s sent to a distance to try the effect
of surprise upon isolated points, whose capture may have an
important bearing upon the general operations of the campaign.

I understand by diversions those secondary operations carried out at a
distance from the principal zone of operations, at the extremities of a
theater of war, upon the success of which it is sometimes foolishly
supposed the whole campaign depends. Such diversions are useful in but
two cases, the first of which arises when the troops thus employed
cannot conveniently act elsewhere on account of their distance from the
real theater of operations, and the second is that where such a
detachment would receive strong support from the population among which
it was sent,--the latter case belonging rather to political than
military combinations. A few illustrative examples may not be out of
place here.

The unfortunate results for the allied powers of the Anglo-Russian
expedition to Holland, and of that of the Archduke Charles toward the
end of the last century, (which have been referred to in Article XIX.,)
are well known.

In 1805, Napoleon was occupying Naples and Hanover. The allies intended
an Anglo-Russian army to drive him out of Italy, while the combined
forces of England, Russia, and Sweden should drive him from Hanover,
nearly sixty thousand men being designed for these two widely-separated
points. But, while their troops were collecting at the two extremities
of Europe, Napoleon ordered the evacuation of Naples and Hanover,
Saint-Cyr hastened to effect a junction with Massena in the Frioul, and
Bernadotte, leaving Hanover, moved up to take part in the operations of
Ulm and Austerlitz. After these astonishing successes, Napoleon had no
difficulty in retaking Naples and Hanover. This is an example of the
failure of diversions. I will give an instance where such an operation
would have been proper.

In the civil wars of 1793, if the allies had sent twenty thousand men to
La Vendee, they would have accomplished much more than by increasing the
numbers of those who were fighting fruitlessly at Toulon, upon the
Rhine, and in Belgium. Here is a case where a diversion would have been
not only very useful, but decisive.

It has already been stated that, besides diversions to a distance and of
small bodies, large corps are often detached in the zone of operations
of the main army.

If the employment of these large corps thus detached for secondary