(3) The ignorance of the public regarding the conduct of war constitutes for us a very serious national danger. If this ignorance were less pronounced, if our statesmen understood the vast importance of information to the enemy, and the equal importance to our generals that this information the enemy should NOT obtain, then the public craving for information regarding every detail of what occurs in the field, and the demand for the wide publication thereof, would certainly be repressed. Nothing occurs in any of our campaigns which is not immediately made known; reports of actions with the fullest details as to the troops engaged, and the casualties that have befallen them, appear in the columns of the Press within a few hours of their occurrence. _Any efforts, therefore, of our generals_ in the field to maintain _secrecy as to strength, intentions, and movements are deliberately_, though probably unintentionally, _counteracted by their own countrymen_. This is due to pure ignorance of war, no doubt, but the effect of this ignorance is as bad as if it were due to evil intention. In fairness, however, we must admit that, in the past, the immense value of reticence has not been fully appreciated by some of our soldiers themselves, and it were well if, in the future, more attention were directed to the importance of secrecy. The results of such almost criminal stupidity may not be apparent when we are fighting with a savage foe, but if we ever have, as we undoubtedly some day shall have, the misfortune to find ourselves engaged with a civilized Power, we may be certain that not only will the operations be indefinitely prolonged, _and their cost enormously increased_, but their successful issue will be for us highly problematical. In this connection it must be remembered that every Great Power has secret agents in every country, including Great Britain, and that it will be easy for such a secret agent to telegraph in cypher or in some agreed code to an agent in a neutral State all war information published here, who will telegraph it on at once to the hostile general, who will thus get, within a very short time of its publication in London, perhaps just exactly the information he requires to clear up the strategical or tactical situation for him, and enable him to defeat the combinations of our generals. As a case in point, take Macmahon's march on Sedan to relieve Metz in 1870, where secrecy was absolutely necessary for success, but which became known to the Germans by the English newspapers.--Result, Sedan. That this cannot be allowed is plain. It is believed that the patriotism of our Press will welcome any necessary measure to this end if it is made compulsory upon ALL.[61] CHAPTER XI TACTICS Some will probably feel inclined to ask what Clausewitz, who wrote more than eighty years ago, can possibly have to say about tactics which can be valuable in the twentieth century.