interest. Insensibly he trenches on the realms of fire, and immediately stultifies his own appeals to Frederick the Great and Napoleon. After pages of obscure lucubration about Cavalry combat, he suddenly envisages (p. 230) what is, of course, the invariable case, when "total uncertainty prevails as to whether the combat will be carried out mounted or dismounted," and says that in such cases there can be no "stereotyped tactical formations either of units or of smaller bodies within them." "Cadit quæstio," we exclaim, with relief. Why appeal to Frederick the Great? In "Formations for Movement" (pp. 232-238) he continues his unconscious _reductio ad absurdum_ of shock. "Movements in such close formation right up to the moment of deployment" (and he describes those enjoined by the Regulations) "cannot go unpunished upon a modern battle-field." The Regulations "cannot be regarded as practical," and are "pretexts for hidebound drill enthusiasts." It is all very well, but these hidebound gentlemen are perfectly right in their own way. They are following his own models, Frederick the Great and Napoleon, in whose days such movements were perfectly possible. They _believe_ in shock and minimize fire, and their Regulations, if unpractical, are at least logical. II.--THE CHARGE UPON INFANTRY. So much for the "purely Cavalry fight." We come on page 128 to the mounted charge upon dismounted riflemen, whom, in the manner usual with Cavalry writers, he assumes to be Infantry, though it is obvious, of course, that they may be unconventional Cavalry, who, from a sense of fun or a sane instinct for fighting, have determined to play a practical joke on devotees of the pure faith. Here both he and the Regulations are up to a certain point in harmony with one another. As a concession to modern conditions, the charge is to be in _extended order_. Here the General has changed his views since writing "Cavalry in Future Wars." There the principles of Frederick the Great were supreme in all charges, with just a faint concession towards a "loosening of the files" in a charge against Infantry. Now "wide intervals" are to be employed. Sir John French ignores the change of view on an absolutely vital point of tactics, but allows us to infer that he, one of the very men who saw the imperative necessity for the new view, favours the old view; for he described von Bernhardi's first book as absolutely complete and faultless. To return, however, to the German author. It is amazing that, having reached this point, he should not trouble to investigate the phenomena of modern war with a view to finding out what actually happens in an extended change of this sort. He writes in the clouds, just as though there were not a mass of experience bearing on the point.