We arrive, then, at the conclusion that, in order to secure the superiority in a war of the future under otherwise equal conditions, it is incumbent on us:  First, during the period of preparation to raise the tactical value and capabilities of the troops as much as possible, and especially to develop the means of concealing the attacking movements and damaging the enemy’s tactical powers; secondly, in the war itself to act on the offensive and strike the first blow, and to exploit the manoeuvring capacity of the troops as much as possible, in order to be superior in the decisive directions.  Above all, a State which has objects to attain that cannot be relinquished, and is exposed to attacks by enemies more powerful than itself, is bound to act in this sense.  It must, before all things, develop the attacking powers of its army, since a strategic defensive must often adopt offensive methods.

This principle holds good pre-eminently for Germany.  The points which I have tried to emphasize must never be lost sight of, if we wish to face the future with confidence.  All our measures must be calculated to raise the efficiency of the army, especially in attack; to this end all else must give way.  We shall thus have a central point on which all our measures can be focussed.  We can make them all serve one purpose, and thus we shall be kept from going astray on the bypaths which we all too easily take if we regard matters separately, and not as forming parts of a collective whole.  Much of our previous omissions and commissions would have borne a quite different complexion had we observed this unifying principle.

The requirements which I have described as the most essential are somewhat opposed to the trend of our present efforts, and necessitate a resolute resistance to the controlling forces of our age.

The larger the armies by which one State tries to outbid another, the smaller will be the efficiency and tactical worth of the troops; and not merely the average worth, but the worth of each separate detachment as such.  Huge armies are even a danger to their own cause.  “They will be suffocated by their own fat,” said General v.  Brandenstein, the great organizer of the advance of 1870, when speaking of the mass-formation of the French.  The complete neglect of cavalry in their proportion to the whole bulk of the army has deprived the commander of the means to injure the tactical capabilities of the enemy, and to screen effectually his own movements.  The necessary attention has never been paid in the course of military training to this latter duty.  Finally, the tactical efficiency of troops has never been regarded as so essential as it certainly will prove in the wars of the future.

A mechanical notion of warfare and weak concessions to the pressure of public opinion, and often a defective grasp of the actual needs, have conduced to measures which inevitably result in an essential contradiction between the needs of the army and the actual end attained, and cannot be justified from the purely military point of view.  It would be illogical and irrelevant to continue in these paths so soon as it is recognized that the desired superiority over the enemy cannot be reached on them.