fensive. The morale of the troops
must thereby necessarily be seriously impaired, and the confidence of
the savages correspondingly augmented. The system of small garrisons
has a tendency to disorganize the troops in proportion as they are
scattered, and renders them correspondingly inefficient. The same
results have been observed by the French army in Algeria, where, in
1845, their troops were, like ours, disseminated over a vast space, and
broken up into small detachments stationed in numerous intrenched
posts. Upon the sudden appearance of Abd el Kader in the plain of
Mitidja, they were defeated with serious losses, and were from day to
day obliged to abandon these useless stations, with all the supplies
they contained. A French writer, in discussing this subject, says:

"We have now abandoned the fatal idea of defending Algeria by small
intrenched posts. In studying the character of the war, the nature of
the men who are to oppose us, and of the country in which we are to
operate, we must be convinced of the danger of admitting any other
system of fortification than that which is to receive our grand depots,
our magazines, and to serve as places to recruit and rest our troops
when exhausted by long expeditionary movements.

"These fortifications should be established in the midst of the centres
of action, so as to command the principal routes, and serve as pivots
to expeditionary columns.

"We owe our success to a system of war which has its proofs in twice
changing our relations with the Arabs. This system consists altogether
in the great mobility we have given to our troops. Instead of
disseminating our soldiers with the vain hope of protecting our
frontiers with a line of small posts, we have concentrated them, to
have them at all times ready for emergencies, and since then the
fortune of the Arabs has waned, and we have marched from victory to
victory.

"This system, which has thus far succeeded, ought to succeed always,
and to conduct us, God willing, to the peaceful possession of the
country."

* * * * *

In reading a treatise upon war as it is practiced by the French in
Algeria, by Colonel A. Laure, of the 2d Algerine Tirailleurs, published
in Paris in 1858, I was struck with the remarkable similarity between
the habits of the Arabs and those of the wandering tribes that inhabit
our Western prairies. Their manner of making war is almost precisely
the same, and