Calendar: 1927-1928 Page 486

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON KING'S COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY STUDIES An Inaugural Lecture delivered on Friday January 14th 1927 ON THE USES OF THE STUDY OF AVAR By Professor Sir FREDERICK MAURICE LL Camb We have consciously or unconsciously anticipated the historian and dated new era from the end of the Great War Pre-war and Post-war connote for most of us something more than change in the standard of living they mark difference of outlook upon many of the problems of life the abandonment of many ideas which had apparently become fixed Naturally enough this is particularly true of our attitude towards the cause of the change Bitter experi- ence has taught us what the generation that immediately preceded us did not realise that struggle between nations in which vital interests are involved is not merely the concern of professional soldiers sailors and airmen but affects directly every citizen and calls for the whole resources of the nation We have learned that statecraft economics the supply of raw material science and industry are factors which are of prime importance to the issue and we realise that the tendency is for the importance of the last two to increase Soldiers have long insisted that morale is of supreme importance in armies We have learned that the morale of the peoples is of even greater importance and may with the development of aircraft become the prime object of attack We have learned that the business of maintaining that morale by propaganda is highly specialised and if misapplied is apt to be highly dangerous We have learned that plans which from merely military point of view may appear good contain the germs of failure if they do not take moral considerations into account We have learned what the great nations of the Continent of Europe with their long-established system of compulsory service had understood somewhat dimly but still far more definitely than we -the true nature of modern war All these are the more general as distinct from the technical lessons which are the province of the professional Above all we have learned that war is great evil