crudest case, a nation or its government
determines to annex the territory of a neighbour; that is, to subject a
neighbouring community to the laws of the conqueror. That neighbouring
community and its government, if they are so old-fashioned as to prefer
freedom, will resist by force of arms, and there will follow what is
called a "campaign" (a term derived from the French, and signifying a
countryside: for countrysides are the theatres of wars). In this campaign
the political object of the attempted conquest on the one hand, and of
resistance to it on the other, are the issue. The military aspect of the
campaign is subsidiary to its political objects, and we judge of its
success or failure not in military but in political terms.

The prime military object of a general is to "annihilate" the armed force
of his opponents. He may do this by breaking up their organisation and
dispersing them, or by compelling the surrender of their arms. He may
achieve success in this purely military object in any degree. But if, as
an end and consequence of his military success, the political object be
not achieved--if, for instance, in the particular case we are considering,
the neighbouring community does not in the future obey laws dictated to it
by the conqueror, but remains autonomous--then the campaign has failed.

Such considerations are, I repeat, the very foundation of military
history; and throughout this Series they will be insisted upon as the
light in which alone military history can be understood.

It is further true that not only may a campaign be successful in the
military sense, and yet in the largest historical sense be a failure, but,
quite evidently, the actions in a campaign may each be successful and yet
the campaign a failure; or each action may, on the whole, fail, and yet
that campaign be a success. As the old formulae go, "You can win every
battle and lose your campaign." And, again, "A great general does not aim
at winning battles, but at winning his campaign." An action results from
the contact of the opposing forces, and from the necessity in which they
find themselves, after such contact, of attempting the one to disorganise
or to capture the other. And in the greater part actions are only
"accepted," as the phrase goes, by either party, because each party
regards the action as presenting opportunities for his own success.

A campaign can perfectly well be conceived in which an opponent,
consciously infer