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Show In bTfenswe" Such Must Be Plan of Victorious Army, Says Foch. Allied Generalissimo Declares Well Organized Or-ganized Reserves, Delivering Bludgeon Blud-geon Blow at Proper Time and (Place Will Destroy the V Enemy. Loudon. Victory can be won In the end only by the army that takes the offensive, and success iu this depends on husbanding and instructing the reserves. re-serves. So declares General Foch In the weekly Journal, the Field. "Modern warfare, to arrive at Its end and to impose its will on the enemy," en-emy," General Foch says, "recognizee only one means destruction of tho enemy's organized forces. "War undertakes and prepares this destruction by battle, which brings about the overthrow of the adversary, disorganizes Ids command, destroys his discipline, and nullities Ids units "as fur as tlieir lighting power is concerned. con-cerned. No Victory in Defense. "Our first axiom must be that to achieve its object a- battle must not be purely defensive. A purely defensive battle, even well conducted, does not result in a victor and a vanquished. It Is simply a game that must be begun over again. "From tills It is an obvious corollary that an offensive, whether started at the beginning of an action or whether it follows the defensive, can only give results, and, in consequence, must always al-ways be adopted at the finish. "To maintain our position is not synonymous with being victorious and even prepares for a defeat. If we remain re-main where we are and do not pass to the offensive to fix the direction of attack, at-tack, to guard against the plans of the enemy, and prevent him from carrying out the same maneuver, we must undertake un-dertake to carry on and sustain numerous numer-ous combats, each with determined aim. All Depends on Reserve. "But since there remains no doubt that decisive attack is the very keystone key-stone of a battle, all other actions which make up a battle must be envisaged, en-visaged, considered, organized, provided pro-vided with forces in the measure in which they will prepare, facilitate, and guarantee development of a decisive attack characterized by its mass, its surprise, its speed, and for which, in consequence, It is essential that there shall be the maximum reserve force possible of troops of maneuver. "The reserve that is to say, the prepared bludgeon is organized and kept carefully instructed to execute the single act of battle from- which results re-sults are expected namely, the decisive de-cisive attack. Surprise, Mass and Speed. "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, deter-mined, reserves are thrown in all together to-gether in an action surpassing in violence vio-lence and energy all other phases of battle, an action with proper characteristics charac-teristics surprise, mass, and speed. All our forces really participate, either by preparing it or by carrying It out. "In this, our supreme aim, we must not be deceived by appearances. Al though theory fails when applied by feeble hands and when accessories obscure ob-scure the main principle, history ,and reason show us that in battle there is a single argument which is worth while . namely, decisive attack, which Is alone capable of assuring the desired result the overthrow of the adversary." |