At the close of the final victorious campaign, Marshal Haig emphasised the truth of this claim: "The longer the war lasted the more emphatically has it been realised that our original organisation and training were based on correct principles. The danger of altering them too much, to deal with some temporary phase, has been greater than the risk of adjusting them too little. . . . The experience gained in this war alone, without the study and practice of lessons learned from other campaigns, could not have sufficed to meet the ever-changing tactics which have characterised the fighting. There was required also the sound basis of military knowledge supplied by our Training Manuals and Staff Colleges."
[1] Author of "Ben Hur."
[2] For an example in military fiction, see The Second Degree in "The Green Curve."
[3] "Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem."
[4] The term "field gun" was limited to the 18-pounder until the Boer War, when heavy guns were used as mobile artillery. In the Great War, mechanical transport brought into the field of battle guns of the largest calibre. Quick-firing field guns were first used by the Abyssinians against the Italians at the Battle of Adowa (February 29, 1896).
[5] Reconnoitring balloons were first used by the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Fredericksburg (December 12, 1862). Aeroplanes were used in warfare for the first time in 1911, during the Italo-Turkish campaign in Tripoli, North Africa.
[6] Heavily armoured cars, known as "Tanks," were introduced during the First Battle of the Somme, September 15, 1916.
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THE BATTLE
"Theoretically, a well conducted battle is a decisive attack successfully carried out."—MARSHAL FOCH.