Within the military crowd, and granting to each the same quality of human material, the problem of achieving organic unity in the face of the enemy is one thing on a ship, and quite another among land-fighting forces. Loyalty to the ship itself provides an extra and incisive bond among naval forces. Given steadiness in the command, men will fight the ship to the limit, if only for the reason that if they fail to do so, there is no place to go but down. The physical setting of duty is defined by material objects close at hand. The individual has only to fit himself into an already predetermined frame. He knows when he is derelict, and he knows further that his dereliction can hardly escape the eye of his comrades. The words: "Now Hear This!" have the particular significance that they bespeak the collected nature of naval forces, and the essential unifying force of complete communications. If the situation were as concrete, and the integrating influences as pervading among field forces as in the Navy, land warfare would be relieved of a great part of its frictions. Except among troops defending a major fortress with all-around protection, there is no such possibility. Field movement is always diffusing. As fire builds up against the line, its members have less and less a sense of each other, and a feeling that as individuals they are getting support. Each man is at the mercy of the contact with some other file, and when the contact breaks, he sees only blackness in the enveloping situation. Men then have to turn physically back toward each other to regain the feeling of strength which comes of organization. That, in brief, is the mathematical and psychological reason why salients into an enemy line invariably take the form of a wedge; it comes of the movements of unnerved and aimless men huddling toward each other like sheep awaiting the voice of the shepherd. The natural instincts intervene ever in the absence of strong leadership. Said the French General de Maud'huy: "However perfectly trained a company may be it always tends to become once again the crowd when suddenly shocked."