original observations; they have been put to me and they have convinced
me. Except perhaps as a parent of transport mules I see no further part
henceforth for the horse to play in war.


6

The form and texture of the coming warfare--if there is still warfare
to come--are not yet to be seen in their completeness upon the modern
battlefield. One swallow does not make a summer, nor a handful of
aeroplanes, a "Tank" or so, a few acres of shell craters, and a village
here and there, pounded out of recognition, do more than foreshadow
the spectacle of modernised war on land. War by these developments has
become the monopoly of the five great industrial powers; it is their
alternative to end or evolve it, and if they continue to disagree, then
it must needs become a spectacle of majestic horror such as no man
can yet conceive. It has been wise of Mr. Pennell therefore, who has
recently been drawing his impressions of the war upon stone, to make
his pictures not upon the battlefield, but among the huge industrial
apparatus that is thrusting behind and thrusting up through the war of
the gentlemen in spurs. He gives us the splendours and immensities of
forge and gun pit, furnace and mine shaft. He shows you how great they
are and how terrible. Among them go the little figures of men, robbed of
all dominance, robbed of all individual quality. He leaves it for you to
draw the obvious conclusion that presently, if we cannot contrive to
put an end to war, blacknessess like these, enormities and flares
and towering threats, will follow in the track of the Tanks and come
trampling over the bickering confusion of mankind.

There is something very striking in these insignificant and incidental