"Well, then," said Horace, scornfully, "German strategy is all nonsense."
"Don't jump to conclusions," warned the veteran. "There's another side to it. Suppose that the operative corner is attacked so fast and so furiously that, instead of being able to retreat upon its reserves in good order, it is annihilated, what then? In that case, the enemy can plunge right in between the supporting armies, going to what, I suppose, you would call the 'pitcher's box,' cut the dissevered troops apart and deal with them one at a time.
"Everything depends upon the operative corner, especially on its tenacity. This strategy is possible in the French Army, where individual courage and resiliency is the highest of all armies of the world. It is only equaled by some of the Irish and Highland Scotch regiments of the British Army, and the Bersaglieri and other corps of the Italian Army. It is not suitable to the bulldog tactics of the English, which depend on wearing down the enemy; nor to the 'wolf-pack' system of the Germans, which depends on mere weight of numbers."
Horace leaned forward, thoughtfully.
"There's a good deal more to this than I thought," he said.
"The operation of war on land," said the veteran, "is one of the most marvelous processes known to the human brain. There is no machine so enormous, none that requires so much detail and fineness of adjustment. I've studied it from a soldier's point of view, ever since I've been in the army, and now that I'm trying to get my commission, I'm studying it all the closer.
"Men don't win a war. Guns don't win a war. Food and munitions don't win a war. You can have ten million men and a hundred million tons of food and munitions and what good will they be unless the food gets to the men, the munitions to the guns, and the men and guns to the front? What good will it do then, unless the men have, first, the spirit to fight, and second, the skill to fight?
"You say that the prophecy about the bird declares that America will have to join the war. Perhaps. But if the United States had started to prepare ten years ago, she would still have been twenty years too late. To expect to make an army by waiting until it is needed, is just about as sensible as to wait for the sowing of wheat until the harvest-time when the crop is needed. And when you get back to America, you can tell them so."
The poilu wiped his forehead, for he had become thoroughly roused on the point. Then, after a moment, he continued:
"To return to our strategy question. The present position of the French and English armies, supporting Namur, is that of an operative corner. Probably we will be driven back, but it is on the springiness of our resistance that the campaign hangs. The more we retreat, the stiffer grows the spring, for we are falling back on reënforcements and shortening our lines of communication and transport all the time. The more the enemy advances, the weaker his line grows, for he is losing men which he cannot replace and is lengthening his lines of communication and transport all the time. Sooner or later, the rebound of the spring is stronger than the force pressing back, and then, if the pressure is weakened the least bit, the spring darts back. That is the rebound or recoil. It is the rebound which will save France."