et acquainted with these special objects by
degrees as we come to speak of the causes which produce them; here we
content ourselves with saying that every combat, great or small, has its
own peculiar object in subordination to the main object. If this is
the case then, the destruction and conquest of the enemy is only to be
regarded as the means of gaining this object; as it unquestionably is.

But this result is true only in its form, and important only on account
of the connection which the ideas have between themselves, and we have
only sought it out to get rid of it at once.

What is overcoming the enemy? Invariably the destruction of his military
force, whether it be by death, or wounds, or any means; whether it be
completely or only to such a degree that he can no longer continue
the contest; therefore as long as we set aside all special objects of
combats, we may look upon the complete or partial destruction of the
enemy as the only object of all combats.

Now we maintain that in the majority of cases, and especially in great
battles, the special object by which the battle is individualised
and bound up with the great whole is only a weak modification of that
general object, or an ancillary object bound up with it, important
enough to individualise the battle, but always insignificant in
comparison with that general object; so that if that ancillary object
alone should be obtained, only an unimportant part of the purpose of the
combat is fulfilled. If this assertion is correct, then we see that the
idea, according to which the destruction of the enemy's force is only
the means, and something else always the object, can only be true
in form, but, that it would lead to false conclusions if we did not
recollect that this destruction of the enemy's force is comprised in
that object, and that this object is only a weak modification of it.
Forgetfulness of this led to completely false views before the Wars of
the last period, and created tendencies as well as fragments of
systems, in which theory thought it raised itself so much the more above
handicraft, the less it supposed itself to stand in need of the use of
the real instrument, that is the destruction of the enemy's force.

Certainly such a system could not have arisen unless supported by other
false suppositions, and unless in place of the destruction of the enemy,
other things had been substituted to which an efficacy was ascribed
which did not rightly belon