o the physical impact of the contending
regiments, and at last cannon, as a quite accessory method of breaking
these masses of men. So you "gave battle" to and defeated your enemy's
forces wherever encountered, and when you reached your objective in his
capital the war was done.... The new war will probably have none of
these features of the old system of fighting.

The revolution that is in progress from the old war to a new war,
different in its entire nature from the old, is marked primarily by the
steady progress in range and efficiency of the rifle and of the
field-gun--and more particularly of the rifle. The rifle develops
persistently from a clumsy implement, that any clown may learn to use in
half a day, towards a very intricate mechanism, easily put out of order
and easily misused, but of the most extraordinary possibilities in the
hands of men of courage, character, and high intelligence. Its precision
at long range has made the business of its care, loading and aim
subsidiary to the far more intricate matter of its use in relation to
the contour of the ground within its reach. Even its elaboration as an
instrument is probably still incomplete. One can conceive it provided in
the future with cross-thread telescopic sights, the focussing of which,
corrected by some ingenious use of hygroscopic material, might even find
the range, and so enable it to be used with assurance up to a mile or
more. It will probably also take on some of the characters of the
machine-gun. It will be used either for single shots or to quiver and
send a spray of almost simultaneous bullets out of a magazine evenly and
certainly, over any small area the rifleman thinks advisable. It will
probably be portable by one man, but there is no reason really, except
the bayonet tradition, the demands of which may be met in other ways,
why it should be the instrument of one sole man. It will, just as
probably, be slung with its ammunition and equipment upon bicycle
wheels, and be the common care of two or more associated soldiers.
Equipped with such a weapon, a single couple of marksmen even, by reason
of smokeless powder and carefully chosen cover, might make themselves
practically invisible, and capable of surprising, stopping, and
destroying a visible enemy in quite considerable numbers who blundered
within a mile of them. And a series of such groups of marksmen so
arranged as to cover the arrival of reliefs, provisions, and fresh
ammunition fr