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Show THE SCIENCE OF WAK. WAttattheuect Is a great cviL Sometimes, however, it becomee a necessary eviL" It is iuUmtlug to read the Tiows ofa great leader in the tcience cf warfare and we tbelfcforo reproduce tho following from a work by Moltke, the greatest liviug German general: "Politics,' says Moltke, "usowir as a means to their end. Thsy exercise a decbhc influence on it rroin first to las;, in that, as circumstance chance, they raiso or lo-ver their dcimnJs. In viow of ibis uncertain y, xtrategy inuht fullour the -acilIaJng goal of gaining every jtos-iblo advantage. Tuu., wnilo quite- iudipendent of politics iu Its uicaus, it bat works toward to-ward harmony with politics iu its ends. The nut doty Is the placing in the field of tne military force, that is. the first advance of tao army. Iu 1 Ids the manifold geographical, political and national ousiUerailous must be mot iiainstaking'y studied. One mistake mis-take In the assembling of ihe troops can hardly be corrected in a whole campaign. "The first advance, however, can usually be planned ell Ieforeoand, and be carried out niih the drMrcd result. re-sult. Entirely ditTdrcnt the next problem of strategy ths ojurati.ins with the forcss of war. Here our pur-po-c is met by tao cntiroly indepciid-ont indepciid-ont purpose of tho cncaiy. This inimical purpose may ba ttioiinol within the limits when wo aro able, ready, and determined, but cannot tie broken otherwise than througn tho power of battle. Thj ma'airiil aad moral effects of great battle aro so coaiprobensh e, hojreer, tna they usually create a wholly new situation, a new basis of new operations. No plan of operations can reach with any degree of certainty b?yond tho hrst meedng with the enemy. Only laymen lay-men hae ths conecp.ion of a eam-pa'gn eam-pa'gn i!aune-l in detail beforehand and earned to the end in a logical se-queues se-queues from the original thougul of th commander. ' Of eoure, tho commander must have bis great and djaui-a aims, nnd follow them uusorcrved by the incidents inci-dents of the hoar; but the way in which these alms are to ba realized can never be determined with certainty long in advance. In th couree of a campaign the commander is constantly constant-ly required to make decisions on tho bases of situations thatcinM n it hit.. been foretold or foreseen. Alt the consecutive ac s in a war are, ihre-fore, ihre-fore, not premeditated opsrati m., out t-pontaaa-ias ones. It is a muter mu-ter of seeing through the clouded and uncertain ailua'ion at a giten iins and plaes, of c-timatiiig tho importance of tho known quantity, quan-tity, of gue-"lng closely the unknown luaniiiy. of resolving pro.iixly on a line of action, and of carrying out -nergeically and unsACrIngly this due of action. In ths problem of calculating cal-culating tho rclati ,nsof tbe two great factors, ono'R own parposo and the enemy's purpose, it mu-t n it bo f r-o.teu r-o.teu that there are other factors which are fully beyond all powers of -t-timation, as, for instaiic, ueitncr, illness, and railway accidents, m sun-Icrstandings sun-Icrstandings and decepi Ion.; in short, dl the occurrences which are a.tril u-sl u-sl to fate, accident or I)iIns Provi-Jsiiee, Provi-Jsiiee, and which man neither enuts jir controls. Yt war is not a matter of band chance even in ths-c respects. "There is a calculation of probabilities probabili-ties possible in tnetc dotills, thittau uad lnck of the one will !x balanced oy tho oad lnck of ths other in most cases, anil so the commander, who in each event does wual is good, if not tho best, has a fair chance of reaching uis goal. It Is self-evident that for sueh affairs mere theoretical knowl-odo knowl-odo Is Insuluncni, taat here come 10 free, practical, artist's development tho great qualities of mind and char acter, schooled, of cour-e, by niditnry education and guided by experience, gathered from the history of war or real life. Decisive above all for the reputation of a commander Is namra.-iy namra.-iy the result, llow much of tho result re-sult is due directly to him can be determined de-termined only with tho gr atc-t difficulty. diffi-culty. Tho best man ofien is w recked 00 tbe Irresistible potver of circumstances; circum-stances; ihe man of mciiocrc ability is of len lined high by the sanio power. On the w bole, bowcv er, fortune Civ ors only the competent commander. As everything in war is uncertain, excepting ex-cepting the energy and atrcngth of the commander, universal premises, conclusions, and sysu.-m are qulto valueless to strategy.' Tho Archduke Karl once called stra'egy a .science, and tactics an art. Ho ascribed to the commander-in-chief the science that 'determined the course of the warlike undertakings.' The art, h- said, had only to execute tho plans of atra'cgy. On ths contrary, con-trary, General Siun.CIauscwitz says: Strategy is tho.U'eof battle forthn ends of war.' In fact, strategy gives tactics the means to Etrjko and tte probability of ictory through the direction of the armies aadlheirmeet-ing'on aadlheirmeet-ing'on tho battlefield. On the other band, sho tdapts herself to Alio result and bnilds on it- In the pretence of the tactical -victory,stntegy suppresses bcr demands and accommodates herself her-self to the new situation. Strategy is more than science; it is tho application applica-tion of knowledge to practical life, tbe davclopmtnt of the original gaiding thought, corresponding with the con-aumtly con-aumtly changing situation; it Is the art of action under the hardest conditions." |
