ho take part
in them have already had a competent training in theory.

To encourage this preliminary training of the superior officers is thus
one of the most serious tasks of an efficient preparation for war. These
must not regard their duty as lying exclusively in the training of the
troops, but must also be ever striving further to educate themselves and
their subordinates for leadership in the great war. Strategic war games
on a large scale, which in the army corps can be conducted by the
commanding Generals, and in the army-inspections by the Inspectors, seem
to me to be the only means by which this end can be attained. All
superior officers must be criticized by the standard of their efficiency
in superior commands. The threads of all this training will meet in the
hands of the Chief of the General Army Staff as the strategically
responsible authority.

It seems undesirable in any case to leave it more or less to chance to
decide whether those who hold high commands will be competent or not for
their posts. The circumstances that a man is an energetic commander of
a division, or as General in command maintains discipline in his army
corps, affords no conclusive proof that he is fitted to be the leader of
an army. Military history supplies many instances of this.

No proof is required to show that under the conditions of modern warfare
the reconnoitring and screening units require special training. The
possibility and the success of all operations are in the highest degree
dependent on their activity. I have for years pointed out the absolute
necessity of preparing our cavalry officers scientifically for their
profession, and I can only repeat the demand that our cavalry
riding-schools should be organized also as places of scientific
education. I will also once more declare that it is wrong that the bulk
of the training of the army cavalry should consist in the divisional
cavalry exercises on the military drill-grounds. These exercises do not
correspond at all to actual conditions, and inculcate quite wrong
notions in the officers, as every cavalry officer in high command finds
out who, having been taught on the drill-ground, has to lead a cavalry
division on manoeuvres.

The centre of gravity of effectiveness in war rests on the directing of
operations and on the skilful transition from strategical independence
to combination in attack; the great difficulty of leading cavalry lies
in these conditions, and this