The life of an army illustrates better than that of any other group the influence of leadership. That great strategists and skilful tacticians perform intellectual services of immeasurable importance for the common end of the army goes without saying. But the moral influence of leadership is more subtle in its workings, and is perhaps less generally recognised in all its complexity and scope. It is well known that such commanders as Napoleon inspired unlimited confidence and enthusiasm in the veteran armies that had made many campaigns under their leadership. Yet in the Great War, in which the British armies were, in its later stages, composed so largely of new recruits, the same influence was perceptible. Both the British and the French armies were very fortunate in having in supreme command men in whom the common soldier felt confidence. The solidity, the justice, the calm resolution of Marshal Joffre were felt throughout the French army in the early days of the war to be the one certain and fixed point in a crumbling universe. “Il est solid, le Père Joffre” was repeated by thousands who, remembering the disaster of 1870, were inclined to suspect treachery and weakness on every hand. And the genius of Marshal Foch and of other brilliant generals was a main source of the astonishing dogged resolution with which the French armies, in spite of their terrible losses, sustained the prolonged agony. The British army also was fortunate in having in Field-Marshal Haig a man at its head who was felt to be above all things resolute and calm and just; and, when the British armies in France were placed under the supreme control of Foch, it was generally felt throughout the ranks that this would not only give unity of control and purpose, but also supply that touch of genius which perhaps had been lacking in British strategy. But it was not only the supreme command that exercised this influence over the minds of all ranks. At every level confidence in the leadership was of supreme importance. The character and talents of each general and colonel, of each captain, lieutenant, sergeant and corporal, made themselves felt by all under their control; felt not only individually but corporately and collectively. The whole area under the command of any particular general might be seen to reflect and to express in some degree his attributes. The reputations of the higher officers filtered down through the ranks in an astonishingly rapid and accurate manner; perhaps owing largely to the fact that these armies, in a degree unknown before, were composed of men accustomed to read and to think and to discuss and criticise the conduct of affairs. If the German higher command had been exercised from the first by a man who inspired the just confidence that was felt in the old Field-Marshal v. Moltke by the Prussian armies of 1870, it is probable that the issue of the Great War would have been fatally different.