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the greater the ease with which surprise is achieved, the smaller is its effectiveness, and vice versa.
To prepare a sham action with sufficient thoroughness to impress an enemy requires a considerable expenditure of time and effort, and the costs increase with scale of the deception. Normally they call for more than can be spared, and consequently so-called strategic feints rarely have the desired effect.
Stern necessity usually permeates direct action to such an extent that no room is left for such a game. In brief, the strategist's chessmen do not have the kind of mobility that is essential for stratagem and cunning.
an accurate and penetrating understanding is a more useful and essential asset for the commander than any gift for cunning
In a state of weakness and insignificance, when prudence, judgment, and ability no longer suffice, cunning may well appear the only hope.
The best strategy is always to be very strong; first in general, and then at the decisive point.
there is no higher and simpler law of strategy than that of keeping one's forces concentrated. No force should ever be detached from the main body unless the need is definite and urgent.
Incredible though it sounds, it is a fact that armies have been divided and separated countless times, without the commander having any clear reason for it, simply because he vaguely felt that this was the way things ought to be done.
Tactical successes, those attained in the course of the engagement, usually occur during the phase of disarray and weakness. On the other hand, the strategic success, the overall effect of the engagement, the completed victory, whether great or insignificant, already lies beyond that phase. The strategic outcome takes shape only when the fragmented results have combined into a single, independent whole. But at that point the crisis is over, the forces regain their original cohesion, weakened only by the casualties they have actually suffered. The consequence of this difference is that in the
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In a strategic situation this does not hold true. For one thing, as has been shown, once a strategic success is achieved, a reaction is less likely to set in, because the crisis has passed; for another, not all strategic forces have necessarily been weakened. The only troops that have suffered losses are those that have been tactically engaged—those, in other words, that have fought.
Since in strategy casualties do not increase with the size of the forces used, and may even be reduced, and since obviously greater force is more likely to lead to success, it naturally follows that we can never use too great a force, and further, that all available force must be used simultaneously.
In a minor engagement it is not too difficult to judge approximately how much force is needed to achieve substantial success, and what would be superfluous. In strategy this is practically impossible, because strategic success cannot be defined and delineated with the same precision.
The rule, then, that we have tried to develop is this: all forces intended and available for a strategic purpose should be applied simultaneously; their employment will be the more effective the more everything can be concentrated a single action at a single moment.
A reserve has two distinct purposes. One is to prolong and renew the action; the second, to counter unforeseen threats. The first purpose presupposes the value of the successive use of force, and therefore does not belong to strategy.
It is thus an essential condition of strategic leadership that forces should be held in reserve according to the degree of strategic uncertainty.
But uncertainty decreases the greater the distance between strategy and tactics; and it practically disappears in that area of strategy that borders on the political.
The point at which the concept of a strategic reserve begins to be self-contradictory is not difficult to determine: it comes when the decisive stage of the battle has been reached. All forces must be used to achieve it, and any idea of reserves, of available combat units that are not meant to be used until after this decision, is an absurdity.
For a striking example, we should recall that in 1806 Prussia billeted a reserve of 20,000 men under Prince Eugene of Wiirttemberg in Brandenburg and could not get them to the Saale River in time, while another 25,000 men were kept in East and south Prussia to be mobilized at some later stage, to act as a reserve. These examples will, we hope, spare us the reproach of tilting at windmills.
When the time for action comes, the first requirement should be that all parts must act: even the least appropriate task will occupy some of the enemy's forces and reduce his overall strength, while completely inactive troops are neutralized for the time being.
Nevertheless geometry cannot govern tactics as it governs siege warfare: when troops face one another everything is more mobile, and psychological forces, individual differences, and chance play a more influential part. In strategy the influence of geometry is even less significant. Though here too types of troop formations and configurations of countries and states are significant, the principle of geometry is not decisive as in the art of fortification, and not nearly so important as in tactics.
Strategy, they thought, expressed the higher functions of the intellect; they thought that war would be ennobled by its study, and, according to a modern substitution of concepts, be made more scientific. We believe that it is one of the chief functions of a comprehensive theory of war to expose such vagaries, and it is because the geometrical element usually provides the point of departure for these fantasies that we have drawn special attention to it.
Seen in this light, suspension of action in war is a contradiction in terms. Like two incompatible elements, armies must continually destroy one another. Like fire and water they never find themselves in a state of equilibrium, but must keep on interacting until one of them has completely disappeared.
But no matter how savage the nature of war, it is fettered by human weaknesses; and no one will be surprised at the contradiction that man seeks and creates the very danger that he fears.
why should we make the enormous exertions inherent in war if our only object is to produce a similar effort on the part of the enemy?
creates a permanent tendency toward delay and thus becomes a retarding influence, is the fear and indecision native to the human mind. It is a sort of moral force of gravity, which, however, works by repulsion rather than attraction: namely, aversion to danger and responsibility.
Unless an enterprising martial spirit is in command, a man who is as much at home in war as a fish is in water, or unless great responsibilities exert a pressure, inactivity will be the rule, and progress the exception.
imperfection of human perception and judgment, which is more pronounced in war than anywhere else. We hardly know accurately our own situation at any particular moment, while the enemy's, which is concealed from us, must be deduced from very little evidence.
Thus, in the midst of the conflict itself, concern, prudence, and fear of excessive risks find reason to assert themselves and to tame the elemental fury of war.
These factors can become so influential that they reduce war to something tame and half-hearted. War often is nothing more than armed neutrality, a threatening attitude meant to support negotiations, a mild attempt to gain some small advantage before sitting back and letting matters take their course, or a disagreeable obligation imposed by an alliance, to be discharged with as little effort as possible.
Woe to the government, which, relying on half-hearted politics and a shackled military policy, meets a foe who, like the untamed elements, knows no law other than his own power! Any defect of action and effort will turn to the advantage of the enemy, and it will not be easy to change from a fencer's position to that of a wrestler. A slight blow may then often be enough to cause a total collapse.
Obviously, wars waged by both sides to the full extent of their national strength must be conducted on different principles from wars in which policy was based on the comparative size of the regular armies. In those days, regular armies resembled navies, and were like them in their relation to the country and to its institutions. Fighting on land therefore had something in common with naval tactics, a quality which has now completely disappeared.
As we have mentioned, most former wars were waged largely in this state of equilibrium, or at least expressed tensions that were so limited, so infrequent, and feeble, that the fighting that did occur during these periods was seldom followed by important results.
all activity that occurs during a state of equilibrium will be regarded and treated as a mere corollary. The state of crisis is the real war; the equilibrium is nothing but its reflex.
the essential military activity, fighting, which by its material and psychological effects comprises in simple or compound form the object of the war.
Compared with the general characteristics of fighting, the peculiarities tend to be relatively unimportant, with the result that most engagements are very much alike.
So the battle slowly smolders away, like damp gunpowder. Darkness brings it to a halt: no one can see, and no one cares to trust himself to chance. The time has come to reckon up how much in the way of serviceable troops is left on either side—troops, that is, which are not yet burned out like dead volcanoes.
The results, along with personal impressions of the bravery and cowardice, intelligence and stupidity that one thinks one has observed in one's own troops and the enemy's, are then combined in an overall impression on which a decision is based: either to quit the field or to renew the fight in the morning.
Fighting is the central military act; all other activities merely support it.
Even the ultimate aim of contemporary warfare, the political object, cannot always be seen as a single issue. Even if it were, action is subject to such a multitude of conditions and considerations that the aim can no longer be achieved by a single tremendous act of war. Rather it must be reached by a large number of more or less important actions, all combined into one whole.
We have already said that the concept of the engagement lies at the root of all strategic action, since strategy is the use of force, the heart of which, in turn, is the engagement. So in the field of strategy we can reduce all military activity to the unitary concept of the single engagement, and concern ourselves exclusively with its purposes.
So, rather than try to outbid the enemy with complicated schemes, one should, on the contrary, try to outdo him in simplicity.
If we read history with an open mind, we cannot fail to conclude that, among all the military virtues, the energetic conduct of war has always contributed most to glory and success.
Getting the better of an enemy—that is, placing him in a position where he has to break off the engagement—cannot in itself be considered as an objective, and for this reason cannot be included in the definition of the objective.
It is a familiar experience that the winner's casualties in the course of an engagement show little difference from the loser's. Frequently there is no difference at all, and sometimes even an inverse one. The really crippling losses, those the vanquished does not share with the victor, only start with his retreat.
Thus a victory usually only starts to gather weight after the issue has already been decided.
Physical casualties are not the only losses incurred by both sides in the course of the engagement: their moral strength is also shaken, broken and ruined. In deciding whether or not to continue the engagement it is not enough to consider the loss of men, horses and guns; one also has to weigh the loss of order, courage, confidence, cohesion, and plan.
The ratio of physical loss on either side is in any case hard to gauge in the course of an engagement; but this does not apply to loss of morale. There are two main indicators of this. One is loss of the ground on which one has fought; the other is the preponderance of enemy reserves.
the amount of reserves spent is an accurate measure on the loss of morale.
Every engagement is a bloody and destructive test of physical and moral strength. Whoever has the greater sum of both left at the end is the victor.
That is why guns and prisoners have always counted as the real trophies of victory: they are also its measure, for they are tangible evidence of its scale. They are a better index to the degree of superior morale than any other factors, even when one relates them to the casualty figures.
