If officers cannot act with dash in field manœuvres, how can they be expected to do so in war? Ground gained in peace manœuvres matters little, but in war a position gained on the flank of an army by a cavalry brigade may now mean the enfilading by horse artillery of entrenched infantry for three miles in extent. A very good plan is to take some well-known battle and lay out the situation with flags at some portion of the day, and then work out the cavalry action in theory and practice. This will admit of considerable variation. To lay out fresh battlefields or inaugurate new general ideas each time leads to waste of time in preliminary study of the situation. There is not the slightest doubt that the want of this very practical study has affected the leading of cavalry in the past in a marked degree.[43] Want of determination comes from want of knowledge of what to do in the situation. In the past, sticky leading has been condoned because few knew any better. Long ago Lewal wrote prophetically of the bad effect on cavalry of “being umpired out of action at peace manœuvres, and told of smokeless powder and magazine rifles” (Lewal, p. 62). It is all very well to say that every hill should be regarded as being held by the enemy till you know otherwise, but let us take care to know one way or other without delay, and not to imagine that there is any great value or safety in being on a hill. Hills may be well shelled by the enemy’s horse artillery, whilst his cavalry gallop up to the dead ground to be found in front and flank of nine hills out of ten, where, if supported by horse artillery fire, it is better placed than the dismounted men on the hill. Finally our leaders, after preparing themselves, their staffs, and subordinate leaders by constant practice, “must ever remember and must impress on their subordinates that hesitation and delay handicap operations far more heavily than do mere mistakes in choice of methods.”--_German Cavalry Training_, para. 399. That the risks which one side takes paralyses the action of the other has been true of every battle. There is (and peace-time theorists on the military art often neglect this fact) a first idea or instinct in the minds of the majority of the human race, that the man or animal dashing straight at them has some good reason to believe that he can, and will, hurt them; this primary instinct leads them to subordinate themselves to the initiative of the other. Watch the unreasoning game of chase and check between a cat and a dog, and you have a good example of much that happens, and will always happen, on a battlefield.[44] “Initiative is the greatest virtue in a leader; to avoid dissipation of force is a well-proved means of victory.”--_German Cavalry Training_, para. 407. CONCLUSIONS 1. There are risks of doubtful value in action directed on wide lines against the enemy’s flank and rear.