, his experience was much the same as that of
Clausewitz. It was obtained mainly on the Staff of Marshal Ney and
subsequently on the Russian headquarter Staff. He reached no definite
theory of war, but his fundamental conclusions were the same. The first
chapter of his final work, _Precis de l'art de la Guerre_, is devoted to
"La Politique de la Guerre." In it he classifies wars into nine categories
according to their political object, and he lays it down as a base
proposition "That these different kinds of war will have more or less
influence on the nature of the operations which will be demanded to attain
the end in view, on the amount of energy that must be put forth, and on the
extent of the undertakings in which we must engage." "There will," he adds,
"be a great difference in the operations according to the risks we have to
run."

Both men, therefore, though on details of means they were often widely
opposed, are agreed that the fundamental conception of war is political.
Both of course agree that if we isolate in our mind the forces engaged in
any theatre of war the abstract conception reappears. So far as those
forces are concerned, war is a question of fighting in which each
belligerent should endeavour by all means at his command and with all his
energy to destroy the other. But even so they may find that certain means
are barred to them for political reasons, and at any moment the fortune of
war or a development of the political conditions with which it is entangled
may throw them back upon the fundamental political theory.

That theory it will be unprofitable to labour further at this point. Let it
suffice for the present to mark that it gives us a conception of war as an
exertion of violence to secure a political end which we desire to attain,
and that from this broad and simple formula we are able to deduce at once
that wars will vary according to the nature of the end and the intensity of
our desire to attain it. Here we may leave it to gather force and coherence
as we examine the practical considerations which are its immediate outcome.

* * * * *

CHAPTER TWO

NATURES OF WARS--
OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE

* * * * *

Having determined that wars must vary in character according to the nature
and importance of their object, we are faced with the difficulty that the
variations will be of infini