CLAUSEWITZ - ON WAR - IV. THE COMBAT - Carl von Clausewitz - HQ Full Book - SECRETS OF POWER: Masters of Politics, Strategy & War

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Karl Vaughan Klausowitz on War Book four The Combat, Chapter
one Introductory. Having in the foregoing book examined the subjects
which may be regarded as the efficient elements of war,
we shall now turn our attention to the combat, as
the real activity in warfare, which, by its physical and
moral effects, embraces, sometimes more simply, sometimes in a more

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complex manner, the object of the whole campaign. In this
activity and in its effects, these elements must therefore reappear.
The formation of the combat is tactical in its nature.
We only glance at it here in a general way
in order to get acquainted with it in its aspect
as a whole. In practice, the minor or more immediate

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objects give every combat a characteristic form. These minor objects
we shall not discuss until hereafter. But these peculiarities are,
in comparison to the general characteristics of a combat, mostly
only insignificant, so that most combats are very like one another.
And therefore, in order to avoid repeating that which is
general at every stage, we are compelled to look into

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it here before taking up the subject of its more
special application. In the first place, Therefore, we shall give
in the next chapter in a few words, the characteristics
of the modern battle in its tactical course, because that
lies at the foundation of our conceptions of what the
battle really is. Chapter two. Character of a modern battle.

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According to the notion we have formed of tactics and strategy,
it follows, as a matter of course that if the
nature of the former is changed, that change must have
an influence on the latter. If tactical facts in one
case are entirely different from those in another, then the
strategic must be so also if they are to continue
consistent and reasonable. It is therefore important to characterize a

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general action in its modern form before we advance with
the study of its employment in strategy. What do we
do now? Usually in a great bay, we place ourselves
quietly in great masses arranged contiguous to and behind one another.
We deploy relatively only a small portion of the whole,
and let it wring itself out in a fire combat

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which lasts for several hours, only interrupted now and again,
and removed hither and thither By separate small shocks from
charges with the bayonet and cavalry attacks. When this line
has gradually exhausted part of its warlike ardor in this manner,
and there remains nothing more than the cinders. It is
withdrawn and replaced by another. The relief of the fighting

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line played a great part in the battles of the
smooth Bore era. It was necessitated by the fouling of
the muskets, physical fatigue of the men in consumption of ammunition,
and was recognized as both necessary and advisable by Napoleon himself.
In this manner, the battle, on a modified principle, burns
slowly away like wet powder. And if the veil of

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night commands it to stop, because neither party can any
longer see, and neither chooses to run the risk of
blind chance, then an account is taken by each side, respectively,
of the masses remaining which can be called still effective,
that is, which have not yet quite collapsed like extinct volcanoes.
Account is taken of the ground gained or lost, and

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of how stands the security of the rear. These results,
with the special impressions as to bravery and cowardice, ability
and stupidity, which are thought to have been observed in
ourselves and in the enemy, are collected into one single
total impression, out of which there springs the resolution to
quit the field or to renew the combat on the morrow.
This description, which is not intended as a finished picture

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of a modern battle, but only to give its general tone,
suits for the offensive and defensive, and the special traits
which are given by the object proposed the country, et cetera,
may be introduced into it without materially altering the conception.
But modern battles are not so by accident. They are
so because the parties find themselves nearly on a level

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as regards military organization and the knowledge of the art
of war, and because the warlike element, inflamed by great
national interests, has broken through artificial limits and now flows
in its natural channel. Under these two conditions, battles will
always preserve this character. This general idea of the modern
battle will be useful to us in a sequel in

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more places than one. If we want to estimate the
value of the particular coefficients of strength, country, et cetera.
It is only for general, great and decisive combats, and
such as come near to them, that this description stands.
Good inferior ones have changed their character also in the
same direction, but less than great ones. The proof of

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this belongs to tactics. We shall, however, have an opportunity
hereafter of making this subject plainer by giving a few particulars.
Chapter three. The combat. In general, the combat is the
real warlike activity. Everything else is only its auxiliary. Let
us therefore take an attentive look at its nature. Combat

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means fighting, and in this the destruction or conquest of
the enemy is the object, and the enemy, in the
particular combat is the armed force which stands opposed to us.
This is the simple idea. We shall return to it.
But before we can do that, we must insert a
series of others. If we suppose the state and its
military force as a unit, then the most natural idea

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is to imagine the war also as one great combat,
and in the simple relations of savage nations. It is
also not much otherwise. But our wars are made up
of a number of great and small, simultaneous or consecutive combats.
And this severance of the activity into so many separate
actions is owing to the great multiplicity of the relations
out of which war arises with us. In point of fact,

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the ultimate object of our wars, the political one, is
not always quite a simple one. And even were it so,
still the action is bound up with such a number
of conditions and considerations to be taken into account, that
the object can no longer be attained by one single
great act, but only through a number of greater or
smaller acts, which are bound up into a hole. Each

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of these separate acts is therefore a part of a whole,
and has consequently a special object by which it is
bound to this whole. We have already said that every
strategic act can be referred to the idea of a combat,
because it is an employment of the military force, and
at the root of that there always lies the idea
of fighting. We may therefore reduce every military activity in

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the province of strategy to the unit of single combats,
and occupy ourselves with the object of these. Only. We
shall get acquainted with these special objects by degrees, as
we come to speak of the causes which produce them.
Here we content ourselves with saying that every combat, great
or small, has its own peculiar object in subordination to
the main object. If this is the case, then the

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destruction and conquest of the enemy is only to be
regarded as the means of gaining this object, as it
unquestionably is. But this result is true only in its form,
and important only on account of the connection which the
ideas have between themselves, and we have only sought it
out to get rid of it at once. What is
overcoming the enemy, invariably the destruction of his military force,

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whether it be by death or wounds or any means,
whether it be completely or only to such a degree
that he can no longer continue the contest. Therefore, as
long as we set aside all special objects of combats,
we may look upon the complete or partial destruction of
the enemy as the only object of all combats. Now
we maintain that in the majority of cases, and especially

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in great battles, the special object by which the battle
is individualized and bound up with the great whole, is
only a weak modification of that general object, or an
ancillary object bound up with it, important enough to individualize
the battle, but always insignificant in comparison with that general object,
so that if that ancillary object alone should be obtained aimed,

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only an unimportant part of the purpose of the combat
is fulfilled. If this assertion is correct, then we see
that the idea according to which the destruction of the
enemy's force is only the means and something else always
the object can only be true in form, but that
it would lead to false conclusions if we did not
recollect that this destruction of the enemy's force is comprised

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in that object, and that this object is only a
weak modification of it. Forgetfulness of this led to completely
false views before the wars of the last period, and
created tendencies as well as fragments of systems in which
theory thought it raised itself so much the more above handicraft,
the less it supposed itself to stand in need of
the use of the real instrument, that is, the destruction

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of the enemy's force. Certainly, such a system could not
have arisen unless supported by other false suppositions, and unless
in place of the destruction of the enemy, other things
have been substituted to which an efficacy was ascribed which
did not rightly beli belong to them. We shall attack
these falsehoods whenever occasion requires. But we could not treat

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of the combat without claiming for it the real importance
and value which belonged to it, in giving warning against
the errors to which merely formal truth might lead. But
now how shall we manage to show that in most cases,
and in those of most importance. The destruction of the
enemy's army is the chief thing. How shall we manage
to combat that extremely subtle idea which supposes it possible,

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through the use of a special artificial form, to effect
by a small direct destruction of the enemy's forces a
much greater destruction indirectly, or by means of small but
extremely well directed blows, to produce such paralyzation of the
enemy's forces such a command over the enemy's will, that
this mode of proceeding is to be viewed as a
great shortening of the road. Undoubtedly, a victory at one

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point may be of more value than at another. Undoubtedly
there is a scientific arrangement of battles amongst themselves, even
in stratage, which is in fact nothing but the art
of thus arranging them to deny that is not our intention.
But we assert that the direct destruction of the enemy's
forces is everywhere predominant. We contend here for the overruling

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importance of this destructive principle, and nothing else. We must, however,
call to mind that we are now engaged with strategy,
not with tactics. Therefore we do not speak of the
means which the former may have of destroying, at a
small expense a large body of the enemy's forces. But
under direct destruction, we understand the tactical results, and that

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therefore our assertion is that only great tactical results can
lead to great strategical ones. Or, as we have already
once before more distinctly expressed it, the tactical successes are
of paramount importance in the conduct of war. The proof
of this assertion seems to us simple enough. It lies
in the time which every complicated artificial combination requires. The

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question whether a simple attack or one more carefully prepared
i e. More artificial, will produce greater effects may undoubtedly
be decided in favor of the latter, as long as
the enemy is assumed to remain quite passive. But every
carefully combined attack requires time for its preparation, and if
a counter stroke by the enemy intervenes, our whole design

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may be upset. Now, if the enemy should decide upon
some simple attack which can be executed in a shorter time,
then he gains the initiative and destroys the effect of
the great plan. Therefore, together with the expediency of a
complicated attack, we must consider all the dangers which we
run during its preparation, and should only adopt it if

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there is no reason to fear that the enemy will
disconcert our scheme. Whenever this is the case, we must
ourselves choose the simpler i e. Quicker way, and lower
our views in this sense, as far as the character,
the relations of the enemy, and other circumstances may render necessary.
If we quit the weak impressions of abbas, distract ideas,

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and descend to the region of practical life, then it
is evident that a bold, courageous, resolute enemy will not
let us have time for wide reaching, skillful combinations, and
it is just against such a one we should require
skill the most. By this, it appears to us that
the advantage of simple and direct results over those that
are complicated is conclusively shown. Our opinion is not on

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that account that the simple blow is the best, but
that we must not lift the arm too far for
the time given to strike, and that this condition will
always lead more to direct conflict the more warlike our
opponent is. Therefore, far from making it our aim to
gain upon the enemy by complicated plans, we must rather
seek to be beforehand with him by greater simplicity. In

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our designs. If we seek for the lowest foundation stones
of these converse propositions, we find that in the one
it is ability, in the other courage. Now there is
something very attractive in the notion that a moderate degree
of courage joined to great ability will produce use greater
effects than moderate ability with great courage. But unless we

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suppose these elements in a disproportionate relation not logical, we
have no right to assign to ability this advantage over
courage in a field which is called danger, and which
must be regarded as the true domain of courage. After
this abstract view, we shall only add that experience, very
far from leading to a different conclusion, is rather the

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sole cause which has impelled us in this direction and
given rise to such reflections. Whoever reads history with a
mind free from prejudice cannot fail to arrive at a
conviction that, of all military virtues, energy in the conduct
of operations has always contributed the most to the glory
and success of arms. How we make good our principle

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of regarding the destruction of the enemy's force as the
principal object, not only in the war as a whole,
but also in each separate combat and how that principle
suits all the forms and conditions necessarily demanded by the
relations out of which war springs. The sea equal will
show for the present all that we desire is to
uphold its general importance. And with this result we return

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again to the Combat Chapter four, the Combat in general continuation.
In the last chapter we showed the destruction of the
enemy as the true object of the combat, and we
have sought to prove, by a special consideration of the point,
that this is true in the majority of cases, and
in respect to the most important battles, Because the destruction

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of the enemy's army is always the preponderating object in war.
The other objects, which may be mixed up with this
destruction of the enemy's force, and may have more or
less influence, we shall describe generally in the next chapter,
and become better acquainted with by degrees afterwards. Here we
divest the combat of them entirely, and look upon the
destruction of the enemy as the complete and sufficient object

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of any combat. What are we now to understand by
destruction of the enemy's army a diminution of it relatively
greater than that on our own Sideight, if we have
a great superiority in numbers over the enemy, then naturally
the same absolute amount of loss on both sides is
for us a smaller one than for him, and consequently

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may be regarded in itself as an advantage. As we
are here considering the combat as divested of all other objects,
we must also exclude from our consideration the case in
which the combat is used only indirectly for a greater
destruction of the enemy's force. Consequently, also only that direct
gain which has been made in the mutual process of

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destruction is to be regarded as the object. For this
is an absolute gain which runs through the whole campaign,
and at the end of it will always appear as
pure profit. But every other kind of victory over our
opponent will either have its motive in other objects, which
we have completely excluded here, or it will only yield
a temporary relative advantage. An example will make this plane.

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If by a skillful disposition we have reduced our opponent
to such a dilemma that he cannot continue the combat
without danger, and after some resistance he retires, then we
may say that we have conquered him at that point.
But if in this victory we have expended just as
many forces as the enemy. Then, in closing the account
of the campaign, there is no gain remaining from this victory,

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if such a result can be called a victory. Therefore,
the overcoming the enemy that is placing him in such
a position that he must give up the fight, counts
for nothing in itself, and for that reason cannot come
under the definition of object. There remains, therefore, as we
have said, nothing over except the direct gain which we
have made in the process of destruction. But to this

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belong not only the losses which have taken place in
the course of the combat, but also those which, after
the withdrawal of the conquered part, take place as direct
consequences of the same. Now, it is known by experience
that the losses in physical forces in the course of
a battle seldom present a great difference between victor and
vanquished respectively, often none at all, sometimes even one bearing

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an inverse relation to the result, And that the most
decisive losses on the side of the vanquished only commence
with the retreat, that is, those which the conqueror does
not share with him. The weak remains of battalions already
in disorder are cut down by cavalry exhausted men strew
the ground, disabled guns and broken casins are abandoned. Others

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in the bad state of the roads cannot be removed
quickly enough and are captured by the enemy's troops. During
the night. Numbers lose their way and fall defenseless into
the enemy's hands, and thus the victory mostly gains bodily
substance after it is already decided. Here would be a
paradox if it did not solve itself in the following manner.

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The loss in physical force is not the only one
which the two sides suffer in the course of the combat.
The moral forces also are shaken, broken and go to ruin.
It is not only the loss in men, horses, and guns,
but in order, courage, confidence, cohesion, and plan which come
into consideration when it is a question whether the fight

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can be still continued or not. It is principally the
moral forces which decide here, and in all cases in
which the conqueror has lost as heavily as the conquered,
it is these alone. The comparative relation of the physical
losses is difficult to estimate in a battle, but not
so the relation of the moral ones. Two things principally

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make it known. The one is the loss of the
ground on which the fight has taken place, the other
the superiority of the enemies. The more our reserves have
diminished as compared with those of the enemy, the more
force we have used to maintain the equilibrium. In this
at once an evident proof of the moral superiority of
the enemy is given, which seldom fails to stir up

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in the soul of the commander a certain bitterness of
feeling and a sort of contempt for his own troops.
But the principal thing is that men who have been
engaged for a long continuance of time are more or
less like burnt out cinders. Their ammunition is consumed, they
have melted away to a certain extent, physical and moral
energies are exhausted. Perhaps their courage is broken as well.

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Such a force, irrespective of the diminution in its number,
if viewed as an organic whole, is very different from
what it was before the combat. And thus it is
that the loss of moral force may be measured by
the reserves that have been used, as if it were
on a foot rule. Lost ground and want of fresh
reserves are therefore usually the principal causes which determine a retreat.

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But at the same time we by no means exclude
or desire to throw in the shade other reasons which
may lie in the interdependence of parts of the army
in the general plan, et cetera. Every combat is therefore
the bloodying, destructive measuring of the strength of forces physical
and moral. Whoever, at the close has the greatest amount
of both left is the conqueror in the combat. The

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loss of moral force is the chief cause of the decision.
After that is given, this loss continues to increase in
till it reaches its culminating point at the close of
the whole act. This, then is the opportunity the victor
should seize to reap his harvest by the utmost possible
restrictions of his enemy's forces, the real object of engaging
in the combat. On the beaten side, the loss of

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all order and control often makes the prolongation of resistance
by individual units. By the further punishment they are certain
to suffer more injurious than useful to the whole. The
spirit of the mass is broken, the original excitement about
losing or winning through which danger was forgotten is spent,
and to the majority, danger now appears no longer an

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appeal to their courage, but rather the endurance of a
cruel punishment. Thus, the instrument in the first moment of
the enemy's victory is weakened and blunted, and therefore no
longer fit to repay danger by danger. This period, however, passes,
the moral forces of the conquered will recover by degrees.
Order will be restored, courage will revive, and in the

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majority of cases their remains only a small part of
the superiority obtained, often none at all. In some cases,
even although rarely, the spirit of revenge and intensified hostility
may bring about an opposite result. On the other hand,
whatever is gained and killed, wounded, prisoners and guns captured
can never disappear from the account. The losses in a

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battle consist more in killed and wounded those after the battle,
more in artillery taken in prisoners. The first the conqueror
shares with the conquered more or less, but the second not,
and for that reason they usually only take place on
one side of the conflict. At least, they are considerably
in excess on one side. Artillery and prisoners are therefore

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at all times regarded as the true trophies of victory,
as well as its measure, Because through these things its
extent is declared beyond a doubt. Even the degree of
moral superiority may be better judged of by them than
by any other relation, especially if the number of killed
and wound it is compared therewith, and here arises a
new power, increasing the moral effects. We have said that

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the moral forces beaten to the ground in the battle
and in the immediately succeeding movements, recover themselves gradually and
often bear no traces of injury. This is the case
with small divisions of the whole, less frequently with large divisions.
It may, however, also be the case with the main army,
but seldom or never in the state or government to
which the army belongs. These estimate the situation more impartially

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and from a more elevated point of view, and recognize
in the number of trophies taken by the enemy and
their relation to the number of killed and wounded, only
too easily and well the measure of their own weakness
and inefficiency. In point of fact, the lost balance of
moral power must not be treated lightly because it has
no absolute value, and because it does not, of necessity

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appear in all cases in the amount of the results.
At the final close, it may become of such excessive
weight as to bring down everything with an irresistible force.
On that account, it may often become a great aim
of the operations of which we shall speak elsewhere. Here
we have still to examine some of its fundamental relations.
The moral effect of a victory increases not merely in

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proportion to the extent of the forces engaged, but in
a progressive ratio, that is to say, not only an extent,
but also in its intensity. In a beaten detachment, order
is easily restored, as a single frozen limb is easily
revived by the rest of the body. So the courage
of a defeated detachment is easily raised again by the

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courage of the rest of the army as soon as
it rejoins it. If therefore, the effects of a small
victory are not completely done away with, still they are
partly lost to the enemy. This is not the case.
If the army itself sustains a great defeat, then one
would the other fall together. A great fire attains quite
a different heat from several small ones. Another relation which

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determines the moral value of a victory is the numerical
relation of the forces which have been in conflict with
each other. To beat many with few is not only
a double success, but shows also a greater, especially a
more general superiority, which the conquered must always be fearful
of encountering again. At the same time, this influence is
in reality hardly observable in such a case. In the

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moment of real action, the notions of the actual strength
of the enemy are generally so uncertain, the estimate of
our own commonly so incorrect, that the party superior in
numbers either does not admit the disproportion, or is very
far from admitting the full truth, owing to which he
evades almost entirely the moral disadvantages which would spring from it.

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It is only hereafter, in history that the truth, long
suppressed through ignorance, vanity, or a wise discretion, makes its appearance.
And then it certainly casts a luster on the army
and its leader. But it can then do nothing more
by its moral influence for events long past. If prisoners
and captured guns are those things by which the victory
principally gains substance its true crystallizations, then the plan of

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the battle should have those things, specially in view. The
destruction of the enemy by death and wounds appears here
merely as a means to an end. How far this
may influence the dispositions in the battle is not an
affair of strategy, but the decision to fight the battle
is an intimate connection with it, as is shown by
the direction given to our forces and their general grouping.

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Whether we threaten the enemy's flank or rear or he
threatens ours. On this point the number of prisoners and
captured guns depends very much, and it is a point
which in many cases tactics alone cannot satisfy, particularly if
the strategic relations are too much in opposition to it.
The risk of having to fight on two sides and

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the still more dangerous position of having no line of
retreat left open paralyzed the movements and the power of resistance. Further,
in case of defeat, they increase the loss, often raising
it to its extreme point, that is, to destruction. Therefore,
the rear being endangered makes defeat more probable and at
the same time more decisive. From this arises in the

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whole conduct of the war, especially in great and small combats,
a perfect instinct to secure our own line of retreat
and to seize that of the enemy. This follows from
the conception of victory, which, as we have seen, is
something beyond mere slaughter. In this effort we see therefore
the first immediate purpose in the combat, and one which

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is quite universal. No combat is imaginable in which this effort,
either in its double or single form, does not go
hand in hand with the plain and simple stroke of force.
Even the smallest troop will not throw itself upon its
enemy without thinking of its line of retreat, and in
most cases it will have an eye upon that of

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the enemy. Also, we should have to digress to show
how often this instinct is prevented from going the direct road,
how often it must yield to the difficulties arising from
more important considerations. We shall therefore rest contented with affirming
it to be a general natural law of the combat.
It is, therefore active, presses everywhere with its natural weight,

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and so becomes the pivot on which almost all tactical
and strategic maneuvers turn. If we now take a look
at the conception of victory as a whole. We find
in it three elements. One the greater loss of the
enemy in physical power, two in moral power, three his
open avowal of this by the relinquishment of his intentions.

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The returns made up on each side of losses in
killed and wounded are never exact, seldom truthful, and in
most cases full of intentional misrepresentations. Even the statement of
the number of trophies is seldom to be quite depended on. Consequently,
when it is not considerable, it may also cast doubt
even on the reality of the victory. Of the loss

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in moral forces, there is no reliable measure except in
the trophies. Therefore, in many cases, the giving up the
contest is the only real evidence of the victory. It
is therefore to be regarded as a confession of inferiority,
as the lowering of the flag by which, in this
particular instance right and superiority are conceded to the enemy.

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And this degree of humiliation and disgrace, which however, must
be distinguished from all the other moral consequences of the
loss of equilibrium, is an essential part of the victory.
It is this part alone which acts upon the public
opinion outside the army, upon the people and the government
in both belligerent states, and upon all others in any

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way concerned. But renouncement of the general object is not
quite identical with quitting the field of battle, even when
the battle has been very obstinate and long kept up.
No one says of advanced posts, when they retire after
an obstinate combat, that they have given up their object.
Even in combats aimed at the destruction of the enemy's army,
the retreat from the battlefield is not always to be

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regarded as a relinquishment of this aim, as for instance,
in retreats planned beforehand, in which the ground is disputed
foot by foot. All this belongs to that part of
our subject where we shall speak of the separate object
of the combat. Here we only wish to draw attention
to the fact that in most cases the giving up
of the object is very difficult to distinguish from the

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retirement from the battlefield, and that the impression produced by
the latter, both in and out of the army, is
not to be treated lightly for generals and armies whose
reputation is not made. This is in itself one of
the difficulties in many operations justified by circumstances. When a
succession of combats, each ending in retreat, may appear as

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a succession of defeats without being so in reality, and
when that appearance may exercise a very depressing influence, it
is impossible for the retreating general, by making knowns his
real intentions, to prevent the moral effect spreading to the
public and his troops. For to do that with effect,
he must disclose his plans completely, which of course would
run counter to his principal interests to too great a degree.

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In order to draw attention to the special importance of
this conception of victory, we shall only refer to the
Battle of Sore seventeen forty five, the trophies from which
were not important a few thousand prisoners in twenty guns,
and where Frederick proclaimed his victory by remaining for five
days after on the field of battle. Although his retreat
into Silesia had been previously determined on and was a

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measure natural to his whole situation, according to his own account,
he thought he would hasten a peace by the moral
effect of his victory now, although a couple of other
successes were likewise required, namely the Battle at cathleichh Henersdorf
in Lusatia and the Battle of Kesseldorf before this piece
took place. Still, we cannot say that the moral effect

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of the Battle of Sore was nil. If it is
chiefly the moral force which is shaken by defeat, and
if the number of trophies reaped by the enemy mounts
up to an unusual height, then the lost combat becomes
a route. But this is not the necessary consequence of
every victory. A route only sets in when the moral
force of the defeated is very severely shaken. Then there

(31:17):
often ensues a complete incapability of further resistance, and the
whole action consists of giving way, that is, a flight.
Jenna and bell Alliance were routes, but not so Borodino.
Although without pedantry we can here give no single line
of separation, because the difference between the things is one
of degrees. Yet still the retention of the conception is

(31:39):
essential as a central point to give clearness to our
theoretical ideas. And it is a want in our terminology
that for a victory over the enemy tantamount to a route,
and a conquest of the enemy only tantamount to a
simple victory. There is only one and the same word
to use. Chapter five on the signification of the Combat.
Having in the pre receding chapter examine the combat in

(32:02):
its absolute form, as the miniature picture of the whole war,
we now turn to the relations which it bears to
the other parts of the great whole. First we inquire
what is more precisely the signification of a combat, as
war is nothing else but a mutual process of destruction
than The most natural answer, in conception, and perhaps also

(32:22):
in reality, appears to be that all the powers of
each party unite in one great volume, and all results
in one great shock of these masses. There is certainly
much truth in this idea, and it seems to be
very advisable that we should adhere to it, and should,
on that account look upon small combats at first only
as necessary loss, like the shavings from a carpenter's plane. Still, however,

(32:45):
the thing cannot be settled so easily that a multiplication
of combats should arise from a fractioning of forces. Is
a matter of course, and the more immediate objects of
separate combats will therefore come before us in the subject
of a fractioning of forces. But these objects, and together
with them, the whole mass of combats may in a
general way be brought under certain classes, and the knowledge

(33:08):
of these classes will contribute to make our observations more intelligible.
Destruction of the enemy's military forces is in reality the
object of all combats, but other objects may be joined
there too, and these other objects may be at the
same time predominant. We must therefore draw a distinction between
those in which the destruction of the enemy's forces is

(33:28):
the principal object, and those in which it is more
the means the destruction of the enemy's force, the possession
of a place, or the possession of some object, may
be the general motive for a combat, and it may
be either one of these alone or several together, in
which case, however, usually one is the principal motive. Now,
the two principal forms of war, the offensive and defensive,

(33:51):
of which we shall shortly speak, do not modify the
first of these motives, but they certainly do modify the
other two, And therefore if we arraign them in a scheme,
they would appear thus offensive one destruction of enemy's force
two conquest of a place, free, conquest of some object,

(34:12):
defensive one, destruction of enemy's force, two, defense of a place,
free defense of some object. These motives, however, do not
seem to embrace completely the whole of the subject. If
we recollect that there are reconnaissances and demonstrations in which
plainly none of these three points is the object of

(34:33):
the combat in reality. We must, therefore, on this account
be allowed a fourth class, strictly speaking, in reconnaissances in
which we wish the enemy to show himself in alarms,
by which we wish to wear him out, in demonstrations
by which we wish to prevent his leaving some point,
or to draw him off to another. The objects are

(34:54):
all such as can only be attained indirectly and under
the pretext of one of the three objects specified in
the table, Usually of the second. For the enemy whose
aim is to reconnoiter must draw up his force as
if he really intended to attack and defeat us, or
drive us off, et cetera. But this pretended object is
not the real one, and our present question is only

(35:15):
as to the latter. Therefore we must to the above
three objects of the offensive further at a fourth, which
is to lead the enemy to make a false conclusion
that offensive means are conceivable in connection with this object
lies in the nature of the thing. On the other hand,
we must observe that the defense of a place may
be of two kinds, either absolute if as a general

(35:37):
question the point is not to be given up, or
relative if it is only required for a certain time.
The latter happens perpetually in the combats of advanced posts
and rear guards. That the nature of these different intentions
of a combat must have an essential influence on the
dispositions which are its preliminaries is a thing clear in itself.

(35:58):
We act differently if our obeas object is merely to
drive an enemy's post out of its place, from what
we should if our object was to beat him, completely
differently if we mean to defend a place to the
last extremity, from what we should do. If our design
is only to detain the enemy for a certain time.
In the first case, we trouble ourselves little about the
line of retreat. In the latter, it is the principal point,

(36:20):
et cetera. But these reflections belong properly to tactics, and
are only introduced here by way of example. For the
sake of greater clearness. What strategy has to say on
the different objects of the combat will appear in the
chapters which touch upon these objects. Here we have only
a few general observations to make. First, that the importance

(36:42):
of the object decreases nearly in the order as they
stand above. Therefore, that the first of these objects must
always predominate in the great battle. Lastly, that the two
last in a defensive battle are, in reality such as
yield no fruit. They are, that is to say, purely negative,
and can therefore only be serviceable indirectly by facilitating something

(37:03):
else which is positive. It is therefore a bad sign
of the strategic situation if battles of this kind become
too frequent. Chapter six. Duration of combat. If we consider
the combat no longer in itself, but in relation to
the other forces of war, then its duration acquires a
special importance. This duration is to be regarded to a

(37:27):
certain extent as a second subordinate. Success. For the conqueror
of the combat can never be finished too quickly. For
the vanquished, it can never last too long. A speedy
victory indicates a higher power of victory. A tardy decision
is on the side of the defeated some compensation for
the loss. This is in general true, but it acquires

(37:48):
a practical importance in its application to those combats the
object of which is a relative defense. Here the whole
success often lies in the mere duration. This is the
reason and why we have included it amongst the strategic elements.
The duration of a combat is necessarily bound up with
its essential relations. These relations are absolute, magnitude of force,

(38:12):
relation of force and of the different arms mutually, and
nature of the country. Twenty thousand men do not wear
themselves out upon one another as quickly as two thousand.
We cannot resist an enemy double or three times our
strength as long as one of the same strength. A
cavalry combat is decided sooner than an infantry combat, and
a combat between infantry only quicker than if there is

(38:34):
artillery as well. In hills and forests, we cannot advance
as quickly as on a level country. All this is
clear enough. From this. It follows therefore, that strength, relation
of the three arms, and position must be considered if
the combat is to fulfill an object by its duration.
But to set up this rule was of less importance
to us in our present considerations. Than to connect with

(38:57):
it at once the chief results which experience gives us
on the subject. Even the resistance of an ordinary division
of eight thousand to ten thousand men of all arms,
even opposed to an enemy considerably superior in numbers, will
last several hours. If the advantages of country are not
too preponderating, and if the enemy is only a little
or not at all superior in numbers, the combat will

(39:20):
last half a day. A corps of three or four
divisions will prolong it to double the time an army
of eighty thousand or one hundred thousand to three or
four times. Therefore, the masses may be left to themselves
for that length of time, and no separate combat takes place.
If within that time other forces can be brought up,
whose co operation mingles then at once into one stream

(39:42):
with the results of the combat which has taken place.
These calculations are the result of experience, but it is
important to us at the same time to characterize more
particularly the moment of the decision and consequently the termination
Chapter seven decision of the combat. No battle is decided
in a single moment, although in every battle there arise

(40:04):
moments of crisis on which the result depends. The loss
of a battle is therefore a gradual falling of the scale.
But there is in every combat a point of time
when it may be regarded as decided in such a
way that the renewal of the fight would be a
new battle, not a continuation of the old one. To
have a clear notion on this point of time is

(40:26):
very important in order to be able to decide whether,
with the prompt assistance of reinforcements, the combat can again
be resumed with advantage. Often, in combats which are beyond restoration,
new forces are sacrificed in vain, often through neglect. The
decision has not been seized when it might easily have
been secured. Here are two examples which could not be

(40:48):
more to the point. When the Prince of Hoa Loa
in eighteen o six at Jena with thirty five thousand
men opposed to from sixty thousand to seventy thousand under
Buonaparte had accepted batle and lost it, but lost it
in such a way that the thirty five thousand might
be regarded as dissolved. General Rutchel undertook to renew the

(41:08):
fight with about twelve thousand. The consequence was that in
a moment his force was scattered in like manner. On
the other hand, on the same day at Oristad, the
Prussians maintained a combat with twenty five thousand against de
Vaust who had twenty eight thousand until midday, without success,
it is true, but still without the force being reduced

(41:29):
to a state of dissolution, without even greater loss than
the enemy, who was very deficient in cavalry. But they
neglected to use the reserve of eighteen thousand under General
Cockruth to restore the battle, which under these circumstances it
would have been impossible to lose. Each combat is a
whole in which the partial combats combined themselves into one

(41:50):
total result. In this total result lies the decision of
the combat. This success need not be exactly a victory,
such as we have denoted in the six chapter, for
often the preparations for that have not been made. Often
there is no opportunity if the enemy gives way too soon,
and in most cases the decision, even when the resistance

(42:10):
has been obstinate, takes place before such a degree of
success is attained as would completely satisfy the idea of
a victory. We therefore ask, which is commonly the moment
of the decision, that is to say, that moment when
afresh effective, of course, not disproportionate force can no longer
turn a disadvantageous battle. If we pass over false attacks which,

(42:33):
in accordance with their nature, are properly without decision. Then One,
if the possession of a movable object was the object
of the combat, the loss of the same is always
the decision. Two. If the possession of ground was the
object of the combat, then the decision generally lies in
its loss. Still not always only if this ground is

(42:55):
of peculiar strength. Ground which is easy to pass over,
however important it may be in other respects, can be
retaken without much danger free. But in all other cases
when these two circumstances have not already decided the combat. Therefore,
particularly in case the destruction of the enemy's force is
the principal object, the decision is reached at that moment

(43:17):
when the conqueror ceases to feel himself in a state
of disintegration, that is of unserviceableness to a certain extent,
When therefore there is no further advantage in using the
successive effort spoken of in the twelfth chapter of the
third Book. On this ground we have given the strategic
unity of the battle its place here. A battle therefore,

(43:38):
in which the assailant has not lost his condition of
order in perfect efficiency at all, or at least only
in a small part of his force, whilst the opposing
forces are more or less disorganeesed throughout, is also not
to be retrieved. And just as little if the enemy
has recovered his efficiency. The smaller therefore that part of

(43:58):
a forces which has really been engaged, the greater that
portion which as reserve has contributed to the result only
by its presence, so much the less will any new
force of the enemy rest again the victory from our hands.
And that commander who carries out to the furthest with
his army, the principle of conducting the combat with the
greatest economy of forces and making the most of the

(44:19):
moral effect of strong reserves goes the surest way to victory.
We must allow that the French, in modern times, especially
when led by Buonaparte, have shown a thorough mastery in this. Further,
the moment when the crisis stage of the combat ceases,
with the conqueror and his original state of order is
restored takes place sooner the smaller the unit he controls.

(44:42):
A picket of cavalry pursuing an enemy at full gallop
will in a few minutes resume its proper order, and
the crisis ceases. A whole regiment of cavalry requires a
longer time. It lasts still longer with infantry if extended
in single lines of skirmishers, and longer again with the
dea visions of all arms, when it happens, by chance

(45:02):
that one part has taken one direction and another part
another direction, and the combat has therefore caused a loss
of the order of formation, which usually becomes still worse
from no part knowing exactly where the other is. Thus,
therefore the point of time when the conqueror has collected
the instruments he has been using, and which are mixed
up and partly out of order, the moment when he

(45:24):
has in some measure rearranged them and put them in
their proper places, and thus brought the battle workshop into
a little order. This moment, we say, is always later,
the greater the total force. Again, this moment comes later
if night overtakes the conqueror in the crisis, and Lastly,
it comes later still if the country is broken and

(45:44):
thickly wooded. But with regard to these two points, we
must observe that night is also a great means of protection,
and it is only seldom that circumstances favor the expectation
of a successful result from a night attack, as on
March tenth, eighteen fourteen, at Leon, where Yorke against Marmont
gives us an example completely in place here. In the

(46:06):
same way, a wooded and broken country will afford protection
against a reaction to those who are engaged in the
long crisis of victory. Both therefore, the night as well
as the wooded and broken country are obstacles which make
the renewal of the same battle more difficult, instead of
facilitating it. Hitherto, we have considered assistance arriving for the

(46:26):
losing side as a mere increase of force, therefore as
a reinforcement coming up directly from the rear, which is
the most usual case. But the case is quite different
if these fresh forces come upon the enemy in flank
or rear. On the effect of flank or rear attacks,
so far as they belong to strategy, we shall speak
in another place. Such a one, as we have here

(46:48):
in view, intended for the restoration of the combat, belongs
chiefly to tactics, and is only mentioned because we are
here speaking of tactical results. Our ideas therefore must trench
upon the province of tactics. By directing a force against
the enemy's flank and rear. Its efficacy may be much intensified,
but this is so far from being a necessary result

(47:09):
always that the efficacy may, on the other hand, be
just as much weakened the circumstances under which the combat
has taken place. Decide upon this part of the plan
as well as upon every other, without our being able
to enter thereupon here. But at the same time there
are in it two things of importance for our subject. First,
flank and rear attacks have as a rule a more

(47:32):
favorable effect on the consequences of the decision than upon
the decision itself. Now, as concerns the retrieving a battle,
the first thing to be arrived at, above all, is
a favorable decision, and not magnitude of success. In this view,
one would therefore think that a force which comes to
re establish our combat is of less assistance if it
falls upon the enemy in flank and rear therefore separated

(47:55):
from us, than if it joins itself to us directly.
Certainly cases are not wanting where it is so, but
we must say that the majority are on the other side,
and they are so on account of the second point
which is here important to us. This second point is
the moral effect of the surprise, which, as a rule
a reinforcement coming up to re establish a combat has

(48:17):
generally in its favor. Now, the effect of a surprise
is always heightened if it takes place in the flank
or rear, and an enemy completely engaged in the crisis
of victory, in his extended and scattered order, is less
in a state to counteract it. Who does not feel
that an attack in flank or rear, which at the
commencement of the battle, when the forces are concentrated and

(48:38):
prepared for such an event, would be of little importance,
gains quite another weight in the last moment of the combat.
We must therefore at once admit that in most cases
a reinforcement coming up on the flank or rear of
the enemy will be more efficacious, will be like the
same weight at the end of a longer lever, And
therefore that under these circumstances we may undertake to restore them.

(49:00):
A battle with the same force which employed in a
direct attack would be quite insufficient. Here results almost defy calculation,
because the moral forces gain completely the ascendency. This is
therefore the right field for boldness and daring. The eye
must therefore be directed on all these objects, All these

(49:20):
moments of cooperating forces, must be taken into consideration when
we have to decide, in doubtful cases whether or not
it is still possible to restore a combat which has
taken an unfavorable turn. If the combat is to be
regarded as not yet ended, then the new contest, which
is opened by the arrival of assistance fuses into the former.
Therefore they flow together into one common result, and the

(49:42):
first disadvantage vanishes completely out of the calculation. But this
is not the case. If the combat was already decided,
then there are two results separate from each other. Now,
if the assistance which arrives is only of a relative strength,
that is, if it is not in itself alone a
mass for the enemy, then a favorable result is hardly

(50:02):
to be expected from this second combat. But if it
is so strong that it can undertake the second combat
without regard to the first. Then it may be able,
by a favorable issue, to compensate or even overbalance the
first combat, but never to make it disappear altogether from
the account. At the Battle of Kunersdorf seventeen fifty nine,
Frederick the Great, at the first onset carried the left

(50:25):
of the Russian position and took seventy pieces of artillery.
At the end of the battle, both were lost again,
and the whole result of the first combat was wiped
out of the account. Had it been possible to stop
at the first success and to put off the second
part of the battle to the coming day, then even
if the king had lost it, the advantages of the
first would always have been a set off to the second.

(50:47):
But when a battle proceeding disadvantageously is arrested and turned
before its conclusion, its minus result on our side not
only disappears from the account, but also becomes the foundation
of a greater victory. If, for instance, we picture to
ourselves exactly the tactical course of the battle, we may
easily see that until it is finally concluded, all successes

(51:09):
in partial combats are only decisions in suspense, which by
the capital decision may not only be destroyed, but changed
into the opposite. The more our forces have suffered, the
more the enemy will have expended on his side. The
greater therefore will be the crisis for the enemy, and
the more the superiority of our fresh troops will tell.

(51:29):
If now the total result turns in our favor, If
we rest from the enemy the field of battle and
recover all the trophies again, then all the forces which
he has sacrificed in obtaining them become sheer gain for us,
and our former defeat becomes a stepping stone to a
greater triumph. The most brilliant feats, which with victory the
enemy would have so highly prized that the loss of

(51:50):
forces which they cost would have been disregarded, leave nothing
now behind but regret at the sacrifice entailed. Such is
the alteration which the magic of victory and the curse
of defeat produces in the specific weight of the same elements. Therefore,
even if we are decidedly superior in strength and are
able to repay the enemy his victory by a greater still,

(52:12):
it is always better to forestall the conclusion of a
disadvantageous combat if it is of proportionate importance so as
to turn its course, rather than to deliver a second
battle field. Marshal Dawn attempted in the year seventeen sixty
to come to the assistance of General Lawdon at Lenitz
whilst the battle lasted, but when he failed, he did
not attack the king next day, although he did not

(52:34):
want for means to do so. For these reason, serious
combats of advance guards which precede a battle are to
be looked upon only as necessary evils, and when not necessary,
they are to be avoided. This, however, was not Napoleon's view.
A vigorous attack of his advance guard he held to
be necessary always to fix the enemy's attention and paralyze

(52:57):
his independent will power. Was the failure to make this
point which in August eighteen seventy led Vaughan Malker repeatedly
into the very jaws of defeat, from which only the
lethargy of Bazaine, on the one hand, and the initiative
of his subordinates, notably of Vaughan Alvenselban, rescued him. This
is the essence of the new strategic doctrine of the

(53:18):
French general staff. We have still another conclusion to examine.
If on a regular pitched battle the decision has gone
against one, this does not constitute a motive for determining
on a new one. The determination for this new one
must proceed from other relations. This conclusion, however, is opposed

(53:38):
by a moral force which we must take into account.
It is the feeling of rage and revenge from the
oldest field marshal to the youngest drummer boy. This feeling
is general, and therefore troops are never in better spirits
for fighting than when they have to wipe out a stain.
This is, however, only on the supposition that the beaten

(53:58):
portion is not too great in proportion to the whole,
because otherwise the above feeling is lost in that of powerlessness.
There is therefore a very natural tendency to use this
moral force to repair the disaster on the spot, and
on that account, chiefly to seek another battle if other
circumstances permit. It then lies in the nature of the

(54:19):
case that this second battle must be an offensive one.
In the catalog of battles of second rate importance, there
are many examples to be found of such retaliatory battles,
but great battles have generally too many other determining causes
to be brought on by this weaker motive. Such a
feeling must undoubtedly have led the noble bleacher with his
third corps to the field of battle on February fourteenth,

(54:41):
eighteen fourteen, when the other two had been beaten three
days before at Montmoral. Had he known that he would
have come upon Buonaparte in person, then naturally preponderating reasons
would have determined him to put off his revenge to
another day. But he hoped to revenge himself on Marmont,
and instead of gaining the reward his desire for honorable satisfaction,

(55:02):
he suffered the penalty of his erroneous calculation. On the
duration of the combat and the moment of its decision
depend the distances from each other at which those masses
should be placed which are intended to fight in conjunction
with each other. This disposition would be a tactical arrangement
in so far as it relates to one and the
same battle. It can, however, only be regarded as such

(55:24):
provided the position of the troops is so compact that
two separate combats cannot be imagined, and consequently that the
space which the whole occupies can be regarded strategically as
a mere point. But in war cases frequently occur where
even those forces intended to fight in unison must be
so far separated from each other that, while their union
for one common combat certainly remains the principal object, still

(55:48):
the occurrence of separate combats remains possible. Such a disposition
is therefore strategic Dispositions of this kind are marches in
separate masses and columns, the formation of advance guards and
flanking columns. Also, the grouping of reserves intended to serve
as supports for more than one strategic point, the concentration

(56:08):
of several corps from widely extended cantonments, and c and c.
We can see that the necessity for these arrangements may
constantly arise, and may consider them something like the small
change in the strategic economy, whilst the capital battles and
all that rank with them are the gold and silver pieces.
Chapter eight. Mutual understanding as to a battle. No battle

(56:32):
can take place unless by mutual consent. And in this idea,
which constitutes the whole basis of a duel, is the
root of a certain phraseology used by historical writers, which
leads to many indefinite and false conceptions. According to the
view of the writers to whom we refer, it has
frequently happened that one commander has offered battle to the other,

(56:52):
and the latter has not accepted it. But the battle
is a very modified duel, and its foundation is not
merely in the mutual wish to fight, that is in consent,
but in the objects which are bound up with the battle.
These belong always to a greater whole, and that so
much the more, as even the whole war considered as
a combat unit, has political objects and conditions which belong

(57:14):
to a higher standpoint. The mere desire to conquer each
other therefore falls into quite a subordinate relation, or rather,
it ceases completely to be anything of itself, and only
becomes the nerve which conveys the impulse of action from
the higher will. Amongst the ancients, and then again during
the early period of standing armies, the expression that we

(57:35):
had offered battle to the enemy in vain had more
sense in it than it has now. By the ancients,
everything was constituted with a view to measuring each other's
strength in the open field, free from anything in the
nature of a hindrance and the whole art of war
consisted in the organization and formation of the army, that is,
in the order of battle. Note the custom of sending

(57:56):
formal challenges fix time and place for action and nation
and hazelug the battle field in Anglo Saxon times now
as their armies regularly entrenched themselves in their camps. Therefore,
the position in a camp was regarded as something unassailable,
and a battle did not become possible until the enemy
left his camp and placed himself in a practicable country,

(58:18):
as it were entered the lists. If therefore we hear
about Hannibal having offered battle to Fabeus in Vain, that
tells us nothing more as regards the latter than that
a battle was not part of his plan, and in
itself neither proves the physical nor moral superiority of Hannibal.
But with respect to him, the expression is still correct
enough in the sense that Hannibal really wished a battle.

(58:39):
In the early period of modern armies, the relations were similar.
In great combats and battles, that is to say, great
masses were brought into action and managed throughout it by
means of an order of battle, which like a great
helpless whole, required a more or less level plain, and
was neither suited to attack nor yet to defense in
a broken, close or even mountainous country. The defender therefore

(59:03):
had here also to some extent, the means of avoiding battle.
These relations, although gradually becoming modified, continued until the First
Silesian War, and it was not until the Seven Years
War that attacks on an enemy posted in a difficult
country gradually became feasible and of ordinary occurrence. Ground did
not certainly cease to be a principle of strength to

(59:24):
those making use of its aid, but it was no
longer a charmed circle which shut out the natural forces
of war. During the past thirty years, war has perfected
itself much more in this respect, and there is no
longer anything which stands in the way of a general
who is in earnest about a decision. By means of battle.
He can seek out his enemy and attack him. If

(59:44):
he does not do so, he cannot take credit for
having wished to fight. And the expression he offered a
battle which his opponent did not accept, therefore now means
nothing more than that he did not find circumstances advantageous
enough for a battle, an admission which the above expressed
does not suit, but which it only strives to throw
a veil over. It is true the defensive side can

(01:00:06):
no longer refuse a battle, yet he may still avoid
it by giving up his position and the role with
which that position was connected. This is, however, half a
victory for the offensive side and an acknowledgment of his
superiority for the present. This idea, in connection with the
cartel of defiance, can therefore no longer be made use of,
in order by such rodomantad to qualify the inaction of

(01:00:28):
him whose part it is to advance, that is, the offensive.
The defender, who, as long as he does not give way,
must have the credit of willing the battle, may certainly
say he has offered it if he is not attacked,
if that is not understood of itself. But on the
other hand, he who now wishes to and can retreat,
cannot easily be forced to give battle now, as the

(01:00:50):
advantages to the aggressor from this retreat are often not sufficient,
and a substantial victory is a matter of urgent necessity
for him. In that way, the few means which there
are to go impel such an opponent. Also to give
battle are often sought for and applied with particular skill.
The principal means for this are first surrounding the enemy
so as to make his retreat impossible or at least

(01:01:12):
so difficult that it is better for him to accept battle,
and secondly surprising him. This last way, for which there
was a motive formerly in the extreme difficulty of all movements,
has become in modern times very and efficacious. From the
pliability and maneuvering capabilities of troops in the present day,
one does not hesitate to commence a retreat even in

(01:01:34):
sight of the enemy, and only some special obstacles in
the nature of the country can cause serious difficulties in
the operation. As an example of this kind, the Battle
of Nearashame may be given fought by the Archduke Charles
with Moreau in the Rau Alp August eleventh, seventeen ninety six,
merely with a view to facilitate his retreat, although we

(01:01:54):
freely confess we have never been able quite to understand
the argument of the renowned general and author himself in
this case. The Battle of Rosbach seventeen fifty seven is
another example if we suppose the commander of the Allied
army had not really the intention of attacking Frederick the Great.
Of the Battle of Soer seventeen forty five, the King

(01:02:16):
himself says that it was only fought because a retreat
in the presence of the enemy appeared to him a
critical operation. At the same time, the king has also
given other reasons for the battle. On the whole, regular
Knight surprises accepted such cases will always be of rare occurrence,
and those in which an enemy is compelled to fight
by being practically surrounded will happen mostly to single corps only,

(01:02:39):
like Mortier's at Durnstein eighteen o nine and van Dam
at Combe eighteen thirteen, Chapter nine. The Battle Klaus of
It still uses the word dye Hopschlacht, but modern usage
employs only the word dy schlacked to designate the decisive
act of a whole campaign encounters arising from the collision
or troops march towards the strategic culmination of each portion,

(01:03:02):
where the campaign are spoken of either as trefen i e.
Engagements or effect i e. Combat or action. Thus, technically
grave Latte was a schlacked ie battle, but spitcherin worth
Borny even Vainville were only trefen its decision. What is

(01:03:23):
a battle a conflict of the main body, but not
an unimportant one about a secondary object, not a mere
attempt which is given up when we see betimes that
our object is hardly within our reach. It is a
conflict waged with all our forces for the attainment of
a decisive victory. Minor objects may also be mixed up
with the principal object, and it will take many different

(01:03:45):
tones of color from the circumstances out of which it originates.
For a battle belongs also to a greater whole of
which it is only a part. But because the essence
of war is conflict, and the battle is the conflict
of the main armies, it is always to be regarded
as the real sense of gravity of the war, and
therefore its distinguishing character is that, unlike all other encounters,

(01:04:06):
it is arranged for an undertaken with the sole purpose
of obtaining a decisive victory. This has an influence on
the manner of its decision, on the effect of the
victory contained in it, and determines the value which theory
is to assign to it. As a means to an end.
On that account we make it the subject of our
special consideration, and at this stage before we enter upon

(01:04:28):
the special ends which may be bound up with it,
but which do not essentially alter its character, if it
really deserves to be termed a battle. If a battle
takes place principally on its own account, the elements of
its decision must be contained in itself. In other words,
victory must be striven for as long as a possibility
or hope remains. It must not therefore be given up

(01:04:50):
on account of secondary circumstances, but only and alone, in
the event of the forces appearing completely insufficient. Now, how
is that precise man to be described? If a certain
artificial formation and cohesion of an army is the principal
condition under which the bravery of the troops can gain
a victory, as was the case during a great part

(01:05:11):
of the period of the modern art of war, then
the breaking up of this formation is the decision. A
beaten wing, which is put out of joint decides the
fate of all that was connected with it. If, as
was the case at another time, the essence of the
defense consists in an intimate alliance of the army with
the ground on which it fights and its obstacles, so
that army and position are only one. Then the conquest

(01:05:34):
of an essential point in this position is the decision.
It is said, the key of the position is lost.
It cannot therefore be defended any further. The battle cannot
be continued. In both cases, the beaten armies are very
much like the broken strings of an instrument, which cannot
do their work. That geometrical as well as this geographical principle,

(01:05:55):
which had a tendency to place an army in a
state of crystallizing tension, which did not allow of the
available powers being made use of up to the last man,
have at least so far lost their influence that they
no longer predominate. Armies are still led into battle in
a certain order, but that order is no longer of
decisive importance. Obstacles of ground are also still turned to

(01:06:16):
account to strengthen a position, but they are no longer
the only support. We attempted in the second chapter of
this book to take a general view of the nature
of the modern battle. According to our conception of it,
the order of battle is only a disposition of the
forces suitable to the convenient use of them, and the
course of the battle a mutual slow wearing away of

(01:06:36):
these forces upon one another, to see which will have
soonest exhausted his adversary. The resolution therefore to give up
the fight arises in a battle, more than in any
other combat, from the relation of the fresh reserves remaining available,
for only these still retain all their moral vigor, and
the cinders of the batter knocked about. Battalions already burnt

(01:06:57):
out in the destroying element must not be placed on
a level with them. Also, lost ground, as we have
elsewhere said, is a standard of lost moral force. It
therefore comes also into account, but more as a sign
of loss suffered than for the loss itself. And the
number of fresh reserves is always the chief point to
be looked at by both commanders. In general, an action

(01:07:19):
inclines in one direction from the very commencement, but in
a manner little observable. This direction is also frequently given
in a very decided manner by the arrangements which have
been made previously. And then it shows a want of
discernment in that general who commences battle under these unfavorable
circumstances without being aware of them, even when this does

(01:07:40):
not occur. It lies in the nature of things that
the course of a battle resembles rather a slow disturbance
of equilibrium, which commences soon, but, as we have said,
almost imperceptibly at first, and then with each moment of time,
becomes stronger and more visible than an oscillating to and fro,
as those who are misled by mendacious descriptions usually suppose.

(01:08:00):
But whether it happens that the balance is for a
long time little disturbed, or that even after it has
been lost on one side, it writes itself again and
is then lost on the other side, it is certain
that all events, that in most instances the defeated general
foresees his fate long before he retreats, and that cases
in which some critical event acts with unexpected force upon

(01:08:20):
the course of the whole have their existence mostly in
the coloring with which every one depicts his lost battle.
We can only here appeal to the decision of unprejudiced
men of experience, who will, we are sure, assent to
what we have said, and answer for us to such
of our readers as do not know war from their
own experience, to develop the necessity of this course from

(01:08:41):
the nature of the thing would lead us too far
into the province of tactics to which this branch of
the subject belongs. We are here only concerned with its results.
If we say that the defeated general foresees the unfavorable result,
usually some time before he makes up his mind to
give up the battle, we admit that there are also
in distances to the contrary, because otherwise we should maintain

(01:09:03):
a proposition contradictory in itself. If at the moment of
each decisive tendency of a battle it should be considered
as lost, then also no further forces should be used
to give it a turn, and consequently this decisive tendency
could not precede the retreat by any length of time. Certainly,
there are instances of battles which, after having taken a

(01:09:23):
decided turn to one side, have still ended in favor
of the other, but they are rare, not usual. These
exceptional cases, however, are reckoned upon by every general against
whom fortune declares itself, and he must reckon upon them
as long as there remains a possibility of a turn
of fortune. He hopes by stronger efforts, by raising the
remaining moral forces, by surpassing himself, or also by some

(01:09:47):
fortunate chance that the next moment will bring a change,
and pursues this as far as his courage and his
judgment can agree. We shall have something more to say
on this subject, but before that we must show what
are the signs of the scale turning. The result of
the whole combat consists in the sum total of the
results of all partial combats. But these results of separate

(01:10:08):
combats are settled by different considerations. First by the pure
moral power in the mind of the leading officers. If
a general of division has seen his battalions forced to succumb,
it will have an influence on his demeanor in his reports,
and these again will have an influence on the measures
of the commander in chief. Therefore, even those unsuccessful partial combats,

(01:10:29):
which to all appearance are retrieved, are not lost in
their results, and the impressions from them sum themselves up
in the mind of the commander without much trouble, and
even against his will. Secondly, by the quicker melting away
of our troops, which can be easily estimated in the
slow and relatively asterisk, little tumultuary course of our battles. Thirdly,

(01:10:51):
by lost ground. All these things serve for the eye
of the general as a compass to tell the course
of the battle in which he is embarked. If whole
batteries have been lost and none of the enemies taken.
If battalions have been overthrown by the enemy's cavalry, whilst
those of the enemy everywhere present impenetrable masses. If the
line of fire from his order of battle wavers involuntarily

(01:11:14):
from one point to another. If fruitless efforts have been
made to gain certain points, and the assaulting battalions each
time been scattered by well directed volleys of grape and case.
If our artillery begins to reply feebly to that of
the enemy. If the battalions under fire diminish unusually fast,
because with the wounded crowds of unwounded men go to

(01:11:35):
the rear. If single divisions have been cut off and
made prisoners through the disruption of the plan of the battle.
If the line of retreat begins to be endangered, the
commander may tell very well in which direction he is
going with his battle. The longer this direction continues, the
more decided it becomes, so much the more difficult will
be the turning. So much the nearer the moment when

(01:11:56):
he must give up the battle. We shall now make
some observation on this moment. We have already said more
than once that the final decision is ruled mostly by
the relative number of the fresh reserves remaining. At the
last that commander, who sees his adversary is decidedly superior
to him in this respect, makes up his mind to retreat.
It is the characteristic of modern battles that all mischances

(01:12:19):
and losses which take place in the course of the
same can be retrieved by fresh forces, because the arrangement
of the modern order of battle and the way in
which troops are brought into action allow of their use
almost generally, and in each position. So long. Therefore, as
that commander against whom the issue seems to declare itself,
still retains a superiority in reserve force, he will not

(01:12:41):
give up the day. But from the moment that his
reserves begin to become weaker than his enemies, the decision
may be regarded as settled. And what he now does
depends partly on special circumstances, partly on the degree of
courage and perseverance which he personally possesses. And which may
degenerate into foolish obstinacy. How a commander can attain to

(01:13:02):
the power of estimating correctly the still remaining reserves on
both sides is an affair of skillful practical genius, which
does not in any way belong to this place. We
keep ourselves to the result as it forms itself in
his mind. But this conclusion is still not the moment
of decision properly, For a motive which only arises gradually
does not answer to that, but is only a general

(01:13:24):
motive towards resolution, And the resolution itself requires still some
special immediate causes. Of these, there are two chief ones
which constantly recur. That is the danger of retreat and
the arrival of night. If the retreat, with every new
step which the battle takes in its course, becomes constantly
in greater danger, and if the reserves are so much

(01:13:45):
diminished that they are no longer adequate to get breathing room,
then there is nothing left but to submit to fate,
and by a well conducted retreat to save what, by
a longer delay ending in flight and disaster, would be lost.
But night is a rule, puts an end to all battles.
Because a night combat holds out no hope of advantage
except under particular circumstances, and as night is better suited

(01:14:09):
for a retreat than the day. So therefore the commander,
who must look at the retreat as a thing inevitable
or as most probable, will prefer to make use of
the night for his purpose. That there are, besides the
above two usual and chief causes, yet many others also,
which are less or more individual, and not to be overlooked,

(01:14:29):
is a matter of course, for the more a battle
tends towards a complete upset of equilibrium, the more sensible
is the influence of each partial result in hastening the turn. Thus,
the loss of a battery, a successful charge of a
couple of regiments of cavalry may call into life the
resolution to retreat already ripening. As a conclusion to this subject,

(01:14:49):
we must dwell for a moment on the point at
which the courage of the commander engages in a sort
of conflict with his reason. If, on the one hand,
the overbearing pride of a victorian conqueror, if the inflexible
will of a naturally obstinate spirit, if the strenuous resistance
of noble feelings will not yield the battlefield, where they
must leave their honor. Yet, on the other hand, reason

(01:15:11):
counsels not to give up everything, not to risk the
last upon the game, but to retain as much over
as is necessary for an orderly retreat. However highly, we
must esteem courage and firmness in war, and however little
prospect there is a victory to him who cannot resolve
to seek it by the exertion of all his power.
Still there is a point beyond which perseverance can only

(01:15:32):
be termed desperate folly, and therefore can meet with no
approbation from any critic. In the most celebrated of all battles,
that of bell Alliance, Buonaparte used his last reserve in
an effort to retrieve a battle which was past being retrieved.
He spent his last farthing, and then, as a beggar,
abandoned both the battlefield and his crown. Chapter ten Effects

(01:15:55):
of Victory. According to the point from which our view
is taken, we may feel as much astonished at the
extraordinary results of some great battles as at the want
of results in others. We shall dwell for a moment
on the nature of the effect of a great victory.
Three things may easily be distinguished here the effect upon
the instrument itself, that is, upon the generals and their armies,

(01:16:19):
the effect upon the states interested in the war, and
the particular result of these effects as manifested in the
subsequent course of the campaign. If we only think of
the trifling difference which there usually is between victor and vanquished,
and killed, wounded, prisoners and artillery lost on the field
of battle itself, the consequences which are developed out of

(01:16:39):
this insignificant point seem often quite incomprehensible, and yet usually
everything only happens quite naturally. We have already said in
the seventh chapter at the magnitude of a victory increases,
not merely in the same measure as the vanquished forces
increase in number, but in a higher ratio. The moral
effects resulting from the issue issue of a great battle

(01:17:01):
are greater on the side of the conquered than on
that of the conqueror. They lead to greater losses in
physical force, which then in turn react on the moral element,
and so they go on mutually supporting and intensifying each other.
On this moral effect. We must therefore lay special weight.
It takes an opposite direction on the one side from
that on the other. As it undermines the energies of

(01:17:23):
the conquered, so it elevates the powers and energy of
the conqueror. But its chief effect is upon the vanquished,
because here it is the direct cause of fresh losses.
And besides, it is homogeneous in nature with danger, with
the fatigues, the hardships, and generally with all those embarrassing
circumstances by which war is surrounded. Therefore enters into league

(01:17:43):
with them, and increases by their help. Whilst with the
conqueror all these things are like weights, which give a
higher swing to his courage. It is therefore found that
the vanquished sinks much further below the original line of
equilibrium than the conqueror raises himself above it. On this account,
if we speak of the effects of victory, we allude
more particularly to those which manifest themselves in the army.

(01:18:06):
If this effect is more powerful in an important combat
than in a smaller one, so again it is much
more powerful in a great battle than in a minor one.
The great battle takes place for the sake of itself,
for the sake of the victory which it is to give,
and which is sought for with the utmost effort. Here
on this spot, in this very hour. To conquer the

(01:18:27):
enemy is the purpose in which the plan of the war,
with all its threats, converges, in which all distant hopes,
all dim glimmerings of the future meet Fate steps in
before us to give an answer to the bold question dot.
This is the state of mental tension, not only of
the commander, but of his whole army, down to the
lowest wagon driver, no doubt, in decreasing strength, but also

(01:18:48):
in decreasing importance. According to the nature of the thing,
a great battle has never at any time been an unprepared, unexpected, blind,
routine service, but a grand act, which, partly of itself
and partly from the aim of the commander, stands out
from amongst the mass of ordinary efforts sufficiently to raise
the tension of all minds to a higher degree. But

(01:19:09):
the higher this tension with respect to the issue, the
more powerful must be the effect of that issue. Again,
the moral effect of victory in our battles is greater
than it was in the earlier ones of modern military history.
If the former are as we have depicted them a
real struggle of forces to the utmost, then the sum
total of all these forces, of the physical as well

(01:19:31):
as the moral, must decide more than certain special dispositions
or mere chance. A single fault committed may be repaired
next time from good fortune and chance, we can hope
for more favor on another occasion. But the sum total
of moral and physical powers cannot be so quickly altered.
And therefore what the award of a victory has decided

(01:19:51):
appears of much greater importance for all futurity. Very probably,
of all concerned in battles, whether in or out of
the army, very few have given a thought to this difference.
But the course of the battle itself impresses on the
minds of all present in it such a conviction. And
the relation of this course in public documents, however much
it may be colored by twisting particular circumstances, shows also

(01:20:15):
more or less to the world at large that the
causes were more of a general than of a particular nature.
He who has not been present at the loss of
a great battle will have difficulty in forming for himself
a living or quite true idea of it. And the
abstract notions of this or that small untoward affair will
never come up to the perfect conception of a lost battle.

(01:20:35):
Let us stop a moment at the picture. The first
thing which overpowers the imagination, and we may indeed say
also the understanding, is the diminution of the masses. Then
the loss of ground, which takes place always more or less,
and therefore on the side of the assailant, also if
he is not fortunate. Then the rupture of the original formation,

(01:20:57):
the jumbling together of troops, the risks of retren which
with few exceptions, may always be seen, sometimes in a
less sometimes in a greater degree. Next the retreat, the
most part of which commences at night, or at least
goes on throughout the night. On this first march, we
must at once leave behind a number of men completely

(01:21:18):
worn out and scattered about, often just the bravest who
have been foremost in the fight, who held out the longest.
The feeling of being conquered, which only sees the superior
officers on the battlefield, now spreads through all ranks, even
down to the common soldiers. Aggravated by the horrible idea
of being obliged to leave in the enemy's hands, so
many brave comrades, who but a moment since were of

(01:21:40):
such value to us in the battle, and aggravated by
a rising distrust of the chief, to whom more or
less every subordinate attributes as a fault the fruitless efforts
he has made. And this feeling of being conquered is
no ideal picture over which one might become master. It
is an evident truth that the enemy is superior to
us us, a truth of which the causes might have

(01:22:02):
been so latent before that they were not to be discovered,
but which in the issue comes out clear and palpable,
Or which was also, perhaps before suspected, but which in
the want of any certainty, we had to oppose by
the hope of chance, reliance on good fortune, providence, or
a bold attitude. Now all this has proved insufficient, and

(01:22:24):
the bitter truth meets us harsh and imperious. All these
feelings are widely different from a panic, which in an
army fortified by military virtue never and in any other
only exceptionally follows the loss of a battle. They must
arise even in the best of armies, and although long
habituation to warn victory, together with great confidence in a

(01:22:45):
commander may modify them a little here and there. They
are never entirely wanting in the first moment. They are
not the pure consequences of lost trophies. These are usually
lost at a later period, and the loss of them
does not become generally known so quickly. They will therefore
not fail to appear even when the scale turns in
the slowest and most gradual manner, and they constitute that

(01:23:07):
effect of a victory upon which we can always count
in every case. We have already said that the number
of trophies intensifies this effect. It is evident that an
army in this condition, looked at as an instrument, is weakened.
How can we expect that, when reduced to such a
degree that, as we said before, it finds new enemies

(01:23:27):
in all the ordinary difficulties of making war, it will
be able to recover by fresh efforts what has been lost.
Before the battle there was a real or assumed equilibrium
between the two sides. This is lost, and therefore some
external assistance is requisite to restore it. Every new effort
without such external support can only lead to fresh losses. Thus, therefore,

(01:23:51):
the most moderate victory of the chief army must tend
to cause a constant sinking of the scale on the
opponent's side, until new external circumstances bring about a chain.
If these are not near. If the conqueror is an
eager opponent who, thirsting for glory, pursues great aims, then
a first rate commander, and in the beaten army, a
true military spirit, hardened by many campaigns, are required in

(01:24:15):
order to stop the swollen stream of prosperity from bursting
all bounds, and to moderate its course by small but
reiterated acts of resistance, until the force of victory has
spent itself at the goal of its career. And now,
as to the effect of defeat beyond the army upon
the nation and government, it is the sudden collapse of
hopes stretched to the utmost, the downfall of all self reliance.

(01:24:39):
In place of these extinct forces, fear, with its destructive
properties of expansion, rushes into the vacuum left and completes
the prostration. It is a real shock upon the nerves
which one of the two athletes receives from the electric
spark of victory. And that effect, however different in its degrees,
is never completely wanting. Instead of every one hastening with

(01:25:02):
a spirit of determination to aid in repairing the disaster.
Every one fears that his efforts will only be in
vain and stops hesitating with himself when he should rush forward,
or in despondency he lets his arm drop, leaving everything
to fate. The consequence which this effect of victory brings
forth in the course of the war itself depend in

(01:25:22):
part on the character and talent of the victorious general,
but more on the circumstances from which the victory proceeds
and to which it leads. Without boldness and an enterprising
spirit on the part of the leader, the most brilliant
victory will lead to no great success, and its force
exhausts itself all the sooner on circumstances if these offer
a strong and stubborn opposition to it. How very differently

(01:25:46):
from dawn Frederick the Great would have used the victory
at Colin, And what different consequences France in place of
Prussia might have given a Battle of Lufen. The conditions
which allow us to expect great results from a great
victory we shall learn when we come to the subjects
with which they are connected. Then it will be possible
to explain the disproportion which appears at first sight between

(01:26:07):
the magnitude of a victory and its results, and which
is only too readily attributed to a want of energy
on the part of the conqueror. Here, where we have
to do with the great battle in itself, we shall
merely say that the effects now depicted never fail to
attend a victory, that they mount up with the intensive
strength of the victory mount up more the more the
whole strength of the army has been concentrated in it,

(01:26:29):
the more the whole military power of the nation is
contained in that army, and a state in that military power.
But then the question may be asked, can theory accept
this effect of victory as absolutely necessary? Must it not
rather endeavor to find out counteracting means capable of neutralizing
these effects. It seems quite natural to answer this question

(01:26:50):
in the affirmative, But Heaven defend us from taking that
wrong course of most theories, out of which is begotten
a mutually devouring pro ed Contra. Certainly, that effect is
perfectly necessary, for it has its foundation in the nature
of things, and it exists even if we find means
to struggle against it, just as the motion of a
cannon ball is always in the direction of the terrestrial,

(01:27:12):
although when fired from east to west, part of the
general velocity is destroyed by this opposite motion. All war
supposes human weakness, and against that it is directed. Therefore,
if hereafter, in another place, we examine what is to
be done after the loss of a great battle, if
we bring under review the resources which still remain even

(01:27:33):
in the most desperate cases, if we should express a
belief in the possibility of retrieving all even in such
a case, it must not be supposed. We mean thereby
that the effects of such a defeat can, by degrees
be completely wiped out. For the forces and means used
to repair the disaster might have been applied to the
realization of some positive object, and this applies both to

(01:27:55):
the moral and physical forces. Another question is whether, through
the loss of a great battle, forces are not perhaps
roused into existence which otherwise would never have come to life.
This case is certainly conceivable, and it is what has
actually occurred with many nations. But to produce this intensified
reaction is beyond the province of military art, which can

(01:28:18):
only take account of it. Where it might be assumed
as a possibility. If there are cases in which the
fruits of a victory appear rather of a destructive nature
in consequence of the reaction of the forces which it
had the effect of rousing into activity, cases which certainly
are very exceptional, then it must the more surely be
granted that there is a difference in the effects which

(01:28:38):
one and the same victory may produce, according to the
character of the people or state which has been conquered.
Chapter eleven, the use of the battle, whatever form the
conduct of war may take in particular cases, and whatever
we may have to admit in the sequel as necessary
respecting it, we have only to refer to the conception
of war to be convinced of what follows. One. The

(01:29:01):
destruction of the enemy's military force is the leading principle
of war, and for the whole chapter of positive Action,
the direct way to the object. Two. This destruction of
the enemy's force must be principally affected by means of battle. Three.
Only great and general battles can produce great results. Four.

(01:29:22):
The results will be greatest when combats unite themselves in
one great battle. Five. It is only in a great
battle that the general in chief commands in person, and
it is in the nature of things that he should
place more confidence in himself than in his subordinates. From
these truths, a double law follows, the parts of which
mutually support each other, namely, that the destruction of the

(01:29:45):
enemy's military force is to be sought for principally by
great battles and their results, and that the chief object
of great battles must be the destruction of the enemy's
military force. No doubt, the annihilation principle is to be
found more or less in others. Granted, there are instances
in which, through favorable circumstances, in a minor combat, the

(01:30:05):
destruction of the enemy's forces has been disproportionately great maxim
And on the other hand, in a battle, the taking
or holding a single post may be predominant in importance
as an object, but as a general rule, it remains
a paramount truth that battles are only fought with a
view to the destruction of the enemy's army, and that
this destruction can only be effected by their means. The

(01:30:28):
battle may therefore be regarded as war concentrated, as the
center of effort of the whole war or campaign. As
the suns rays unite in the focus of the concave mirror,
in a perfect image, and in the fullness of their
heat to the forces and circumstances of war, unite in
a focus in a great battle for one concentrated utmost effort.

(01:30:49):
The very assemblage of forces in one great whole, which
takes place more or less in all wars, indicates an
intention to strike a decisive blow with this whole, either
voluntarily as a sailan or constrained by the opposite party
as defender. When this great blow does not follow, then
some modifying and retarding motives have attached themselves to the

(01:31:09):
original motive of hostility, and have weakened, altered, or completely
checked the movement. But also, even in this condition of
mutual inaction, which has been the keynote in so many wars,
the idea of a possible battle serves always for both
parties as a point of direction, a distant focus in
the construction of their plans. The more war is war

(01:31:30):
in earnest, the more it is a venting of animosity
and hostility, a mutual struggle to overpower so much, the
more will all activities join deadly contest, And also the
more prominent in importance becomes the battle in general. When
the object aimed at is of a great and positive nature,
one therefore in which the interests of the enemy are
deeply concerned, the battle offers itself as the most natural means.

(01:31:54):
It is therefore also the best, as we shall show
more plainly hereafter, and as as a rule, when it
is evaded from aversion to the great decision, punishment follows
the positive object belonged to the offensive, and therefore the
battle is also more particularly his means. But without examining
the conception of offensive and defensive more minutely here, we

(01:32:17):
must still observe that even for the defender, in most
cases there is no other effectual means with which to
meet the exigencies of his situation. To solve the problem
presented to him. The battle is the bloodiest way of solution. True,
it is not merely reciprocal slaughter, and its effect is
more a killing of the enemy's courage than of the

(01:32:37):
enemy's soldiers, as we shall see more plainly in the
next chapter. But still blood is always its price, and
slaughter its character, as well as name shlacked from shlacked
and equals to slaughter from this, the humanity in the
general's mind recoils with horror, but the soul of the
man trembles still more at the thought of the decision
to be given with one single blow in one point

(01:32:59):
of space and time. All action is here pressed together,
and at such a moment there is stirred up within
us a dim feeling, as if in this narrow space
all our forces could not develop themselves and come into activity,
as if we had already gained much by mere time,
although this time owes us nothing at all. This is
all mere illusion. But even as illusion, it is something,

(01:33:20):
and the same weakness which seizes upon the man in
every other momentous decision may well be felt more powerfully
by the general when he must stake interests of such
enormous weight upon one venture. Thus, then, statesmen and generals
have at all times endeavored to avoid the decisive battle,
seeking either to attain their aim without it, or dropping

(01:33:40):
that aim unperceived. Writers on history and theory have then
busied themselves to discover in some other feature in these campaigns,
not only an equivalent for the decision by battle which
has been avoided, but even a higher art. In this way,
in the present age. It came very near to this
that a battle in the economy of war was looked
upon one as an evil rendered necessary through some error,

(01:34:02):
committed a morbid paroxysm to which a regular, prudent system
of war would never lead. Only those generals were to
deserve laurels who knew how to carry on war without
spilling blood, and the theory of war a real business
for brahmins was to be specially directed to teaching this.
Contemporary history has destroyed this illusion, but no one can

(01:34:23):
guarantee that it will not sooner or later reproduce itself
and lead those at the head of affairs to perversities
which please man's weakness and therefore have the greater affinity
for his nature. Perhaps by and by Buonaparte's campaigns and
battles will be looked upon as mere acts of barbarism
and stupidity, and we shall once more turn with satisfaction

(01:34:43):
and confidence to the dress sort of obsolete and musty
institutions and forms. If theory gives a caution against this,
then it renders a real service to those who listen
to its warning voice. May we succeed in lending a
hand to those who in our dear native land are
called upon to speak with authority on these matters, that
we may be their guide into this field of inquiry

(01:35:04):
and excite them to make a candid examination of the subject.
Not only the conception of war, but experience also leads
us to look for a great decision only in a
great battle. From time immemorial, only great victories have led
to great successes on the offensive side, in the absolute form,
on the defensive side in a manner more or less satisfactory.

(01:35:26):
Even Buonaparte would not have seen the day of Ulm
unique in its kind if he had shrunk from shedding blood.
It is rather to be regarded as only a second
crop from the victorious events in his preceding campaigns. It
is not only bold, rash and presumptuous generals who have
sought to complete their work by the great venture of
a decisive battle, but also fortunate ones as well. And

(01:35:48):
we may rest satisfied with the answer which they have
thus given to this vast question. Let us not hear
of generals who conquer without bloodshed. If a bloody slaughter
is a horrible sight, then that is a ground for
paying more respect to war, But not for making the sword.
We were blunter and blunter by degrees from feelings of humanity,
until some one steps in with one that is sharp

(01:36:10):
and lops off the arm from our body. We look
upon a great battle as a principal decision, but certainly
not as the only one necessary for a war or
a campaign. Instances of a great battle deciding a whole
campaign have been frequent only in modern times. Those which
have decided a whole war belong to the class of
rare exceptions. A decision which is brought about by a

(01:36:33):
great battle depends naturally not on the battle itself, that is,
on the mass of combatants engaged in it, and on
the intensity of the victory, but also on a number
of other relations between the military forces opposed to each other,
and between the states to which these forces belong. But
at the same time that the principal mass of the
force available is brought to the great duel, a great

(01:36:55):
decision is also brought on the extent of which may
perhaps be foreseen in many respects, though not in all,
and which, although not the only one, still is the
first decision, and as such has an influence on those
which succeed. Therefore, a deliberately planned great battle, according to
its relations, is more or less, but always in some degree,

(01:37:16):
to be regarded as the leading means and central point
of the whole system. The more a general takes the
field in the true spirit of war, as well as
of every contest, with the feeling and the idea, that is,
the conviction that he must and will conquer, the more
he will strive to throw every weight into the scale
in the first battle hope, and strive to win everything
by it. Buonaparte hardly ever entered upon a war without

(01:37:40):
thinking of conquering his enemy at once in the first battle,
and Frederick the Great, although in a more limited sphere
and with interests of less magnitude at stake, thought the
same when at the head of a small army he
sought to disengage his rear from the Russians or the
Federal Imperial Army. The decision which is given by the
great battle to penns. We have said partly on the

(01:38:02):
battle itself, that is, on the number of troops engaged,
and partly on the magnitude of the success. How the
general may increase its importance in respect to the first
point is evident in itself, and we shall merely observe
that according to the importance of the great battle, the
number of cases which are decided along with it increases,
and that therefore generals who confident in themselves have been

(01:38:24):
lovers of great decisions, have always managed to make use
of the greater part of their troops in it, without
neglecting on that account essential points elsewhere as regards the consequences,
or speaking more correctly, the effectiveness of a victory, that
depends chiefly on four points. One on the tactical form
adopted as the order of battle, two on the nature

(01:38:46):
of the country, three on the relative proportions of the
three arms, four on the relative strength of the two armies.
A battle with parallel fronts and without any action against
a flank, will seldom yield as great success as one
in which the defeated army has been turned or compelled
to change front more or less. In a broken or

(01:39:08):
hilly country, the successes are likewise smaller, because the power
of the blow is everywhere less. If the cavalry of
the vanquished is equal or superior to that of the victor,
then the effects of the pursuit are diminished, and by
that great part of the results of victory are lost. Finally,
it is easy to understand that if superior numbers are

(01:39:29):
on the side of the conqueror, and he uses his
advantage in that respect to turn the flank of his
adversary or compel him to change front, greater results will
follow than if the conqueror had been weaker in numbers
than the vanquished. The Battle of Luffen may certainly be
quoted as a practical refutation of this principle. But we
beg permission for once to say what we otherwise do

(01:39:49):
not like no rule without an exception. In all these ways. Therefore,
the commander has the means of giving his battle a
decisive character. Certainly, he thus exposes himself to an increased
amount of danger, but his whole line of action is
subject to that dynamic law of the moral world. There
is then nothing in war which can be put in

(01:40:10):
comparison with the great battle in point of importance. And
the acme of strategic ability is displayed in the provision
of means for this great event, in the skillful determination
of place and time and direction of troops, and in
the good use made of success. But it does not
follow from the importance of these things that they must
be of a very complicated and recondite nature. All is

(01:40:31):
here rather simple. The art of combination by no means great.
But there is great need of quickness in judging of circumstances,
need of energy, steady resolution, a youthful spirit of enterprise,
heroic qualities to which we shall often have to refer.
There is therefore but little wanted here of that which
can be taught by books, And there is much that,

(01:40:52):
if it can be taught at all, must come to
the general through some other medium than Printer's type. The
impulse towards a great battle, the voluntary sure progress to it,
must proceed from a feeling of innate power, in a
clear sense of the necessity. In other words, it must
proceed from inborn courage and from perceptions sharpened by contact
with the higher interests of life. Great examples are the

(01:41:16):
best teachers. But it is certainly a misfortune if a
cloud of theoretical prejudices comes between. For even the sunbeam
is refracted and tinted by the clouds. To destroy such prejudices,
which many a time rise and spread themselves like a miasma,
is an imperative duty of theory, for the misbegotten offspring
of human reason can also be in turn destroyed by

(01:41:37):
pure reason. Chapter twelve, Strategic means of utilizing victory. The
more difficult part, viz. That of perfectly preparing the victory
is a silent service, of which the merit belongs to strategy,
and yet for which it is hardly sufficiently commended. It
appears brilliant and full of renown by turning to good
account of victory gained. What may be the special object

(01:42:01):
of a battle, how it is connected with the whole
system of a war, Whether the career of victory may lead,
according to the nature of circumstances where its culminating point lies.
All these are things which we shall not enter upon
until hereafter. But under any conceivable circumstances, the fact holds
good that without a pursuit, no victory can have a
great effect, and that, however short the career of victory

(01:42:24):
may be, it must always lead beyond the first steps
in pursuit. And in order to avoid the frequent repetition
of this, we shall now dwell for a moment on
this necessary supplement of victory. In general, the pursuit of
a beaten army commences. At the moment that army giving
up the combat leaves its position, all previous movements in
one direction and another belong not to that, but to

(01:42:47):
the progress of the battle itself. Usually, victory at the
moment here described, even if it is certain, is still
as yet small and weak in its proportions, and would
not rank as an event of any great positive advantage.
If not completed by a pursuit on the first day.
Then it is mostly as we have before said, that
the trophies which give substance to the victory begin to

(01:43:08):
be gathered up. Of this pursuit we shall speak in
the next place. Usually both sides come into action with
their physical powers considerably deteriorated, for the movements immediately preceding
have generally the character of very urgent circumstances. The efforts
which the forging out of a great combat costs complete
the exhaustion. From this, it follows that the victorious party

(01:43:32):
is very little less disorganized and out of his original
formation than the vanquished, and therefore requires time to reform,
to collect stragglers, and issue fresh ammunition to those who
are without. All these things place the conqueror himself in
the state of crisis of which we have already spoken.
If now the defeated force is only a detached portion

(01:43:52):
of the enemy's army, or if it has otherwise to
expect a considerable reinforcement, then the conqueror may easily run
into the obvious danger of having to pay dear for
his victory. And this consideration in such a case very
soon puts an end to pursuit, or at least restricts
it materially. Even when a strong accession of force by
the enemy is not to be feared, the conqueror finds

(01:44:14):
in the above circumstances a powerful check to the vivacity
of his pursuit. There is no reason to fear that
the victory will be snatched away, but adverse combats are
still possible and may diminish the advantages which up to
the present have been gained. Moreover, at this moment, the
whole weight of all that is sensuous in an army,
its wants and weaknesses, are dependent on the will of

(01:44:37):
the commander. All the thousands under his command require rest
and refreshment, and long to see a stop put to
toil and danger. For the present, only a few forming
an exception can see and feel beyond the present moment.
It is only amongst this little number that there is
sufficient mental vigor to think after what is absolutely necessary
at the moment has been done upon those results which

(01:44:59):
its such a moment only appear to the rest as
mere embellishments of victory, as a luxury of triumph. But
all these thousands have a voice in the council of
the general, For through the various steps of the military hierarchy,
these interests of the sensuous creature have their sure conductor
into the heart of the commander. He himself, through mental
and bodily fatigue, is more or less weakened in his

(01:45:22):
natural activity. And thus it happens than that, mostly from
these causes purely incidental to human nature, less is done
than might have been done, and that generally what is
done is to be ascribed entirely to the thirst for glory,
the energy, indeed also the hardheartedness of the general in chief.
It is only thus we can explain the hesitating manner

(01:45:43):
in which many generals follow up a victory which superior
numbers have given them the first pursuit of the enemy.
We limit in general to the extent of the first day,
including the night following the victory. At the end of
that period, the necessity of rest ourselves prescribes a halt.
In any case. This first pursuit has different natural degrees.

(01:46:04):
The first is if cavalry alone are employed. In that case,
it amounts usually more to alarming in watching than depressing
the enemy in reality, because the smallest obstacle of ground
is generally sufficient to check the pursuit. Useful as cavalry
may be against single bodies of broken, demoralized troops, still,
when opposed to the bulk of the beaten army, it

(01:46:25):
becomes again only the auxiliary arm because the troops in
retreat can employ fresh reserves to cover the movement, and
therefore at the next trifling obstacle of ground, by combining
all arms, they can make a stand with success. The
only exception to this is in the case of an
army in actual flight in a complete state of dissolution.

(01:46:46):
The second degree is if the pursuit is made by
a strong advance guard composed of all arms, the greater
part consisting naturally of cavalry. Such a pursuit generally drives
the enemy as far as the nearest strong position for
his rear guard, or the next position affording space for
his army. Neither can usually be found at once, and

(01:47:07):
therefore the pursuit can be carried further. Generally, however, it
does not extend beyond the distance of one or at
most a couple of leagues, because otherwise the advance guard
would not feel itself sufficiently supported. The third and most
vigorous degree is when the victorious army itself continues to
advance as far as its physical powers can endure. In

(01:47:29):
this case, the beaten army will generally quit such ordinary
positions as a country usually offers on the mere show
of an attack or of an intention to turn its flank,
and the rear guard will be still less likely to
engage in an obstinate resistance. In all three cases, the night,
if it sets in before the conclusion of the whole act,
usually puts an end to it, and the few instances

(01:47:51):
in which this has not taken place and the pursuit
has been continued throughout the night must be regarded as
pursuits in an exceptionally vigorous form. If we reflect that
in fighting by night everything must be more or less
abandoned to chance and that at the conclusion of a battle,
the regular cohesion and order of things in an army
must inevitably be disturbed. We may easily conceive the reluctance

(01:48:14):
of both generals to carrying on their business under such
disadvantageous conditions. If a complete dissolution of the vanquished army
or a rare superiority of the victorious army in military
virtue does not insure success, everything would, in a manner
be given up to fate, which can never be for
the interest of any one, even of the most foolhardy general.

(01:48:35):
As a rule, therefore, Knight puts an end to pursuit,
even when the battle has only been decided, shortly before
darkness sets in. This allows the conquered either time for
rest and to rally immediately, or if he retreats during
the night, it gives him a march in advance. After
this break, the conquered is decidedly in a better condition.

(01:48:55):
Much of that which had been thrown into confusion has
been brought again into order, ammunition has been renewed, the
whole has been put into a fresh formation. Whatever further
encounter now takes place with the enemy is a new battle.
Not a continuation of the old and although it may
be far from promising absolute success, still it is a
fresh combat, and not merely a gathering up of the

(01:49:16):
debris by the victor. When therefore the conqueror can continue
the pursuit itself throughout the night, if only with a
strong advance guard composed of all arms of the service,
the effect of the victory is immensely increased. Of this.
The battles of Luthen and LaBelle Alliance Waterloo are examples.
The whole action of this pursuit is mainly tactical, and

(01:49:38):
we only dwell upon it here in order to make
plain the difference which through it may be produced in
the effect of a victory. This first pursuit, as far
as the nearest stopping point, belongs as a right to
every conqueror, and is hardly in any way connected with
his further plans and combinations. These may considerably diminish the
positive results of a victory gained with them the main

(01:50:00):
body of the army, but they cannot make this first
use of it impossible. At least. Cases of that kind,
if conceivable at all, must be so uncommon that they
should have no appreciable influence on theory. And here certainly
we must say that the example afforded by modern wars
opens up quite a new field for energy. In preceding

(01:50:20):
wars resting on a narrower basis and altogether more circumscribed
in their scope, there were many unnecessary conventional restrictions in
various ways, but particularly in this point, the conception honor
of victory seemed to general so much by far the
chief thing, that they thought the less of the complete
destruction of the enemy's military force, as in point of fact,

(01:50:42):
that destruction of force appeared to them only as one
of the many means in war, not by any means
as the principle, much less as the only means, so
that they the more readily put the sword in its
sheath the moment the enemy had lowered his Nothing seemed
more natural to them than to stop the combat as
soon as the decision was obtained, and to regard all
further carnage as unnecessary cruelty. Even if this false philosophy

(01:51:06):
did not determine their resolutions entirely, still, it was a
point of view by which representations of the exhaustion of
all powers and physical impossibility of continuing the struggle obtained
readier evidence and greater weight. Certainly, the sparing one's own
instrument of victory is a vital question, if we only
possess this one, and foresee that soon the time may

(01:51:27):
arrive when it will not be sufficient for all that
remains to be done, for every continuation of the offensive
must lead ultimately to complete exhaustion. But this calculation was
still so far false, as the further loss of forces
by a continuance of the pursuit could bear no proportion
to that which the enemy must suffer. That view, therefore,

(01:51:48):
again could only exist because the military forces were not
considered the vital factor. And so we find that in
former wars, real heroes only such as Charles the twelfth, Marlborough,
Eugene Frederick the Great, added a vigorous pursuit to their
victories when they were decisive enough, and that other generals
usually contented themselves with the possession of the field of battle.

(01:52:10):
In modern times, the greater energy infused into the conduct
of wars, through the greater importance of the circumstances from
which they have preceded, has thrown down these conventional barriers.
The pursuit has become an all important business for the conqueror.
Trophies have on that account multiplied in extent. And if
there are cases also in modern warfare in which this
has not been the case, still they belong to the

(01:52:31):
list of exceptions, and are to be accounted for by
peculiar circumstances. At Corshan eighteen thirteen and boughts In, nothing
but the superiority of the Allied cavalry prevented a complete route.
At Grossbeeren and Denowitz, the ill will of Bernadotte, the
Crown Prince of Sweden at Laon, the enfeebled personal condition
of Blucher, who was then seventy years old and at

(01:52:53):
the moment confined to a dark room owing to an
injury to his eyes. But Borodino is also an ill
stration to the point here, and we cannot resist saying
a few more words about it, partly because we do
not consider the circumstances are explained simply by attaching blame
to Buonaparte. Partly because it might appear as if this,
and with it a great number of similar cases belonged

(01:53:15):
to that class which we have designated as so extremely rare,
cases in which the general relations seize and fetter the
general at the very beginning of the battle. French authors
in particular, and great admirers of Buonaparte, Vaudencourt, Chambrey, Seger,
have blamed him decidedly because he did not drive the
Russian army completely off the field and use his last

(01:53:37):
reserves to scatter it, Because then what was only a
lost battle would have been a complete route. We should
be obliged to diverge too far to describe circumstantially the
mutual situation of the two armies, but this much is evident.
That when Buonaparte passed the Niemen with his army, the
same corps which afterwards fought at Borodino numbered three hundred
thousand men, of whom now only one hundred and twents

(01:54:00):
twenty thousand remained. He might therefore well be apprehensive that
he would not have enough left to march upon Moscow,
the point on which everything seemed to depend. The victory
which he had just gained gave him nearly a certainty
of taking that capital. For that the Russians would be
in a condition to fight a second battle within eight
days seemed in the highest degree improbable, And in Moscow

(01:54:20):
he hoped to find peace. No doubt, the complete dispersion
of the Russian army would have made this peace much
more certain. But still the first consideration was to get
to Moscow, that is, to get there with a force
with which he should appear dictator over the capital and
threw that over the empire and the government. The force
which he brought with him to Moscow was no longer

(01:54:41):
sufficient for that, as shown in the sequel, but it
would have been still less so if in scattering the
Russian army he had scattered his own. At the same time,
Bonaparte was thoroughly alive to all this, and in our
eyes he stands completely justified. But on that account this
case is still not to be reckoned among those in which,
through the general relations the general is interdicted from following

(01:55:04):
up his victory, for there never was in his case
any question of mere pursuit. The victory was decided at
four o'clock in the afternoon, but the Russians still occupied
the greater part of the field of battle. They were
not yet disposed to give up the ground, and if
the attack had been renewed, they would still have offered
a most determined resistance, which would have undoubtedly ended in

(01:55:25):
their complete defeat, but would have cost the conqueror much
further bloodshed. We must therefore reckon the Battle of Borodino,
as amongst battles like Botzen left unfinished. At Botzen, the
vanquished preferred to quit the field sooner. At Borodino, the
conqueror preferred to content himself with a half victory, not
because the decision appeared doubtful, but because he was not

(01:55:47):
rich enough to pay for the whole. Returning now to
our subject, the deduction from our reflections in relation to
the first stage of pursuit is that the energy thrown
into it chiefly determines the value of the victory. That
this pursuit is a second act of the victory, in
many cases more important also than the first, and that strategy,
whilst here approaching tactics to receive from it, the harvest

(01:56:09):
of success, exercises the first act of her authority by
demanding this completion of the victory. But further, the effects
of victory are very seldom found to stop with this
first pursuit. Now first begins the real career to which
victory lent velocity. This course is conditioned, as we have
already said by other relations, of which it is not

(01:56:30):
yet time to speak. But we must here mention what
there is of a general character in the pursuit, in
order to avoid repetition when the subject occurs again in
the further stages of pursuit. Again, we can distinguish three degrees,
the simple pursuit, a hard pursuit, and a parallel march
to intercept. The simple following or pursuing causes the enemy

(01:56:53):
to continue his retreat until he thinks he can risk
another battle. It will, therefore, in its effect, suffice to
exhaust the advantage is gained. And besides that all that
the enemy cannot carry with him, sick, wounded, and disabled
from fatigue, quantities of baggage and carriages of all kinds
will fall into our hands. But this mere following does

(01:57:13):
not tend to heighten the disorder in the enemy's army,
an effect which is produced by the two following causes. If,
for instance, instead of contenting ourselves with taking up every
day the camp the enemy has just vacated, occupying just
as much of the country as he chooses to abandon,
we make our arrangements so as every day to encroach
further and accordingly, with our advance guard organized for the purpose,

(01:57:36):
attack his rear guard every time it attempts to halt.
Then such a course will hasten his retreat and consequently
tend to increase his disorganization. That this it will principally
affect by the character of continuous flight, which his retreat
will thus assume. Nothing has such a depressing influence on
the soldier as the sound of the enemy's cannon afresh

(01:57:57):
at the moment when, after a forced march he seek
some rest. If this excitement is continued from day to
day for some time, it may lead to a complete route.
There lies in it a constant admission of being obliged
to obey the law of the enemy, and of being
unfit for any resistance. And the consciousness of this cannot
do otherwise than weaken the moral of an army in

(01:58:18):
a high degree. The effect of pressing the enemy in
this way attains a maximum when it drives the enemy
to make night marches. If the conqueror scares away the
discomfited opponent at sunset from a camp which has just
been taken up, either for the main body of the
army or for the rear guard, the conquered must either
make a night march or alter his position in the night,

(01:58:39):
retiring further away, which is much the same thing. The
victorious party can, on the other hand, pass the night
in quiet. The arrangement of marches and the choice of
positions depend, in this case also upon so many other things,
especially on the supply of the army, on strong natural
obstacles in the country, on large towns, et cetera, that

(01:59:00):
it would be ridiculous pedantry to attempt to show by
a geometrical analysis how the pursuer, being able to impose
his laws on the retreating enemy, can compel him to
march at night while he takes his rest. But nevertheless,
it is true and practicable that marches in pursuit may
be so planned as to have this tendency, and that
the efficacy of the pursuit is very much enchanced thereby.

(01:59:23):
If this is seldom attended to in the execution, it
is because such a procedure is more difficult for the
pursuing army than a regular adherence to ordinary marches in
the daytime, to start in good time in the morning,
to encamp at mid day, to occupy the rest of
the day in providing for the ordinary wants of the army,
and to use the night for repose is a much

(01:59:44):
more convenient method than to regulate one's movements exactly according
to those of the enemy. Therefore, to determine nothing till
the last moment, to start on the march, sometimes in
the morning, sometimes in the evening, to be always for
several hours in the presence of the enemy, and exchanging
cannon with him, and keeping up skirmishing fire, to plan

(02:00:04):
maneuvers to turn him. In short, to make the whole
outlay of tactical means which such a course renders necessary.
All that naturally bears with a heavy weight on the
pursuing army. And in war, where there are so many
burdens to be born, men are always inclined to strip
off those which do not seem absolutely necessary. These observations

(02:00:25):
are true whether applied to a whole army or, as
in the more usual case, to a strong advance guard.
For the reasons just mentioned, this second method of pursuit,
this continued pressing of the enemy pursued, is rather a
rare occurrence. Even Buonaparte, in his Russian campaign eighteen twelve,
practiced it but little for the reasons here apparent that

(02:00:45):
the difficulties and hardships of this campaign already threatened his
army with destruction before it could reach its object. On
the other hand, the French and their other campaigns have
distinguished themselves by their energy in this point. Also last,
the third and most effectual form of pursuit is the
parallel march to the immediate object of the retreat. Every

(02:01:07):
defeated army will naturally have behind it, at a greater
or less distance, some point, the attainment of which is
the first purpose in view. Whether it be that failing
in this its further retreat might be compromised, as in
the case of a defile, or that it is important
for the point itself to reach it before the enemy,
as in the case of a great city magazines and see.

(02:01:28):
Or lastly, that the army at this point will gain
new powers of defense, such as a strong position or
junction with other corps. Now, if the conqueror directs his
march on this point by a lateral road, it is
evident how that may quicken the retreat of the beaten
army in a destructive manner. Converted into hurry, perhaps into flight,

(02:01:49):
The conquered has only three ways to counteract this. The
first is to throw himself in front of the enemy
in order, by an unexpected attack, to gain that probability
of success which is l lost to him in general
from his position. This plainly supposes an enterprising, bold general
and an excellent army beaten but not utterly defeated. Therefore
it can only be employed by a beaten army in

(02:02:11):
very few cases. The second way is hastening the retreat.
But this is just what the conqueror wants, and it
easily leads to moderate efforts on the part of the
troops by which enormous losses are sustained in stragglers, broken guns,
and carriages of all kinds. The third way is to
make a detour and get round the nearest point of interception,

(02:02:33):
to march with more ease at a greater distance from
the enemy, and thus to render the haste required less damaging.
This last way is the worst of all. It generally
turns out like a new debt contracted by an insolvent
debtor and leads to greater embarrassment. There are cases in
which this course is advisable, others where there is nothing
else left also instances in which it has been successful.

(02:02:57):
But upon the whole, it is certainly true that its
adoption is usually influenced less by a clear persuasion of
its being the surest way of attaining the aim, than
by another inadmissible motive. This motive is the dread of
encountering the enemy. Woe to the commander who gives in
to this, however much the moral of his army may
have deteriorated, and however well founded may be his apprehensions

(02:03:19):
of being at a disadvantage in any conflict with the enemy,
the evil will only be made worse by too anxiously
avoiding every possible risk of collision. Bonaparte in eighteen thirteen
would never have brought over the Rhine with him the
thirty thousand or forty thousand men who remained after the
Battle of Hanau eighteen thirteen if he had avoided that
battle and tried to pass the Rhine at Mannheim or Kobelen's.

(02:03:42):
It is just by means of small combats carefully prepared
and executed, and in which the defeated army, being on
the defensive, has always the assistance of the ground. It
is just by these that the moral strength of the
army can first be resuscitated. At Hanau October thirtieth, eighteen thirteen,
the Bavarians, some fifty thousand strong, through themselves across the

(02:04:03):
line of Napoleon's retreat from Leipsic. By a masterly use
of its artillery, the French tore the Bavarians asunder and
marched on over their bodies. The beneficial effect of the
smallest successes is incredible, but with most generals the adoption
of this plan implies great self command. The other way,
that of evading all encounter, appears at first so much

(02:04:26):
easier that there is a natural preference for its adoption.
It is therefore usually just this system of evasion which
best promotes the view of the pursuer, and often ends
with the complete downfall of the pursued. We must, however,
recollect here that we are speaking of a whole army,
not of a single division, which, having been cut off,

(02:04:46):
is seeking to join the main army by making a detour.
In such a case, circumstances are different, and success is
not uncommon. But there is one condition requisite to the
success of this race of two corps for an object,
which is that it the division of the pursuing army
should follow by the same road which the pursued has taken,
in order to pick up stragglers and keep up the

(02:05:07):
impression which the presence of the enemy never fails to make.
Blucher neglected this in his in other respects unexceptionable pursuit
after La Belle alliance. Such marches tell upon the pursuer
as well as the pursued, and they are not advisable
if the enemy's army rallies itself upon another considerable one,
if it has a distinguished general at its head, and

(02:05:29):
if its destruction is not already well prepared. But when
this means can be adopted, it acts also like a
great mechanical power. The losses of the beaten army from
sickness and fatigue are on such a disproportionate scale. The
spirit of the army is so weakened and lowered by
the constant solicitude about impending ruin that at last anything

(02:05:49):
like a well organized stand is out of the question.
Every day thousands of prisoners fall into the enemy's hands
without striking a blow. In such a season of complete
good fortune, the conqueror need not hesitate about dividing his
forces in order to draw into the vortex of destruction
everything within reach of his army, to cut off detachments,
to take fortresses unprepared for defense, to occupy large towns,

(02:06:13):
et cetera. He may do anything until a new state
of things arises, and the more he ventures in this way,
the longer will it be before that change will take place.
There is no want of examples of brilliant results from grand,
decisive victories and of great and vigorous pursuits. In the
Wars of Buonaparte. We need only quote Jena eighteen o six,

(02:06:34):
Ratisbond eighteen o nine, Leipsic eighteen thirteen, and Belle Alliance
eighteen fifteen, Chapter thirteen. Retreat after a lost battle. In
a lost battle, the power of an army is broken,
the moral to a greater degree than the physical. A
second battle, unless fresh favorable circumstances come into play, would

(02:06:56):
lead to a complete defeat, perhaps to destruction. This is
a military axiom. According to the usual course, the retreat
is continued up to that point where the equilibrium of
forces is restored, either by reinforcements or by the protection
of strong fortresses, or by great defensive positions afforded by
the country or by a separation of the enemy's force.

(02:07:19):
The magnitude of the loss is sustained the extent of
the defeat. But still more the character of the enemy
will bring nearer or put off the instant of this equilibrium.
How many instances may be found of a beaten army
rallied again at a short distance, without its circumstances having
altered in any way since the battle. The cause of
this may be traced to the moral weakness of the adversary,

(02:07:42):
or to the preponderance gained in the battle, not having
been sufficient to make lasting impression. To profit by this
weakness or mistake of the enemy, not to yield one
inch breadth more than the pressure of circumstances demands, but
above all things, in order to keep up the moral
forces to as advantageous a point as possible, a slow retreat,
offering incessant resistance and bold, courageous counter strokes whenever the

(02:08:06):
enemy seeks to gain any excessive advantages, are absolutely necessary.
Retreats of great generals and of armies inured to war
have always resembled the retreat of a wounded lion. Such
is undoubtedly also the best theory. It is true that
at the moment of quitting a dangerous position we have
often seen trifling formalities observed which caused a waste of

(02:08:28):
time and were therefore attended with danger. Whilst in such
cases everything depends on getting out of the place speedily,
practice generals reckon this maxim a very important one. But
such cases must not be confounded with a general retreat
after a lost battle. Whoever, then thinks by a few
rapid marches to gain a start and more easily to

(02:08:50):
recover a firm standing commits a great error. The first
movements should be as small as possible, and it is
a maxim in general not to suffer ourselves to be
dictated to buy the enemy. This maxim cannot be followed
without bloody fighting with the enemy at our heels, but
the gain is worth the sacrifice. Without it, we get
into an accelerated pace which soon turns into a headlong

(02:09:13):
rush and costs merely in stragglers more men than rearguard combats,
and besides that extinguishes the last remnants of the spirit
of resistance. A strong rear guard composed of picked troops
commanded by the bravest general and supported by the whole
army at critical moments. A careful utilization of ground strong
ambuscades wherever the boldness of the enemy's advance guard and

(02:09:35):
the ground afford opportunity. In short, the preparation in the
system of regular small battles. These are the means of
following this principle. The difficulties of a retreat are naturally
greater or less according as the battle has been fought
under more or less favorable circumstances, and according as it
has been more or less obstinately contested. The Battle of

(02:09:57):
Jena and LaBelle Alliance show how impossible anything like a
regular retreat may become if the last man is used
up against a powerful enemy. Now and again it has
been suggested to divide for the purpose of retreating. Therefore,
to retreat in separate divisions, or even eccentrically. Such a
separation as is made merely for convenience, and along with

(02:10:18):
which concentrated action continues possible and is kept in view,
is not what we now refer to any other kind.
Is extremely dangerous, contrary to the nature of the thing,
and therefore a great error. Every lost battle is a
principle of weakness and disorganization, and a first and immediate
desideratum is to concentrate, and in concentration to recover order, courage,

(02:10:40):
and confidence. The idea of harassing the enemy by separate
corps on both flanks at the moment when he is
following up his victory is a perfect anomaly. A faint
hearted pedant might be overawed by his enemy in that manner,
and for such a case it may answer. But where
we are not sure of this failing in our opponent,
it is better let alone. If the strategic relations after

(02:11:01):
a battle require that we should cover ourselves right and
left by detachments, so much must be done, as from
circumstances is unavoidable. But this fractioning must always be regarded
as an evil, and we are seldom in a state
to commence at the day after the battle itself. If
Frederick the Great, after the Battle of Colin seventeen fifty
seven and the raising of the Siege of Prague retreated

(02:11:24):
in three columns, that was done not out of choice,
but because the position of his forces and the necessity
of covering Saxony left him no alternative. Buonaparte after the
battle of Brienne eighteen fourteen sent Marmont back to the Obe,
whilst he himself passed the Seine and turned towards Chiuah.
But that this did not end in disaster was solely

(02:11:44):
owing to the circumstance that the Allies, instead of pursuing,
divided their forces in like manner, turning with the one
part Blucher towards the Marne, while with the other Schwarzenberg.
From fear of being too weak, they advanced with exaggerated caution.
Chapter fourteen. Night fighting. The manner of conducting a combat

(02:12:05):
at night, and what concerns the details of its course,
is a tactical subject. We only examine it here so
far as in its totality it appears as a special
strategic means. Fundamentally, every night attack is only a more
vehement form of surprise. Now, at the first look of
the thing, such an attack appears quite pre eminently advantageous,

(02:12:26):
For we suppose the enemy to be taken by surprise,
the assailant naturally to be prepared for everything which can happen.
What an inequality imagination paints to itself a picture of
the most complete confusion on the one side, and on
the other side, the assailant only occupied in reaping the
fruits of his advantage. Hence the constant creation of schemes

(02:12:47):
for night attacks by those who have not to lead
them and have no responsibility. Whilst these attacks seldom take
place in reality, these ideal schemes are all based on
a hypothesis that the assailants the arrangements of the defender
because they have been made and announced beforehand, and could
not escape notice in his reconnaissances and inquiries. That, on

(02:13:08):
the other hand, the measures of the assailant, being only
taken at the moment of execution, cannot be known to
the enemy. But the last of these is not always
quite the case, and still less is the first. If
we are not so near the enemy as to have
him completely under our eye, as the Austrians had Frederick
the Great before the Battle of Hotchkirch seventeen fifty eight,

(02:13:30):
then all that we know of his position must always
be imperfect, as it is obtained by reconnaissances, patrols, information
from prisoners and spies, sources on which no firm reliance
can be placed. Because intelligence thus obtained is always more
or less of an old date, and the position of
the enemy may have been altered in the meantime. Moreover,

(02:13:50):
with the tactics and mode of encampment of former times,
it was much easier than it is now to examine
the position of the enemy. A line of tents is
much easier to distinguis wish than a line of huts
or a bivouac, and an encampment on a line of
front fully and regularly drawn out also easier than one
of divisions formed in columns, the mode often used at present.

(02:14:12):
We may have the ground on which a division bivouacs
in that manner completely under our eye, and yet not
be able to arrive at any accurate idea. But the position,
again is not all that we want to know. The
measures which the defender may take in the course of
the combat are just as important, and do not, by
any means consist in mere random shots. These measures also

(02:14:33):
make night attacks more difficult in modern wars than formerly,
because they have in these campaigns an advantage over those
already taken in our combats. The position of the defender
is more temporary than definitive, and on that account the
defender is better able to surprise his adversary with unexpected
blows than he could formerly. Therefore, what the assailant knows

(02:14:54):
of the defensive previous to a night attack is seldom
or never sufficient to supply the want of direct obs.
But the defender has on his side another small advantage
as well, which is that he is more at home
than the assailant on the ground which forms his position,
and therefore, like the inhabitant of a room, will find
his way about it in the dark with more ease

(02:15:15):
than a stranger. He knows better where to find each
part of his force, and therefore can more readily get
at it than is the case with his adversary. From this,
it follows that the assailant in a combat at night
feels the want of his eyes just as much as
the defender, and that therefore only particular reasons can make
a night attack advisable. Now, these reasons arise mostly in

(02:15:38):
connection with subordinate parts of an army, rarely with the
army itself. It follows that a knight attack also as
a rule, can only take place with secondary combats, and
seldom with great battles. We may attack a portion of
the enemy's army with a very superior force consequently enveloping
it with a view either to take the whole or
to inflict very severe loss on it by an unas

(02:16:00):
equal combat, provided that other circumstances are in our favor.
But such a scheme can never succeed except by a
great surprise, because no fractional part of the enemy's army
would engage in such an unequal combat, but would retire instead.
But a surprise on an important scale, except in rare
instances in a very close country, can only be effected

(02:16:22):
at night. If therefore, we wish to gain such an
advantage as this from the faulty disposition of a portion
of the enemy's army, then we must make use of
the night at all events to finish the preliminary part,
even if the combat itself should not open till towards daybreak.
This is therefore what takes place in all the little
enterprises by night against outposts and other small bodies, the

(02:16:45):
main point being invariably through superior numbers and getting round
his position to entangle him unexpectedly in such a disadvantageous
combat that he cannot disengage himself without great loss. The
larger the body attack, the more day difficult the undertaking,
because a strong force has greater resources within itself to
maintain the fight long enough for help to arrive. On

(02:17:08):
that account, the whole of the enemy's army can never,
in ordinary cases be the object of such an attack,
For although it has no assistance to expect from any
quarter outside itself, still it contains within itself sufficient means
of repelling attacks from several sides, particularly in our day,
when everyone from the commencement is prepared for this very
usual form of attack. Whether the enemy can attack us

(02:17:31):
on several sides with success depends generally on conditions quite
different from that of its being done unexpectedly. Without entering
here into the nature of these conditions, we confine ourselves
to observing that with turning an enemy, great results as
well as great dangers are connected. That therefore, if we
set aside special circumstances, nothing justifies it but a great superiority,

(02:17:54):
just such as we should use against a fractional part
of the enemies army. But the turning and surrounding a
small fraction of the enemy, and particularly in the darkness
of night, is also more practicable. For this reason that
whatever we stake upon it. And however superior. The force
used may be. Still probably it constitutes only a limited

(02:18:15):
portion of our army, and we can sooner stake that
than the whole on the risk of a great venture.
Besides the greater part, or perhaps the whole serves as
a support and rallying point for the portion risk, which
again very much diminishes the danger of the enterprise. Not
only the risk, but the difficulty of execution as well
confines night enterprises to small bodies, as surprise is the

(02:18:39):
real essence of them, so also stealthy approach is the
chief condition of execution. But this is more easily done
with small bodies than with large, and for the columns
of a whole army is seldom practicable. For this reason,
such enterprises are in general only directed against single outposts,
and can only be feasible against greater bodies if they

(02:18:59):
are without sufficient outposts. Like Frederick the Grade at Hotchkirch
on October seventeen fifty eight, this will happen. Seldom are
in future to armies themselves than to minor divisions. In
recent times, when war has been carried on with so
much more rapidity and vigor, it has, in consequence often
happened that armies have encamped very close to each other

(02:19:20):
without having a very strong system of outposts, because those
circumstances have generally occurred just at the crisis which precedes
a great decision. But then at such times the readiness
for battle on both sides is also more perfect. On
the other hand, in former wars, it was a frequent
practice for armies to take up camps inside of each
other when they had no other object but that of

(02:19:42):
mutually holding each other in check. Consequently, for a longer period,
how often Frederick the Great stood for weeks so near
to the Austrians that the two might have exchanged cannon
shots with each other. But these practices, certainly more favorable
to night attacks, have been disas continued in later days,
and armies, being now no longer in regard to subsistence

(02:20:04):
and requirements for encampment, such independent bodies complete in themselves,
find it necessary to keep usually a day's march between
themselves and the enemy. If we now keep in view
especially the night attack of an army, it follows that
sufficient motives for it can seldom occur, and that they
fall under one or other of the following classes. One

(02:20:26):
an unusual degree of carelessness or audacity, which very rarely occurs,
and when it does, is compensated for by a great
superiority in moral force. Two a panic in the enemy's army,
or generally such a degree of superiority in moral force
on our side that this is sufficient to supply the
place of guidance in action. Three cutting through an enemy's

(02:20:49):
army of superior force, which keeps us enveloped, because in
this all depends on surprise, and the object of merely
making a passage by force allows a much greater concentration
of forces for the Finally, in desperate cases, when our
forces have such a disproportion to the enemies that we
see no possibility of success except through extraordinary daring. But

(02:21:11):
in all these cases there is still the condition that
the enemy's army is under our eyes and protected by
no advance guard. As for the rest, most night combats
are so conducted as to end with daylight, so that
only the approach and the first attack are made under
cover of darkness, because the assailant in that manner can
better profit by the consequences of the state of confusion

(02:21:33):
into which he throws his adversary, and Combats of this
description which do not commence until daybreak, in which the
night therefore is only made use of to approach, are
not to be counted as night combats.

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CLAUSEWITZ - ON WAR - IV. THE COMBAT - Carl von Clausewitz - HQ Full Book

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