ontinuously since the beginning of the war. I am fairly
certain that the British enlisted man has had no vacation since the
beginning of the war, other than relaying near the front.

I would mention again, in order to emphasize the statement, that all
my observations have led me to believe that the essentials of military
preparedness are, first of all, a rapid mobilization, without this
everything else is useless. By "rapid" I mean a mobilization of at
least half a million men or upward in not more than ten days. After
this in importance comes the ability to hide, to dig, and to shoot. To
hide is impossible when wearing a uniform as conspicuous as the
French, which might be called maximum, and has, I should estimate,
been the cause of from three to four hundred thousand extra
casualties.

The bayonet has been much used in this war and I have viewed
personally a number of battlefields on which the action was decided
with cold steel. It is my impression that European officers have
maintained their faith in the bayonet as a weapon and some of them may
even have become more than ever convinced of its worth. This is very
distinctly the case with the French and the Austrians. The Germans are
the only people whom I have observed to show any preference for
shooting as against cutting when in close action. There is no doubt
that the French commander's idea is to win the ultimate decision with
the bayonet. Europeans in general seem to prefer cutting and stabbing
to shooting. For them, "fight" seems to mean stabbing somebody. Their
psychology is directly opposed to ours, for I think most American
soldiers prefer shooting to cutting. The Europeans do not seem to have
the taste for shooting, or the ability or wish to shoot well. It is
difficult or even impossible to teach many of them to shoot with any
degree of effectiveness.

In spite of the degree to which the bayonet has been used in Europe
and the number of actions which I have seen won by its use, I am
strongly convinced that the bayonet is not a practical weapon, and
that the only just grounds for its employment are to be found in
psychological reasons. I have not actually seen bayonet combats but
have studied the battlefields soon after the conflicts and have talked
with troops who had taken part in them, both French wounded and German
prisoners. I remember particularly the scenes of three bayonet fights
on a considerable scale. The first took place near Fere Champenoise