Then obvious convenience would suggest keeping the troops as long as possible in the more handy formation of columns, even on the field of battle. Until the actual shock was impending, it was better to leave them so formed that they could be readily moved if necessary to another part of the field. Until artillery became really effective, the risk of increased loss, from cannon-balls passing through a solid body, instead of a line, was not very serious. Until the bayonet was introduced, the necessity for pikemen and musketeers acting together would tend to make deep formations, which are columns without their mobility, a virtual necessity. Thus in more ways than one column came to be regarded as the ordinary formation, line as the exception. And generals were led by the real convenience of mobility and facility of command, perhaps also by other calculations, to make attacks in column, with or without the intention of extending into line after the enemy's front had been pierced. No words are required to show that troops armed with the short-range musket and bayonet, fighting against opponents similarly armed, are more effective in proportion as their depth can be safely reduced. More men can fire on the enemy, fewer are liable to be hit by the hostile bullets. This holds good alike for attack and for defence, and is indeed so obvious that when one finds great masters of the art of war adopting the column as the formation for attack, one begins to look for some latent flaw in the reasoning. There is none however from the material point of view: the real or supposed advantage of the column is moral only. When a mass of men formed in a deep column advances to attack a line, the front ranks of the column have the (imaginary) support of the ranks behind them. The imagination of the line is meant to be impressed by the spectacle of the heavy mass about to impinge on it. Both notions are really baseless: the line has no assailants except the front ranks of the column, who not only are not helped by those behind, but become the targets for the concentrated fire of the line. But imagination is a very real force in war, as in other human affairs: the generals who have formed heavy columns for attack, need not be supposed to have made a gross blunder: they may have adopted the method best suited to the qualities and traditions of their men. All that can fairly be concluded is that the line is enormously more effective for those who can bear the strain. And England may be congratulated alike on having the requisite toughness of material, and on having had generals who knew how to utilise it.