, but it seems to
him that the "General Staff" point of view has as much claim to
consideration as any other among the many different interpretations of
history--perhaps it has more. It is not the primary aim of the general
staff to "fight," very far from it. Their primary aim is "victory" and all
the better if victory be possible without a fight. Strategy, brain-work,
intelligence, knowledge of facts--these are the chief weapons; brutal
fighting is only a last resort. It is highly important to bear that in
mind. Soldiers and engineers do not argue--they act. Germany affords the
first example of a philosophy or a society having for its main purpose the
generating of power to "do things." It seems only reasonable and
intelligent to analyse the history of the war from the engineer's point of
view, which, in this case, happens to coincide with the military point of
view. It must be clearly understood that the modern general staff, or
military, point of view has very little or nothing to do with the romance
or poetry of war. War to-day is a grim business--but "business" before all
else. It has to mobilize all the resources of a nation and generate power
to the limit of its capacity. The conduct of war to-day is a technological
affair--its methods have to be engineering methods. To crush an obstacle,
there is need of a giant hammer, and the more mass that can be given it
and the greater the force put behind it, the more deadly will be the blow.
Prior to the World War technology had not been mobilized on so vast a
scale nor confronted with a task so gigantic. Mobilized technology has
revealed and demonstrated the fact that it is possible to generate almost
unlimited power and has shown the way to do it; at the same time it has
demonstrated the measureless potency of engineering and our utter
helplessness without it. Technology is comparatively a new science; by
some it is called a "semi-science" because it deals primarily with the
application of science to practical issues. But when it became necessary
"to do things," an engineer had to be called; the general staff had to
adopt his view, and all other practices and traditions were bent to his
ideas.

I have already repeatedly pointed out that the progress of technology
proceeds according to a law like that of a rapidly increasing geometrical
progression, and I have stressed the danger of inattention to any
phenomena, force or movement that conforms to such a law. We have only