CHAPTER II -On the Theory of
War
1. THE FIRST CONCEPTION OF THE
“ART OF WAR” WAS MERELY THE PREPARATION OF THE ARMED FORCES.
Formerly by the term “Art of War,” or “Science of
War,” nothing was understood but the totality of those branches of knowledge
and those appliances of skill occupied with material things. The pattern and
preparation and the mode of using arms, the construction of fortifications and
entrenchments, the organism of an army and the mechanism of its movements, were
the subject; these branches of knowledge and skill above referred to, and the
end and aim of them all was the establishment of an armed force fit for use in
War. All this concerned merely things belonging to the material world and a
one-sided activity only, and it was in fact nothing but an activity advancing
by gradations from the lower occupations to a finer kind of mechanical art. The
relation of all this to War itself was very much the same as the relation of
the art of the sword cutler to the art of using the sword. The employment in
the moment of danger and in a state of constant reciprocal action of the
particular energies of mind and spirit in the direction proposed to them was
not yet even mooted.
2. TRUE WAR FIRST APPEARS IN
THE ART OF SIEGES.
In the art of sieges we first perceive a certain
degree of guidance of the combat, something of the action of the intellectual
faculties upon the material forces placed under their control, but generally
only so far that it very soon embodied itself again in new material forms, such
as approaches, trenches, counter-approaches, batteries, &c., and every step
which this action of the higher faculties took was marked by some such result;
it was only the thread that was required on which to string these material
inventions in order. As the intellect can hardly manifest itself in this kind
of War, except in such things, so therefore nearly all that was necessary was
done in that way.
3. THEN TACTICS TRIED TO FIND
ITS WAY IN THE SAME DIRECTION.
Afterwards tactics attempted to give to the
mechanism of its joints the character of a general disposition, built upon the
peculiar properties of the instrument, which character leads indeed to the
battle-field, but instead of leading to the free activity of mind, leads to an
Army made like an automaton by its rigid formations and orders of battle,
which, movable only by the word of command, is intended to unwind its
activities like a piece of clockwork.
4. THE REAL CONDUCT OF WAR ONLY
MADE ITS APPEARANCE INCIDENTALLY AND INCOGNITO.
The conduct of War properly so called, that is, a
use of the prepared means adapted to the most special requirements, was not
considered as any suitable subject for theory, but one which should be left to
natural talents alone. By degrees, as War passed from the hand-to-hand
encounters of the middle ages into a more regular and systematic form, stray
reflections on this point also forced themselves into men’s minds, but they
mostly appeared only incidentally in memoirs and narratives, and in a certain
measure incognito.
5. REFLECTIONS ON MILITARY
EVENTS BROUGHT ABOUT THE WANT OF A THEORY.
As contemplation on War continually increased, and
its history every day assumed more of a critical character, the urgent want
appeared of the support of fixed maxims and rules, in order that in the
controversies naturally arising about military events the war of opinions might
be brought to some one point. This whirl of opinions, which neither revolved on
any central pivot nor according to any appreciable laws, could not but be very
distasteful to people’s minds.
6. ENDEAVOURS TO ESTABLISH A
POSITIVE THEORY.
There arose, therefore, an endeavour to establish
maxims, rules, and even systems for the conduct of War. By this the attainment
of a positive object was proposed, without taking into view the endless
difficulties which the conduct of War presents in that respect. The conduct of
War, as we have shown, has no definite limits in any direction, while every
system has the circumscribing nature of a synthesis, from which results an
irreconcileable opposition between such a theory and practice.
7. LIMITATION TO MATERIAL
OBJECTS.
Writers on theory felt the difficulty of the
subject soon enough, and thought themselves entitled to get rid of it by
directing their maxims and systems only upon material things and a one-sided
activity. Their aim was to reach results, as in the science for the preparation
for War, entirely certain and positive, and therefore only to take into
consideration that which could be made matter of calculation.
8. SUPERIORITY OF NUMBERS.
The superiority in numbers being a material
condition, it was chosen from amongst all the factors required to produce
victory, because it could be brought under mathematical laws through
combinations of time and space. It was thought possible to leave out of sight
all other circumstances, by supposing them to be equal on each side, and
therefore to neutralise one another. This would have been very well if it had
been done to gain a preliminary knowledge of this one factor, according to its
relations, but to make it a rule for ever to consider superiority of numbers as
the sole law; to see the whole secret of the Art of War in the formula, in a
certain time, at a certain point, to bring up superior masses—was a restriction
overruled by the force of realities.
9. VICTUALLING OF TROOPS.
By one theoretical school an attempt was made to systematise
another material element also, by making the subsistence of troops, according
to a previously established organism of the Army, the supreme legislator in the
higher conduct of War. In this way certainly they arrived at definite figures,
but at figures which rested on a number of arbitrary calculations, and which
therefore could not stand the test of practical application.
10. BASE.
An ingenious author tried to concentrate in a
single conception, that of a BASE, a whole host of objects amongst which sundry
relations even with immaterial forces found their way in as well. The list
comprised the subsistence of the troops, the keeping them complete in numbers
and equipment, the security of communications with the home country, lastly,
the security of retreat in case it became necessary; and, first of all, he
proposed to substitute this conception of a base for all these things; then for
the base itself to substitute its own length (extent); and, last of all, to
substitute the angle formed by the army with this base: all this was done to
obtain a pure geometrical result utterly useless. This last is, in fact,
unavoidable, if we reflect that none of these substitutions could be made
without violating truth and leaving out some of the things contained in the
original conception. The idea of a base is a real necessity for strategy, and
to have conceived it is meritorious; but to make such a use of it as we have
depicted is completely inadmissible, and could not but lead to partial
conclusions which have forced these theorists into a direction opposed to
common sense, namely, to a belief in the decisive effect of the enveloping form
of attack.
11. INTERIOR LINES.
As a reaction against this false direction,
another geometrical principle, that of the so-called interior lines, was then
elevated to the throne. Although this principle rests on a sound foundation, on
the truth that the combat is the only effectual means in War, still it is, just
on account of its purely geometrical nature, nothing but another case of
one-sided theory which can never gain ascendency in the real world.
12. ALL THESE ATTEMPTS ARE OPEN
TO OBJECTION.
All these attempts at theory are only to be
considered in their analytical part as progress in the province of truth, but
in their synthetical part, in their precepts and rules, they are quite
unserviceable.
They strive after determinate quantities, whilst
in War all is undetermined, and the calculation has always to be made with
varying quantities.
They direct the attention only upon material
forces, while the whole military action is penetrated throughout by intelligent
forces and their effects.
They only pay regard to activity on one side,
whilst War is a constant state of reciprocal action, the effects of which are
mutual.
13. AS A RULE THEY EXCLUDE
GENIUS.
All that was not attainable by such miserable
philosophy, the offspring of partial views, lay outside the precincts of
science—and was the field of genius, which RAISES ITSELF ABOVE RULES.
Pity the warrior who is contented to crawl about
in this beggardom of rules, which are too bad for genius, over which it can set
itself superior, over which it can perchance make merry! What genius does must
be the best of all rules, and theory cannot do better than to show how and why
it is so.
Pity the theory which sets itself in opposition to
the mind! It cannot repair this contradiction by any humility, and the humbler
it is so much the sooner will ridicule and contempt drive it out of real life.
14. THE DIFFICULTY OF THEORY AS
SOON AS MORAL QUANTITIES COME INTO CONSIDERATION.
Every theory becomes infinitely more difficult
from the moment that it touches on the province of moral quantities.
Architecture and painting know quite well what they are about as long as they
have only to do with matter; there is no dispute about mechanical or optical
construction. But as soon as the moral activities begin their work, as soon as
moral impressions and feelings are produced, the whole set of rules dissolves
into vague ideas.
The science of medicine is chiefly engaged with
bodily phenomena only; its business is with the animal organism, which, liable
to perpetual change, is never exactly the same for two moments. This makes its
practice very difficult, and places the judgment of the physician above his science;
but how much more difficult is the case if a moral effect is added, and how
much higher must we place the physician of the mind?
15. THE MORAL QUANTITIES MUST
NOT BE EXCLUDED IN WAR.
But now the activity in War is never directed
solely against matter; it is always at the same time directed against the
intelligent force which gives life to this matter, and to separate the two from
each other is impossible.
But the intelligent forces are only visible to the
inner eye, and this is different in each person, and often different in the
same person at different times.
As danger is the general element in which
everything moves in War, it is also chiefly by courage, the feeling of one’s
own power, that the judgment is differently influenced. It is to a certain
extent the crystalline lens through which all appearances pass before reaching
the understanding.
And yet we cannot doubt that these things acquire
a certain objective value simply through experience.
Every one knows the moral effect of a surprise, of
an attack in flank or rear. Every one thinks less of the enemy’s courage as
soon as he turns his back, and ventures much more in pursuit than when pursued.
Every one judges of the enemy’s General by his reputed talents, by his age and
experience, and shapes his course accordingly. Every one casts a scrutinising
glance at the spirit and feeling of his own and the enemy’s troops. All these
and similar effects in the province of the moral nature of man have established
themselves by experience, are perpetually recurring, and therefore warrant our
reckoning them as real quantities of their kind. What could we do with any
theory which should leave them out of consideration?
Certainly experience is an indispensable title for
these truths. With psychological and philosophical sophistries no theory, no
General, should meddle.
16. PRINCIPAL DIFFICULTY OF A
THEORY FOR THE CONDUCT OF WAR.
In order to comprehend clearly the difficulty of
the proposition which is contained in a theory for the conduct of War, and
thence to deduce the necessary characteristics of such a theory, we must take a
closer view of the chief particulars which make up the nature of activity in
War.
17. FIRST SPECIALITY.—MORAL
FORCES AND THEIR EFFECTS. (HOSTILE FEELING.)
The first of these specialities consists in the
moral forces and effects.
The combat is, in its origin, the expression of
hostile feeling, but in our great combats, which we call Wars, the hostile
feeling frequently resolves itself into merely a hostile view, and there is
usually no innate hostile feeling residing in individual against individual.
Nevertheless, the combat never passes off without such feelings being brought
into activity. National hatred, which is seldom wanting in our Wars, is a
substitute for personal hostility in the breast of individual opposed to
individual. But where this also is wanting, and at first no animosity of
feeling subsists, a hostile feeling is kindled by the combat itself; for an act
of violence which any one commits upon us by order of his superior, will excite
in us a desire to retaliate and be revenged on him, sooner than on the superior
power at whose command the act was done. This is human, or animal if we will;
still it is so. We are very apt to regard the combat in theory as an abstract
trial of strength, without any participation on the part of the feelings, and
that is one of the thousand errors which theorists deliberately commit, because
they do not see its consequences.
Besides that excitation of feelings naturally
arising from the combat itself, there are others also which do not essentially
belong to it, but which, on account of their relationship, easily unite with
it—ambition, love of power, enthusiasm of every kind, &c. &c.
18. THE IMPRESSIONS OF DANGER.
(COURAGE.)
Finally, the combat begets the element of danger,
in which all the activities of War must live and move, like the bird in the air
or the fish in the water. But the influences of danger all pass into the
feelings, either directly—that is, instinctively—or through the medium of the
understanding. The effect in the first case would be a desire to escape from
the danger, and, if that cannot be done, fright and anxiety. If this effect
does not take place, then it is courage, which is a counterpoise to that
instinct. Courage is, however, by no means an act of the understanding, but
likewise a feeling, like fear; the latter looks to the physical preservation,
courage to the moral preservation. Courage, then, is a nobler instinct. But
because it is so, it will not allow itself to be used as a lifeless instrument,
which produces its effects exactly according to prescribed measure. Courage is
therefore no mere counterpoise to danger in order to neutralise the latter in
its effects, but a peculiar power in itself.
19. EXTENT OF THE INFLUENCE OF
DANGER.
But to estimate exactly the influence of danger
upon the principal actors in War, we must not limit its sphere to the physical
danger of the moment. It dominates over the actor, not only by threatening him,
but also by threatening all entrusted to him, not only at the moment in which
it is actually present, but also through the imagination at all other moments,
which have a connection with the present; lastly, not only directly by itself,
but also indirectly by the responsibility which makes it bear with tenfold
weight on the mind of the chief actor. Who could advise, or resolve upon a
great battle, without feeling his mind more or less wrought up, or perplexed
by, the danger and responsibility which such a great act of decision carries in
itself? We may say that action in War, in so far as it is real action, not a
mere condition, is never out of the sphere of danger.
20. OTHER POWERS OF FEELING.
If we look upon these affections which are excited
by hostility and danger as peculiarly belonging to War, we do not, therefore,
exclude from it all others accompanying man in his life’s journey. They will
also find room here frequently enough. Certainly we may say that many a petty
action of the passions is silenced in this serious business of life; but that
holds good only in respect to those acting in a lower sphere, who, hurried on
from one state of danger and exertion to another, lose sight of the rest of the
things of life, become unused to deceit, because it is of no avail with death,
and so attain to that soldierly simplicity of character which has always been
the best representative of the military profession. In higher regions it is
otherwise, for the higher a man’s rank, the more he must look around him; then
arise interests on every side, and a manifold activity of the passions of good
and bad. Envy and generosity, pride and humility, fierceness and tenderness,
all may appear as active powers in this great drama.
21. PECULIARITY OF MIND.
The peculiar characteristics of mind in the chief
actor have, as well as those of the feelings, a high importance. From an
imaginative, flighty, inexperienced head, and from a calm, sagacious
understanding, different things are to be expected.
22. FROM THE DIVERSITY IN
MENTAL INDIVIDUALITIES ARISES THE DIVERSITY OF WAYS LEADING TO THE END.
It is this great diversity in mental
individuality, the influence of which is to be supposed as chiefly felt in the
higher ranks, because it increases as we progress upwards, which chiefly
produces the diversity of ways leading to the end noticed by us in the first
book, and which gives, to the play of probabilities and chance, such an unequal
share in determining the course of events.
23. SECOND PECULIARITY.—LIVING
REACTION.
The second peculiarity in War is the living reaction,
and the reciprocal action resulting therefrom. We do not here speak of the
difficulty of estimating that reaction, for that is included in the difficulty
before mentioned, of treating the moral powers as quantities; but of this, that
reciprocal action, by its nature, opposes anything like a regular plan. The
effect which any measure produces upon the enemy is the most distinct of all
the data which action affords; but every theory must keep to classes (or
groups) of phenomena, and can never take up the really individual case in
itself: that must everywhere be left to judgment and talent. It is therefore
natural that in a business such as War, which in its plan—built upon general
circumstances—is so often thwarted by unexpected and singular accidents, more
must generally be left to talent; and less use can be made of a theoretical
guide than in any other.
24. THIRD
PECULIARITY.—UNCERTAINTY OF ALL DATA.
Lastly, the great uncertainty of all data in War
is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be
planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not unfrequently—like the effect
of a fog or moonshine—gives to things exaggerated dimensions and an unnatural
appearance.
What this feeble light leaves indistinct to the
sight talent must discover, or must be left to chance. It is therefore again
talent, or the favour of fortune, on which reliance must be placed, for want of
objective knowledge.
25. POSITIVE THEORY IS
IMPOSSIBLE.
With materials of this kind we can only say to
ourselves that it is a sheer impossibility to construct for the Art of War a
theory which, like a scaffolding, shall ensure to the chief actor an external
support on all sides. In all those cases in which he is thrown upon his talent
he would find himself away from this scaffolding of theory and in opposition to
it, and, however many-sided it might be framed, the same result would ensue of
which we spoke when we said that talent and genius act beyond the law, and
theory is in opposition to reality.
26. MEANS LEFT BY WHICH A
THEORY IS POSSIBLE (THE DIFFICULTIES ARE NOT EVERYWHERE EQUALLY GREAT).
Two means present themselves of getting out of
this difficulty. In the first place, what we have said of the nature of
military action in general does not apply in the same manner to the action of
every one, whatever may be his standing. In the lower ranks the spirit of
self-sacrifice is called more into request, but the difficulties which the
understanding and judgment meet with are infinitely less. The field of
occurrences is more confined. Ends and means are fewer in number. Data more
distinct; mostly also contained in the actually visible. But the higher we
ascend the more the difficulties increase, until in the Commander-in-Chief they
reach their climax, so that with him almost everything must be left to genius.
Further, according to a division of the subject in
agreement with its nature, the difficulties are not everywhere the same, but
diminish the more results manifest themselves in the material world, and
increase the more they pass into the moral, and become motives which influence
the will. Therefore it is easier to determine, by theoretical rules, the order
and conduct of a battle, than the use to be made of the battle itself. Yonder
physical weapons clash with each other, and although mind is not wanting
therein, matter must have its rights. But in the effects to be produced by
battles when the material results become motives, we have only to do with the
moral nature. In a word, it is easier to make a theory for tactics than for
strategy.
27. THEORY MUST BE OF THE
NATURE OF OBSERVATIONS NOT OF DOCTRINE.
The second opening for the possibility of a theory
lies in the point of view that it does not necessarily require to be a
direction for action. As a general rule, whenever an activity is for the most
part occupied with the same objects over and over again, with the same ends and
means, although there may be trifling alterations and a corresponding number of
varieties of combination, such things are capable of becoming a subject of
study for the reasoning faculties. But such study is just the most essential
part of every theory, and has a peculiar title to that name. It is an
analytical investigation of the subject that leads to an exact knowledge; and
if brought to bear on the results of experience, which in our case would be
military history, to a thorough familiarity with it. The nearer theory attains
the latter object, so much the more it passes over from the objective form of
knowledge into the subjective one of skill in action; and so much the more,
therefore, it will prove itself effective when circumstances allow of no other
decision but that of personal talents; it will show its effects in that talent
itself. If theory investigates the subjects which constitute War; if it
separates more distinctly that which at first sight seems amalgamated; if it
explains fully the properties of the means; if it shows their probable effects;
if it makes evident the nature of objects; if it brings to bear all over the
field of War the light of essentially critical investigation—then it has
fulfilled the chief duties of its province. It becomes then a guide to him who
wishes to make himself acquainted with War from books; it lights up the whole
road for him, facilitates his progress, educates his judgment, and shields him
from error.
If a man of expertness spends half his life in the
endeavour to clear up an obscure subject thoroughly, he will probably know more
about it than a person who seeks to master it in a short time. Theory is
instituted that each person in succession may not have to go through the same
labour of clearing the ground and toiling through his subject, but may find the
thing in order, and light admitted on it. It should educate the mind of the
future leader in War, or rather guide him in his self-instruction, but not
accompany him to the field of battle; just as a sensible tutor forms and
enlightens the opening mind of a youth without, therefore, keeping him in
leading strings all through his life.
If maxims and rules result of themselves from the
considerations which theory institutes, if the truth accretes itself into that
form of crystal, then theory will not oppose this natural law of the mind; it
will rather, if the arch ends in such a keystone, bring it prominently out; but
so does this, only in order to satisfy the philosophical law of reason, in
order to show distinctly the point to which the lines all converge, not in
order to form out of it an algebraical formula for use upon the battle-field;
for even these maxims and rules serve more to determine in the reflecting mind
the leading outline of its habitual movements than as landmarks indicating to
it the way in the act of execution.
28. BY THIS POINT OF VIEW
THEORY BECOMES POSSIBLE, AND CEASES TO BE IN CONTRADICTION TO PRACTICE.
Taking this point of view, there is a possibility
afforded of a satisfactory, that is, of a useful, theory of the conduct of War,
never coming into opposition with the reality, and it will only depend on
rational treatment to bring it so far into harmony with action that between
theory and practice there shall no longer be that absurd difference which an
unreasonable theory, in defiance of common sense, has often produced, but
which, just as often, narrow-mindedness and ignorance have used as a pretext
for giving way to their natural incapacity.
29. THEORY THEREFORE CONSIDERS
THE NATURE OF ENDS AND MEANS—ENDS AND MEANS IN TACTICS.
Theory has therefore to consider the nature of the
means and ends.
In tactics the means are the disciplined armed
forces which are to carry on the contest. The object is victory. The precise
definition of this conception can be better explained hereafter in the
consideration of the combat. Here we content ourselves by denoting the
retirement of the enemy from the field of battle as the sign of victory. By
means of this victory strategy gains the object for which it appointed the
combat, and which constitutes its special signification. This signification has
certainly some influence on the nature of the victory. A victory which is
intended to weaken the enemy’s armed forces is a different thing from one which
is designed only to put us in possession of a position. The signification of a
combat may therefore have a sensible influence on the preparation and conduct
of it, consequently will be also a subject of consideration in tactics.
30. CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH ALWAYS
ATTEND THE APPLICATION OF THE MEANS.
As there are certain circumstances which attend
the combat throughout, and have more or less influence upon its result,
therefore these must be taken into consideration in the application of the
armed forces.
These circumstances are the locality of the combat
(ground), the time of day, and the weather.
31. LOCALITY.
The locality, which we prefer leaving for solution,
under the head of “Country and Ground,” might, strictly speaking, be without
any influence at all if the combat took place on a completely level and
uncultivated plain.
In a country of steppes such a case may occur, but
in the cultivated countries of Europe it is almost an imaginary idea. Therefore
a combat between civilised nations, in which country and ground have no
influence, is hardly conceivable.
32. TIME OF DAY.
The time of day influences the combat by the
difference between day and night; but the influence naturally extends further
than merely to the limits of these divisions, as every combat has a certain
duration, and great battles last for several hours. In the preparations for a
great battle, it makes an essential difference whether it begins in the morning
or the evening. At the same time, certainly many battles may be fought in which
the question of the time of day is quite immaterial, and in the generality of
cases its influence is only trifling.
33. WEATHER.
Still more rarely has the weather any decisive
influence, and it is mostly only by fogs that it plays a part.
34. END AND MEANS IN STRATEGY.
Strategy has in the first instance only the
victory, that is, the tactical result, as a means to its object, and ultimately
those things which lead directly to peace. The application of its means to this
object is at the same time attended by circumstances which have an influence
thereon more or less.
35. CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH ATTEND
THE APPLICATION OF THE MEANS OF STRATEGY.
These circumstances are country and ground, the
former including the territory and inhabitants of the whole theatre of war;
next the time of the day, and the time of the year as well; lastly, the
weather, particularly any unusual state of the same, severe frost, &c.
36. THESE FORM NEW MEANS.
By bringing these things into combination with the
results of a combat, strategy gives this result—and therefore the combat—a
special signification, places before it a particular object. But when this
object is not that which leads directly to peace, therefore a subordinate one,
it is only to be looked upon as a means; and therefore in strategy we may look
upon the results of combats or victories, in all their different
significations, as means. The conquest of a position is such a result of a
combat applied to ground. But not only are the different combats with special
objects to be considered as means, but also every higher aim which we may have
in view in the combination of battles directed on a common object is to be
regarded as a means. A winter campaign is a combination of this kind applied to
the season.
There remain, therefore, as objects, only those
things which may be supposed as leading directly to peace, Theory investigates
all these ends and means according to the nature of their effects and their
mutual relations.
37. STRATEGY DEDUCES ONLY FROM
EXPERIENCE THE ENDS AND MEANS TO BE EXAMINED.
The first question is, How does strategy arrive at
a complete list of these things? If there is to be a philosophical inquiry
leading to an absolute result, it would become entangled in all those
difficulties which the logical necessity of the conduct of War and its theory
exclude. It therefore turns to experience, and directs its attention on those
combinations which military history can furnish. In this manner, no doubt,
nothing more than a limited theory can be obtained, which only suits
circumstances such as are presented in history. But this incompleteness is
unavoidable, because in any case theory must either have deduced from, or have
compared with, history what it advances with respect to things. Besides, this
incompleteness in every case is more theoretical than real.
One great advantage of this method is that theory
cannot lose itself in abstruse disquisitions, subtleties, and chimeras, but
must always remain practical.
38. HOW FAR THE ANALYSIS OF THE
MEANS SHOULD BE CARRIED.
Another question is, How far should theory go in
its analysis of the means? Evidently only so far as the elements in a separate
form present themselves for consideration in practice. The range and effect of
different weapons is very important to tactics; their construction, although
these effects result from it, is a matter of indifference; for the conduct of
War is not making powder and cannon out of a given quantity of charcoal,
sulphur, and saltpetre, of copper and tin: the given quantities for the conduct
of War are arms in a finished state and their effects. Strategy makes use of
maps without troubling itself about triangulations; it does not inquire how the
country is subdivided into departments and provinces, and how the people are
educated and governed, in order to attain the best military results; but it
takes things as it finds them in the community of European States, and observes
where very different conditions have a notable influence on War.
39. GREAT SIMPLIFICATION OF THE
KNOWLEDGE REQUIRED.
That in this manner the number of subjects for
theory is much simplified, and the knowledge requisite for the conduct of War
much reduced, is easy to perceive. The very great mass of knowledge and
appliances of skill which minister to the action of War in general, and which
are necessary before an army fully equipped can take the field, unite in a few
great results before they are able to reach, in actual War, the final goal of
their activity; just as the streams of a country unite themselves in rivers
before they fall into the sea. Only those activities emptying themselves
directly into the sea of War have to be studied by him who is to conduct its
operations.
40. THIS EXPLAINS THE RAPID
GROWTH OF GREAT GENERALS, AND WHY A GENERAL IS NOT A MAN OF LEARNING.
This result of our considerations is in fact so
necessary, any other would have made us distrustful of their accuracy. Only
thus is explained how so often men have made their appearance with great
success in War, and indeed in the higher ranks even in supreme Command, whose
pursuits had been previously of a totally different nature; indeed how, as a
rule, the most distinguished Generals have never risen from the very learned or
really erudite class of officers, but have been mostly men who, from the
circumstances of their position, could not have attained to any great amount of
knowledge. On that account those who have considered it necessary or even
beneficial to commence the education of a future General by instruction in all
details have always been ridiculed as absurd pedants. It would be easy to show
the injurious tendency of such a course, because the human mind is trained by
the knowledge imparted to it and the direction given to its ideas. Only what is
great can make it great; the little can only make it little, if the mind itself
does not reject it as something repugnant.
41. FORMER CONTRADICTIONS.
Because this simplicity of knowledge requisite in
War was not attended to, but that knowledge was always jumbled up with the
whole impedimenta of subordinate sciences and arts, therefore the palpable
opposition to the events of real life which resulted could not be solved
otherwise than by ascribing it all to genius, which requires no theory and for
which no theory could be prescribed.
42. ON THIS ACCOUNT ALL USE OF
KNOWLEDGE WAS DENIED, AND EVERYTHING ASCRIBED TO NATURAL TALENTS.
People with whom common sense had the upper hand
felt sensible of the immense distance remaining to be filled up between a
genius of the highest order and a learned pedant; and they became in a manner
free-thinkers, rejected all belief in theory, and affirmed the conduct of War
to be a natural function of man, which he performs more or less well according
as he has brought with him into the world more or less talent in that
direction. It cannot be denied that these were nearer to the truth than those
who placed a value on false knowledge: at the same time it may easily be seen
that such a view is itself but an exaggeration. No activity of the human
understanding is possible without a certain stock of ideas; but these are, for
the greater part at least, not innate but acquired, and constitute his
knowledge. The only question therefore is, of what kind should these ideas be;
and we think we have answered it if we say that they should be directed on
those things which man has directly to deal with in War.
43. THE KNOWLEDGE MUST BE MADE
SUITABLE TO THE POSITION.
Inside this field itself of military activity, the
knowledge required must be different according to the station of the Commander.
It will be directed on smaller and more circumscribed objects if he holds an
inferior, upon greater and more comprehensive ones if he holds a higher situation.
There are Field Marshals who would not have shone at the head of a cavalry
regiment, and vice versa.
44. THE KNOWLEDGE IN WAR IS
VERY SIMPLE, BUT NOT, AT THE SAME TIME, VERY EASY.
But although the knowledge in War is simple, that
is to say directed to so few subjects, and taking up those only in their final
results, the art of execution is not, on that account, easy. Of the
difficulties to which activity in War is subject generally, we have already
spoken in the first book; we here omit those things which can only be overcome
by courage, and maintain also that the activity of mind, is only simple, and
easy in inferior stations, but increases in difficulty with increase of rank,
and in the highest position, in that of Commander-in-Chief, is to be reckoned
among the most difficult which there is for the human mind.
45. OF THE NATURE OF THIS
KNOWLEDGE.
The Commander of an Army neither requires to be a
learned explorer of history nor a publicist, but he must be well versed in the
higher affairs of State; he must know, and be able to judge correctly of
traditional tendencies, interests at stake, the immediate questions at issue,
and the characters of leading persons; he need not be a close observer of men,
a sharp dissector of human character, but he must know the character, the
feelings, the habits, the peculiar faults and inclinations of those whom he is
to command. He need not understand anything about the make of a carriage, or
the harness of a battery horse, but he must know how to calculate exactly the march
of a column, under different circumstances, according to the time it requires.
These are matters the knowledge of which cannot be forced out by an apparatus
of scientific formula and machinery: they are only to be gained by the exercise
of an accurate judgment in the observation of things and of men, aided by a
special talent for the apprehension of both.
The necessary knowledge for a high position in
military action is therefore distinguished by this, that by observation,
therefore by study and reflection, it is only to be attained through a special
talent which as an intellectual instinct understands how to extract from the
phenomena of life only the essence or spirit, as bees do the honey from the
flowers; and that it is also to be gained by experience of life as well as by
study and reflection. Life will never bring forth a Newton or an Euler by its
rich teachings, but it may bring forth great calculators in War, such as Condé
or Frederick.
It is therefore not necessary that, in order to
vindicate the intellectual dignity of military activity, we should resort to
untruth and silly pedantry. There never has been a great and distinguished
Commander of contracted mind, but very numerous are the instances of men who,
after serving with the greatest distinction in inferior positions, remained
below mediocrity in the highest, from insufficiency of intellectual capacity.
That even amongst those holding the post of Commander-in-Chief there may be a
difference according to the degree of their plenitude of power is a matter of
course.
46. SCIENCE MUST BECOME ART.
Now we have yet to consider one condition which is
more necessary for the knowledge of the conduct of War than for any other,
which is, that it must pass completely into the mind and almost completely
cease to be something objective. In almost all other arts and occupations of
life the active agent can make use of truths which he has only learnt once, and
in the spirit and sense of which he no longer lives, and which he extracts from
dusty books. Even truths which he has in hand and uses daily may continue
something external to himself, If the architect takes up a pen to settle the
strength of a pier by a complicated calculation, the truth found as a result is
no emanation from his own mind. He had first to find the data with labour, and
then to submit these to an operation of the mind, the rule for which he did not
discover, the necessity of which he is perhaps at the moment only partly
conscious of, but which he applies, for the most part, as if by mechanical
dexterity. But it is never so in War. The moral reaction, the ever-changeful
form of things, makes it necessary for the chief actor to carry in himself the
whole mental apparatus of his knowledge, that anywhere and at every pulse-beat
he may be capable of giving the requisite decision from himself. Knowledge
must, by this complete assimilation with his own mind and life, be converted
into real power. This is the reason why everything seems so easy with men
distinguished in War, and why everything is ascribed to natural talent. We say
natural talent, in order thereby to distinguish it from that which is formed
and matured by observation and study.
We think that by these reflections we have
explained the problem of a theory of the conduct of War; and pointed out the
way to its solution.
Of the two fields into which we have divided the
conduct of War, tactics and strategy, the theory of the latter contains
unquestionably, as before observed, the greatest difficulties, because the
first is almost limited to a circumscribed field of objects, but the latter, in
the direction of objects leading directly to peace, opens to itself an
unlimited field of possibilities. Since for the most part the
Commander-in-Chief has only to keep these objects steadily in view, therefore
the part of strategy in which he moves is also that which is particularly
subject to this difficulty.
Theory, therefore, especially where it comprehends
the highest services, will stop much sooner in strategy than in tactics at the
simple consideration of things, and content itself to assist the Commander to
that insight into things which, blended with his whole thought, makes his
course easier and surer, never forces him into opposition with himself in order
to obey an objective truth.
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