o give expansion to success, if opportunity offers
for it; with the magnitude of the success the gain in force increases at
the same time, and in this way the superiority of numbers may soon
reach a point which the most careful economy of forces could never have
attained.

By means of his enormous numerical superiority, Buonaparte was enabled
to reach Moscow in 1812, and to take that central capital. Had he by
means of this superiority succeeded in completely defeating the Russian
Army, he would, in all probability, have concluded a peace in Moscow
which in any other way was much less attainable. This example is used to
explain the idea, not to prove it, which would require a circumstantial
demonstration, for which this is not the place.(*)

(*) Compare Book VII., second edition, p. 56.

All these reflections bear merely upon the idea of a successive
employment of forces, and not upon the conception of a reserve properly
so called, which they, no doubt, come in contact with throughout, but
which, as we shall see in the following chapter, is connected with some
other considerations.

What we desire to establish here is, that if in tactics the military
force through the mere duration of actual employment suffers a
diminution of power, if time, therefore, appears as a factor in the
result, this is not the case in Strategy in a material degree. The
destructive effects which are also produced upon the forces in Strategy
by time, are partly diminished through their mass, partly made good in
other ways, and, therefore, in Strategy it cannot be an object to make
time an ally on its own account by bringing troops successively into
action.

We say on "its own account," for the influence which time, on account of
other circumstances which it brings about but which are different
from itself can have, indeed must necessarily have, for one of the
two parties, is quite another thing, is anything but indifferent or
unimportant, and will be the subject of consideration hereafter.

The rule which we have been seeking to set forth is, therefore, that all
forces which are available and destined for a strategic object should be
SIMULTANEOUSLY applied to it; and this application will be so much the
more complete the more everything is compressed into one act and into
one movement.

But still there is in Strategy a renewal of effort and a persistent
action which, as a chief means towards the ultimate success, is more
particularl