A man may be hit by a heavy piece of lead or iron and
still survive, but an unweighable amount of lethal gas may be fatal to
him.
Most of the novelties of the war were merely extensions of what was
already known. To increase the caliber of a cannon from 38 to 42
centimeters or its range from 30 to 75 miles does indeed make necessary
a decided change in tactics, but it is not comparable to the revolution
effected by the introduction of new weapons of unprecedented power such
as airplanes, submarines, tanks, high explosives or poison gas. If any
army had been as well equipped with these in the beginning as all armies
were at the end it might easily have won the war. That is to say, if the
general staff of any of the powers had had the foresight and confidence
to develop and practise these modes of warfare on a large scale in
advance it would have been irresistible against an enemy unprepared to
meet them. But no military genius appeared on either side with
sufficient courage and imagination to work out such schemes in secret
before trying them out on a small scale in the open.
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