my
has designed without allowing for our intervention, and to which he is
irrevocably committed by his opening movements. Secondly, there is
intervention to deprive the enemy of the fruits of victory. This form finds
its efficacy in the principle that unlimited wars are not always decided by
the destruction of armies. There usually remains the difficult work of
conquering the people afterwards with an exhausted army. The intrusion of a
small fresh force from the sea in such cases may suffice to turn the scale,
as it did in the Peninsula, and as, in the opinion of some high
authorities, it might have done in France in 1871.

Such a suggestion will appear to be almost heretical as sinning against the
principle which condemns a strategical reserve. We say that the whole
available force should be developed for the vital period of the struggle.
No one can be found to dispute it nowadays. It is too obviously true when
it is a question of a conflict between organised forces, but in the absence
of all proof we are entitled to doubt whether it is true for that
exhausting and demoralising period which lies beyond the shock of armies.

* * * * *

CHAPTER SIX

CONDITIONS OF STRENGTH IN LIMITED WAR

* * * * *

The elements of strength in limited war are closely analogous to those
generally inherent in defence. That is to say, that as a correct use of
defence will sometimes enable an inferior force to gain its end against a
superior one, so are there instances in which the correct use of the
limited form of war has enabled a weak military Power to attain success
against a much stronger one, and these instances are too numerous to permit
us to regard the results as accidental.

An obvious element of strength is that where the geographical conditions
are favourable we are able by the use of our navy to restrict the amount of
force our army will have to deal with. We can in fact bring up our fleet to
redress the adverse balance of our land force. But apart from this very
practical reason there is another, which is rooted in the first principles
of strategy.

It is that limited war permits the use of the defensive without its usual
drawbacks to a degree that is impossible in unlimited war. These drawbacks
are chiefly that it tends to surrender the initiative to the enemy and that
it deprives us of the moral exhilaration of the offensive. But in l