1. Internal evidence shows--what one would naturally infer from the extraordinary conceptions of the technique of fire-action for mounted troops developed in his book--that the General[7] has never studied closely the combats of our war, except, perhaps, in such publications as the German Official History, which leaves off at March, 1900, practically ignores the mounted question, regards the Boers throughout as Infantry (presumably because, though mounted, they did not carry lances and swords), and, as a result of this method of exposition, is of no value towards the present controversy. Unfamiliar with the phenomena of our war, the General nevertheless taunts me, who argued solely from the facts of war and went not an inch beyond the facts, with being a "speculative theorist"--a taunt which comes strangely from an author who declares in his current volume (p. 7) that "the groundwork of training" for modern Cavalry can only be created from "speculative and theoretical reflection." He proceeds further to obliterate my humble personality by remarking that I am "naturally devoid of all war experience," and that he would never have taken the trouble to discuss the subject at all if Lord Roberts had not declared his agreement with what I had written. The personal point, of course, is wholly immaterial, and I welcome his perfectly correct choice of an opponent. But his spontaneous allusion to war experience raises a somewhat important point. Until reading the words, I had never dreamed that my own war experience was a serious factor in the discussion. I have never alluded to it or argued from it; but since the point is raised, let me say to General von Bernhardi that, in common with some hundreds of thousands of my countrymen here or in the Colonies, I have had, in a very humble capacity, a certain kind of war experience, of which he, as a reflective theorist, stands in bitter need. We have _seen_ the modern rifle at work in what he calls "real war." We have _seen_ what he has only reflected about and imagined--the revolution wrought by it on the battle-field since the days of 1870. He has not; and if he had, he would have avoided many of the painful solecisms and blunders which disfigure his work, enlightened as that work is by comparison with the retrograde school he attacks.