The next section, "Attack of Localities," needs little further comment. This attack must be done exclusively by fire, but in practice it can never be done. That is the only deduction we can arrive at. But there is one highly important point. At the end of the section the bewildered reader finds himself involved in a lengthy discussion on the sword and lance in mounted combat--a discussion from which I have already quoted, and which arises out of a radically false analogy between those steel weapons and the bayonet carried by the foot-soldier. If Cavalry have to do the same work as Infantry, should not they carry bayonets? That is how the debate arises. It is an interesting debate, on which anyone must frankly admit there may be legitimate difference of opinion. Even for Infantry the bayonet is somewhat under a cloud, as the General himself contends; and Mounted Infantry, or Cavalry acting as such, have powers of surprise and envelopment derived from the horse which may perhaps be held to compensate them for the doubtful advantage of a bayonet. Instead of reasoning thus, the General treats the bayonet only as a possible _substitute_ for the sword, and rejects it on that ground. But what has the sword to do with the bayonet? The sword is meant for use on horseback; the bayonet is fixed to the rifle, and is used on foot as a factor in fire-tactics. The essence of the whole controversy we are engaged upon is whether it is any longer possible in modern war to fight on _horseback_, and whether the rifle should not be the weapon _par excellence_ of mounted troops. Whether you reinforce it with the bayonet or not is a distinct question, which has no relation whatever to the value of the sword and lance. It seems absolutely hopeless to get this distinction grasped. Over and over again in the letters and articles on this controversy the same old fallacy recurs, and, as I shall show later, it influences the German General more deeply than he realizes.