Speed is the hope of the West; it is speed that supports the armies' morale. What "makes war convenient" is transportation, and the armored car, able to go over every kind of terrain, erases the obstacles. With it, earth no longer exists. Rather than caling it an "all terrain" <sub>vehicle,</sub> <sub>they</sub> <sub>should</sub> <sub>call</sub> <sub>it</sub> <sub>"sans</sub> <sub>t</sub>er<sub>ain</sub>"-<sub>it</sub> <sub>climbs</sub> <sub>embankments,</sub> runs over trees, paddles through the mud, rips out shrubs and pieces of wall on its way, breaks down doors. It escapes the old linear trajectory of the road or the railway. It ofers a whole new geometry to speed, to violence. It is already no longer simply an auto-mobile, but also · a projectile and launcher, while waiting to become a radio transmitter as well; it hurls both projectiles and itself With it, once more, Death kills Death, since it victoriously opposes the fearsome German machine gun. Captain de Poix has a prophetic vision of a batlefield literally covered by the mass of these automotive forts. After leaving the street, the military proletariat loses contact with the road. From now on, anything can become a probable trajectory of its Assault. The battlefield has become like the naval glacis, without obstacles, entirely run by the rapid engines, the "battleships of the earth."
The war of attrition had, from lack of space, spread out into Time; duration was survival. All-terrain (or rather, sans-terrain)
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I Speed and Politics