[50] Von Bernardi, Cavalry in Future Wars, p. 32 of Goldman’s translation.
[51] Von Bernardi, Cavalry in Future War, p. 28.
[52] In a well-reasoned article on “Cavalry in the Russo-Japanese War” in the Internationale Revue über die gesammten Armeen und Flotten, it is said: “So it is seen that in this war it has been proved once again, and that to a high degree, that nothing great can be accomplished with improvisations of cavalry, and that cavalry, especially when incorporated in divisions, if it wishes to be led to high aims, cannot be stamped out of the ground immediately before great events.”
[53] Von der Goltz, The Nation in Arms, p. 168, says: “The armies of the French Republic numbered many members of the highest aristocracy in the lower ranks, and there was no lack of intelligence, but it was an undisciplined intelligence wanting in uniform training—hence also an absence of unity of action. This latter is guaranteed by certain principles being engrafted into the flesh and blood of the commanders of troops by teaching and practice. The idea of utilizing our numerical superiority and the efficiency of our troops in a vigorous and rapid offensive pervaded all our minds, this principle having been imbibed with the very air of our military school. If such discipline of the intelligence exists, the commander may, with composure, leave much to the initiative of the individual.”
[54] Nor does the effect of the victory of masses end there. “It intensifies and invigorates the sense of superiority in individual combats, and is essential if the patrols are to carry out their duties in the true cavalry spirit.”—Von Bernardi, Cavalry in Future Wars, p. 31.
[55] Extract from Von Pelet Narbonne’s Lectures on and Cavalry Lessons from the Manchurian War.
[56] A general-in-chief should ask himself frequently in the day, What should I do if the enemy’s army appeared now in my front, or on my right, or on my left? If he have any difficulty in answering these questions, he is ill-posted and should seek to remedy it.—Napoleon’s Maxims, No. 8.
[57] In continuous heavy rain one tent should be made into a “drying” tent by putting a fire on a stone fireplace in it, and thus bringing the heat up to 120°, to 130°, or more. The wettest clothes hung up in it will dry in about twenty minutes.
[58] Blücher on one occasion shouted to a tottering regiment: “You scoundrels, do you then want to live for ever?”
[59] Napoleon considered it necessary, in 1807, to write to Lasalle as follows: “Be very careful to send out frequent reconnoitring parties, but do not let them go out each day by the same way and at the same time, and return in similar fashion, so that what happened to you at Wischau occurs again”!