Not all troops are immediately or hotly engaged in battle. Commanding officers always try to keep in hand, as long as possible, some troops capable of marching, acting at any moment, in any direction. To-day, like yesterday, like to-morrow, the decisive action is that of formed troops. Victory belongs to the commander who has known how to keep them in good order, to hold them, and to direct them. That is incontrovertible. But commanders can hold out decisive reserves only if the enemy has been forced to commit his. In troops which do the fighting, the men and the officers closest to them, from corporal to battalion commander, have a more independent action than ever. As it is alone the vigor of that action, more independent than ever of the direction of higher commanders, which leaves in the hands of higher commanders available forces which can be directed at a decisive moment, that action becomes more preponderant than ever. Battles, now more than ever, are battles of men, of captains. They always have been in fact, since in the last analysis the execution belongs to the man in ranks. But the influence of the latter on the final result is greater than formerly. From that comes the maxim of to-day: The battles of men. Outside of the regulations on tactics and discipline, there is an evident necessity for combating the hazardous predominance of the action of the soldier over that of the commander. It is necessary to delay as long as possible, that instant which modern conditions tend to hasten--the instant when the soldier gets from under the control of the commander. This completes the demonstration of the truth stated before: Combat requires to-day, in order to give the best results, a moral cohesion, a unity more binding than at any other time. [32] It is as true as it is clear, that, if one does not wish bonds to break, one must make them elastic in order to strengthen them. CHAPTER VII PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY WHAT WOULD BE NECESSARY TO COMPLETE IT Any other deductions on this subject must come from the meditations of the reader. To be of value in actual application such deductions should be based upon study of modern combat, and that study cannot be made from the accounts of historians alone. The latter show the action of troop units only in a general way. Action in detail and the individual action of the soldier remain enveloped in a cloud of dust, in narratives as in reality. Yet these questions must be studied, for the conditions they reveal should be the basis of all fighting methods, past, present and future. Where can data on these questions be found? We have very few records portraying action as clearly as the report on the engagement at the Pont de l'Hopital by Colonel Bugeaud. Such stories in even greater detail, for the smallest detail has its importance, secured from participants and witnesses who knew how to see and knew how to remember, are what is necessary in a study of the battle of to-day.