rst
care will be to choose that zone of operations which will give him the
greatest number of chances of success and be the least dangerous for him
in case of reverse. As no theater of operations can have more than three
zones, (that of the right, that of the center, and that of the left,)
and as I have in Articles from XVII. to XXII. pointed out the manner of
perceiving the advantages and dangers of these zones, the choice of a
zone of operations will be a matter of no difficulty.

When the general has finally chosen a zone within which to operate with
the principal portion of his forces, and when these forces shall be
established in that zone, the army will have a front of operations
toward the hostile army, which will also have one. Now, these fronts of
operations will each have its right, left, and center. It only remains,
then, for the general to decide upon which of these directions he can
injure the enemy most,--for this will always be the best, especially if
he can move upon it without endangering his own communications. I have
dwelt upon this point also in the preceding Summary.

Finally, when the two armies are in presence of each other upon the
field of battle where the decisive collision is to ensue, and are upon
the point of coming to blows, they will each have a right, left, and
center; and it remains for the general to decide still between these
three directions of striking.

Let us take, as an illustration of the truths I have mentioned, the
theater of operations, already referred to, between the Rhine and the
North Sea. (See Fig. 39.)

Although this theater presents, in one point of view, four geographical
sections,--viz.: the space between the Rhine and the Moselle, that
between the Moselle and the Meuse, that between the Meuse and the
Scheldt, and that between the last river and the sea,--it is
nevertheless true that an army of which A A is the base and B B the
front of operations will have only three general directions to choose
from; for the two spaces in the center will form a single central zone,
as it will always have one on the right and another on the left.

[Illustration: Fig. 39.]

The army B B, wishing to take the offensive against the army CC, whose
base was the Rhine, would have three directions in which to operate. If
it maneuvered by the extreme right, descending the Moselle, (toward D,)
it would evidently threaten the enemy's line of retreat toward the
Rhine; but he, concentratin