with the means of attack and defence, and if we are properly to appreciate the value and importance of concentration in this sense, we must not fix our attention too closely upon the bare fact of concentration, but rather upon the underlying principles, and seek a more solid foundation in the study of the controlling factors.
§ 20. The Conditions of Ancient and Modern Warfare Contrasted. There is an important difference between the methods of defence of primitive times and those of the present day which may be used to illustrate the point at issue. In olden times, when weapon directly answered weapon, the act of defence was positive and direct, the blow of sword or battleaxe was parried by sword and shield; under modern conditions gun answers gun, the defence from rifle-fire is rifle-fire, and the defence from artillery, artillery. But the defence of modern arms is indirect: tersely, the enemy is prevented from killing you by your killing him first, and the fighting is essentially collective. As a consequence of this diff"erence, the importance of concentration in history has been by no means a constant quantity. Under the old conditions it was not possible by any strategic plan or tactical manoeuvre to bring other than approximately equal numbers of men into the actual fighting line; one man would ordinarily find himself opposed to one man. Even were a General to concentrate twice the number of men on any given portion of the field to that of the enemy, the number of men actually wielding their weapons at any given instant (so long as the fighting line was unbroken), was, roughly speaking, the same on both sides. Under present-day conditions all this is changed. With modern long-range weapons—fire-arms, in brief—the concentration of superior numbers gives an immediate superiority in the active combatant ranks, and the numerically inferior force finds itself under a far heavier
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