(*) October 14, 1758.

In recent times, when War has been carried on with so much more rapidity
and vigour, it has in consequence often happened that Armies have
encamped very close to each other, without having a very strong system
of outposts, because those circumstances have generally occurred just at
the crisis which precedes a great decision.

But then at such times the readiness for battle on both sides is also
more perfect; on the other hand, in former Wars it was a frequent
practice for armies to take up camps in sight of each other, when they
had no other object but that of mutually holding each other in check,
consequently for a longer period. How often Frederick the Great stood
for weeks so near to the Austrians, that the two might have exchanged
cannon shots with each other.

But these practices, certainly more favourable to night attacks, have
been discontinued in later days; and armies being now no longer in
regard to subsistence and requirements for encampment, such independent
bodies complete in themselves, find it necessary to keep usually a
day's march between themselves and the enemy. If we now keep in view
especially the night attack of an army, it follows that sufficient
motives for it can seldom occur, and that they fall under one or other
of the following classes.

1. An unusual degree of carelessness or audacity which very rarely
occurs, and when it does is compensated for by a great superiority in
moral force.

2. A panic in the enemy's army, or generally such a degree of
superiority in moral force on our side, that this is sufficient to
supply the place of guidance in action.

3. Cutting through an enemy's army of superior force, which keeps us
enveloped, because in this all depends on surprise, and the object of
merely making a passage by force, allows a much greater concentration of
forces.

4. Finally, in desperate cases, when our forces have such a
disproportion to the enemy's, that we see no possibility of success,
except through extraordinary daring.

But in all these cases there is still the condition that the enemy's
army is under our eyes, and protected by no advance-guard.

As for the rest, most night combats are so conducted as to end with
daylight, so that only the approach and the first attack are made under
cover of darkness, because the assailant in that manner can better
profit by the consequences of the state of confusion into which he
throws his adversary;