"To deploy them in line would take weeks. Then, even after they had been got in order and were marching from south to north, the corps nearest to the battle line would have to mark time while the rest pivoted on it. That would mean a couple more days' lost time. The same delay would arise when it was necessary to pivot the line in position for attack. In addition to that, my boy, there would be the waste of time in strategical handling caused by the change of direction. New lines of communication would have to be established, new supply depots built, new routes mapped out, rolling stock shifted to other railway systems, all the plans which the General Staff had made before the opening of the campaign must needs be altered and the huge body of officers would have to receive new orders so that they might learn the entire change of tactics in detail. Meantime, the battle would be over." "Well, then," said Horace, scornfully, "German strategy is all nonsense." "Don't jump to conclusions," warned the veteran. "There's another side to it. Suppose that the operative corner is attacked so fast and so furiously that, instead of being able to retreat upon its reserves in good order, it is annihilated, what then? In that case, the enemy can plunge right in between the supporting armies, going to what, I suppose, you would call the 'pitcher's box,' cut the dissevered troops apart and deal with them one at a time. "Everything depends upon the operative corner, especially on its tenacity. This strategy is possible in the French Army, where individual courage and resiliency is the highest of all armies of the world. It is only equaled by some of the Irish and Highland Scotch regiments of the British Army, and the Bersaglieri and other corps of the Italian Army. It is not suitable to the bulldog tactics of the English, which depend on wearing down the enemy; nor to the 'wolf-pack' system of the Germans, which depends on mere weight of numbers." Horace leaned forward, thoughtfully. "There's a good deal more to this than I thought," he said. "The operation of war on land," said the veteran, "is one of the most marvelous processes known to the human brain. There is no machine so enormous, none that requires so much detail and fineness of adjustment. I've studied it from a soldier's point of view, ever since I've been in the army, and now that I'm trying to get my commission, I'm studying it all the closer. "Men don't win a war. Guns don't win a war. Food and munitions don't win a war. You can have ten million men and a hundred million tons of food and munitions and what good will they be unless the food gets to the men, the munitions to the guns, and the men and guns to the front? What good will it do then, unless the men have, first, the spirit to fight, and second, the skill to fight?