no one can as yet foresee. On the other hand, it is equally certain, from the same experience, that that army will be best ready to meet them which has the most carefully prepared itself for the conditions of modern war. There are elements in it different from war in the past which are now in their essential characteristics fixed and certain. What those are it is the main purpose of the present volume to set forth. Changes will come, but the clock will not work backwards. The more rapid the changes, the more completely does the distant past, which cannot be recalled, cease to be an adequate standard for determining the preparation of armies for war-the more must we depend on a careful study of the conditions of the present applied to the collated experiences of past war, and more especially of the most recent wars, in which the conditions were most nearly analogous to those we shall have to face.

changes in

WHATEVER definition of the word "army" be adopted, the fact that it is a body of men organised for the effective employment of arms is the essence of it. Hence the most effective organisation and employment of armies in active warfare at any given period has always been determined by the nature of the arms in use at the time. The laboratory and workshops of science in recent years Modern have in fact produced and forced on a change in the the art of method of fighting, which it is safe to say was not foreseen by any one of the inventors whose skill make it necessary. And yet the change is of such a kind that, though due to the development of very material things, as, for instance, the greater rapidity of fire, the greater range of weapons, and the like, it is much more remarkable in its effect on the spirit of armies and the nature of fighting discipline than in almost any other aspect.

war.

changes in

In all periods of war, under all conditions of arms, the Effect of moral forces which affect armies have been the great de- arms on the termining factors of victory and defeat. From a date much nature of fighting earlier than the day when Cæsar, defeated at Dyrrachium, discipline. gained the empire of the world by so acting as to restore the morale of his army before the great contest at Pharsalia, it has been on this nice feeling of the moral pulse of armies that the skill of great commanders has chiefly depended. In that respect there is nothing new in the

A

Experience of recent

modern conditions of war. But the sequence by which the development of arms has changed the moral pivot of military power in our own times is so remarkable that it deserves to receive a somewhat careful historical statement at the outset of this article. Unless it is understood the lessons of modern fighting cannot be learnt; for there has not yet occurred a modern war in which the principles of modern fighting, as they are now universally understood among the most thoughtful soldiers of all nations, have been deliberately applied to action, after those principles have been realised and worked out in practice during peace time. And yet it is among the first of these principles that for success in our days careful peace practice, adapted to the actual conditions of fighting, must precede the entry on a campaign.

When letters from the seat of war in 1866 brought home campaigns, to Europe the effect which the breechloader was producing in determining the contest, the first impression was that of simple consternation. It was supposed that Prussia, by the possession of that weapon alone, had made herself mistress. of Europe. Gradually it came to be known that the secret of Prussian power lay, not in her breechloader alone, but at least as much in her perfect organisation. In 1870 her scarcely less startling successes tended for a time to produce an effect almost as blinding upon the eyes of those who watched them. There was a disposition to assume that whatever had been done in the war by the Prussians was, by the deliberate choice and determination of the best and most successful soldiers in Europe, shown to be the best thing that could be done under the circumstances. The exhaustive statement of facts contained in the Prussian official narrative and in the regimental histories, and the evidence of eye-witnesses innumerable, have, however, gradually shown that that was a mistake. Valuable as

the experiences of the 1870 campaign are for soldiers of all nations, the Prussian successes were certainly not due to the carrying out of what are now regarded by the best Prussian officers themselves as the principles which ought to determine practice in future wars. During the course of the war itself, the Prussian army, prepared by the soundest peace training to adapt itself to whatever conditions it met with, was continually and progressively modifying its practice under the experience of conditions which it had been impossible fully to anticipate.

der" forma.

It is upon the surface of the facts that the extreme loss "Open-orof life suddenly occasioned at particular points by the effec- tions.. tiveness of the fire of the new weapons, both of artillery and infantry, compelled the gradual abandonment of close formations of men, massed together in dense columns or even in closed lines, and the gradual adoption of what are known as "skirmishing skirmishing" or open-order formations. In other words, when the French fire fell upon the solid columns of the advancing Prussians, the column instinctively scattered. The officers and non-commissioned officers were often lost in very large proportion, and during the actual course of the fighting a method of attack was adopted which proceeded by successive swarms of dispersed men taking advantage of such shelter as the ground permitted. The noise of the rapid breechloader, and the crash of an artillery able to fire much more frequently than in former campaigns, and, moreover, accumulated in much greater masses than had ever been the case before, made words of command inaudible at a distance. Hence it came to pass that small parties of men, once launched into an infantry fight, were virtually beyond all control on the part of superior officers. All that these could do to influence the action was to determine the direction and object of the first attack of each fraction, and then to furnish it with