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Show WALTER BRAND of Sandy, who is reported seriously wounded in France. 1ST TAKE THE OFFENSIVE IN HER TO 11 - General Foch Makes Significant Signif-icant Declaration in Important Im-portant Article Contributed Contrib-uted to Weekly. DECISIVE ATTACK IS THE KEYSTONE French Commander Would Husband Reserves With Parsimony in Order to Use Them as Bludgeon. LONDON, June 9. That battles can be won in the end only by the army which takes the offensive is the significant declaration made by General Foch, commander-in-chief of the allies, in an important im-portant articles contributed by him to the Weekly Journal, the Field, in which he discusses the problem of the soldier and the way to victory. "Modem warfare to arrive at its end and to impose its will on the enemy," says 'Geneal Foch. "recognizes only, on? means destruction of the enemy's organized organ-ized forces. War undertakes and prepares pre-pares this destruction by battle which brings about overthrow of the adversary, disorganizes his command, destroys his discipline, and nullifies his units as far as their fighting power is concerned "Our first axfom must be that to completely com-pletely achieve its object a -battle must not be purely defensive, A purely defensive de-fensive battle, even well conducted, does not result in a victor and a vanquished. It is simply a game that must be begun be-gun over again. Must Adopt Offensive. "From this it is an obvious corollary that an offensive, whether started at the beginning of an action or whether it follows fol-lows the defensive, can only give results and in consequence must always be adopted at the finish. "To maintain our position is not synonymous synon-ymous with being victorious, and even prepares for a defeat. If we remain where we are and do not pass to the offensive to fix the decision of attack, to guard against the plans of the enemy and prevent pre-vent him from carrying out the same maneuver, we must undertake to carry on and sustain numerous combats, each with determined aim. ' "But since there remains no doubt that decisive attack is the very keystone of a battle, all other actions which make up a battle must be envisaged, considered, organized, or-ganized, provided with forces in the measure meas-ure in which they will prepare, facilitate and guarantee development of a decisive attack characterized by its mass, its surprise, sur-prise, its speed and for which, in consequence, conse-quence, it is essential that there shall be the maximum reserve force possible of troops of maneuver. Reserve the Bludgeon. "The reserve that is to say, the prepared pre-pared bludgeon is organized, and kept carefully instructed to execute the single act of battle from which results are expected, ex-pected, namely, the decisive attack. "Reserves must be husbanded with the most extreme parsimony so that the bludgeon may be strong enough to make the blow as violent as possible. Let loose at the finish, without any lurking idea of saving them, with a well thought out plan for winning the battle at a point chosen and determined, reserves are thrown in all together in an action surpassing in violence and energy all other phases of battle, an action with proper characteristics character-istics surprise, mass and speed. All our forces really participate, either by preparing pre-paring it or by carrying it out. "In this, our supreme aim, we must not be deceived by appearances. Although theory fails when applied by feeble hands and when accessories obscure the main principle, history and reason show us that in battle there is a single argument which is worth while, namely, the attack is alone capable of assuring the desired resultthe re-sultthe overthrow of the adversary." |