War and the Future

Last updated

War and the Future
WarAndTheFutureHGWells.jpg
First edition
Author H. G. Wells
Original titleWar and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War
CountryUK
LanguageEnglish
GenrePropaganda
Publisher Cassell & Company
Publication date
1917
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages285
Preceded by The Elements of Reconstruction  
Followed by God the Invisible King  

War and the Future (1917) is a work of war propaganda by H. G. Wells that was published in North America under the title Italy, France, and Britain at War (the subtitle of the British original). Wells would have preferred the title The War of Ideas, but his publisher over-ruled him. Except for the opening piece, its chapters were published as articles in the press. [1] Though proclaiming early in the volume that "I avow myself an extreme Pacifist," [2] Wells staunchly supported Britain's war against Germany "in the hope that so we and the world may be freed from the German will-to-power and all its humiliating and disgusting consequences henceforth for ever." [3]

Contents

Synopsis

War and the Future is divided into four parts.

In the first part, entitled "The Passing of the Effigy", Wells argues that "the great man of this war is the common man", [4] and sketches a portrait of General Joffre as "a single figure to stand for the finest quality of the Allies' war", on account of his "leadership without vulgar ambition...He is as it were the ordinary commonsense of men, incarnate." [5] In an account of a visit with the King of Italy, "the first king I had ever met", [6] Wells is struck by the monarch's lack of pomp and, indeed, regality.

The second part, titled "The War in Italy" (August 1916), describes the city of Udine and the mountain warfare of the Isonzo front as well as visits to Verona, Venice, and Milan.

The third part, "The Western War" (September 1916), describes visits to the Western Front near Arras and Soissons in France. Wells expresses confidence that methods of aerial dominance, combined with photography, have permitted the Allies to develop tactics that are sure ultimately to defeat Germany. Wells praises British soldiers but criticises the officer corps for its mental rigidity. [7] He emphasises that new technologies have transformed the art of war in ways that military professionals are all too slow to grasp. In particular, fighting in disciplined formations and cavalry are no longer of any military importance, while "[a]rtillery is now the most essential instrument of the war." [8] Wells describes a tour of a munitions factory given by André Citroën. [9] He devotes a chapter to tanks as "a beginning in a new phase of warfare" [10] noting that in 1903 he had described a tank in a short story ("The Land Ironclads"). [11]

War and the Future's final part is entitled "How People Think about the War" and addresses a miscellany of subjects: (1) the failure of contemporaries to grasp the nature and causes of the war; (2) the psychology of what he calls "the Yielding Pacifist" (willing to accept any sort of peace), whose origins he finds in "the Resentful Employé," and of "the Conscientious Objector," pages he later deeply regretted; [12] [13] (3) the effect of the war on religious thought; (4) French and Italian doubts about the British; (5) the effect of the war on future labour relations; (6) the prospects for ending the war. On the last subject, Wells saw a possibility of victory in 1917, but allowed that "the war, universally detested, may go on into 1918 or 1919." [14] Wells said that "America should ultimately undertake the responsibility of a world peace settlement." [15]

Background

Wells was a reluctant propagandist, as he states in the volume's early pages. Government censors attempted to excise his criticism of British military officers, but Wells ignored their excisions. He told his publisher his text had been approved, and told censors that he lost their revised proofs, though in fact he had burned them. [16]

Wells sailed for France on 8 Aug 1916. He visited the French front at Soissons, then went to Udine via Venice. He returned to France via Verona and Milan, visiting Arras, Dompierre, Fricourt, and Albert. [17]

Reception

The articles that are the basis of War and the Future were widely read, and the volume sold well. [18]

Related Research Articles

H. G. Wells English writer (1866–1946)

Herbert George Wells was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography, and autobiography. Wells' science fiction novels are so well regarded that he has been called the "father of science fiction".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of the Somme</span> WWI battle pitting France and Britain against Germany

The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in all of human history.

<i>The Open Conspiracy</i>

The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution was published in 1928 by H. G. Wells, when he was 62 years old. It was revised and expanded in 1930 with the additional subtitle A Second Version of This Faith of a Modern Man Made More Explicit and Plain. In 1931 a further revised edition appeared titled What Are We to Do with Our Lives?. A final version appeared in 1933 under its original title. Many of its ideas are anticipated in Wells's 1926 novel The World of William Clissold.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindenburg Line</span> Defensive fortification in World War I

The Hindenburg Line was a German defensive position built during the winter of 1916–1917 on the Western Front in France during the First World War. The line ran from Arras to Laffaux, near Soissons on the Aisne. In 1916, the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme left the German western armies exhausted and on the Eastern Front, the Brusilov Offensive had inflicted huge losses on the Austro-Hungarian armies and forced the Germans to take over more of the front. The declaration of war by Romania had placed additional strain on the German army and war economy.

<i>Tono-Bungay</i> 1909 novel by H. G. Wells

Tono-Bungay is a realist semiautobiographical novel written by H. G. Wells and first published in book form in 1909. It has been called "arguably his most artistic book". It had been serialised before book publication, both in the United States, in The Popular Magazine, beginning in the issue of September 1908, and in Britain, in The English Review, beginning in the magazine's first issue in December 1908.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Land Ironclads</span> Short story by H. G. Wells

"The Land Ironclads" is a short story by British writer H. G. Wells, which originally appeared in the December 1903 issue of the Strand Magazine. It features tank-like "land ironclads," 80-to-100-foot-long armoured fighting vehicles that carry riflemen, engineers, and a captain, and are armed with semi-automatic rifles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Nivelle</span> French artillery general officer

Robert Georges Nivelle was a French artillery general officer who served in the Boxer Rebellion and the First World War. In May 1916, he succeeded Philippe Pétain as commander of the French Second Army in the Battle of Verdun, leading counter-offensives that rolled back the German forces in late 1916. During these actions he and General Charles Mangin were accused of wasting French lives. He gives his name to the Nivelle Offensive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Opposition to World War I</span> Part of the anti-war movement

Opposition to World War I was widespread during the conflict and included socialists, anarchists, syndicalists and Marxists as well as Christian pacifists, anti-colonial nationalists, feminists, intellectuals, and the working class.

The Tenth Army was a Field army of the French Army during World War I and World War II.

Edward Ingram Watkin was an English Catholic philosopher, pacifist and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allied leaders of World War I</span>

The Allied leaders of World War I were the political and military figures that fought for or supported the Allied Powers during World War I.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Alberich</span> German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, 1917

Operation Alberich was the code name of a German military operation in France during the First World War. Two salients had been formed during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 between Arras and Saint-Quentin and from Saint-Quentin to Noyon. Alberich was planned as a strategic withdrawal to new positions on the shorter and more easily defended Hindenburg Line. General Erich Ludendorff was reluctant to order the withdrawal and hesitated until the last moment.

<i>Mr. Britling Sees It Through</i> Book by Herbert George Wells

Mr. Britling Sees It Through is H.G. Wells's "masterpiece of the wartime experience in south eastern England." The novel was published in September 1916.

<i>The Soul of a Bishop</i>

The Soul of a Bishop is a 1917 novel by H. G. Wells.

<i>Meanwhile</i> (novel) 1927 novel by H. G. Wells

Meanwhile is a 1927 novel by H. G. Wells set in an Italian villa early in 1926.

The New Machiavelli is a 1911 novel by H. G. Wells that was serialised in The English Review in 1910. Because its plot notoriously derived from Wells's affair with Amber Reeves and satirised Beatrice and Sidney Webb, it was "the literary scandal of its day".

God the Invisible King is a theological tract published by H. G. Wells in 1917.

<i>A Year of Prophesying</i>

A Year of Prophesying collects 55 newspaper columns written by H. G. Wells in 1923 and 1924.

<i>The Holy Terror</i> (Wells novel) 1939 novel by H. G. Wells

The Holy Terror is a 1939 work by H. G. Wells that is in part an analysis of fascism and in part a utopian novel.

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was a prolific English writer in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, and social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. Wells called his political views socialist.

References

  1. ↑ David C. Smith, H. G. Wells: Desperately Mortal: A Biography (Yale University Press, 1986), p. 547 n. 25.
  2. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 8.
  3. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 143.
  4. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 13.
  5. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 14.
  6. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 25.
  7. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 113.
  8. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 132.
  9. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), pp. 134–39.
  10. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 160.
  11. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 153.
  12. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), pp. 184–99
  13. ↑ Vincent Brome, H. G. Wells: A Biography (Longmans, Green, 1951), p. 155.
  14. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 258.
  15. ↑ H. G. Wells, Italy, France, and Britain at War (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 267.
  16. ↑ Vincent Brome, H. G. Wells: A Biography (Longmans, Green, 1951), p. 157.
  17. ↑ Michael Sherborne, H. G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010), p. 233.
  18. ↑ David C. Smith, H. G. Wells: Desperately Mortal: A Biography (Yale University Press, 1986), p. 229.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.