Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights
John Stuart Mill · en
Among the recent developments is a bullet which had its origin in one of
the United States arsenals for manufacturing ammunition. This is a steel
bullet covered with lead. The effect of such a combination on the
penetrating quality of the bullet may be readily understood by anyone
who has ever tried the experiment of driving an ordinary needle into a
board through a cork. If the cork is placed on the board and the needle
pressed down through the cork until it touches the board, a powerful
blow from a hammer will force the needle into the board without
breaking. In the application of this principle to the manufacture of the
bullet, experiments proved that the soft lead acted as a guide or
sustainer which permitted the inner steel to penetrate without
deviation.
And just as these oddities of warfare have been created to meet arising
situations, others have been created to care for the sick and
injured--those who have fallen victims of the agencies of destruction.
Who ever heard of a sand sled?
Such sleds have been used effectively on the Eastern fronts to carry
wounded soldiers to the hospitals. They are long, staunchly constructed
sleds similar to those used on the farms in America for hauling plows,
cultivators and other agricultural implements across the fields which
have been furrowed.
The sleds have broad runners which do not sink into the sands and can be
drawn easily. In winter these same sleds have served to haul the wounded
and sick over miles of snow and ice on the Russian frontier.
Then, though it is not a weapon of offense, there is the tractor plow
which works at night. It is a war device to the extent that as England's
need for food has been great and constant the tractor plow has been used
to solve the problem of working the ground. On the estate of Sir Arthur
Lee, the director-general of food production in England, great
agricultural motors equipped with acetylene searchlights were kept at
work in the fields day and night.
Dogs too have been ushered into the arena. No longer may the old English
expression, "Let Slip the Dogs of War," be regarded as a mere figure of
speech. The war dogs, and particularly the animals used by the Red Cross
on the battlefields, have assumed a regular status in the armies of the
world. In the European armies are thousands of dogs which have been
trained to act as messengers or spies, or to seek out on the
battlefields the wounded. The Germans use a canine commonly known as
"Boxers." These animals are a cross between the German mastiff and the
English bulldog, and on the fields of Europe they have proved to be
"kings" among the Red Cross dogs. The animals are first taught to
distinguish between the uniforms of the soldiers of their own country
and those of the enemy. Then they learn that the principal business in
life for them is to find and aid wounded soldiers.