To sum up, training with a view to self-sacrifice during peace exercises is essential for the success of all Arms in War, but especially so for Cavalry.
With remarkable perspicuity and telling conviction, General von Bernhardi has dealt in an exhaustive manner with every subject demanding a Cavalry soldier's study and thought. I am convinced that he who thoroughly masters the contents of his book will feel no doubt and will entertain no misapprehension as to the vast rôle his Arm is called upon to fulfil in War, and he will realize how, in mastering the great essentials of which it treats, he will himself be assisting in the best possible manner to maintain the prestige and glory of the great Service to which he belongs.
EMPLOYMENT OF CAVALRY AND ESSENTIALS OF LEADERSHIP
THE MODERN CONDITIONS OF WAR, AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE EMPLOYMENT AND USEFULNESS OF CAVALRY
The Art of War has undergone a momentous change; indeed, it has been revolutionized since the Franco-German War. Every condition that affects the conduct of warlike operations seems changed in almost every particular. Arms of precision have reached a degree of perfection which compels us to take into account possibilities which did not exist a few years ago, and for which the experience of the past can offer no scale of comparison. The all but universal introduction of Compulsory Service, and the consequent reduction in length of time spent by the soldier with the colours, have changed the character of almost all European Armies.
All the most typical factors in the standing Armies of former days disappear more or less on the issue of the order to mobilize. New groupings of units are formed from the first outbreak of hostilities, and the fact that these bodies are put together only on mobilization, together with the reduction in the period of service which has been very generally accepted, tend to depreciate the average value of the troops, whilst at the same time the 'masses' have risen to unimaginable dimensions. This '_folie des nombres_,' against which certain French Authorities have warned us, is a very stern reality.
Experience has shown that the mere preparation for War, penetrating year by year more deeply into the very heart of nations, must in future unchain, from the first moment that the Armies of the Continent come into collision, all the horrors of a racial conflict, in which, from the first, the interests of every individual are involved.