f naval forces, and the essential unifying force of complete
communications.

If the situation were as concrete, and the integrating influences as
pervading among field forces as in the Navy, land warfare would be
relieved of a great part of its frictions. Except among troops
defending a major fortress with all-around protection, there is no
such possibility. Field movement is always diffusing. As fire builds
up against the line, its members have less and less a sense of each
other, and a feeling that as individuals they are getting support.
Each man is at the mercy of the contact with some other file, and when
the contact breaks, he sees only blackness in the enveloping
situation. Men then have to turn physically back toward each other to
regain the feeling of strength which comes of organization. That, in
brief, is the mathematical and psychological reason why salients into
an enemy line invariably take the form of a wedge; it comes of the
movements of unnerved and aimless men huddling toward each other like
sheep awaiting the voice of the shepherd. The natural instincts
intervene ever in the absence of strong leadership. Said the French
General de Maud'huy: "However perfectly trained a company may be it
always tends to become once again the crowd when suddenly shocked."

But the priceless advantage which may be instilled in the military
crowd by a proper training is that it also possesses the means of
recovery. That possibility--the resolution of order out of
chaos--reposes within every file who has gained within the service a
confidence that he has some measure of influence among his fellows.
The welfare of the unit machinery depends upon having the greatest
possible number of human shock absorbers--men who in the worst hour
are capable of stepping forward and saying: "This calls for something
extra and that means me." The restoration of control upon the
battlefield, and the process of checking fright and paralysis and
turning men back to essential tactical duties, does not come simply of
constituted authority again finding its voice and articulating its
strength to the extremities of the unit boundary. Control is a
man-to-man force under fire. No matter how lowly his rank, any man who
controls himself contributes to the control of others. A private can
steady a general as surely as a cat can look at a king. There is no
better ramrod for the back of a senior, who is beginning to buckle,
than the sight of a junior