You must guard against technical instructors giving wrong impressions. The bombing sergeant is inclined to impress on the men that there is no such weapon as the bomb. The instructors in the rifle grenade and the Lewis gun are also apt to talk so much of the value of the weapons in which they instruct that their pupils come away with very false ideas. The Lewis-gun sergeant, although he never fails to tell the men that the Lewis gun can fire at the rate of 600 rounds a minute, very often does forget to inform them that after firing 600 rounds it takes twenty minutes or half an hour to cool before it is capable of firing any more. It is all very well for these men to be enthusiasts, but you must see that they abide strictly by the truth and avoid giving false impressions. I will close this letter with a few remarks on the moral forces. As Napoleon said, these are, compared with the physical, as three is to one. Men’s courage and determination and the will to conquer are more than half the battle. The situation to-day is no less serious than it was when I ended the last of my Twelve Letters to you, and it behoves you to devote the whole of your time and your energy to making yourself in every way efficient, and you must always bear in mind that it is possible that the little action in the winning or losing of which your right or wrong decision may be the principal factor may be the turning-point of a great battle. Your affectionate father, “X. Y. Z.” Transcriber’s Notes Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected; one unbalanced quotation mark was remedied. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A General's Letters to His Son on Minor Tactics, by Anonymous