re by no means
the common property of the army.

On all these grounds I believe that first and foremost our manoeuvres
must be placed on a new footing corresponding to the completely altered
conditions, and that we must leave the beaten paths of tradition. The
troops must be trained--as formerly--to the highest tactical efficiency,
and the army must be developed into the most effective machine for
carrying out operations; success in modern war turns on these two
pivots. But the leaders must be definitely educated for that war on the
great scale which some day will have to be fought to a finish. The paths
we have hitherto followed do not lead to this goal.

All methods of training and education must be in accordance with these
views.

I do not propose to go further into the battle training of infantry and
cavalry in this place, since I have already discussed the question at
length in special treatises.[A] In the case of the artillery alone, some
remarks on the principles guiding the technical training of this arm
seem necessary.

[Footnote A: v. Bernhardi: "Taktik und Ausbildung der Infanterie," 1910
"Unsere Kavallerie im naechsten Krieg," 1899; "Reiterdienst," 1910.]

The demands on the fighting-efficiency of this arm--as is partly
expressed in the regulations--may be summed up as follows: all
preconceived ideas and theories as to its employment must be put on one
side, and its one guiding principle must be to support the cavalry or
infantry at the decisive point. This principle is universally
acknowledged in theory, but it ought to be more enforced in practice.
The artillery, therefore, must try more than ever to bring their
tactical duties into the foreground and to make their special technical
requirements subservient to this idea. The ever-recurring tendency to
fight chiefly the enemy's artillery must be emphatically checked. On the
defensive it will, of course, often be necessary to engage the attacking
artillery, if there is any prospect of success, since this is the most
dreaded enemy of the infantry on the defensive; but, on the attack, its
chief duty always is to fire upon the enemy's infantry, where possible,
from masked positions. The principle of keeping the artillery divisions
close together on the battlefield and combining the fire in one
direction, must not be carried to an extreme. The artillery certainly
must be employed on a large plan, and the chief in command must see that
there is a concentrat