eans consist in mere random shots. These
measures also make night attacks more difficult in modern Wars than
formerly, because they have in these campaigns an advantage over those
already taken. In our combats the position of the defender is more
temporary than definitive, and on that account the defender is better
able to surprise his adversary with unexpected blows, than he could
formerly.(*)

(*) All these difficulties obviously become increased as the
power of the weapons in use tends to keep the combatants
further apart.--EDITOR.

Therefore what the assailant knows of the defensive previous to a night
attack, is seldom or never sufficient to supply the want of direct
observation.

But the defender has on his side another small advantage as well, which
is that he is more at home than the assailant, on the ground which forms
his position, and therefore, like the inhabitant of a room, will find
his way about it in the dark with more ease than a stranger. He knows
better where to find each part of his force, and therefore can more
readily get at it than is the case with his adversary.

From this it follows, that the assailant in a combat at night feels the
want of his eyes just as much as the defender, and that therefore, only
particular reasons can make a night attack advisable.

Now these reasons arise mostly in connection with subordinate parts of
an Army, rarely with the Army itself; it follows that a night attack
also as a rule can only take place with secondary combats, and seldom
with great battles.

We may attack a portion of the enemy's Army with a very superior force,
consequently enveloping it with a view either to take the whole, or to
inflict very severe loss on it by an unequal combat, provided that other
circumstances are in our favour. But such a scheme can never succeed
except by a great surprise, because no fractional part of the enemy's
Army would engage in such an unequal combat, but would retire instead.
But a surprise on an important scale except in rare instances in a very
close country, can only be effected at night. If therefore we wish to
gain such an advantage as this from the faulty disposition of a portion
of the enemy's Army, then we must make use of the night, at all events,
to finish the preliminary part even if the combat itself should not open
till towards daybreak. This is therefore what takes place in all the
little enterprises by night against outposts, and oth