g to them. We shall attack these falsehoods
whenever occasion requires, but we could not treat of the combat without
claiming for it the real importance and value which belong to it, and
giving warning against the errors to which merely formal truth might
lead.

But now how shall we manage to show that in most cases, and in those of
most importance, the destruction of the enemy's Army is the chief thing?
How shall we manage to combat that extremely subtle idea, which supposes
it possible, through the use of a special artificial form, to effect
by a small direct destruction of the enemy's forces a much greater
destruction indirectly, or by means of small but extremely well-directed
blows to produce such paralysation of the enemy's forces, such a command
over the enemy's will, that this mode of proceeding is to be viewed as a
great shortening of the road? Undoubtedly a victory at one point may
be of more value than at another. Undoubtedly there is a scientific
arrangement of battles amongst themselves, even in Strategy, which is in
fact nothing but the Art of thus arranging them. To deny that is not
our intention, but we assert that the direct destruction of the enemy's
forces is everywhere predominant; we contend here for the overruling
importance of this destructive principle and nothing else.

We must, however, call to mind that we are now engaged with Strategy,
not with tactics, therefore we do not speak of the means which the
former may have of destroying at a small expense a large body of the
enemy's forces, but under direct destruction we understand the tactical
results, and that, therefore, our assertion is that only great tactical
results can lead to great strategical ones, or, as we have already
once before more distinctly expressed it, THE TACTICAL SUCCESSES are of
paramount importance in the conduct of War.

The proof of this assertion seems to us simple enough, it lies in the
time which every complicated (artificial) combination requires. The
question whether a simple attack, or one more carefully prepared,
i.e., more artificial, will produce greater effects, may undoubtedly
be decided in favour of the latter as long as the enemy is assumed to
remain quite passive. But every carefully combined attack requires time
for its preparation, and if a counter-stroke by the enemy intervenes,
our whole design may be upset. Now if the enemy should decide upon some
simple attack, which can be executed in a shorter time