duty is to study carefully the theater of operations, that he
may see clearly the relative advantages and disadvantages it presents
for himself and his enemies. This being done, he can understandingly
proceed to prepare his base of operations, then to choose the most
suitable zone of operations for his main efforts, and, in doing so, keep
constantly before his mind the principles of the art of war relative to
lines and fronts of operations. The offensive army should particularly
endeavor to cut up the opposing army by skillfully selecting objective
points of maneuver; it will then assume, as the objects of its
subsequent undertakings, geographical points of more or less importance,
depending upon its first successes.

The defensive army, on the contrary, should endeavor, by all means, to
neutralize the first forward movement of its adversary, protracting
operations as long as possible while not compromising the fate of the
war, and deferring a decisive battle until the time when a portion of
the enemy's forces are either exhausted by labors, or scattered for the
purpose of occupying invaded provinces, masking fortified places,
covering sieges, protecting the line of operations, depots, &c.

Up to this point every thing relates to a first plan of operations; but
no plan can provide with certainty for that which is uncertain
always,--the character and the issue of the first conflict. If your
lines of operations have been skillfully chosen and your movements well
concealed, and if on the other hand your enemy makes false movements
which permit you to fall on fractions of his army, you maybe successful
in your campaign, without fighting general battles, by the simple use of
your strategic advantages. But if the two parties seem about equally
matched at the time of conflict, there will result one of those
stupendous tragedies like Borodino, Wagram, Waterloo, Bautzen, and
Dresden, where the precepts of grand tactics, as indicated in the
chapter on that subject, must have a powerful influence.

If a few prejudiced military men, after reading this book and carefully
studying the detailed and correct history of the campaigns of the great
masters of the art of war, still contend that it has neither principles
nor rules, I can only pity them, and reply, in the famous words of
Frederick, that "a mule which had made twenty campaigns under Prince
Eugene would not be a better tactician than at the beginning."

Correct theories, fo