hey flow together into one common result, and the first
disadvantage vanishes completely out of the calculation. But this is not
the case if the combat was already decided; then there are two results
separate from each other. Now if the assistance which arrives is only of
a relative strength, that is, if it is not in itself alone a match for
the enemy, then a favourable result is hardly to be expected from this
second combat: but if it is so strong that it can undertake the second
combat without regard to the first, then it may be able by a favourable
issue to compensate or even overbalance the first combat, but never to
make it disappear altogether from the account.

At the battle of Kunersdorf,(*) Frederick the Great at the first onset
carried the left of the Russian position, and took seventy pieces of
artillery; at the end of the battle both were lost again, and the whole
result of the first combat was wiped out of the account. Had it been
possible to stop at the first success, and to put off the second part
of the battle to the coming day, then, even if the King had lost it, the
advantages of the first would always have been a set off to the second.

(*) August 12, 1759.

But when a battle proceeding disadvantageously is arrested and turned
before its conclusion, its minus result on our side not only disappears
from the account, but also becomes the foundation of a greater victory.
If, for instance, we picture to ourselves exactly the tactical course
of the battle, we may easily see that until it is finally concluded all
successes in partial combats are only decisions in suspense, which by
the capital decision may not only be destroyed, but changed into the
opposite. The more our forces have suffered, the more the enemy will
have expended on his side; the greater, therefore, will be the crisis
for the enemy, and the more the superiority of our fresh troops will
tell. If now the total result turns in our favour, if we wrest from the
enemy the field of battle and recover all the trophies again, then all
the forces which he has sacrificed in obtaining them become sheer gain
for us, and our former defeat becomes a stepping-stone to a greater
triumph. The most brilliant feats which with victory the enemy would
have so highly prized that the loss of forces which they cost would have
been disregarded, leave nothing now behind but regret at the sacrifice
entailed. Such is the alteration which the magic of victory and