War and the Future, de H.G. Wells

Is a classic World War I story that focuses on Italy, France, and Britain in the Great War.

This book is a piece of war propaganda by H.G. Wells which was published in North America under the title Italy, France and Great Britain at War (the subtitle of the British original).

With the exception of the opening piece, its chapters were published as articles in the press.

Although he proclaimed at the beginning of the volume that "I declare myself an extreme pacifist", Wells strongly supported Britain's war against Germany "in the hope that thus we and the world can get rid of the German will to power and all". its humiliating and disgusting consequences from now on forever.

War and the future is divided into four parts. In the first part, titled "The Death of the Effigy", Wells argues that "the great man in this war is the common man", sketching a portrait of General Joffre as "a single figure who represents the best quality of warfare." ally", due to his "leadership without vulgar ambitions... It is as if it were the ordinary common sense of men, incarnate." In an account of a visit to the King of Italy, "the first king I ever knew", Wells is impressed by the monarch's lack of pomp and regality.

The second part, entitled "The War in Italy" (August 1916), describes the city of Udine and the mountain warfare, as well as a visit 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 his confidence that aerial dominance methods, combined with photography, have allowed the Allies to develop tactics that will surely defeat Germany.

Wells praises the British soldiers but criticizes the officer corps for its rigidity of mind. He emphasizes that new technologies have transformed the art of warfare in ways that military professionals are too slow to comprehend. In particular, fighting in disciplined formations and cavalry are no longer of military importance, while "artillery is now the most essential instrument of war." Wells describes a tour of a munitions factory given by André Citroën. He devotes a chapter to tanks as "the beginning of a new phase of warfare" and notes that in 1903 he had described a tank in a short story ("The Land Ironclads").

The final part of War and the Future is entitled "How People Think About War" and addresses a variety of topics:

- The inability of contemporaries to understand the nature and causes of war;

-The psychology of what he calls "the profitable pacifist" (willing to accept any kind of peace), origins that he finds in "the resentful employee", and the "conscientious objector"

-The effect of war on religious thought;

-French and Italian doubts about the British;

-The effect of the war on future labour relations;

-The prospects of ending the war. On the latter issue, Wells saw a chance for victory in 1917, but conceded that "the universally detested war may continue until 1918 or 1919."

Wells said that "the United States should finally take responsibility for a world peace agreement.

In general, it is a slow book, but with an interesting vision of the war from the ideological point of view of the English Empire.