hat operations to be successful must be applications of
principles.

Divergent or convergent operations may be either very good or very bad:
all depends on the situation of the respective forces. The eccentric
lines, for instance, are good when applied to a mass starting from a
given point, and acting in divergent directions to divide and separately
destroy two hostile forces acting upon exterior lines. Such was the
maneuver of Frederick which brought about, at the end of the campaign of
1767, the fine battles of Rossbach and Leuthen. Such were nearly all the
operations of Napoleon, whose favorite maneuver was to unite, by
closely-calculated marches, imposing masses on the center, and, having
pierced the enemy's center or turned his front, to give them eccentric
directions to disperse the defeated army.[19]

On the other hand, concentric operations are good in two cases: 1. When
they tend to concentrate a scattered army upon a point where it will be
sure to arrive before the enemy; 2. When they direct to the same end the
efforts of two armies which are in no danger of being beaten separately
by a stronger enemy.

Concentric operations, which just now seem to be so advantageous, may be
most pernicious,--which should teach us the necessity of detecting the
principles upon which systems are based, and not to confound principles
and systems; as, for instance, if two armies set out from a distant base
to march convergently upon an enemy whose forces are on interior lines
and more concentrated, it follows that the latter could effect a union
before the former, and would inevitably defeat them; as was the case
with Moreau and Jourdan in 1796, opposed to the Archduke Charles.

In starting from the same points, or from two points much less separated
than Dusseldorf and Strasbourg, an army may be exposed to this danger.
What was the fate of the concentric columns of Wurmser and
Quasdanovitch, wishing to reach the Mincio by the two banks of Lake
Garda? Can the result of the march of Napoleon and Grouchy on Brussels
be forgotten? Leaving Sombref, they were to march concentrically on this
city,--one by Quatre-Bras, the other by Wavre. Bluecher and Wellington,
taking an interior strategic line, effected a junction before them, and
the terrible disaster of Waterloo proved to the world that the immutable
principles of war cannot be violated with impunity.

Such events prove better than any arguments that a system which is not
in a