In a future European war “masses” will be employed to an extent unprecedented in any previous one.  Weapons will be used whose deadliness will exceed all previous experience.  More effective and varied means of communication will be available than were known in earlier wars.  These three momentous factors will mark the war of the future.

“Masses” signify in themselves an increase of strength, but they contain elements of weakness as well.  The larger they are and the less they can be commanded by professional soldiers, the more their tactical efficiency diminishes.  The less they are able to live on the country during war-time, especially when concentrated, and the more they are therefore dependent on the daily renewal of food-supplies, the slower and less mobile they become.  Owing to the great space which they require for their deployment, it is extraordinarily difficult to bring them into effective action simultaneously.  They are also far more accessible to morally depressing influences than compacter bodies of troops, and may prove dangerous to the strategy of their own leaders, if supplies run short, if discipline breaks down, and the commander loses his authority over the masses which he can only rule under regulated conditions.

The increased effectiveness of weapons does not merely imply a longer range, but a greater deadliness, and therefore makes more exacting claims on the moral of the soldier.  The danger zone begins sooner than formerly; the space which must be crossed in an attack has become far wider; it must be passed by the attacking party creeping or running.  The soldier must often use the spade in defensive operations, during which he is exposed to a far hotter fire than formerly; while under all circumstances he must shoot more than in bygone days.  The quick firing which the troop encounters increases the losses at every incautious movement.  All branches of arms have to suffer under these circumstances.  Shelter and supplies will be more scanty than ever before.  In short, while the troops on the average have diminished in value, the demands made on them have become considerably greater.

Improved means of communication, finally, facilitate the handling and feeding of large masses, but tie them down to railway systems and main roads, and must, if they fail or break down in the course of a campaign, aggravate the difficulties, because the troops were accustomed to their use, and the commanders counted upon them.

The direct conclusion to be drawn from these reflections is that a great superiority must rest with the troops whose fighting capabilities and tactical efficiency are greater than those of their antagonists.

The commander who can carry out all operations quicker than the enemy, and can concentrate and employ greater masses in a narrow space than they can, will always be in a position to collect a numerically superior force in the decisive direction; if he controls the more effective troops, he will gain decisive successes against one part of the hostile army, and will be able to exploit them against other divisions of it before the enemy can gain equivalent advantages in other parts of the field.