that are judicious. A few
hundred horsemen thus risked will be no great loss if captured; and they
may be the means of causing the enemy great injury. The small
detachments sent out by the Russians in 1807, 1812, and 1813 were a
great hinderance to Napoleon's operations, and several times caused his
plans to fail by intercepting his couriers.

For such expeditions officers should be selected who are bold and full
of stratagems. They ought to inflict upon the enemy all the injury they
can without compromising themselves. When an opportunity of striking a
telling blow presents itself, they should not think for a moment of any
dangers or difficulties in their path. Generally, however, address and
presence of mind, which will lead them to avoid useless danger, are
qualities more necessary for a partisan than cool, calculating boldness.
For further information on this subject I refer my readers to Chapter
XXXV. of the Treatise on Grand Operations, and to Article XLV. of this
work, on light cavalry.

ARTICLE XXXVII.

Passage of Rivers and Other Streams.

The passage of a small stream, over which a bridge is already in place
or might be easily constructed, presents none of the combinations
belonging to grand tactics or strategy; but the passage of a large
river, such as the Danube, the Rhine, the Po, the Elbe, the Oder, the
Vistula, the Inn, the Ticino, &c, is an operation worthy the closest
study.

The art of building military bridges is a special branch of military
science, which is committed to pontoniers or sappers. It is not from
this point of view that I propose to consider the passage of a stream,
but as the attack of a military position and as a maneuver.

The passage itself is a tactical operation; but the determination of the
point of passage may have an important connection with all the
operations taking place within the entire theater of the war. The
passage of the Rhine by General Moreau in 1800 is an excellent
illustration of the truth of this remark. Napoleon, a more skillful
strategist than Moreau, desired him to cross at Schaffhausen in order to
take Kray's whole army in reverse, to reach Ulm before him, to cut him
off from Austria and hurl him back upon the Main. Moreau, who had
already a bridge at Basel, preferred passing, with greater convenience
to his army, in front of the enemy, to turning his extreme left. The
tactical advantages seemed to his mind much more sure than the
strategical: h