State Library of NSW
[Page 261]
The picture also scatters to the winds the teachings of military experts of recent years, who never tired of reiterating "Never more will there be close or hand to hand fighting, because the power & precission of weapons of destruction has been made so great that nothing living can cross the zone whereon bullets can be rained. Alas for the falability of man, these experts knew not to what extent engineers would, when necessary, extend their works, they did not perceive that men could imitate rabbits and dig themselves onwards protected by the surrounding earth. An exhibition of how limited is the prescience of those who think themselves, and who are thought by others to be, possessed of enough knowledge to see ahead & warn as to what may happen. There was plenty of forearranged examples in litterature, which, had they known would have given them guidance as to what men might do. For example in the first paragraph of Shakespeare's King Henry IV. Part I, the King is made to say of England:/"No more the thirsty entrance of this soil,Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood:No more shall trenching war channel her fields,Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofsOf hostile paces: …"[Scene 1, lines 5 to 9.]Written about the year 1599 A.D.
Another interesting page to me, was that numbered 340. "Germany's submarine fleet: Its strength and its weakness" by A.H. Pollen." Herein is writ down information that I desired to set my mind thinking in some ordered train upon
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