic record of a pianoforte solo shows this very clearly to the eye, because the impression made by a long note is a deeply-marked indentation succeeded by the merest shallow scratch--not unlike the impression made by a tadpole on mud--with a big head and an attenuated body. Every note marked long in pianoforte music is therefore essentially a _sforzando_ followed by a rapid _diminuendo_. Anything in such music marked as a long note to be sustained _crescendo_--the most thrilling effect of orchestral, choral, and organ music--is necessarily a sham and a delusion.

The genius and skill which have enabled the masters of pianoforte composition not only to cover up this defect in their instrument, but even to make amends for it, by working out effects only suitable for a percussion note, present one of the most remarkable features of musical progress in the nineteenth century. So notable is that fact in its relation to the pianoforte accompaniments of vocal music, that it seems open to question whether, even in the presence of a thoroughly satisfactory _sostenuto_ piano, much use would for many years be made of it for this particular purpose. The effects of repeated notes succeeding one another with increasing or decreasing force, and of _arpeggio_ pa.s.sages, have been so fully explored and made available in standard music of every grade, that necessarily the public taste has set itself to appreciate the pianoforte solo and the accompanied song exactly as they are written and performed. These are, after all, the highest forms of music which civilisation has yet enabled one or two performers to produce.

Yet, in regard to solo instrumentalisation, there is no doubt that a general hope exists for the discovery of a compromise between the piano and the organ or between the piano and the string band. Some inventors have aimed in the latter direction and others in the former; but no one has succeeded in really recommending his ideas to the public. Combined piano-violins and piano-organs have been shown at each of the great Exhibitions from the middle of the nineteenth century to its close. Several of these instruments have been devised and constructed with great ingenuity; and yet practically all of them have been received by the musical profession either with indifference or with positive ridicule.

The fact is that revolutionary sudden changes in musical instruments are rendered impossible owing to the near relationship which exists between each instrument and the general body of the music that is written for it. No one can divorce the two, which, as a factor in aesthetic progress, are really one and indivisible. Therefore, if any man invents a musical instrument which requires for its success the sudden evolution of a new race of composers writing for it, and a new type of educated public taste to hail these composers with delight, he is asking for a miracle and he will be disappointed.

What is wanted is not a new instrument, but an improved piano that shall at one and the same time correct, to some extent, the defects of the existing instrument, and leave still available all the brilliant effects which have been invented for it by a generation of musical geniuses. We want the sustained note, and yet we do not wish to lose the pretty turns and graceful devices by which the lack of it has been hidden, or atoned for, in the works of the masters. Therefore our sustained note must not be too aggressive. For a long time, indeed, it must partake of the very defects which it is intended ultimately to abolish.

In other words, we want to retain the percussion note with the dampers and with the loud and soft pedals, in fact, all the existing inventions for coaxing some of the notes to sustain themselves while others are cut short, as may be desired, and at the same time we have to add other and more effective means to a.s.sist the performer in achieving the same object.

The more or less complicated methods aiming at the prolongation of the residual effect of the percussion have apparently been very nearly exhausted. Some of the most modern pianos are really marvels of mechanical ingenuity applied to this purpose. We have now to look to something slightly resembling the principle of the violin or of the organ, in order to secure the additional _sostenuto_ effect for which we are searching. Having to deal with a piano in practically its existing form, we obviously require to take special account of the fact that the note is begun by percussion, and that any attempt to bring a solid substance into contact with the wire while still vibrating, with the object of continuing its motion, is likely to produce more or less of a jarring effect.

The air-blast type of note-continuer for _sostenuto_ effect therefore offers the most promising outlook for the improvement of the modern piano in the direction indicated. By directing a blast of air from a very thin nozzle on to the vibrating wire of a piano, the sound emitted may be very greatly intensified; and although naturally the decreasing amplitude of the vibration may in itself tend to create a _diminuendo_, yet it is possible to make up for this in some degree by causing the air-blast to increase in force, through the use of any suitable means, modified by an extra pedal as may be desired.

Delicate _pianissimo_ effects, somewhat resembling those of the Eolian lyre, are produced by playing the notes with the air-blast alone, without the aid of percussion. But the louder _sostenuto_ notes depend upon the added atmospheric resistance offered by a strong current of air to those movements of the wire which have been originally set up by percussion, and the fact that this resistance gives rise to a corresponding continuance of the motion. The prolongation of a note in this way is a.n.a.logous to the continual swinging of an elastic switch in a stream of water, the current by its force producing a rhythmic movement.

When these Eolian effects, as applied to the pianoforte, have been carefully studied, many devices for controlling them will be brought forward. The main purpose, however, must be to connect the air-blast with the percussion apparatus in such a manner that, as soon as a key is depressed, the nozzle of that particular note in the air-blast is opened exactly at the same time that the wire is struck by the hammer, and it remains open as long as the note is held down. The movement of an extra pedal, however, has the effect of throwing the whole of the air-blast apparatus out of gear and reducing the piano to a percussion instrument, pure and simple.

It will be on the concert platform, no doubt, that this kind of improvement will find its first field of usefulness. Performers will require, in addition to their grand pianos, reservoirs of compressed air attachable by tubes to their instruments. In private houses hydraulic air-compressors will be found more convenient. When the piano has by some such means acquired the faculty of _singing_ its notes, as well as of _ringing_ them, its ascendency, as the finest instrument adapted to solo instrumentalism, will be a.s.sured.

The common domestic piano is rightly regarded by many people as being little better than an instrument of torture. One reason for this aversion is that, in the great majority of cases, the household instrument is not kept in tune. Probably it is not too much to say that the man who would invent a sound cottage piano which would remain in tune would do more for the improvement of the national taste in music than the largest and finest orchestra ever a.s.sembled. The constantly vitiated sense of hearing, which is brought about by the continual jangle of notes just a fractional part of a tone out of tune, is responsible for much of the distaste for good music which prevails among the people. When the domestic instrument is but imperfectly tuned, it is natural that those pieces should be preferred which suffer least by reason of the imperfection, and these, it need hardly be remarked, generally belong to the cla.s.s of music which must be rated as essentially inferior, if not vulgar.

The device of winding a string round a peg and twisting it up on the latter in order to obtain tension for a vibrating note is thousands of years old. It was the method by which tension was imparted to some of the earliest harps and lyres of which history is cognisant; and it is still to be found to-day in the most elaborate and costly grand piano, with but few alterations affecting its principle of action. The pianoforte of the future will be kept in tune by more exact and scientific methods, attaining a certain balance between the thickness of the wire and the tension placed upon it by means of springs and weights.

Besides the ravages of the badly-tuned piano, much suffering is inflicted by the barbarous habit of permitting a sounding instrument to be used for mere mechanical exercises. The taste of the pupil is vitiated, and the nerves of other inmates of the house are subjected to a source of constant irritation when long series of notes, arranged merely as muscular exercises, and some of them violating almost every rule of musical form, are ground out hour after hour like coffee from a coffee-mill. The inconsistency of subjecting the musical ear and taste of a boy or girl to this process, and then expecting the child to develop an innate taste for the delicacies of form in melody and of the beauty of harmony, is almost as bad as would be that of asking a Chinese victim of foot-binding to walk easily and gracefully.