e possibility of being beaten.
In many marches it is certainly a useless precaution; but it is often
indispensable.]

[Footnote 37: It may be objected that in some wars, as where the
population is hostile, it may be very difficult, or impracticable, to
organize lines of depots. In such cases they will certainly be exposed
to great dangers; but these are the very cases where they are most
necessary and should be most numerous. The line from Bayonne to Madrid
was such a line, which resisted for four years the attacks of the
guerrillas,--although convoys were sometimes seized. At one time the
line extended as far as Cadiz.]

ARTICLE XLII.

Of Reconnoissances and other Means of gaining Correct Information of
the Movements of the Enemy.

One of the surest ways of forming good combinations in war would be to
order movements only after obtaining perfect information of the enemy's
proceedings. In fact, how can any man say what he should do himself, if
he is ignorant what his adversary is about? As it is unquestionably of
the highest importance to gain this information, so it is a thing of the
utmost difficulty, not to say impossibility; and this is one of the
chief causes of the great difference between the theory and the practice
of war.

From this cause arise the mistakes of those generals who are simply
learned men without a natural talent for war, and who have not acquired
that practical _coup-d'oeil_ which is imparted by long experience in the
direction of military operations. It is a very easy matter for a
school-man to make a plan for outflanking a wing or threatening a line
of communications upon a map, where he can regulate the positions of
both parties to suit himself; but when he has opposed to him a skillful,
active, and enterprising adversary, whose movements are a perfect
riddle, then his difficulties begin, and we see an exhibition of the
incapacity of an ordinary general with none of the resources of genius.

I have seen so many proofs of this truth in my long life, that, if I had
to put a general to the test, I should have a much higher regard for the
man who could form sound conclusions as to the movements of the enemy
than for him who could make a grand display of theories,--things so
difficult to put in practice, but so easily understood when once
exemplified.

There are four means of obtaining information of the enemy's operations.
The first is a well-arranged system of espionage; the secon