The position of the battalion commander will be chosen with a view to keeping in touch with the progress of the Attack in all its stages and of influencing the fight by means of the reserves. Personal control is difficult to exercise once troops are committed to the fight, but opportunities for rapid decision were frequently offered to battalion commanders in the Great War, and seized with a success which transformed a check into a victory. In 1916 a battalion commander of the Coldstream Guards, seeing his command disorganised by fire and resistance, by personal example rallied and reorganised the waves of the Attack and added the necessary momentum to the assault, which then reached its objective. On April 14, 1917, the commander of a battalion of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment witnessed the launching of a local counter-attack by the Germans on the village of _Monchy-le-Preux_, and by a rapid advance with the fighting portion of his headquarters, staved off the attack until the arrival of reinforcements from the 88th Brigade enabled it to be driven back in disorder. On November 30, 1917, during the German counter-attack from Fontaine Notre Dame to Tadpole Copse, in the Northern Sector of the _Cambrai_ zone, the Germans forced their way into our foremost positions, and opened a gap between the 1/6th and 1/15th London Regiments. Local counter-attacks led by the two battalion commanders with all available men, including the personnel of their respective headquarters, once more restored the situation. In March, 1918, during the most critical period of the German thrust at Amiens, a battalion commander of the Border Regiment again and again, on horseback and on foot, personally restored the situation. {76} DEFENSIVE ACTION "The soul of the Defence is the Counter-Attack."--MARSHAL FOCH. Defensive action may be initiated by a commander in the field, or it may be imposed upon him by the enemy, and a commander may rely upon fortification to assist him in defeating the enemy, or he may employ manoeuvre to effect or to postpone a decision. A commander may desire to pin the enemy to an attack upon a fortified position, garrisoned by a portion only of his force, while he detaches another (and probably greater) portion to attack the enemy from an unexpected quarter. An outstanding example of this form of action is exhibited in the _Battle of Chancellorsville_ (May 2-3, 1863), where Lee kept at bay Hooker's army of 90,000 with one-third of his force and detached Stonewall Jackson with 30,000 men to attack the Federal rear. Action of this kind is peculiarly effective, but it requires a secrecy which modern aircraft would almost certainly unveil, and if the manoeuvre failed to escape observation it would probably result in disaster both to the retaining force and to the detached troops.