The nature of Cavalry operations indicate yet another requirement--namely, batteries so organized that to every brigade of two regiments one battery of four pieces should be assigned. Many will be the occasions in our strategical operations on which guns will be required, and in most of these it is more a question of having _some_ Artillery at hand rather than of the development of superior fire power--_i.e._, a few shells into a village at the right time may be all that is needed for our purpose. Further, in operating on several roads it can seldom be foretold with exactness on which road the need may first arise. Under these conditions it is of the greatest importance to be able, if necessary, to assign a battery to each brigade, and at the same time not to allow the half of the whole available Artillery to escape from control.[20] [Footnote 20: With stronger Divisions, a corresponding increase in Artillery must, of course, be made.] Further, these small batteries are both handier and more mobile in themselves; they are, therefore, better suited to Cavalry requirements, and at the same time the power of concentration when such is required is fully retained. The advantage of this proposed division seems, therefore, to me sufficiently clear to need no further recommendation.[21] [Footnote 21: King William I. had already suggested the formation of batteries of four guns for the Cavalry in 1869--in a marginal note on the report of Moltke's of 1868--already referred to in the note on p. 166 above.] This organization of the Artillery requires, however, to be supplemented by the introduction of a true quick-firing gun, even if it is necessary to reduce the calibre somewhat to keep down the weight. For it is particularly with the Cavalry, and especially in the Cavalry duel, when the opportunities for Artillery action are often compressed into a very few moments, and yet a great effect must be attained, that a gun without recoil and a great rapidity of loading is most urgently required. If the Cavalry is thus equipped with all that the conditions of War demand and modern technical skill can supply, then it will find in these--at least in part--compensation for its numerical weakness on condition that at the same time it also succeeds in raising its training to a corresponding height. It cannot be denied that in this direction all ranks have worked with most devoted and admirable industry, and that new points of view, new methods, and new aims towards which to strive have been opened up. But, on the whole, this question of the training of our Cavalry is still based upon the ideas of a period which lies behind us. There has been no conscious breach with the past, even in those very fields wherein the developments and demands of modern times have brought about a complete disturbance of all military relations.