"The infantry, bearing their bayonets, their rifles with bayonets, are really intended to terrify the enemy by the sight of cold steel.
"It is believed that an attacking force will look so ferocious and will behave so ferociously that an enemy will quail before the sheer valor and bravery of this oncoming force.
"They were devastated. The French were slaughtered. Many of them were still wearing the brightly colored uniforms that armies used to wear in the past. In the past armies wore a brightly colored uniform because there was so much smoke on the battlefield, that if you didn't have bright uniforms you couldn't see who were your friends and who were your foes. With the invention of the long-range rifles and machine guns, with the invention of smokeless powder, this was not a problem. The problem was that if you wore a bright uniform, you were a very conspicuous target."