From the results now obtained the success of the whole campaign may entirely depend. At this climax no secondary consideration must be allowed to distract attention from the principal object. Even the desirability of screening the movements of one's own Army, in so far as this duty is not fulfilled by the reconnaissance itself, must give way to the attainment of the principal object in view, which is _intelligence_, not _security_.
This point requires to be more particularly insisted upon, because fundamentally different arrangements are necessary to fulfil these two purposes. Anyone who attempted to entrust both the provision of intelligence and the protection of the troops to one and the same body of men would in the vast majority of cases fail to secure either purpose as long as the enemy's mounted forces still held the field.
To secure information--_i.e._, intelligence--requires concentration of force. The reconnoitring Cavalry must beat their opponents out of the field in order to obtain opportunities for discovering what is going on behind the enemy's protective screen. To accomplish this, the Cavalry must endeavour to work round the adversary's flanks, and may in consequence have to leave the front of its own Army entirely uncovered. The protection of this Army, on the other hand, requires a wide extension of front and consequent subdivision of force, the exact opposite of the concentration the provision of intelligence imperatively calls for.
Naturally this view encounters opposition. Some contend that the whole triumph of the Art consists in solving both problems simultaneously. They reason that it is superfluous to seek an encounter with the enemy's Cavalry. Cavalry duels only lead to the mutual destruction of both parties. They maintain that one ought to advance, in the interests both of security and screening, on a certain breadth of front. If, then, circumstances compel one to fight, one must concentrate quickly, and after the combat gain again the necessary degree of extension to cover the front of the Army. They would leave reconnaissance to be carried out by rapidly advancing patrols, which evade those of the enemy, find cover in the ground, gain advantageous points of observation on the flanks and in rear of the opponent, thus obtaining their objects in spite of the enemy.