The theory and practice of war and football are divided into strategy and tactics, the division in the gridiron game being not as sharp as in battle, since on the gridiron one is at all times in contact with the enemy. It is not going too far, however, to state that tactics in football does not usually begin until after the attacking team has crossed the middle of the field, and that strategy continues uppermost until the aggressor has reached reasonable striking distance for the running game, or for a score by drop or placement kick. Generalship in football covers both strategy and tactics, while strategy takes less count of individual and team technique than does tactics.

In warfare there are three arms, infantry, cavalry and artillery, and if in football the work of the line coupled with all attacks of the backs on the opposing forwards between tackle and tackle be considered as infantry movements; runs outside tackle and end, whether from single, double or delayed pass, as cavalry action; and punting, place and drop-kicking, judiciously mixed with forward passing, as artillery fire, the parallel, it will readily be seen, is very close. The laws governing the use of the three arms in battle may be followed to the greatest advantage in football, as has already been demonstrated in action.

The greater part of the game, just as the greater part of the battle, is consumed in effecting the more or less elaborate maneuvers designed to make the final assault as simple as possible - to make it swift, sharp and decisive. Strategy leads inevitably to the psychological moment, which as a rule is seized for the effective use of shock action. Not so long ago a certain military man was watching a game of billiards in the course of which Ora Mornings tar was making high runs. "There you are," he said, turning to me. "With the balls in that position you or I could make reasonably high runs, in spite of average technique. You see what Morningstar is doing; he is making the game simple."

Application in a Harvard-Yale game of the military theory of attack, "Concentration of the destructive elements on the decisive point." (X) marks the decisive point. The theory is that of du Teil, Napoleon's instructor.

Now a field general in football bears always in mind the ideal position from which, considering the measure of his team's ability, he should strike for victory. Yet because of a high-class defense he may never attain that ideal position. The psychological moment arrives, however, when his team reaches a position from which the elements that were to have been used in the ideal situation, may still be brought into play with better than an even chance of success. Yet this same psychological moment is often so well disguised that it takes genius to recognize it, just as it does in battle.

But while the strategy and tactics of football and warfare come closer and closer together the further they are followed, war and the game differ in the outset in certain fundamental elements that must always be kept in mind. And football, fortunately, is devoid of no end of the complications of the war game, such as the supply train, lines of communication, etc. A football game endures through one hour of actual play, a battle from dawn to darkness, with the possibilities of renewal on the morrow, and through several succeeding days. A consideration of the terrain in war presents many abstruse problems, such as the advantageous disposition of varying numbers of troops. In football the field is restricted as to size by rule; there is no possibility of entrenchment, save as impregnable defense may be called entrenchment; the opposing teams are equal in the matter of numbers, and the choice of ground is important only as it is affected by the wind and sun. Not infrequently there is absolutely no choice save as a team prefers, because of temperament, to begin on the defensive or the offensive.

In football there is no opportunity to find cover, and no concealment of the objective of the attack save that provided by clever maneuvering in the face of and in contact with a vigilant enemy. Weak spots both in defense and attack are discovered through expert individual diagnosis and test, and the field general often succeeds or fails through clever use of or waste of superior personnel. Further, the ideal football team, playing under ideal conditions, is largely, and wisely so, a detached force. It is out of touch with its chief strategist, the head coach, and must depend upon its field general, who should enter the game untrammeled by instructions that go too deeply into detail.

Attempts innumerable have been made to run an eleven from the side line - to handle every strategical and tactical move from that presumably advantageous station. They have failed with far greater frequency than they have succeeded, for the simple reason that from the point of view of strategy the side line is the poorest place on the field from which to get an accurate idea of the progress and development of the game. There are many coaches to-day who would dearly love to run their teams from the press stand, on the topmost row, whence may be seized the scheme of the battle entire.

It is this detachment of the team in action that keeps football after all a game, rather than a series of machine-like evolutions; preserves opportunity to the individual, and insures victory or defeat to an eleven in its capacity as representative of undergraduate sport. No amount of strategy and tactics will retrieve individual blunders, nor will it rob the team of its right to stand or fall in the last analysis to a large extent on its personnel. I call the game "field chess," with the accent on the "field," for the reason that the blackboard game and the side line general never won a big match.

Now to a consideration of strategy and tactics as they appear both in football and war. "Strategy," said Von Moltke, "is the practical adaptation of the means placed at a general's disposal to the attainment of the object in view." The definition of du Teil, instructor of Napoleon, is: "Concentration of the destructive elements on the decisive point." Certainly no football coach would need a better foundation on which to build, pasting in his hat at the same time Napoleon's maxim, "One maneuvers only around a fixed point."