Besides this general maxim upon the functions of the rifle and the steel, there are a few incidental allusions which must be noticed. The reader will remember the rule as to the powerlessness of the squadron as a unit for fire-action. The rule is anticipated here in directions for reconnoitring squadrons (p. 44), which, even by night, are only to fight with the _arme blanche_, "because dismounted action is generally dangerous, and, on account of the weakness of the force, usually leads to failure"; and we wonder again how _both_ of two opposing reconnoitring squadrons can "fail," and how such a situation is actually to be dealt with on such principles in "real war"--say in the hedge-bound country which covers two-thirds of England. We are also told (p. 57) that patrols, "on collision with the enemy's patrols," are to take action "in as offensive a spirit as possible, but after due reflection." "Should a charge promise any kind of success, the opponent must be attacked in the most determined way." Nothing is said about fire, but we are left with the impression that a fire-attack can be neither "offensive" nor "determined," and for the rest we have to be content with guidance like the following: "It does not promise success to attack the front of an advancing squadron under the apprehension that it is a single patrol." One day's personal experience of modern war would teach the author the perilous futility of all these "speculative" conjectures. Has he forgotten altogether the power and purpose of the modern rifle--the rapidity, accuracy, and secrecy of its fire--when he speaks of patrols indulging in due reflection about their determined offensive charges? It is to be feared that at the hands of any but utterly incompetent troops his own contemplative patrols would receive short shrift. And the lesson of South Africa? It is hard to see why, in the matter of patrols at any rate, those three years of war should be regarded as abnormal. Yet it is the fact, as I must repeat, that no Cavalry patrol or scout from the beginning to the end of the war ever used the lance or sword; that in reconnaissance no Boer ever came near being hurt by those weapons; and, furthermore, that the Cavalry were consistently and thoroughly outmatched in reconnaissance, which was governed universally by the rifle. It was exactly the same in Manchuria. Instead of reminding his German _confrère_ of these facts, Sir John French complains that the difficulty of the Cavalry in South Africa was that they had nothing to reconnoitre, while he implicitly approves and applauds the conception of the reflective charging patrol.