(2) In the matter of formation the surprise of the war has undoubtedly been the success of another German theory, to wit, the possibility of leading modern short-trained troops, against enormous losses, in close formation. Everywhere outside Germany that was doubted, and the Germans have proved that their initial contention was right, at least in their own case. But there is another aspect of this question which has as yet by no means been proved one way or the other, and that is, whether the very heavy losses this use of close formation entails are worth while in a campaign not immediately successful at the outset. We are not yet able to say how far troops once submitted to such violence can be brought to suffer it again--or how long after--nor are we able to say what effect this lavish expenditure of men has towards the end of a campaign if its primary object, immediate initial success, fails. (3) In the matter of aircraft, four things have come out already. (_a_) Men will engage each other in the air without fear and they will do so continually, appalling as the prospect seemed in its novelty before the outbreak of this war. (_b_) Aircraft can discover the movement of troops in large bodies more accurately and successfully than had been imagined. (_c_) That body of aircraft which is used to a rougher climate, and to working in heavier winds, will have an immense advantage not only in bad weather but in all weather. It is this, coupled with a very fine and already established tradition of adventure, which has made the English airmen easily the superior of their Allies and enemies. (_d_) The aeroplane is neither as invulnerable at a great height as one school imagined it, nor as vulnerable as the opposite school maintained. The casualties are not as high in proportion to the numbers engaged as they would be in any other arm--at least so far--but they exist. And it would seem that the impossibility of telling whether an aeroplane belongs to friend or foe is a serious addition to the risk. Many questions connected with aircraft still remain to be solved; by far the most important of which to this country are connected with the efficiency of the dirigible balloon. (4) The amount of attention that should be given to good rifle firing and the importance that should be attached to the bayonet seem both to have been answered hitherto by the war. Superior rifle fire, especially under the conditions of a difficult defensive, was the saving of the British force during the retreat from Mons, and, during the whole battle of the Marne, French accounts agree that the bayonet was the deciding factor in action after action. But even if it be true, in the words of a French officer, that “all actions end with the bayonet,” the actual number of troops thus engaged and the casualties connected with them, are not in a very high proportion to the whole.