Page 227 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

2o8 Preparedness for Naval War.

Where service is compulsory, that fact alone
tends to make it abhorrent, and voluntary per-
sistence, after time has been served, rare. But,
on the other hand, as the necessity for numbers
in war is as real as the necessity of fitness, a
body where long service and small reserves
obtain should in peace be more numerous than
one where the reserves are larger. To long
service and small reserves a large standing
force is the natural corollary. It may be added
that it is more consonant to the necessities of
warfare, and more consistent with the idea of
the word " reserve," as elsewhere used in war.
The reserve in battle is that portion of the
force which is withheld from engagement,
awaiting the unforeseen developments of the
fight ; but no general would think of carrying
on a pitched battle with the smaller part of
his force, keeping the larger part in reserve.
Rapid concentration of effort, anticipating that
of the enemy, is the ideal of tactics and of
strategy, — of the battle-field and of tke cam-
paign. It is that, likewise, of the science of
mobilization, in its modern development. The
reserve is but the margin of safety, to compen-
sate for defects in conception or execution, to