t has been done once may be done again.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 29: The number of defenders at Dresden the first day (August
25) was twenty-four thousand, the next day, sixty-five thousand, and the
third day, more than one hundred thousand.]

[Footnote 30: The distinction between the importance and the strength of
a post must be observed; for it may be very strong and of very little
importance, and vice aversa.]

CHAPTER V.

OF SEVERAL MIXED OPERATIONS, WHICH ARE IN CHARACTER PARTLY STRATEGICAL
AND PARTLY TACTICAL.

ARTICLE XXXVI.

Of Diversions and Great Detachments.

The operations of the detachments an army may send out have so important
a bearing on the success of a campaign, that the duty of determining
their strength and the proper occasions for them is one of the greatest
and most delicate responsibilities imposed upon a commander. If nothing
is more useful in war than a strong detachment opportunely sent out and
having a good _ensemble_ of operations with the main body, it is equally
certain that no expedient is more dangerous when inconsiderately
adopted. Frederick the Great regarded it as one of the essential
qualities of a general to know how to make his adversary send out many
detachments, either with the view of destroying them in detail or of
attacking the main body during their absence.

The division of armies into numerous detachments has sometimes been
carried to so great an extent, and with such poor results, that many
persons now believe it better to have none of them. It is undoubtedly
much safer and more agreeable for an army to be kept in a single mass;
but it is a thing at times impossible or incompatible with gaining a
complete or even considerable success. The essential point in this
matter is to send out as few detachments as possible.

There are several kinds of detachments.

1. There are large corps dispatched to a distance from the zone of
operations of the main army, in order to make diversions of greater
or less importance.

2. There are large detachments made in the zone of operations to
cover important points of this zone, to carry on a siege, to guard
a secondary base, or to protect the line of operations if
threatened.

3. There are large detachments made upon the front of operations,
in face of the enemy, to act in concert with the main body in some
combined operation.

4. There are small detachment