e two Armies.

A battle with parallel fronts and without any action against a flank
will seldom yield as great success as one in which the defeated Army has
been turned, or compelled to change front more or less. In a broken or
hilly country the successes are likewise smaller, because the power of
the blow is everywhere less.

If the cavalry of the vanquished is equal or superior to that of the
victor, then the effects of the pursuit are diminished, and by that
great part of the results of victory are lost.

Finally it is easy to understand that if superior numbers are on the
side of the conqueror, and he uses his advantage in that respect to
turn the flank of his adversary, or compel him to change front, greater
results will follow than if the conqueror had been weaker in numbers
than the vanquished. The battle of Leuthen may certainly be quoted as a
practical refutation of this principle, but we beg permission for once
to say what we otherwise do not like, NO RULE WITHOUT AN EXCEPTION.

In all these ways, therefore, the Commander has the means of giving his
battle a decisive character; certainly he thus exposes himself to an
increased amount of danger, but his whole line of action is subject to
that dynamic law of the moral world.

There is then nothing in War which can be put in comparison with the
great battle in point of importance, AND THE ACME OF STRATEGIC ABILITY
IS DISPLAYED IN THE PROVISION OF MEANS FOR THIS GREAT EVENT, IN THE
SKILFUL DETERMINATION OF PLACE AND TIME, AND DIRECTION OF TROOPS, AND
ITS THE GOOD USE MADE OF SUCCESS.

But it does not follow from the importance of these things that they
must be of a very complicated and recondite nature; all is here rather
simple, the art of combination by no means great; but there is great
need of quickness in judging of circumstances, need of energy, steady
resolution, a youthful spirit of enterprise--heroic qualities, to which
we shall often have to refer. There is, therefore, but little wanted
here of that which can be taught by books and there is much that, if it
can be taught at all, must come to the General through some other medium
than printer's type.

The impulse towards a great battle, the voluntary, sure progress to it,
must proceed from a feeling of innate power and a clear sense of the
necessity; in other words, it must proceed from inborn courage and from
perceptions sharpened by contact with the higher interests of life.

Great examples are