In my opinion all the principles of cavalry tactics should spring from this co-operation of the several methods of fighting and not from its attitude towards the various arms considered separately. The modern battle suffers no division of the action of one arm, or of one manner of fighting from another. As every kind of country has to be utilised for the fight, so also must the most varied kind of action of the arms be taken into account. It must, of course, be clearly established how these can best be applied against the various adversaries--cavalry, artillery, or infantry. Such reflections, however, can refer only to tactical formations. On the other hand, as soon as it becomes a question of tactical leading, such combination of all arms must, from the first, be taken into account as war may demand. Military history affords us vivid examples of such co-operation of the arms in a cavalry fight, not, indeed, in a European theatre of war, but in the Civil War in America. They are woven, above all, round the heroic figure of General "Jeb" Stuart, and if weapons and other circumstances of the time and place were different from those obtaining in Europe to-day, the principle of action has still remained the same. "Soon after the outbreak of the war Stuart distinguished himself as a cavalry leader, and his strategical work in blindfolding the enemy and in enlightening his own army has never been surpassed. As a cavalry tactician he is not only the first, but hitherto the only, leader of the arm who understood how to combine the effects of fire and shock, how to render effective service in fighting on foot without losing the power to strike on horseback when opportunity offered."[14] There, indeed, was a man worthy of emulation. We must, I think, be resolute in freeing ourselves from all old-fashioned conceptions of those knightly cavalry combats which have in reality become obsolete owing to the necessities of modern war. We do not in this need to break with our ancient and honoured traditions, for the spirit of tradition consists not in the retention of antiquated forms, but in acting in that spirit which in the past led to such glorious success. But this spirit points to the road of progress and bids us not allow ourselves to be urged by events, but, hurrying before them, to gain a start in development and therewith a decisive advantage over our enemies. To maintain in the troops, under modern conditions, the spirit of discipline and independence, and of the greatest effort and self-sacrifice, _that_ is the old Prussian tradition, and not the adherence to dead forms, which in our history has been bloodily enough avenged. This principle has been embraced in all the other spheres of military development; it is only the cavalry that has remained behind the times.