ure, assent to what we have said, and
answer for us to such of our readers as do not know War from their own
experience. To develop the necessity of this course from the nature of
the thing would lead us too far into the province of tactics, to which
this branch of the subject belongs; we are here only concerned with its
results.

If we say that the defeated General foresees the unfavourable result
usually some time before he makes up his mind to give up the battle, we
admit that there are also instances to the contrary, because otherwise
we should maintain a proposition contradictory in itself. If at the
moment of each decisive tendency of a battle it should be considered as
lost, then also no further forces should be used to give it a turn, and
consequently this decisive tendency could not precede the retreat by
any length of time. Certainly there are instances of battles which after
having taken a decided turn to one side have still ended in favour
of the other; but they are rare, not usual; these exceptional cases,
however, are reckoned upon by every General against whom fortune
declares itself, and he must reckon upon them as long as there remains
a possibility of a turn of fortune. He hopes by stronger efforts, by
raising the remaining moral forces, by surpassing himself, or also by
some fortunate chance that the next moment will bring a change, and
pursues this as far as his courage and his judgment can agree. We shall
have something more to say on this subject, but before that we must show
what are the signs of the scales turning.

The result of the whole combat consists in the sum total of the results
of all partial combats; but these results of separate combats are
settled by different considerations.

First by the pure moral power in the mind of the leading officers. If a
General of Division has seen his battalions forced to succumb, it will
have an influence on his demeanour and his reports, and these again will
have an influence on the measures of the Commander-in-Chief; therefore
even those unsuccessful partial combats which to all appearance are
retrieved, are not lost in their results, and the impressions from them
sum themselves up in the mind of the Commander without much trouble, and
even against his will.

Secondly, by the quicker melting away of our troops, which can be easily
estimated in the slow and relatively(*) little tumultuary course of our
battles.

(*) Relatively, that is say to