to lie down and keep up a steady rifle fire,
while Supports in the rear and on the flank try to work round the
flanks and rear of the machine-gun nests which are holding up the
Attack. Meanwhile, the commander of the battalion which is responsible
for the Attack is to arrange for artillery and light trench-mortar
support, and should protect his own flanks from machine-gun fire by
means of smoke."

THE GENERAL RESERVE.--In a modern campaign against civilised troops it
will seldom, or never, happen that the efforts of the Forward Body,
Supports, and Local Reserves will annihilate the enemy and so prevent
him from regaining cohesion and fighting power. Even if {57} every
part of the position against which an assault is delivered is captured
and held, the enemy will not, by that means alone, cease to exist as a
fighting force, and if he is permitted to withdraw with a semblance of
order and moral the work of the Attacking Force will be of little
avail. The destruction of the enemy and not the mere capture of the
ground of the encounter is the ultimate aim of the commander. He will,
therefore, accept the best available opportunity for the destruction of
the enemy by overwhelming them in some part of the battlefield during
the successful operations of his Attacking Force. It may, however,
happen that the efforts of the Attacking Force are generally
unsuccessful and the enemy may be on the point of gaining the upper
hand. By means of the General Reserve the commander exploits the
success or retrieves the failure of the Attacking Force. The commander
will have selected some point or position in the enemy's defensive
system against which he can direct his decisive attack. This point
cannot, as a rule, be determined until it has been revealed by the
successes of the Forward Body and the Supports, and when it has been
selected it must be struck unexpectedly and in the greatest possible
strength. While, therefore, the Forward Body, Supports, and Local
Reserves must be adequate in numbers for the task allotted to them, a
commander will generally retain about half his available force for the
delivery of the Decisive Attack, and when this decisive blow has been
delivered the Reserve will carry on the pursuit of the beaten enemy
until such time as other Infantry, or Cavalry, or Tanks, have caught up
and passed them. If the attacking troops fail to obtain their
objective the commander has at his disposal the means of relievin