"Are they very different?" asked Horace. "I should have thought that strategy was pretty exact and every one worked in more or less the same way."
"Don't think it for a moment!" the veteran replied earnestly. "German strategy and French strategy are as far apart as the feelings of the two races. They are the result of different principles. They work in different ways. The German depends on massed force, the French on individual courage; the German thinks mainly of attack and his favorite word is 'annihilation,' the French thinks mainly of defense and his favorite word is 'France.' It is for this war to show which of the two is the stronger—German aggression or French defense.
"German strategy," he explained, "begins with the formation of an extended line. In action it plans heavy massed attacks at various points along a battle front, in order to keep the whole of the opposing line engaged, while, at the same time, at least a full army corps is thrown out on each end of the battle-line, two or three divisions of cavalry being thrown out farther still, to act as a screen and hide the movements behind it. This maneuver is for the purpose of curling round the ends of an enemy's line, flanking it and, by cutting its line of communication in the rear, rolling it up and annihilating it."
"That, I should think," said Horace, "needs a lot of men."
"It does," the veteran agreed, "and that is one of the reasons that Germany never advances unless she has a big preponderance of men. Don't think that because Germans seldom attack with equal forces they must therefore be cowards. It is because their tactics are based on the principle of flanking, enveloping and securing a decisive victory, rather than the principle of saving men, taking advantage of natural conditions and winning a number of small engagements. It is terribly wasteful of men, but it produces big military results—when successful—and an appalling human sacrifice, when unsuccessful.
"A German attack, therefore, my boy, means that you will have to suffer a succession of driving blows directed at two or three points of the main line, reënforced by a concentration of artillery far greater than is possessed by any other army, coupled with wide flanking movements by huge bodies of troops supported by cavalry and a very mobile field artillery."
"All right," said the boy; "I understand that clearly. Now what's the French idea?"
"French strategy," the veteran replied, "always presupposes the necessity of being compelled to fight having an army less in numbers but superior in individual dash and bravery. It is the problem of winning a battle with a smaller number of men than the enemy. The principle is that of a spring bent back to the utmost, which, when released rebounds forward with tremendous force. We call it the 'strategic lozenge.'"
"I've heard of that," said Horace. "It's sometimes called the 'strategic square,' isn't it? It seems something like our baseball diamond," and, with boyish animation, he explained the position of the bases.