Well, recently generals and staff officers have been coming home
from the front and giving us lectures. We regard most lectures as
a "fatigue"--but not these. We have learned more from these
quiet-mannered, tired-looking men in a brief hour than from all the
manuals that ever came out of Gale and Poldens'. We have heard the
history of the War from the inside. We know why our Army retreated
from Mons; we know what prevented the relief of Antwerp. But above
all, we have learned to revise some of our most cherished theories.

Briefly, the amended version of the law and the prophets comes to
this:--

Never, under any circumstances, place your trenches where you can see
the enemy a long way off. If you do, he will inevitably see you too,
and will shell you out of them in no time. You need not be afraid
of being rushed; a field of fire of two hundred yards or so will be
sufficient to wipe him off the face of the earth.

Never, under any circumstances, take cover in farm buildings, or
plantations, or behind railway embankments, or in any place likely to
be marked on a large-scale map. Their position and range are known to
a yard. Your safest place is the middle of an open plain or ploughed
field. There it will be more difficult for the enemy's range-takers to
gauge your exact distance.

In musketry, concentrate all your energies on taking care of your
rifle and practising "rapid." You will seldom have to fire over a
greater distance than two hundred yards; and at that range British
rapid fire is the most dreadful medium of destruction yet devised in
warfare.