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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
the attack is to be made,, or on what position or by what road to retire, if re¬ 
treat is ordered. If there is a real enemy, although some of these points may 
be plainer, others remain just as obscure, and in addition it is generally an 
open question whether the position of a battery is to be held obstinately, or 
yielded to comparatively slight prussure—whether, in fact, the position is of 
sufficient importance to incur serious loss for. 
To go fully into this point would be to open a question with a most impor¬ 
tant bearing on tactics—the field organisation of artillery. This is evidently 
coming to the front. Our German friends are full of it, and we shall hear 
enough of it by and by. I only wish here to note that I have not forgotten 
it, but it is too weighty a subject to attempt to treat in the time at my dis¬ 
posal. 
If, then, there are mistakes in the handling of troops committed in our 
manoeuvres, how can they be remedied, and how can the necessary tactical 
instruction be best given at our camps and large centres ? I believe that the 
greatest want of all, the missing link which is altogether dropped out of our 
system, is the handling of the three arms in small bodies, the careful training 
of men and officers in the minor operations of war, the march of small columns, 
advance and rear guards, the attack and defence of bridges, defiles, villages, 
detached farms, parts of a position. We devote the greatest attention to 
appearance and to drill, we polish and re-polish the unit until it is the marvel 
and admiration of beholders, and when we have got every part of the machine 
to a state of perfection, we seem to think that it will come by nature to put it 
together. Our autumn manoeuvres, and indeed our large field days, are like 
trying to run before we can walk. They are on too large a scale for effective 
criticism, except as regards the strategical plan, or at all events the large tactical 
execution of it. The superior officers are too much occupied with the large 
features, and have no time to superintend details. Hence the same mistakes 
are made over and over again. Nothing is or can be criticised in detail. And 
so it must be until officers are taught to handle small bodies of troops as they 
are taught drill, and junior officers are accustomed to handle them against 
each other. When we take up this missing link, and only then, shall we be 
able to derive full profit from large manoeuvres. 
The combination of the arms is at present only possible at our camps, and 
a few of our large stations. Does it not seem that more might be done to 
train subordinate officers for command, and to implant in the minds of all 
ranks the definite principles on which they must act before the enemy? 
Amongst them must be found the future leaders of our troops; how are 
they to succeed in war unless they are trained in tactics as they are trained 
in drill and interior economy ? 
It is not thus that the Prussians have attained their marvellous success. 
They have not neglected the beginning; they have indeed built upon a thorough 
and minute knowledge of details, but they have known how to keep these 
details in their proper place and due proportion, and how to subordinate them 
all to the main end of progress and practice in the whole art of war. Yet 
they are not blinded by success. Even now, on the morrow of it, their 
most earnest writers are freely criticising. Everywhere the cry is “ Excelsior ! 39 
Everywhere their success is looked upon as the point of a new departure. 
Why should not we borrow something of this spirit; not follow the lead of the 
Prussians because they have achieved the latest success, but work out the 
problems of the future for ourselves ? 
