odies his conception of war in terms as definite as
these; but no words could convey it more clearly. It is sometimes
forgotten that Napoleon was often outnumbered at the outset of a
campaign. It was not only in the campaigns of Italy, of Leipsic, of
1814, and of Waterloo, that the hostile armies were larger than his
own. In those of Ulm, Austerlitz, Eckmuhl, and Dresden, he was
numerically inferior on the whole theatre of war; but while the
French troops were concentrated under a single chief, the armies of
the Allies were scattered over a wide area, and unable to support
each other. Before they could come together, Napoleon, moving with
the utmost rapidity, struck the first blow, and they were defeated in
succession. The first principle of war is to concentrate superior
force at the decisive point, that is, upon the field of battle. But
it is exceedingly seldom that by standing still, and leaving the
initiative to the enemy, that this principle can be observed, for a
numerically inferior force, if it once permits its enemy to
concentrate, can hardly hope for success. True generalship is,
therefore, "to make up in activity for lack of strength; to strike
the enemy in detail, and overthrow his columns in succession. And the
highest art of all is to compel him to disperse his army, and then to
concentrate superior force against each fraction in turn."

It is such strategy as this that "gains the ends of States and makes
men heroes." Napoleon did not discover it. Every single general who
deserves to be entitled great has used it. Frederick, threatened by
Austria, France, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden, used it in self-defence,
and from the Seven Years' War the little kingdom of Prussia emerged
as a first-class Power. It was such strategy which won back the
Peninsula; not the lines of Torres Vedras, but the bold march
northwards to Vittoria.* (* "In six weeks, Wellington marched with
100,000 men six hundred miles, passed six great rivers, gained one
decisive battle, invested two fortresses, and drove 120,000 veteran
troops from Spain." The War in the Peninsula, Napier volume 5 page
132.) It was on the same lines that Lee and Jackson acted. Lee, in
compelling the Federals to keep their columns separated, manoeuvred
with a skill which has seldom been surpassed; Jackson, falling as it
were from the skies into the midst of his astonished foes, struck
right and left before they could combine, and defeated in detail
every detachmen