The victory of the 'masses' intensifies and invigorates the sense of superiority in the individual combatant, and this sense of individual superiority is essential if the patrols are to carry through their duties in the true Cavalry spirit.
On the one hand, they are only able to solve their tasks both of screening and of reconnaissance by actually defeating the enemy's patrols; on the other hand, the moral factor tells heavily in the scale.
How can one expect courage and determination or audacity from men who have always been taught to avoid their opponent and only fight when they are actually compelled?
The man who leaves these psychic factors out of account will always find himself mistaken in War.
That in certain cases it may be useful to push forward officers as stealthy patrols, with instruction to avoid being drawn into an action, as far as time and opportunity will allow, goes without saying; but nevertheless stress must be laid upon the point that already in the period which is in general taken up with the encounter with the enemy's Cavalry, no opportunity should be lost of keeping the principal masses of the enemy's Army under direct observation, and that therefore it is necessary from the very commencement of the advance to send out officers patrols for this special purpose.
These patrols will derive their best support from a tactical victory obtained over the enemy's Cavalry, which is manoeuvring in their rear.
Thus the fact remains that we must fight to reconnoitre and fight to screen, and that only a systematic division of the two spheres of action can give us the freedom necessary to insure the adoption of the proper form at the right time and place.
A victory of the reconnoitring Cavalry by shattering the strength of the enemy's horsemen must always result, both directly and indirectly, in the advantage of our screening force.
The whole consideration, therefore, leads me to the conclusion that the chief task for the Cavalry consists in obtaining a victory over the enemy's Cavalry in that direction which is of decisive importance for the further prosecution of reconnaissance as soon after the beginning of the great operations as possible.
That it cannot be our object to seek the opponent's horsemen in the direction which they themselves have selected--merely to beat them--need scarcely be insisted upon. That would be to take the law from the enemy and allow one's self to be diverted from the principal direction in which reconnaissance is desirable.