rous contest, instead of being contented
with being bodies of observation?[18] In this case it is the enemy who
applies the principle, and not he who has the interior lines. Moreover,
in the succeeding campaign, the defense of Napoleon in Champagne, from
the battle of Brienne to that of Paris, demonstrates fully the truth of
these maxims.

The analysis of these two celebrated campaigns raises a strategic
question which it would be difficult to answer by simple assertions
founded upon theories. It is, whether the system of central lines loses
its advantages when the masses are very large. Agreeing with
Montesquieu, that the greatest enterprises fail from the magnitude of
the arrangements necessary to consummate them, I am disposed to answer
in the affirmative. It is very clear to me that an army of one hundred
thousand men, occupying a central zone against three isolated armies of
thirty or thirty-five thousand men, would be more sure of defeating them
successively than if the central mass were four hundred thousand strong
against three armies of one hundred and thirty-five thousand each; and
for several good reasons:--

1. Considering the difficulty of finding ground and time necessary to
bring a very large force into action on the day of battle, an army of
one hundred and thirty or one hundred and forty thousand men may easily
resist a much larger force.

2. If driven from the field, there will be at least one hundred thousand
men to protect and insure an orderly retreat and effect a junction with
one of the other armies.

3. The central army of four hundred thousand men requires such a
quantity of provisions, munitions, horses, and _materiel_ of every kind,
that it will possess less mobility and facility in shifting its efforts
from one part of the zone to another; to say nothing of the
impossibility of obtaining provisions from a region too restricted to
support such numbers.

4. The bodies of observation detached from the central mass to hold in
check two armies of one hundred and thirty-five thousand each must be
very strong, (from eighty to ninety thousand each;) and, being of such
magnitude, if they are drawn into a serious engagement they will
probably suffer reverses, the effects of which might outweigh the
advantages gained by the principal army.

I have never advocated exclusively either a concentric or eccentric
system. All my works go to show the eternal influence of principles, and
to demonstrate t