A General's Letters to His Son on Minor Tactics

"A General's Letters to His Son on Minor Tactics" is a book of anonymous authorship on military tactics. Written in form of letters to a young soldiers during the First World War, the author surmises that, «It has very forcibly been brought home to me that not only young officers joining their units from training establishments, but also those who have been in France and have come back wounded, are often very ignorant on those points in minor tactics which they have not learnt through actual experience on the battlefield, and that this is especially the case with regard to the proper control of fire. The battlefield is an expensive place to acquire knowledge which can be gained elsewhere, and it behooves us to do all we possibly can to train our young commanders under peace conditions for the ordeals they will have to encounter in the presence of the enemy.»