eory. There seems
indeed to be something essentially antagonistic between the habit of mind
that seeks theoretical guidance and that which makes for the successful
conduct of war. The conduct of war is so much a question of personality, of
character, of common-sense, of rapid decision upon complex and
ever-shifting factors, and those factors themselves are so varied, so
intangible, so dependent upon unstable moral and physical conditions, that
it seems incapable of being reduced to anything like true scientific
analysis. At the bare idea of a theory or "science" of war the mind recurs
uneasily to well-known cases where highly "scientific" officers failed as
leaders. Yet, on the other hand, no one will deny that since the great
theorists of the early nineteenth century attempted to produce a reasoned
theory of war, its planning and conduct have acquired a method, a
precision, and a certainty of grasp which were unknown before. Still less
will any one deny the value which the shrewdest and most successful leaders
in war have placed upon the work of the classical strategical writers.

The truth is that the mistrust of theory arises from a misconception of
what it is that theory claims to do. It does not pretend to give the power
of conduct in the field; it claims no more than to increase the effective
power of conduct. Its main practical value is that it can assist a capable
man to acquire a broad outlook whereby he may be the surer his plan shall
cover all the ground, and whereby he may with greater rapidity and
certainty seize all the factors of a sudden situation. The greatest of the
theorists himself puts the matter quite frankly. Of theoretical study he
says, "It should educate the mind of the man who is to lead in war, or
rather guide him to self-education, but it should not accompany him on the
field of battle."

Its practical utility, however, is not by any means confined to its effects
upon the powers of a leader. It is not enough that a leader should have the
ability to decide rightly; his subordinates must seize at once the full
meaning of his decision and be able to express it with certainty in
well-adjusted action. For this every man concerned must have been trained
to think in the same plane; the chief's order must awake in every brain the
same process of thought; his words must have the same meaning for all. If a
theory of tactics had existed in 1780, and if Captain Carkett had had a
sound training in such a