e
also still turned to account to strengthen a position, but they are no
longer the only support.

We attempted in the second chapter of this book to take a general view
of the nature of the modern battle. According to our conception of it,
the order of battle is only a disposition of the forces suitable to
the convenient use of them, and the course of the battle a mutual slow
wearing away of these forces upon one another, to see which will have
soonest exhausted his adversary.

The resolution therefore to give up the fight arises, in a battle
more than in any other combat, from the relation of the fresh reserves
remaining available; for only these still retain all their moral vigour,
and the cinders of the battered, knocked-about battalions, already burnt
out in the destroying element, must not be placed on a level with them;
also lost ground as we have elsewhere said, is a standard of lost moral
force; it therefore comes also into account, but more as a sign of loss
suffered than for the loss itself, and the number of fresh reserves is
always the chief point to be looked at by both Commanders.

In general, an action inclines in one direction from the very
commencement, but in a manner little observable. This direction is also
frequently given in a very decided manner by the arrangements which have
been made previously, and then it shows a want of discernment in that
General who commences battle under these unfavourable circumstances
without being aware of them. Even when this does not occur it lies in
the nature of things that the course of a battle resembles rather a slow
disturbance of equilibrium which commences soon, but as we have said
almost imperceptibly at first, and then with each moment of time becomes
stronger and more visible, than an oscillating to and fro, as those who
are misled by mendacious descriptions usually suppose.

But whether it happens that the balance is for a long time little
disturbed, or that even after it has been lost on one side it rights
itself again, and is then lost on the other side, it is certain at all
events that in most instances the defeated General foresees his fate
long before he retreats, and that cases in which some critical event
acts with unexpected force upon the course of the whole have their
existence mostly in the colouring with which every one depicts his lost
battle.

We can only here appeal to the decision of unprejudiced men of
experience, who will, we are s