f perhaps just as great, in a state of rest, is more or
less like a mass of powder puffed away in the open air.

At the same time, as a matter of course, the state of tension must
be imagined in different degrees of intensity, and it may therefore
approach gradually by many steps towards the state of rest, so that at
the last there is a very slight difference between them.

Now the real use which we derive from these reflections is the
conclusion that every measure which is taken during a state of tension
is more important and more prolific in results than the same measure
could be in a state of equilibrium, and that this importance increases
immensely in the highest degrees of tension.

The cannonade of Valmy, September 20, 1792, decided more than the battle
of Hochkirch, October 14, 1758.

In a tract of country which the enemy abandons to us because he cannot
defend it, we can settle ourselves differently from what we should do if
the retreat of the enemy was only made with the view to a decision under
more favourable circumstances. Again, a strategic attack in course of
execution, a faulty position, a single false march, may be decisive in
its consequence; whilst in a state of equilibrium such errors must be
of a very glaring kind, even to excite the activity of the enemy in a
general way.

Most bygone Wars, as we have already said, consisted, so far as regards
the greater part of the time, in this state of equilibrium, or at least
in such short tensions with long intervals between them, and weak in
their effects, that the events to which they gave rise were seldom great
successes, often they were theatrical exhibitions, got up in honour of a
royal birthday (Hochkirch), often a mere satisfying of the honour of the
arms (Kunersdorf), or the personal vanity of the commander (Freiberg).

That a Commander should thoroughly understand these states, that he
should have the tact to act in the spirit of them, we hold to be a great
requisite, and we have had experience in the campaign of 1806 how far
it is sometimes wanting. In that tremendous tension, when everything
pressed on towards a supreme decision, and that alone with all its
consequences should have occupied the whole soul of the Commander,
measures were proposed and even partly carried out (such as the
reconnaissance towards Franconia), which at the most might have given a
kind of gentle play of oscillation within a state of equilibrium. Over
these blundering