Remembering H.G. Wells' "The Land Ironclads"

Those who delve into the history of tank warfare are likely to learn that H.G. Wells' short story "The Land Ironclads" was an important anticipation, and even influence on, the development of the technology--Winston Churchill (and likely others besides) having remembered the story when he backed the development of the tank during World War I.

Still, I have no idea how many have actually read the story in a very long time, let alone appreciated it as more than a piece of "gadget fiction" of the Gernsbackian type. The story is not only about a tool of war but an expression of a broader understanding of modern war, as we see when we consider not the soldiers facing the oncoming "land ironclads" but the drivers of those vehicles. In modern war, Wells shows us, loudmouthed jingoism, stupid swagger and martial melodramatics ("bawling patriotism," "truculent yappings," "petty cunning," "that flapping strenuousness of the half-wit in a hurry" all too proud of its "brute" character) count for far less than the intelligent deployment of science to the ends in question--which civilized intelligence is, not incidentally, apt to sincerely, not hypocritically, find a disagreeable necessity at best when really and truly forced upon it, rather than a thing to celebrate (but all the same, do it more efficiently than the barbaric opponents who force war upon them).

A century on it can seem that many, especially among those situated in high places and with very public platforms to express their views, have yet to learn that lesson--in just one more testament of how it is not those who think as Wells did who triumphed in the battle of ideas this past century.