te to another the first means
employed is further apart from the ultimate object.

It is therefore for many reasons possible that the object of a combat
is not the destruction of the enemy's force, that is, of the force
immediately opposed to us, but that this only appears as a means. But in
all such cases it is no longer a question of complete destruction, for
the combat is here nothing else but a measure of strength--has in
itself no value except only that of the present result, that is, of its
decision.

But a measuring of strength may be effected in cases where the opposing
sides are very unequal by a mere comparative estimate. In such cases no
fighting will take place, and the weaker will immediately give way.

If the object of a combat is not always the destruction of the enemy's
forces therein engaged--and if its object can often be attained as well
without the combat taking place at all, by merely making a resolve
to fight, and by the circumstances to which this resolution gives
rise--then that explains how a whole campaign may be carried on with
great activity without the actual combat playing any notable part in it.

That this may be so military history proves by a hundred examples.
How many of those cases can be justified, that is, without involving a
contradiction and whether some of the celebrities who rose out of them
would stand criticism, we shall leave undecided, for all we have to do
with the matter is to show the possibility of such a course of events in
War.

We have only one means in War--the battle; but this means, by the
infinite variety of paths in which it may be applied, leads us into all
the different ways which the multiplicity of objects allows of, so that
we seem to have gained nothing; but that is not the case, for from this
unity of means proceeds a thread which assists the study of the subject,
as it runs through the whole web of military activity and holds it
together.

But we have considered the destruction of the enemy's force as one of
the objects which maybe pursued in War, and left undecided what relative
importance should be given to it amongst other objects. In certain cases
it will depend on circumstances, and as a general question we have left
its value undetermined. We are once more brought back upon it, and we
shall be able to get an insight into the value which must necessarily be
accorded to it.

The combat is the single activity in War; in the combat the destructio