The General must use his judgment to decide where the chief weight of his mission lies, the principal characteristics he must impress upon his operations, and how the subsidiary purposes can be best served without applying half-purposes to the primary object. It is these considerations--the reduction of the complicated to the simple--which create the chief difficulties which weigh upon the mind of the Leader. The capacity of coming to a correct decision in every special case is a mark of the intellectually capable Commander, and of itself gives a certain guarantee of its success by rendering possible the concentration of the force upon the decisive point; but it will not alone suffice to insure success. Boldness and energy of character is the final determining cause of successful results. Above all, every Cavalry leader must be inspired by the determination to keep the initiative under all circumstances, and never to relinquish it to his opponent. The initiative alone guarantees successes, often in a degree which one was hardly entitled to expect, for it forces the enemy to accept the law from our hands, disturbs his strategical combination, compels him to fight before his troops are united, and often gives to the numerically weaker the opportunity of establishing a relative local superiority. One must, therefore, endeavour to introduce as much of the initiative and offensive element as circumstances will permit even in the execution of defensive missions. A Leader must never allow himself to be hindered in an advance, or be driven into an attitude of expectation by the passive opposition of the enemy's Cavalry, as so often happens in peace. In all such cases, when a direct frontal attack holds out no prospect of success, he must immediately initiate a wide turning movement outside the effective range of the enemy's Artillery, and sacrifice without hesitation his own line of retreat. Victory restores at once the original line of advance, and the outflanking movement threatens also the enemy's retreat. It is never permissible to wait until driven into action by superior commands, but one must always endeavour to reap, on one's own initiative, the utmost possibilities the situation holds out.