Relation of the Three Arms
Too Long; Didn't Read
We shall only speak of the three principal arms: Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery.
We must be excused for making the following analysis which belongs more to tactics, but is necessary to give distinctness to our ideas.
The combat is of two kinds, which are essentially different: the destructive principle of fire, and the hand to hand or personal combat. This latter, again, is either attack or defence. (As we here speak of elements, attack and defence are to be understood in a perfectly absolute sense.) Artillery, obviously, acts only with the destructive principle of fire. Cavalry only with personal combat. Infantry with both.