e attractive. There is a rush nowadays into the mounted arm, for
which there is a plethora of candidates. These arms will always be well
supplied with officers. Their greater attractiveness must be
counterbalanced by special advantages offered by the infantry service.
By no other means can we be sure of having sufficient officers in the
chief arm.

If the fighting strength in each detachment depends on its composition
and training, there are other elements besides the tactical value of the
troops which determine the effectiveness of their combined efforts in
action; these are first the leadership, which, however, depends on
conditions which are beyond calculation, and secondly the numerical
proportion of the arms to each other. Disregarding provisionally the
cavalry, who play a special role in battle, we must define the
proportion which artillery must bear to infantry.

With regard to machine guns, the idea that they can to some extent
replace infantry is quite erroneous. Machine guns are primarily weapons
of defence. In attack they can only be employed under very favourable
conditions, and then strengthen only one factor of a successful
attack--the fire-strength--while they may sometimes hinder that
impetuous forward rush which is the soul of every attack. Hence, this
auxiliary weapon should be given to the infantry in limited numbers, and
employed mainly on the defensive fronts, and should be often massed into
large units. Machine-gun detachments should not overburden the marching
columns.

The relation of infantry to artillery is of more importance.

Infantry is the decisive arm. Other arms are exclusively there to smooth
their road to victory, and support their action directly or indirectly.
This relation must not be merely theoretical; the needs of the infantry
must ultimately determine the importance of all other fighting
instruments in the whole army.

If we make this idea the basis of our argument, the following is the
result. Infantry has gained enormously in defensive power owing to
modern weapons. The attack requires, therefore, a far greater
superiority than ever before. In addition to this, the breadth of front
in action has greatly increased in consequence of the former close
tactical formations having been broken up through the increase of fire.
This refers only to the separate detachment, and does not justify the
conclusion that in the future fewer troops will cover the same spaces as
before. This