ly
surprised, and lost 70 pieces of artillery and 10,000 men. Although
Frederick the Great had at this time adopted the principle of moving
backwards and forwards in order to make a battle impossible, or at least
to disconcert the enemy's plans, still the alteration of position on the
night of the 14-15 was not made exactly with that intention, but as the
King himself says, because the position of the 14th did not please
him. Here, therefore, also chance was hard at work; without this happy
conjunction of the attack and the change of position in the night, and
the difficult nature of the country, the result would not have been the
same.

Also in the higher and highest province of Strategy there are some
instances of surprises fruitful in results. We shall only cite the
brilliant marches of the Great Elector against the Swedes from Franconia
to Pomerania and from the Mark (Brandenburg) to the Pregel in 1757, and
the celebrated passage of the Alps by Buonaparte, 1800. In the latter
case an Army gave up its whole theatre of war by a capitulation, and in
1757 another Army was very near giving up its theatre of war and itself
as well. Lastly, as an instance of a War wholly unexpected, we may
bring forward the invasion of Silesia by Frederick the Great. Great and
powerful are here the results everywhere, but such events are not common
in history if we do not confuse with them cases in which a State, for
want of activity and energy (Saxony 1756, and Russia, 1812), has not
completed its preparations in time.

Now there still remains an observation which concerns the essence of the
thing. A surprise can only be effected by that party which gives the law
to the other; and he who is in the right gives the law. If we surprise
the adversary by a wrong measure, then instead of reaping good results,
we may have to bear a sound blow in return; in any case the adversary
need not trouble himself much about our surprise, he has in our mistake
the means of turning off the evil. As the offensive includes in itself
much more positive action than the defensive, so the surprise is
certainly more in its place with the assailant, but by no means
invariably, as we shall hereafter see. Mutual surprises by the offensive
and defensive may therefore meet, and then that one will have the
advantage who has hit the nail on the head the best.

So should it be, but practical life does not keep to this line so
exactly, and that for a very simple reason.