The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-07-20
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 FAIRFIELD AVE. and MIDDLE ST. task of support. They are then sim- ply magazines uf troops, from which one draws to make up the wastage that is caused, that increases and de- mands to be repaired. Here the whole art consists in still having some more reserves when the enemy has no more left; so as to be able to say the last word in this fight where attrition is the single argu- ment, But since these reserves can have no place assigned them in ad- vance they must be everywhere, to be l employed at the rate and in the mea- sure of the need which arises, to keep l the fight going on the whole front | They are drawn into the fight and 1 swallowed up, while the command awaits a favorable circumstance, without knowing where or how to find it, and the reserves have no oth- CT effect than to keep the battle from dying out.
 In the manoeuvre battle, the re- serve (that is to say, the prepared bludgeon) is organized, kept back carefully instructed to execute the single act of the battle from which results are expected, the decisive at- tack; the reserve is husbanded with the most extreme parsimony, so that i the bludgeon may be strong enough the blow as violent as possible. | Let loose at the finish, without any lurking idea of saving them, with a we'll -thought-out plan for winning the battle at a point chosen and deter mined, the reserves are thrown in all | together in an action surpassing in violence and energy all the .. other 1 phases of the battle, an action with the proper characteristics of surprise, of mass and speed. All our forces really participate, either by prepar- ing it, or by carrying it out, in this our supreme aim.
 So the ultimate resultant from the convergence of all efforts is felt as it is applied upon the objective given to the decisive attack. the supreme argument; a pure development of that principle of economy of force which, instead of specializing its re- sources, keeping them in compart- ments in a fixed and invariable fash ion, mingles them together so that they can be poured in the same direc- tion, to assist in getting the result sought at a given instant.
 The parallel battle is the idea, or rather, the absence of idea, on the conduct of the battle as a whole, which governed the French army in 1870.
 Given that, in the manoeuvre bat tie Ga superior form, since it leads to the most complete employment of forces) the decisive attack is the nec- essary and sufficient condition of suc- cess, everything else becomes sec ondary; therefore the smallest pos sible numbers must be consecrated to secondary objects, and their em- ployment must be regarded, man. aged, studied only in relation to our preparations for the decisive act.
 Nevertheless, we must recognize that before the execution of the deci- sive attack, it is necessary:
 1. To arrange it's direction, to clarify- the plan;
 2. To prepare it;
 8. To watch it, to improve it; be- cause of the possibilities open to the enemy.
 1. Of concealing his dispositions;
 2. Of changing them;
 3. Of making similar attacks;
 Hence comes the necessity of a se- ries of dispositions 7(of protection, if you like) having for objects:
 1. To reconnoitre the enemy;
 2. To immobilize. him;
 3. To paralyze him and absorb his activity;
 and all that is included in what is called the frontal combat, or rather the preparation for the decisive battle, which is then something quite different from an ordinary battle.
 But to reconnoitre the enemy, wherever he shows himself, demands numerous forces.
 To immobilize him demands great forces; you cannot stop him with nothing.
 And to paralyze him, demands still more forces and more time.
 Finally this frontal fighting. which, to remain faithful to the theory, one would expect to carry out with only feeble effectives, absorbs in practice the greater part of all the forces, as it takes the greater part of the time;
 
 only the lesser part of the troops, and lasts only a few moments, double effect of perspective which confirms superficial minds in the idea that the frontal fighting is the battle, because they judge only by quantity (of forces, or time) not by results and the when the accessories obscure the main principle, or the details hide the root idea, history and reason show l us that in battle there is single ar gument which is worth while; the decisive attack which is alone ca pablo of assuring the desired result, the overthrow of the adversary.
 All the acts of the: battle then lead l up:
 l. To preparing this denouement | (whether you call them fights of ad- vance guards, frontal battles, ,artil- lery combats, struggles of squadrons