btaining it. So
much for what concerns the absolute force with which the War is to be
conducted.

The measure of this absolute force is determined by the Government; and
although with this determination the real action of War commences, and
it forms an essential part of the Strategy of the War, still in most
cases the General who is to command these forces in the War must regard
their absolute strength as a given quantity, whether it be that he has
had no voice in fixing it, or that circumstances prevented a sufficient
expansion being given to it.

There remains nothing, therefore, where an absolute superiority is not
attainable, but to produce a relative one at the decisive point, by
making skilful use of what we have.

The calculation of space and time appears as the most essential thing to
this end--and this has caused that subject to be regarded as one which
embraces nearly the whole art of using military forces. Indeed, some
have gone so far as to ascribe to great strategists and tacticians a
mental organ peculiarly adapted to this point.

But the calculation of time and space, although it lies universally at
the foundation of Strategy, and is to a certain extent its daily bread,
is still neither the most difficult, nor the most decisive one.

If we take an unprejudiced glance at military history, we shall find
that the instances in which mistakes in such a calculation have proved
the cause of serious losses are very rare, at least in Strategy. But if
the conception of a skilful combination of time and space is fully to
account for every instance of a resolute and active Commander beating
several separate opponents with one and the same army (Frederick
the Great, Buonaparte), then we perplex ourselves unnecessarily with
conventional language. For the sake of clearness and the profitable use
of conceptions, it is necessary that things should always be called by
their right names.

The right appreciation of their opponents (Daun, Schwartzenberg), the
audacity to leave for a short space of time a small force only before
them, energy in forced marches, boldness in sudden attacks, the
intensified activity which great souls acquire in the moment of danger,
these are the grounds of such victories; and what have these to do with
the ability to make an exact calculation of two such simple things as
time and space?

But even this ricochetting play of forces, "when the victories at
Rosbach and Montmirail give the imp