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Show u , ' BAYONET IS THE GREATEST WEAPON. Having sent out a questionnaire to Obtain the judgment of American army I officers as to the basic combatant; unit in battle. Urn war department has ' reached the conclusion that success in ngar still rests with the morale of in fantry armed with ihe rifle and bayo-j net. Cold steel wins wars is the de-1 .'clslon In summing up the war department says: 1 "That man remains the fundamental instrument in battle, and as such c.in-not c.in-not ho replaced by an Imaginable in strument short of u moro perfect j 1 thine than ihe human body. Including the mind. That man In the bulk-meaning bulk-meaning the greater portion of the I armed forces fights with greatest treedom of action and with greatest ef liciency when on foot, not on horse back, in a tank, in an airplae. in a fixed fortification, etc ; that to achieve i decisive action he is best armed with the rifle and bayonet; that man is rendered ren-dered least vulnerable when merely i clothed against the weather and armored ar-mored by his own agility and with steel helmet. That battle is normall (determined by physical encounter wiih I the bayonet or the fear thereof, all other agencies of destruction, as grtl lerjr, machine guns and aircraft, are i auxiliary In their effect, however potent, po-tent, and serve to make possible the (advance of the fool soldier to hand-to-hand encounter." All things else being equal, undoubtedly undoubt-edly the bayonet determines on which Bids victory shall rest, but there are man Diner premiums uivoiveu. wining win-ing the world war. bad the allies found no effective defense against the gas attacks first launched near Yprefc, they would have been defeated ('on-j ceding that for every means of attack, at-tack, there is a defense, then it must be accepted as true that the moral effect of the battle Is. the decisive force in war. |