unknown authority which crystallizes them in the mind, at the same
time giving to them a positive form that remains true for all armies,
for all past, present and future centuries. Herewith is the text of
the concise and pressing questions which have not ceased to be as
important to-day (1902) as they were in 1870:

"_General_,

"In the last century, after the improvements of the rifle and field
artillery by Frederick, and the Prussian successes in war--to-day,
after the improvement of the new rifle and cannon to which in part the
recent victories are due--we find all thinking men in the army asking
themselves the question: 'How shall we fight to-morrow?' We have no
creed on the subject of combat. And the most opposing methods confuse
the intelligence of military men.

"Why? A common error at the starting point. One might say that no one
is willing to acknowledge that it is necessary to understand yesterday
in order to know to-morrow, for the things of yesterday are nowhere
plainly written. The lessons of yesterday exist solely in the memory
of those who know how to remember because they have known how to see,
and those individuals have never spoken. I make an appeal to one of
those.

"The smallest detail, taken from an actual incident in war, is more
instructive for me, a soldier, than all the Thiers and Jominis in the
world. They speak, no doubt, for the heads of states and armies but
they never show me what I wish to know--a battalion, a company, a
squad, in action.