etermined support of the infantry by
fire is the main duty of machine-gun units throughout the whole course
of the battle. In the attack, machine-gun platoons, Lewis gun
sections, {44} or rifle sections detailed to give covering fire, must
take care to select as targets those bodies of the enemy whose fire is
chiefly checking the advance. Machine-gun platoons are sometimes
brigaded, and at others left to battalion commanders, and their action
after a temporary success in providing covering fire may depend upon
their tactical distribution at the time. Infantry platoons detailed to
give covering fire must join in the advance as soon as their own fire
ceases to be effective in aiding the forward troops, unless definite
orders to the contrary have been received.

FIRE AND MOVEMENT.--It is thus seen that Fire and Movement are
inseparably associated, and judiciously employed in combination they
enable infantry to achieve its object in battle, to bring such a
superiority of fire to bear as to make an advance to close quarters
possible, so that the enemy may be induced to surrender or may be
overwhelmed by a bayonet assault; and to prepare by similar means for
further advances, until the enemy is entirely hemmed in or completely
routed.

[1] In fiction, this point (that the generalissimo must not allow his
sense of proportion to be distorted by local successes or reverses) is
clearly brought out in _The Point of View_, a story in "The Green
Curve" by Ole-Luk-Oie (General Swinton).

{45}

TYPES OF BATTLE ACTION

A battle must practically always be of the nature of Attack and
Defence, but the attitude originally assumed by either of the opposing
forces may be reversed during an engagement. A vigorous counter-attack
by an army offering battle in a defensive position may throw the
adversary on the defensive, while an assailant may fight a delaying
action in one part of the field, although in another part his action
may be essentially offensive. There are three distinct systems of
Battle Action: the entirely defensive; the entirely offensive; and the
combined, or defensive-offensive system.

THE DEFENSIVE BATTLE has seldom effected positive results, except,
perhaps, at _Gettysburg_ (July 1-3, 1863), where Meade permitted Lee to
break his forces against a strong position, with the result that the
Army of Northern Virginia had to withdraw, and the invasion of the
North came to an end. It must, however, be borne