mistakes of principle and detail which Lee had recognised so promptly, and exploited so successfully, when committed Chancel by his adversary during the brief struggle in the forest round Chancellorsville.

lorsville

and Gettysburg.

The enterprise undertaken by Hooker when he crossed the Rappahannock was light indeed compared with that imposed upon Lee when he invaded the North. The Federal general led nearly one hundred thousand infantry with four hundred guns to fight fifty thousand riflemen with one hundred and fifty guns. An equal preponderance in cavalry was assured to the Northerners. Hooker's communications were securely guarded; an uninterrupted supply of men and stores was assured to him, and large armies were ready to profit by his first victory, to close on the defeated Southerners and consummate their ruin. Lee at Gettysburg on the contrary could only count on a superiority of forces in battle by skilful manœuvres; in crossing the border he risked his communications, for he could not afford to detach troops enough to protect them. He could count on no reinforcements, and for supplies he had to seize the enemy's magazines. Consequently his only hope of victorious issue lay in daring and successful strategy.

The underlying fault in the conceptions of both generals was that both expected to win an offensive campaign by defensive fighting. This motive prompted them both to detach their cavalry rather than to combine its offensive action with the infantry, and to shrink from the rapid and decisive measures which always involve some hazards, but which alone reap great successes. With Jackson's inspiring counsel and able assistance Lee made Hooker pay dearly for every blunder and hesitation. The absence of his own cavalry in the Gettysburg campaign was certainly not intended by Lee, but it came about in no small degree from the absence of a clearly defined purpose to attack the Army of the Potomac as swiftly and violently as possible. Dread of the attacking rôle paralysed the best schemes of both Hooker and Lee, and threw away their most promising opportunities.

The more extensive the field of action becomes the more

E E

difficult it is to approach the enemy's forces to reconnoitre; and the greater the part played by individuals beyond the ken of the commanding general, the more intellectual will be the science of war for chiefs of every grade. Mistakes will have more fatal and far-reaching effects. It will be increasingly important and increasingly difficult to recognise the essential points, as apart from the points of a situation which may have to be neglected in taking decisive action. The Chinese plan of making war by mathematics, and choosing military mandarins for their academic performances, will as the art develops lead to consequences more and more disastrous. If war is a science it is also an art, and must be studied as such. It requires a combination of artist and scientist in its professor; a hard head and a practical mind indeed, but the sympathetic touch of imagination must not be wanting. Every officer cannot hope to combine qualities so rare, but everyone who hopes to gain an insight into the game can study it from the right standpoint.

The year 1904 will be famous in history for the campaign in Manchuria, second only to the campaign of 1864 in the stubborn valour of the combatants. The absence of any considerable force of cavalry from either army deprives it of the interest which it would otherwise have had, by limiting the action of the adversaries to direct attacks without curtain to screen them, or manoeuvring power to vary them. The most decisive successes not having been followed up by a cavalry pursuit have failed to knock out the defeated army for any considerable period. There has been no scope for remarkable feats of generalship, but only for remarkable valour and fighting power on both sides. It is a fascinating and not unprofitable pursuit to peer into the future in order to forecast the type of fighting on a great scale between armies as determined and as well commanded, but which are provided with every weapon of modern war, including a due proportion of cavalry.

A clear comprehension of military science and the best physical efforts of strong men are required in offensive warfare, but the moral qualities in the nation and army by which alone great peril can be faced, and great sacrifices made,

The

are not less essential. In the Russians the soldiers of Japan have found enemies of the most formidable character, but the triumph of the East over the West has been Honour of gained by precisely the same means as have for a People. so many centuries secured the superiority of the European over the Asiatic. A standard of self-sacrifice in the manhood of the whole nation, and a code of chivalrous honour permeating the corps of officers and the class which furnishes it, superior alike to their opponent's ideal and practice, have achieved military and national triumph for the youngest of the great Powers of the world.

The intelligent discipline, which is above all things essential to offensive warfare to-day, depends almost entirely on simple-minded loyalty in the subordinate and simpleminded zeal for the public weal in the superior officer. When the latter is principally interested with intrigues for his own advancement or convenience, the former will never be fired with the intense devotion by which alone great victories have been won in the past, and by which alone they are capable of being won in the future. It is hard to remember these things in peace when no pressing danger threatens. Military business is hateful to the politician; it is gladly thrust aside to be controlled by a few specialists whose authority is sometimes out of all proportion to their capacity for wielding it. In sober truth there is no issue in politics which is of greater importance to the whole community, and of which every elector should try to attain at least a rudimentary knowledge, than the organisation and control of the military forces of the nation. The neglect to do so in a democratic state will sooner or later entail a heavy penalty. The well-kept national cemeteries of America, and the countless rough crosses which mark the last resting place of many thousand men on the battlefields of Europe, National should remind the people that international rivalry Cemeteries. may at any moment assume the fiercest conditions. When such a crisis overtakes a nation, its peasantry and working men must go forth to be slain and maimed by the thousand that the predominance of their race may be assured. The war of the future will not be a contest with conventional limits

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but a duel to the death for imperial power, of which the War of Secession is a type. If when that hour comes the manhood of a nation is not to be spent in vain, and the tears and sufferings of those at home endured to no purpose, the possibility of war, and the preparations for it which are necessary in peace, must be faced while there is yet time.

On a grey day in November 1863, while the great issue still trembled in the balance, the cemetery which contained the mortal remains of the heroes of Gettysburg was dedicated in solemn fashion. President Lincoln came by train from Washington to the famous field of battle, and at the close of the funeral oration he was also called upon to speak. Drawing from his pocket a small piece of crumpled paper on which he had written some notes, he spoke as follows:

'Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that War. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men living or dead who struggled here have consecrated it far beyond our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us here to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation shall under God have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'