The French _Manuel du gradé de cavalerie_, p. 12, gives the following definition: “Le dévouement, le sentiment généreux qui pousse l’homme à faire le sacrifice de sa vie pour le salut de la patrie et de ses semblables.” He must learn that the “superiority which disciplined soldiers show over undisciplined masses is primarily the consequence of the confidence which each has in his comrades” (Von der Goltz, _Nation in Arms_, p. 162). The young officer begins by having a pride in his troop, squadron, and regiment, by trying by his own individual exertions first to make himself fit to lead and instruct, and next to make his own unit better than others. If he does not set the example of being better than others, he will not render much help to the men serving under him. They will look to him, admiring what is good in him and despising what is bad, summing him up, weighing him in mind, if not in words, as they see him.[72] And the eyes of a regiment see everything. He must be a very acute dissembler who can escape the five hundred pairs of eyes which watch him at every turn. This alone is a good training for any man. Very much indeed naturally depends on the influences under which an officer falls on joining a regiment. A strict but just commanding officer, who works, but does not worry, the men under him, makes not only a good regiment, but a regiment which will fight well in war, whilst a slack and indulgent commanding officer, even if just, will soon lessen a regiment’s discipline to an extent which will render it of little value in war. In peace, to be sure, no one takes much notice of this fact, but in war the slack commanding officer becomes an object of detestation to all concerned, and he invariably “lets in” every one. He is most despised by the very men whom he tries to save from dangers. It is a curious fact in human nature that usually they think he is doing this because he himself is afraid. If, however, there are altogether some four or five really good officers of various ranks in a regiment, their influence and peace-activity will save the regiment from much that even a slack commanding officer can do to its detriment. All young officers fall under their influence, and there remains a substratum of rock under the shifting sands. Von der Goltz says (_Nation in Arms_, p. 144): “Every regiment brings into the field a certain character of its own.” That character depends on its officers--often on one officer long since dead and gone. In one regiment the shoeing was remarkably good; it transpired that a former colonel, a martinet dead thirty years before, used to “break” the farrier if a horse lost a shoe in the field. With his duties and his sports, for the first two or three years in a good regiment, the subaltern has no time to think, and if he is the right man in the right place, enjoys himself thoroughly.