"How has the soldier been controlled and directed during the action? At what instant has he had a tendency to quit the line in order to remain behind or to rush ahead?
"At what moment, if the control were escaping from the leader's hands, has it no longer been possible to exercise it?
"At what instant has this control escaped from the battalion commander? When from the captain, the section leader, the squad leader? At what time, in short, if such a thing did take place, was there but a disordered impulse, whether to the front or to the rear carrying along pell-mell with it both the leaders and men?
"Where and when did the halt take place?
"Where and when were the leaders able to resume control of the men?
"At what moments before, during, or after the day, was the battalion roll-call, the company roll-call made? The results of these roll-calls?
"How many dead, how many wounded on the one side and on the other; the kind of wounds of the officers, non-commissioned officers, corporals, privates, etc., etc.?
"All these details, in a word, enlighten either the material or the moral side of the action, or enable it to be visualized. Possibly, a closer examination might show that they are matters infinitely more instructive to us as soldiers than all the discussions imaginable on the plans and general conduct of the campaigns of the greatest captain in the great movements of the battle field. From colonel to private we are soldiers, not generals, and it is therefore our trade that we desire to know.
"Certainly one cannot obtain all the details of the same incident. But from a series of true accounts there should emanate an ensemble of characteristic details which in themselves are very apt to show in a striking, irrefutable way what was necessarily and forcibly taking place at such and such a moment of an action in war. Take the estimate of the soldier obtained in this manner to serve as a base for what might possibly be a rational method of fighting. It will put us on guard against a priori and pedantic school methods.
"Whoever has seen, turns to a method based on his knowledge, his personal experience as a soldier. But experience is long and life is short. The experiences of each cannot therefore be completed except by those of others.