But has nothing notable happened since 1865? A very important thing has happened. The Civil War firearm is now a museum curiosity. Science has devised a weapon of at least five times the power--smokeless, quick-firing, and accurate up to ranges which were never dreamt of in 1865. Even the American weapon reduced shock to a wholly secondary place, and gave fire unquestioned supremacy. The modern weapon has eliminated shock altogether, and inspired new and far more formidable tactics--just as mobile, just as dashing, just as fruitful of "charges," but based on fire. Von Bernhardi cannot bring himself to contemplate this result. He must have his lances and swords, and is compelled therefore to go back to 1865, when the death-knell of those weapons was already being sounded; and in doing so he writes his own condemnation. This is how his book opens: "The great changes which have taken place in military science _since the year 1866_ have forced all arms to adopt new methods of fighting. It was first and foremost _the improvement in the firearm_ which wrought the transformation on the battle-field." (My italics.) Since the year 1866! And yet the Cavalry are to go back to a war prior to that year for their instruction, and are to neglect the only wars in which the improved firearm has been tested! In point of fact, General von Bernhardi shows no sign of having closely studied even the American War of 1861-1865 with a view to finding out how the Americans used their firearms in conjunction with their horses. On this vital technical matter he writes throughout from a purely speculative standpoint, without a single allusion to the American technical methods, much less to the methods of our own and the Boer mounted riflemen of 1899-1902. We must add in fairness that the General seems to be conscious that a war half a century old cannot be implicitly relied on for instruction, and he concludes his historical remarks, therefore, by the depressing conclusion that "there remains, then, nothing for us--with no practical war experience to go on--but to create the groundwork of our methods of training from theoretical and speculative reflection."