Naval War College 
 Student Library 
 
 No. 
 
 22
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS
 
 PRECEPTS AND 
 JUDGMENTS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR" 
 
 WITH A SKETCH OF THE MILITARY CAREER OF 
 
 MARSHAL FOCH BY \ 
 ^C,-^^^ I 
 
 MAJOR AtfGRASSET 
 
 OF THE FRENCH SERVICE 
 
 TRANSLATED BY HILAIRE BELLOC v \ % *t - 
 
 i 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1920
 
 Printed in Great Britain 
 by Richard Clay & Sons, Ltd.
 
 Library 
 
 u 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 
 
 THE translator would like to point out, though 
 the direction should hardly be necessary, that he 
 has introduced no modification, criticism, or even 
 elucidation of his original even in a footnote, and 
 that the historical statements appearing especially 
 in the introductory sketch or study are their 
 author's alone. He would further point out that 
 such divergences from a literal rendering of the text 
 as may be observed are due to nothing more than 
 the necessity of rendering modern French into 
 passably readable English. To translate idiomatic 
 French into idiomatic English is impossible. The 
 most that can be done is a rendering, and even so 
 the mere sense of the original can only be procured 
 at the expense of a certain foreign flavour : so 
 widely have the modes of thought and expression 
 
 'in France and England diverged since the eighteenth 
 
 'century. 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 I
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE v 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE MILITARY CAREER OF 
 
 MARSHAL FOCH . . . t . , . . I 
 
 PRECEPTS 77 
 
 JUDGMENTS . . . 229 
 
 Vll
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE MILITARY CAREER OF 
 MARSHAL FOCH 
 
 BY MAJOR A. GRASSET, OF THE FRENCH 
 SERVICE 
 
 FERDINAND FOCH was born on the 4th of August, 
 1851, at Tarbes; his father was at that moment 
 Secretary-General to the Prefecture. He began 
 his schooling in a college of that town, continued 
 it at Rodez, then at Polignan with the Jesuits, 
 and ended at the Jesuit College of St. Michel at 
 Saint-Etienne, where his father had been appointed 
 Treasurer and Paymaster. 
 
 He was studious and concentrated in his work, 
 and rather more serious than his years might allow 
 for. As he was inclined to physics and history, 
 the Jesuit fathers had determined to send him to 
 the Polytechnic. In 1869 they sent him to Metz, 
 to their celebrated establishment of Saint Clement 
 in that town ; and there he passed one year coaching 
 for the examination. 
 
 The Franco-Prussian war broke out before this 
 year was over, and young Foch, who had every 
 prospect of success in the entrance competition, 
 enlisted as a volunteer; but the armistice came 
 before he had completed his training in depot, 
 and before he could do anything for his country, 
 he witnessed the disaster. His vocation for the 
 B
 
 2 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Army was not affected; but he understood now 
 that enthusiasm and faith are not enough to secure 
 victory ; that science must be added. And without 
 losing a moment he returned to his work. 
 
 The College of Saint Clement at Metz was occupied 
 by the German soldiery, who filled its courts and 
 corridors. Nancy, where his entrance examination 
 for the Polytechnic was held, the old capital of 
 Lorraine, was the headquarters of Manteuffel, and 
 the Stanislas Square echoed every evening with the 
 sound of the German marching and with their bugle 
 calls. Every evening, as he came in after the 
 day's examination work, Ferdinand Foch looked 
 out upon those scenes ; and he never forgot them. 
 
 On the ist of November, 1871, he entered the 
 Polytechnic School. In 1873 he was at Fontaine- 
 bleau ; in 1875, Lieutenant in the 24th of Artillery 
 at Tarbes. As he was keen upon horsemanship, 
 he entered Saumur in 1877; he became Captain 
 in the loth Regiment of Artillery at Rennes, in 
 1878, and entered the School of War in 1885. He 
 was attached to the Staff of the Montpellier Division 
 up to 1891, in which year he reached the rank of 
 Major, and was summoned to the 3rd Bureau of 
 the General Staff of the Army. After commanding 
 a group of mounted batteries of the I3th Regiment 
 of Artillery at Vincennes, he was recalled, in 1894, 
 to the General Staff of the Army, and finally ap- 
 pointed, on the 3ist of October, 1895. Supplementary 
 Professor of Military History, Strategy and Tactics. 
 In 1896 he received his promotion as Lieutenant- 
 Colonel and the full title of Professor. 
 
 Colonel Foch's lectures produced a profound im- 
 pression on all the officers who were privileged to 
 hear them. The man had personal magnetism. 
 He was clean-cut in figure and careful in manner. 
 " He struck every one," says a witness of this 
 phase in his career, " by the mixture of energy with
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 3 
 
 calm and directness in his expression. He spoke 
 without gestures, with authority and conviction, 
 in a grave, somewhat monotonous voice, invariably 
 appealing to logical process, and even having 
 recourse to mathematical metaphors. He was 
 sometimes difficult to follow through the exuberant 
 wealth of idea that lay behind his words, but he 
 held one's attention by the depth of his views as 
 much as by the sincerity of his accent." 
 
 These lectures, which trained several generations 
 of officers of the Staff, are contained in two books, 
 The Conduct of War and The Principles of War. 
 The leading ideas which appear in these treatises 
 are simple and illuminating. In their largest lines 
 they are somewhat as follows 
 
 War, as Napoleon said, is a simple art and lies 
 wholly in its execution. 
 
 Foch reiterates this. The art of war is simple, 
 in its widest sense, for the most marvellous con- 
 ceptions of strategy are open for any one to under- 
 stand, and are discussed every day in general 
 conversation. Yes, the art is simple enough in its 
 conception, but, unfortunately, complicated in its 
 execution; for that execution necessitates the 
 accommodation of profound knowledge in the 
 material and moral means at one's disposal with an 
 equally profound knowledge of the highly compli- 
 cated organization of an army. The execution of 
 any strategical conception also demands in the 
 general a commanding will, a tenacity, an energy 
 and a strength of soul which no disaster can reduce. 
 And all these qualities must be made in some 
 fashion to produce their irresistible effect upon the 
 mass of which he is the chief. The art of war, there- 
 fore, simple though it be in theory, is, in practice, 
 accessible to but a very small number of men. 
 
 What are the steps by which one may initiate 
 oneself in this art ?
 
 4 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 First of all, the soldier must appreciate the great- 
 ness of his task and rise to it ; he must train himself 
 to think in terms of his business, and to reach that 
 state of mind the best thing is, obviously, to have 
 experience. 
 
 Now it is not possible to obtain experience with- 
 out actually malting war, and, moreover, without 
 making war continually. 
 
 But this would seem impossible, for war is of 
 its nature no more than a violent crisis, and, 
 normally, a temporary one. 
 
 Yet there are two other means of acquiring 
 experience. 
 
 First the study of history, the consideration of 
 events that have taken place in war, and of the 
 campaigns of the great captains. It was upon 
 these lines that Napoleon trained himself. 
 
 Secondly, there is the study of concrete cases; 
 that is, of problems based upon realities as opposed 
 to deduct ve abstractions. Here is a particular 
 known piece of ground, a general situation which 
 can be denned; a body of troops of which the 
 material and moral value are known; here is a 
 definite order given to these troops. Given all 
 these data, the object of one's study consists in 
 discovering how, in such circumstances, one may 
 reach a decision through action, for which decision 
 reasons can be given. And the role of the pro- 
 fessor is this : to appeal continually to the common 
 sense and intelligence of his pupils until he has 
 created in them the habit of treating all questions 
 in one spirit ; he will then have brought into being 
 a unity of doctrine which, in the moment of need, 
 when every executant has to act on his own full 
 initiative, will assure a perfect co-ordination of 
 effort from all those brains towards the common 
 objective assigned by the higher command. 
 
 Let us suppose the soldier, trained in such a
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 5 
 
 method as the pupil of such a teacher, to have 
 become a leader in his turn. He finds himself 
 in the actual presence of those formidable problems 
 which he had hitherto envisaged only in thought; 
 how will he solve those problems? 
 
 In the first place, the leader must have a plan of 
 operations, and this plan will be directly dependent 
 upon the geographical situation of the belligerents, 
 their separate customs, characters and power. 
 That plan has for its object, of course, victory. 
 And because victory can only be obtained by battle 
 and by the destruction of the enemy's forces, battle 
 is the one object which the chief bears in mind : 
 immediate battle founded upon sudden attack if 
 the general situation is in favour of it ; prolonged 
 battle, awaiting better conditions, if the state of 
 one's forces demands such delay. 
 
 Knowing what his objective is, the chief must 
 eliminate, in the presence of reality, all hypothesis 
 and even every memory which might obscure his 
 vision of the actual situation in front of him. 
 What thing am I handling? What is the thing I 
 have to deal with? That is the first question he 
 must set out to answer. 
 
 Now that question is a terribly complicated one. 
 The unknown is the very essence of war. Where 
 does the enemy stand? What is his strength? 
 What are his intentions? 
 
 There is only one way in which to answer those 
 questions, and they will always be answered most 
 imperfectly. That way is to reconnoitre the enemy 
 in every possible fashion : to complete one's informa- 
 tion. 
 
 This done, the general must act upon the precise 
 information he has obtained, and not upon pre- 
 conceived ideas or upon hypotheses, which very 
 rarely correspond with reality, however logically 
 one may have framed them. Put thus, this way
 
 6 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 of acting seems so natural as to be almost childishly 
 simple; it is none the less very difficult to realize 
 in practice, and the proof is that Moltke himself 
 never learned to carry it out. 
 
 For we must appreciate that it is not enough 
 for the various organs of intelligence to gather 
 precise information, difficult as that task is; it is 
 further necessary that such information should 
 reach the chief in time to be used that is, not too 
 late for him to act freely : not too late for him to 
 accept or to provoke a combat if it is presented 
 to him in good conditions, or to refuse it if the 
 conditions are unfavourable. 
 
 The instrument guaranteeing such liberty of 
 action, the instrument which Napoleon used and 
 which Moltke never managed to restore, was and 
 is the General Advance Guard. 
 
 Seeing the great masses which are brought into 
 action to-day, if they are to collaborate in time for 
 battle, this Advance Guard should be strong enough 
 to fix the enemy, once he is in contact with one's 
 cavalry, and oblige him to premature deployment, 
 which will betray, if he is not very careful, the 
 strength of his forces; which will disorganize him 
 and leave him in bad condition for manoeuvring 
 the bulk of his army. 
 
 That the succeeding events of the action should 
 develop according to the will of the chief, he must 
 make his intentions clear to his subordinates. 
 " Command " never yet meant " obscurity." When 
 every one has been given his direction, each in his 
 own sphere collaborates in the common work. 
 Each feels that a part of the general responsibility 
 is upon him, each feels that the success of the man- 
 oeuvre in hand in part depends upon his own effort, 
 and this because each knows what the general task is. 
 
 The commander cannot think for every one; he 
 cannot immix himself in all details ; he cannot lead
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 7 
 
 every executant by the hand : armies are not 
 manoeuvred like pieces upon a chess-board. 
 
 We begin, then, with a doctrine ; that is, a common 
 conception of war. All the brains at work are 
 trained and have a common way of approaching 
 the problems they have to solve. The data of a 
 problem being known, each will solve it after his 
 own manner, but these thousand separate manners 
 will harmoniously diverge towards the common 
 end. 
 
 Now suppose action engaged. A leader worthy 
 of the name will, under all circumstances, avoid the 
 parallel battle. In this two armies are drawn up in 
 two ever-extending lines facing each other. In such 
 a battle the result, of necessity, depends upon the 
 mere valour or ability of the soldiers; it is at the 
 mercy of any incident, as of a local panic, and 
 the General commanding is deprived of all means of 
 action. He has abdicated his function through 
 ignorance or sloth, and can do nothing to master 
 his fate. 
 
 True battle is the battle of manoeuvre in which, 
 thanks to the forces which the commander has 
 reserved and constituted in such time that they 
 can be usefully employed, thanks also to the 
 judicious application of that fruitful principle 
 " the economy of forces," it is he, and he alone, 
 who will preside over the various phases of the 
 struggle, and will at last be definitely the master 
 of its decision. Where he chooses and when he 
 chooses he will launch the decisive attack which is 
 the expression of his will, and which alone gives 
 victory. ' 
 
 Battle is the supreme act of war. It should, 
 therefore, be kept in hand fully and thoroughly 
 without room for hesitation. All should take part 
 in it with all their strength and with all the means 
 at their disposal. Therefore, in the supreme act,
 
 8 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 there should be no strategic reserve; there should 
 be no important bodies left in the rear inactive 
 and wasted while the fate of the war is decided. 
 
 Above all, this tremendous drama demands of 
 each one of us not only the complete sacrifice 
 of himself but the very maximum of effort and 
 endurance; he must clearly appreciate that there 
 will come, almost fatally, a certain moment of 
 crisis when the nerves of a force will be strained 
 to their utmost, when human capacity will seem 
 to have reached its limit, and when the dangers 
 and obstacles present will appear insurmountable. 
 That is the moment when we must fall back upon 
 the conception that spirit always dominates matter ; 
 that in spite of the most crushing weight of apparent 
 circumstance, in spite of the most formidable 
 effects of the most modern instruments of de- 
 struction, it is always (in the long run) the moral 
 effort which triumphs over the material one. It 
 is always the spiritual side which impresses the 
 whole. 
 
 Victory resides in the will, and a battle won is 
 a battle in which one has not admitted oneself 
 defeated. 
 
 Victory always comes to those who merit it by 
 their greater strength of will and of intelligence. 
 
 But this unshakable determination on the part 
 of the Chief to achieve victory, all the enthusiasm 
 and all the faith which he himself may possess, 
 would be sterile if he could not communicate them 
 in their entirety to the souls of his soldiers. " For 
 an army is to its commander what a sword is to a 
 man; it has no value save through the impulsion 
 which its bearer gives it. It is the influence of 
 the Command, through the enthusiasm it com- 
 municates, that explains those sub-conscious move- 
 ments in a human mass during those grave moments 
 when, without knowing why, the army opens up
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 9 
 
 the field of battle and feels itself carried forward 
 as though it were charging down a slope." 
 
 Let there be no error on this point : " Generals, 
 not soldiers, win battles; and a general who has 
 been defeated is one who has not understood the 
 task of leadership." The man who wrote this was 
 not Marshal Foch, the victor of the Marne, of the 
 Yser and the Battle of France in 1918; it was 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Foch who signed that challenging 
 definition in 1898. 
 
 There is no conception more simple nor any in 
 execution more terribly difficult than this, which is 
 the very art of war : to learn the enemy's situation, 
 to think matters out, and to will. 
 
 To understand the difficulty of this business of 
 " willing," of " knowing how to will " to get a 
 fairly clear idea of it it is worth remembering that 
 the lives of many thousand men and the future of 
 a whole country are often bound up in the result 
 of one battle. Remembering this, one can guess 
 what strength of soul is required in a man of warm 
 emotion a strong patriot that he should dare to 
 risk a decision. That is why the great Captains of 
 history bear the names of Alexander, Caesar, Han- 
 nibal and Napoleon. That is why, in twenty 
 centuries, we have only produced a half-dozen of 
 them. 
 
 Foch was a man of such emotion, of such faith, 
 and of such sense of duty. He made it his busi- 
 ness to impress upon his pupils by what means the 
 spiritual forces of an army might be indefinitely 
 increased and rendered capable of passing the 
 supreme test. He said : " In our time, which 
 thinks it can do without ideals, that it can reject 
 what it calls abstractions, and nourish itself on 
 realism, rationalism and positivism; which thinks 
 it can reduce all questions to matters of science 
 or to the employing of more or less ingenious
 
 10 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 expedients ; at such a time, I say, there is but one 
 resource if you are to avoid disaster, and only one 
 which will make you certain of what course to 
 hold upon a given day. It is the worship to the 
 exclusion of all others of two Ideas in the field of 
 morals : duty and discipline. And that worship 
 further needs, if it is to bear fruit and produce 
 results, knowledge and reason." 
 
 Foch himself had yet another resource, of which 
 he only spoke once, and that lately, for he knew 
 that it was not obtainable at will. " They are 
 blessed," he said one day, " who are born be- 
 lievers; but they are rare ..." and he suggested 
 to his audience that faith also is a matter of will, 
 as is strength, and as is instruction. 
 
 In 1900, General Bonnal succeeded General 
 Langlois as Commander of the School of War. We 
 have already said that Colonel Foch was a believer : 
 he stood utterly outside the political game ; he was 
 entirely absorbed by his great duties as a soldier. 
 His feelings upon this matter were too deep and 
 his emotion too noble to permit him, for any motive 
 whatsoever, to consider even for a moment the 
 admission of any constraint, however small, upon 
 his religious practice. 
 
 The period was a troubled one. A brother of 
 the Colonel was a Jesuit. There were some who 
 took alarm at that. There were some who thought 
 it impossible to allow so ardent a Catholic to have 
 the mission of training the officers of the General 
 Staff. In 1901 Colonel Foch was sent back to 
 command a regiment. He left the school in good 
 heart and took up garrison life again. 
 
 This eclipse hurt his career but did not interrupt 
 his work ; we may even say that the leisure imposed 
 by it was favourable to the growth and ripening 
 of those ideas which have proved so fruitful,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 11 
 
 In 1903 he was promoted full Colonel and called 
 to command of the 35th Regiment of Artillery at 
 Vannes. 
 
 In 1905 he was the Chief of Staff of the 5th 
 Army Corps at Orleans. In 1907 he was promoted 
 to the rank of Brigadier-General and summoned to 
 the General Staff of the Army. At that moment 
 General Bonnal had just left the command of the . 
 School of War, and the question of his successor 
 was raised. 
 
 M. Clemenceau had also at that moment just 
 become Prime Minister. He sent for General 
 Foch, and the following conversation took place 
 between the two men. 
 
 " I wish to offer you the command of the School 
 of War." 
 
 " Thank you; but doubtless you are not ignorant 
 that one of my brothers is a Jesuit ? " 
 
 " I know that, and I care nothing for it. You 
 can make good officers, and the rest is of no account." 
 
 The next day, therefore, General Foch took on 
 the direction of the School of War. 
 
 Convinced as he was that " the art of war " 
 (according to Napoleon's expression) " is a science 
 in which nothing succeeds which has not been 
 calculated and thoroughly thought out " ; con- 
 vinced as he also was that to acquire that com- 
 plicated science hard work was even more useful 
 than genius, Foch had the good fortune to make 
 people understand that the two years' course in 
 the School of War in Paris could not yield a result 
 comparable to the three years' course of the Ger- 
 man Staff-training in the War Academy of Berlin. 
 In spite of opposition to his scheme, he was allowed, 
 by way of experiment, to keep the fifteen best 
 students at the end of their second year for a third 
 year's course, this third year to be given to the study 
 of operations in an army and a group of armies.
 
 12 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 This reform would have been well received if it 
 had been applied to all students, but the com- 
 promise adopted caused the system to be con- 
 demned. The objection was made that the very 
 few officers chosen (by what was, after all, only 
 the chance of an examination) to remain a third 
 year in Paris, would find themselves at the opening 
 of their career specially marked out and designed, 
 as it were, to be Marshals simply because they 
 had been better at lectures than the rest, or 
 because they were more precocious, or because 
 they happened to have a better memory than 
 their comrades, whose fundamental character 
 and abilities were perhaps superior. Jealousies 
 arose and a certain amount of bitterness. There 
 was also an element of parliamentary intrigue. 
 In a word, this reform, which, had it been fully 
 applied, would certainly have given excellent 
 results, broke down. 
 
 General Foch, promoted to be General of Division 
 in 1911, was given the command of the i3th 
 Division at Chaumont ; then, in 1912, of the 8th 
 Army Corps, which he left on the 23rd of August, 
 1913, to take up the command of the 2oth Army 
 Corps at Nancy. 
 
 II 
 
 THE GENERAL IN COMMAND 
 
 The 20th Army Corps. Morhange 
 
 WHEN the war broke out, it found General Foch 
 at the head of the advance guard covering the 
 frontier. 
 
 The 2Oth Army Corps formed a portion of the 
 army commanded by General Castelnau. From
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 13 
 
 the yth of August the whole of this army was in 
 line ready for action, covering Nancy; at Lune- 
 ville and Epinal; facing Metz and Chateau-Salins. 
 
 On the I4th of August this army took the offen- 
 sive. The 2Oth Corps, which was flanked on the 
 left by the gth Corps and on the right by the I5th, 
 had for its first objective the heights that mark 
 the frontier. The Germans were strongly en- 
 trenched there. After severe losses the resistance 
 of the enemy was overcome, and he retired, evacu- 
 ating Vic, Moyenvic and Chateau-Salins. He took 
 up a new position 15 kilometres to the north, 
 marked by the points of Delme, Morhange and 
 Sarrebourg. This position had been organized 
 very strongly and very secretly for some time past, 
 and was abundantly provided with machine-guns 
 and heavy artillery. 
 
 That modern heavy artillery, of which General Foch 
 had already foreseen the effect in battle, proved here, 
 as in Belgium and in Luxemburg and in Alsace, 
 the hidden and powerful ally of the German in- 
 fantry. It was a distant adversary whose blows 
 our soldiers received without being able to reply 
 to them or knowing whence they came ; no courage 
 and no cunning could stand against those new 
 means of action. 
 
 On the 2oth of August the 2oth Corps, with its 
 customary gallantry, struck at the heights of 
 Marthil, of Baronville and of Conthil. It had for 
 its task the capture of Morhange and the carrying 
 of Benestroff, the last a nodal point of railways, 
 and therefore of capital importance. It was de- 
 fended by the army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria, 
 picked troops, equal in number to the French and 
 with far superior weapons. 
 
 The losses were very heavy, all the more so 
 because the attack was so desperately pushed. 
 
 On the left the gth Corps, threatened upon its
 
 14 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 flank by enemy forces which had come out of Metz, 
 was checked. To the right of it, in the district 
 known as that of " the ponds," the i5th Corps fell 
 back. This retirement uncovered the right flank 
 of the 2oth Corps, which was thus exposed to the 
 blows of the 7th German Army. 
 
 It would have been folly to have held on; the 
 expected victory had to be abandoned, though every- 
 body thought it certain, and they retired upon the 
 Meuse, which was reached on the 22nd of August. 
 
 The situation was critical. The right of the 
 second army would seem to be out of action for 
 some time; the enemy could, therefore, either 
 drive straight on to the Gap of Charmes, through 
 the unoccupied gap which now yawned between 
 the armies of General Dubail and General de Castel- 
 nau, or, alternatively, he could bring all his forces 
 to bear against Nancy and achieve the complete 
 annihilation of the second army. Either action 
 would have had the very gravest consequences. 
 
 The 2oth Corps was tired out, and it had suffered 
 very heavy casualties; but it proved worthy of its 
 chief, and, with this force alone, General Foch 
 retired to cover both Nancy and the Gap of Charmes. 
 
 With this object in view, he re-established his 
 troops in a strong and central position to the south 
 of St. Nicolas, where he would find himself upon 
 the flank of either of the two possible directions 
 by which the German columns might advance. 
 
 On the east he depended for his information 
 upon the strong advance guard of the nth Division 
 sent forward into the region of Falinval; on the 
 north he similarly depended upon light infantry, 
 which held Rambe'tant, one of the bastions of Nancy. 
 
 Of the two alternative roads, it was that of the 
 Gap of Charmes which the invasion chose. Wild 
 with enthusiasm, the Germans drove through 
 Luneville, exposing their right flank to the 20th
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 15 
 
 Corps. On the 24th of August, while the enemy 
 was striking against the unshakable resistance 
 of Dubail's army, established upon the Meurthe 
 river, General Foch received the order to take the 
 offensive eastward. On that same day the heights 
 of Sanon were carried : to the north, the wood of 
 Crevic, and to the south, Flainval. On the morrow 
 the whole of de Castelnau's army went forward. 
 Thus, caught in flank and pressed hard in front 
 for two days by the Dubail army, the enemy, in 
 spite of his crushing numerical superiority, hesi- 
 tated. He was checked and halted. The invasion 
 at this point was mated. Nancy remained free and 
 the Germans never crossed the Meurthe. 
 
 THE NINTH ARMY 
 
 MEANWHILE, very serious movements had de- 
 veloped elsewhere, and the higher command had 
 need of General Foch in another theatre of war. 
 
 Our armies had proved unable, on the 2ist and 
 22nd of August, to force the enemy's entrench- 
 ments in the face of their heavy artillery. General 
 Joffre, abandoning ground wholesale in order to 
 gain in space the time necessary to gather sufficient 
 means of resistance, brought all his armies south- 
 ward, with the left swinging back on to Paris, with 
 Verdun as pivot. 
 
 As early as the 25th of August, in order to pro- 
 vide for the coming battle, he made it his business 
 to gather, in the region of Amiens, a new mass of 
 manoeuvre, the 6th Army, which he confided to 
 the command of General Maunoury, and which the 
 development of battle was destined to throw back
 
 16 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 under the very walls of Paris. Then, on the 2Qth 
 of August, when he saw that the continuation of 
 the retreat would open a gap between the armies 
 of Franchet d'Esperey and Langle de Gary, and 
 thus form a weak point which the enemy would 
 try to force, General Joffre decided to constitute 
 in this region a new army the gth Army of which 
 the Commander was to be General Foch. 
 
 Summoned urgently to Chalons, Foch arrived at 
 General Headquarters on that same day. He had 
 but just given up the 2oth Corps in its moment 
 of victory. 
 
 His new army did not yet exist. It had to be 
 formed. It was to consist of the nth Corps (under 
 General Eydoux), the 52nd and 6oth Divisions of 
 Reserve, the Qth Cavalry Division : all these units 
 had been taken from the army of Langle de Cary, 
 which had been retreating from Belgium; there 
 was also the 42nd Division (under General Gros- 
 setti), taken from the 6th Corps of Sarrail's army, 
 and therefore coming from Ardennes, and the 
 9th Corps (General Dubois), taken from the army 
 of de Castelnau. The duty falling upon General 
 Foch at this moment was to gather these elements 
 together, though they were in full retreat, to pro- 
 vide them with munitions and subsistence, and to 
 make of them one homogeneous body capable of 
 once more returning to advance and attack. Mean- 
 while, he had the further task of thoroughly seizing 
 the general situation. The time was short and the 
 enemy now ardent, pressing our columns closely. 
 
 There is an order of General Joffre's, dated the 1st 
 of September, which allows for the holding of the 
 retreating armies upon the line Pont-sur-Yonne- 
 Nogent-sur-Seine-Mery-Arcis-sur-Aube. A further 
 note on the 2nd of September goes so far as to 
 envisage the abandonment of Bar-le-Duc and 
 the falling back of the right as far as Joinville.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 17 
 
 There was left to guard Paris the 6th Army, and 
 six territorial divisions. 
 
 The German General Staff was now in this 
 quandary. Should it try to force an entry into 
 Paris, or, on the contrary, leave on one side the 
 capital, the heart of France; and devote all its 
 strength to the destruction of the French army? 
 
 Paris is a great entrenched camp. If the enemy 
 had attacked it, he would have had to employ for 
 the carrying of it considerable forces which would, 
 therefore, have been lacking on the main battle- 
 field. But if he neglected Paris in order to continue 
 his pursuit of the French Army, he would neces- 
 sarily at a given moment, as he advanced southward, 
 present his flank to the army of General Maunoury. 
 
 It was the second of these two alternatives which 
 took place, and on the 4th of September the German 
 Army fell into the trap. The army of Von Kluck, 
 covering itself on its right, towards Paris, with no 
 more than a single army corps, turned to the 
 south-east with the object of outflanking the army 
 of Franchet d'Esperey. At the same time, the 
 armies of Bulow and Hausen, a mass of nearly 
 300,000 men, poured upon Epernay and Chalons 
 and made for Sezanne in order to break the French 
 front between the armies of Franchet d'Esperey 
 and Langle de Gary. The German Higher Command 
 believed that it would find in this gap no elements 
 of sufficient strength. 
 
 On the 5th of September, at midday, Maunoury's 
 army of the 6th, launched by the violent ardour of 
 Gallieni, fell upon the flank of Von Kluck, and 
 opened the battle eighteen hours too early, eighteen 
 hours before the moment chosen by the Commander- 
 in-Chief, which moment had been fixed at six 
 o'clock in the morning of Wednesday, the 6th of 
 September. Orders were sent out along the whole 
 line to cease the retreat, to hold and to take the 
 c
 
 18 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 offensive Joffre's final order of the day upon that 
 occasion could not be .read, in most units, until 
 after the victory. General Foch transported his 
 headquarters to Fleurs, a point from which he 
 could easily overlook action towards Sezanne and 
 La Fere-Champenoise. 
 
 It was his business to stop three great avenues 
 of advance for the enemy upon a front of thirty- 
 five thousand yards ; the road from (i) Epernay to 
 Sezanne, and (2) to La Fere-Champenoise, and 
 (3) that from Chalons to Arcis-sur-Aube. Further, 
 it was his business to hold on to the plateaux north 
 of Sezanne, which offered a point of resistance for 
 the right of the Franchet d'Esperey army, and to 
 protect that army against an outflanking move- 
 ment. Above all, he had to prevent the enemy 
 from debouching to the south of the marshes of 
 St. Gond. 
 
 The 42nd Division went up to hold the heights of 
 Sezanne, a special honour granted to a body of 
 troops of chosen merit. The Moroccan Division 
 of the gth 'Corps held the avenues of egress from 
 the marshes of St. Gond. This latter was a hard 
 task because the marshes were then nearly dry, 
 and it was the Prussian Guard which had the task 
 of attacking. The nth Corps was ordered to check 
 in the plain below the German masses driving 
 forward from Chalons. The Qth Cavalry Division 
 covered the right flank of the army at the camp of 
 Mailly. 
 
 All these units combined could not put into line 
 more than 70,000 combatants. 
 
 Two men to the yard is little indeed to check in 
 open country the effort of 300,000 men who thought 
 themselves already victorious. Napoleon counted 
 five men to the yard for the delivery of an attack. 
 The Germans could here count on ten. General 
 Foch could only hold at his disposal the 52nd and
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 19 
 
 6oth Divisions of Reserve in his attempt to turn 
 the approaching struggle into a battle of manoeuvre 
 such as he had himself taught and conceived. It 
 was a very feeble instrument for so great a task. 
 
 On the 6th of September Foch was ordered to 
 support upon his left the offensive of Franchet 
 d'Esperey, and all the rest of his front to hold the 
 enemy in order to afford time for the neighbouring 
 armies to pass to the attack. Therefore, on his left 
 the 42nd Division, led by the gallant Grossetti, 
 attacked, and the loth Army Corps clung to 
 Soizy and Villeneuve, which last place was twice 
 lost and twice retaken ; at the end of the struggle 
 this corps was still holding an enemy far superior 
 in numbers, and night only put an end to the 
 butchery upon that blood-stained height, lit by 
 the flames of the burning farms. 
 
 But on the extreme right it had proved necessary 
 to send the 6oth Reserve Division to support the 
 nth Corps, which, after being outflanked by two 
 German Corps, was retiring. Thus uncovered on 
 its right, the gib. Corps, which was trying to hold 
 on the north of the marshes of St. Gond, had to 
 retire in its turn, and to be supported by the 52nd 
 Division of the Reserve, in order to hold the points 
 south of the marshes, whereby the enemy might 
 debouch. By this time all the forces of the gth 
 Army were engaged in a very heavy struggle, and 
 General Foch had no further troops at his disposal. 
 
 Nevertheless, on the 7th of September his 
 general instructions remained the same as they did 
 before. On the left an offensive, which was pur- 
 sued in touch with the 5th Army : everywhere 
 else a desperate defensive, waiting its moment to 
 pass to the offensive. Under the bombardment 
 of the German heavy artillery, the 47th Division, 
 the 52nd Reserve Division and the Moroccan 
 Division, far from being able to go forward, could
 
 20 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 only hold their positions at the expense of heroic 
 efforts, and the German masses pushed forward 
 in great waves, in spite of very heavy losses, with- 
 out respite. This storm did not disturb the attitude 
 of Foch. His common sense, which the enormity 
 of the business seemed to render only more clear, 
 judged the situation thus : 
 
 " Since they are trying to break through here at 
 such a price, it is evident that their fortunes are going 
 ill elsewhere." 
 
 He used these words precisely at the moment 
 when the 4th German Corps was being withdrawn 
 from the region of Rebais and sent on to the Ourcq 
 to check the outflanking movement of Maunoury : 
 precisely at the moment when the English Army, 
 disengaged by this retreat, passed from the defen- 
 sive to the offensive in the region of Coulommiers : 
 at the precise moment when the tide of the invasion 
 had turned. 
 
 It was upon the 8th of September, then, that 
 the German Higher Command understood victory 
 by envelopment to be escaping it. It held on, and 
 still tried to achieve its object by checking Mau- 
 noury on the right, and sending powerful reinforce- 
 ments (so as to burst through the army of Foch) 
 to Bulow and Hausen. It was an effort at achieving 
 a strategic rupture, or breach of the line, in place 
 of the envelopment which had failed. Such a 
 rupture would have given the Germans victory as 
 thoroughly as would an envelopment. But that 
 attempt at a breach failed in its turn. 
 
 During all that day, the 8th of September, the 
 struggle was continued with extreme violence. On 
 the left, Franchet d'Esperey disengaged the 42nd 
 Division by powerfully thrusting forward the 
 whole of his loth Corps. But on the right the 
 nth Corps, crushed under the weight of forces 
 double its own, and broken by the fire of the German
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 21 
 
 heavy artillery, was yielding. It had very heavy 
 losses. It abandoned La Fere Champenoise, and 
 the 6oth Division retired, broken, on to Maille. 
 
 In the centre the Qth Corps, which was further 
 taken in reverse, also gave way. The Prussian 
 Guard was very near Mondement, and if Monde- 
 ment were carried the gth Army would be cut in 
 two. It was but midday, and the enemy still had 
 many hours before him in which to reap the fruits 
 of a victory which appeared certain. 
 
 But Foch, while he was still a Colonel and teach- 
 ing in the School of War, had laid it down in his 
 lectures that a battle was not lost until one was 
 persuaded in one's own mind that it was lost. And 
 though the General carried his headquarters back 
 to Plancy (because the advancing German fire had 
 begun to interrupt the working of his services), 
 he so little believed in the enemy's victory that 
 he sent to the General Commander-in-Chief the 
 following laconic report 
 
 " I am heavily pressed upon my right ; my centre 
 is giving way; I cannot re-distribute my forces. 
 The situation is excellent and I shall attack." 
 
 This has been called an epigram, but it is nothing 
 of the kind. While he was listening at the tele- 
 phone, chewing his cigar and receiving the alarming 
 dispatches which came in from all sides, he followed 
 in thought the progress of the offensive then being 
 conducted by Maunoury on the Ourcq and those 
 of Marshal French and Franchet d'Esperey on the 
 Petit Morin. It was his business to hold : to hold 
 at all costs : for " victory falls to those who deserve 
 it by the greater mass of will." And, because 
 " the feebler one is the more one should attack," 
 he gave orders to those troops of his now dazed 
 with fatigue to turn and go forward. Sup- 
 ported by D'Esperey's Army, the 42nd Division 
 gained ground. On every other point of his front
 
 22 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 there was no advance, but the enemy, bewildered 
 by this new movement, halted, and the essential 
 positions were held up to nightfall. 
 
 In the evening of that day, the 8th of September, 
 in view of the next day's task, which would probably 
 be still harder, General Foch asked for aid from the 
 Fifth Army. General Franchet d'Esperey readily 
 put at his disposal the whole of the loth Corps and 
 the 5 ist Reserve Division. 
 
 The 42nd Division, after the three days of most 
 unequal struggle which it had maintained, seemed 
 physically unable to support another day of equal 
 trial, excellent though its moral still remained. On 
 the 8th of September, at dawn, it was relieved in 
 the first line by the 5ist Reserve Division, while 
 the loth Corps was given the task of attacking the 
 loth German Corps in flank. 
 
 On their side Bulow and Hausen, upon the early 
 morning of this gth of September, reopened their 
 attacks with the same violence as upon the day 
 before. The whole line was heavily engaged; the 
 Prussian Guard, 7th, loth and I2th active German 
 Corps, and the loth and I2th Reserve Corps, all 
 went forward together for the final attack. 
 
 Our men put up a determined resistance. On 
 the left our loth Corps went forward; but in the 
 centre even the heroic sacrifices of the Moroccan 
 Division did not prevent the Prussian Guard from 
 carrying Mondement and reaching the outskirts of 
 Allemant. As early as nine o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, under a hail of heavy shell, the nth Corps 
 began to fall back full 4000 yards towards 
 Corroy, and the 6oth Reserve Division abandoned 
 Mailly. It was clear that the limit of human 
 endurance upon our side had been reached. If 
 the enemy still had an effort left in him he would 
 pierce our centre, and his general situation, which 
 was badly compromised upon the Ourcq, would
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 23 
 
 be re-established in the marshes of Saint Gond. 
 But the enemy was fairly exhausted. His attack 
 was beginning to weaken; his foremost waves of 
 men were hesitating. His supporting columns 
 were less dense. They no longer secured an ad- 
 vance. They were beginning to take cover against 
 the storms of our field artillery, and our men, 
 calling on their last reserves of energy, just held, 
 hiding in the shell-craters and firing the last of 
 their cartridges. 
 
 The critical moment was appearing. " The 
 battle was ripe," to quote Napoleon's expression; 
 or again, according to Foch's own formula, vic- 
 tory would go "to that one of the two adversaries 
 who had kept the last reserve battalion to throw 
 into the furnace when his opponent had none." 
 
 Now the Germans had no more troops available ; 
 but on our side one reserve remained and was on 
 the march. This supreme reserve was the 42nd 
 Division, which, withdrawn exhausted from the 
 firing line that same morning, was now coming up 
 to a place assigned to it between Linthes and 
 Pleurs. It was tired out; it was greatly reduced 
 in numbers; it would certainly not have stood 
 against another attack. But at any rate it was at 
 the General's disposal. Its march down behind 
 the lines had relieved it somewhat from the violent 
 tension of the prolonged struggle; its moral was 
 high, and it had all the vigour required for attacking 
 upon its own account. 
 
 It received the order to go forward, with the 
 right flank of the I2th German Corps as its objec- 
 tive. That right flank had now passed Connantre, 
 and it was at this point that the junction between 
 Bulow and Hausen lay. 
 
 The execution of this manoeuvre striking at the 
 enemy point of junction, in flank, with the French 
 42nd Corps was slow on account of the extreme
 
 24 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 fatigue of the troops. They had barely had a half- 
 day's interval after three days and three nights of 
 terrible struggle; they had not had the time to 
 recover themselves, even temporarily. At the 
 moment when the order to go forward was given 
 the last elements of the 42nd Division had not even 
 yet arrived at Linthes. Only the greatest generals 
 are able to obtain from large bodies of men 
 these paroxysms of effort; and to obtain them at 
 all the commander must (in Foch's own terms) 
 " know how to communicate the supreme energy 
 which animates his own self to the masses of men 
 who form his army." You will find hardly any 
 other example so thoroughly characteristic of this, 
 outside the campaign of France in 1814, conducted 
 under the very eye of Napoleon. 
 
 It is but 4000 yards from Linthes to Connantre. 
 It was not till about six o'clock in the evening, 
 after four hours of mortal anguish in which men 
 felt that the fate of France was in the balance, that 
 the 42nd Division came fully into line. 
 
 During this interval General Foch, who had 
 thrown his last cards upon the table but who now 
 counted securely upon victory, got on his horse 
 and took a ride with Lieutenant Ferrasson. During 
 this ride he talked with his companion upon certain 
 points of philosophy and of economics wherein he 
 took interest. 
 
 Napoleon slept two hours on the battlefield of 
 Bautzen while awaiting the decision of his fate. 
 Foch upon this occasion did not sleep, but he gave 
 his brain a rest and left his battle on one side, 
 though the cannonade was loud during all that ride. 
 
 When the General came back to his headquarters 
 at Plancy he heard that the 42nd Division was now 
 arrived and deployed and ready to attack. He 
 immediately gave orders for the whole line to go 
 forward.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 25 
 
 The order was obeyed. The whole situation 
 changed. The army of Hausen, which thought 
 itself on the threshold of victory and believed the 
 French to be exhausted, was taken aback by the 
 apparition of new opposing forces the 42nd. Our 
 shells began to fall upon La ' Fere Champenoise, 
 where the Germans were unharnessing their supply 
 teams in the certitude of victory. Those teams 
 were hurriedly re-harnessed and the horses' heads 
 were turned northwards. 
 
 All along that line the enemy began to take to 
 ground. He began to dig. In patches here and 
 there he could not even dig, he retired. There was 
 a wind of defeat upon him; and when the night 
 checked our advance our soldiers knew well that 
 with the dawn they would see the retreat of their 
 opponents. 
 
 During the night that retreat began. 
 
 On the loth of September, at five in the morning, 
 our lines went forward, and no more resistance was 
 attempted. They gathered their trophies, masses 
 of material, and here and there, especially at I,a Fere 
 Champenoise itself, which had been precipitately 
 evacuated, they picked up officers and soldiers of 
 the Prussian Guard as drunk as helots. 
 
 The first serious attempt at resistance was made 
 by the enemy . upon the line Morains-Normee-Len- 
 harree-Sommesous. To get the better of that 
 rearguard it was necessary to wait for the artillery. 
 By nightfall General Foch had brought his head- 
 quarters forward to La Fere Champenoise itself. 
 
 On the nth of September the Qth Army reached 
 the Marne, between Epernay and Chalons. 
 
 On the I5th the enemy reached the Aisne, taking 
 up a strong defensive position to the north of Rheims 
 and of the Chalons training-camp. He had received 
 new provision of munitions and strong reinforce- 
 ments.
 
 26 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The task of the first days after establishing this 
 contact was to hold him and to throw back his 
 vigorous counter-attacks. To conquer him in such 
 positions we should have needed, and would need 
 for a long time to come, many more guns and their 
 munitionment. Victory against so strong an organ- 
 ization, held by very numerous, brave and power- 
 fully-weaponed troops, could only be obtained at 
 such a price. It would have been madness to try 
 and force the lines by mere weight of men. Whether 
 we would or no, therefore, the struggle stabilised 
 upon this point. Already the interest of the war 
 had been transferred to another, more northern, 
 field. 
 
 The Group of the Armies of the North. The Yser. 
 
 The French and German General Staffs had both 
 discovered that a breach of the opposing front was 
 for the moment impossible to either of them, and 
 that the decision of the battle which had been 
 engaged could only be sought by outflanking. 
 Switzerland was forbidden as neutral ground. For 
 each of the opposing forces the only vulnerable flank 
 was the western one. Therefore their activity must 
 be directed to sliding their forces westward, at the 
 risk of perilously denuding the rest of their fronts. 
 
 On the 2oth of September the whole of Castelnau's 
 army had been brought from Alsace and detrained 
 in the region of Beauvais. It came up in time to 
 hold, near Roye, the new advance of the German 
 masses upon Paris. 
 
 On the 30th the army of Maud'huy detrained in 
 the region of Arras, and its forces also arrived in 
 time to break, even as it detrained, the shock of 
 30O,ooo_Germans.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 27 
 
 On the 4th of October a call on the telephone, 
 without any preliminary, gave General Foch to 
 know that he had been nominated to a command 
 under the Commander-in-Chief, and charged with 
 the task of co-ordinating the operations of the whole 
 group of French armies in the north. 
 
 There were then in that region the armies of 
 Castelnau and Maud'huy (the 6th and loth), the 
 group of Territorial divisions of General Brugre 
 (four divisions), and the two cavalry corps of Conneau 
 and De Mitry. 
 
 There was no need for ampler instructions. Foch 
 knew the general situation well, it was a simple one, 
 and the difficulties of execution could only be dis- 
 covered upon the field of action itself. There only 
 can the problems of war be stated and solved. 
 
 He left Chalons at ten in the evening, and at 
 four o'clock the next morning he was at Breteauil 
 with General de Castelnau. A heavy cannonade 
 was in progress, dispatches were arriving every five 
 minutes that the 5th and 6th Divisions and the 4th 
 Army Corps were supporting a very severe struggle 
 against the iyth Active German Corps, the iyth 
 Reserve German Corps, the 2ist German Corps, and 
 the ist Bavarian Corps. The moral of the troops 
 was excellent; reinforcements were expected; the 
 Paris road was well defended. Moreover, the enemy 
 was passing his reserves northward. His real object 
 was to pin down our disposable forces in a position 
 covering Paris rather than to break our line. What 
 he really had in mind was our left flank. 
 
 The two Generals held their discussion on the 
 situation as they took their coffee. At six o'clock 
 in the morning General Foch took a warm farewell 
 of the man who had been his commander of yesterday 
 and was to-day commanded by him. Then, as he 
 followed the road to Saint Pol, his motor-car ran 
 along and behind the whole length of the battle,
 
 28 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 the great rumour of which stretched out indefinitely 
 northward. By nine o'clock in the morning he had 
 reached Aubigny, where General de Maud'huy had 
 taken up his post of command. Here, also, the battle 
 was in full blast. The extreme left of our line barely 
 reached the region of Lens. The loth Corps, the 
 loth Cavalry Division, and the 70th Reserve Divi- 
 sion, were holding the violent attack of German 
 battalions which continued to detrain behind this 
 field. Towards Lille, Conneau's Cavalry Corps was 
 alone upon the watch, but as yet there was no enemy 
 in front of it. 
 
 By the next day, the 6th of October, General 
 Foch, having now fully taken his bearings, set up 
 his headquarters at Doullens. For the moment 
 his principal business was to hasten by every means 
 at his disposal the railway and motor traffic and 
 vehicles of every kind, to transport towards the 
 north the troops and material which General Head- 
 quarters were taking from all the rest of the front 
 and pouring ceaselessly towards this end of the line. 
 It was also his task to see to the strength of the wall 
 which was containing the invasion, and to hold him- 
 self ready to close immediately any breach which 
 might appear in that wall. 
 
 Simple as such a general conception was, its 
 execution became very difficult from the fact that 
 Marshal French had asked that the British Army 
 should be brought nearer its base and transported 
 to the region of Lille. Instead of French troops, 
 four British Army Corps were thus to prolong the 
 left of our line. 
 
 General Foch, who had formerly been at the head 
 of a Military Mission in London, knew the English 
 well. He knew that their forces, heroic in courage 
 and highly tenacious, were as yet ill adapted to 
 the necessities of action under heavy strain, where 
 rapidity of movement is an essential condition of
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 29 
 
 success. Further, how would the British Staff, 
 which had hitherto no experience in such things, 
 solve the peculiar problem of rapid transport? 
 Would there not also arise in the exercise of a com- 
 mand, the exact limits of which were ill-defined, no 
 actual friction, perhaps, but misunderstandings, and 
 therefore delays? 
 
 In spite of these considerations the British began 
 to detrain on the gth of October, and our cavalry 
 which was covering them had not yet given evidence 
 of the presence of any Germans before it. 
 
 But it was precisely upon that day that there took 
 place an event of considerable importance, the 
 approach of which had been envisaged for some time. 
 
 Antwerp, the enormous fortress which was the 
 keep of the Belgian defence, fell under the ly-inch 
 shells of the enemy. 
 
 The German Command having committed the 
 error of launching the attack at the very first 
 moment without having previously made certain 
 the complete containment of the place, especially 
 on the left bank of the Scheldt, the Belgian Army 
 was able to retire, and retreated towards the Yser. 
 To cover this retreat General Foch sent forward by 
 rail, at top speed, from Dunkerque towards Ghent, 
 Admiral Ronarch's brigade of marine fusiliers. 
 When its task was accomplished this brigade fell 
 back upon Dixmude, where it had to serve as a 
 support for the right of the Belgian Army, which was 
 to fall back behind the Yser. 
 
 Two of our Territorial Divisions were at this 
 moment rapidly digging trenches round Ypres. 
 This point of resistance was to be occupied by an 
 English division, which had been sent too late to 
 the relief of Antwerp, and which was at Ostend, 
 where it had just disembarked. When the English 
 reached Ypres these two French Territorial Divisions, 
 with certain other Anglo-French elements, leaned
 
 30 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 to the north, to help the Belgian Army defend the 
 sector Ypres-Dixmude. But from the south of 
 Ypres, all the way to La Bassee, there opened a 
 breach of -some 30,000 yards, utterly unprovided 
 with troops, and only watched by our cavalry 
 patrols. Should the German army released by the 
 fall of Antwerp present itself on that side the 
 situation might become difficult. 
 
 Happily for us, the German Higher Command, 
 doubtless uninformed about the exact situation in 
 front of Lille, full of contempt for the Belgian Army 
 and making certain of its complete destruction, 
 took for its objective the front of the Yser, now 
 solidly occupied between Dixmude and the sea. 
 
 The charge was delivered on the I3th of October. 
 The I2th, I3th and I5th German Corps and their 
 I7th Corps of Reserve drove on in deep columns, 
 singing the " Deutschland iiber Alles," confident of 
 a victory without combat. These units were of 
 recent formation, recruited from the younger men 
 the choice, indeed, of the Prussian youth, but know- 
 ing nothing of war and barely efficient as yet in 
 mere drill. They were, none the less, filled with all 
 the illusions of the pan-German. 
 
 The result was a fearful massacre, which was 
 renewed day after day without respite on the i6th, 
 lyth, i8th and igth of October. At every point 
 the Belgian Army, supported by certain French 
 elements, held good under the bombardment of the 
 heavy artillery, and the bloody sacrifice of the 
 German Army achieved not the slightest advantage. 
 At the same moment, and with equally ill success, 
 the i gth Corps assaulted the sector of Ypres after a 
 violent bombardment, and broke in its turn against 
 the unshakable resistance of the British troops. 
 
 Now while this battle was in full activity towards 
 the north, the weak part of the front was being 
 rapidly garnished. By the I7th of October four
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 31 
 
 British corps had already detrained entirely, and 
 the gap between Ypres and Cambrai was closed to 
 the enemy. 
 
 At this moment the weakest part of the northern 
 front was the sector between Ypres and Dixmude, 
 because the bringing up of the English had caused 
 a delay in our own detraining in this region. But a 
 powerful reinforcement was to arrive here also, 
 under the command of General D'Urbal, who had 
 been appointed upon the 2oth of October. Upon 
 the 22nd of October the gth Corps, upon the ist of 
 November the i6th and the 32nd, arrived. Day 
 and night trains and motor lorries were passing up 
 north behind the line of fire and were discharging 
 upon the points chosen by General Foch their 
 precious loads of energy, while in front of the move- 
 ment the cannon thundered and shook the soil, 
 and whole villages disappeared under the heavy 
 shelling. 
 
 The officers of the staff who served under the 
 orders of General Foch during this period are 
 unanimous in declaring that it was his talent and 
 his will which achieved all, and his activity which 
 animated all. Incredible difficulties kept on present- 
 ing themselves and were overcome, one hardly knew 
 how. Was heavy artillery needed at a certain 
 point ? It was found and brought thither. Was a 
 battalion needed here, a brigade there? That 
 battalion and that brigade came to the desired point 
 at the desired moment. Units detrained in the night 
 were sent forward on lorries, re-entrained without 
 one's knowing how they would arrive, or whether 
 they had been fed. They came and were there at 
 the designated point to check the enemy. Parallel 
 with this crushing task, the General had another 
 task to fulfil, which was perhaps more difficult. He 
 had to keep up the moral of our allies, upon whom 
 the weakness of our means of defence was making
 
 32 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 as strong an impression as the strength and deter- 
 mination of the enemy. 
 
 On the 2oth of October, in the night between the 
 2oth and the 2ist, and during the 2ist, we passed 
 those long hours of anguish when Dixmude was 
 crushed with shell and when the Germans, whose 
 effectives were perpetually reinforced, pressed with 
 greater fury than ever upon the Belgian lines and 
 ended by bending them. Keyem and Beerst were 
 carried by the enemy; the Belgian Army had put 
 in its last reserves; it was exhausted and short of 
 munitions. The line of the Yser was on the point 
 of being forced, and the General Staff had begun to 
 envisage the execution of a retreat on Dunkerque. 
 That would have spelt disaster. 
 
 Foch learnt of this by telephone and came up 
 at once. He happened to arrive in the midst of a 
 council of war in which our brave allies, upon the 
 point of despair, were discussing the last dispositions 
 to be taken. 
 
 He did no more than indicate a line to which 
 the forces might fall back and then suggested the 
 idea of flooding the country. 
 
 Inundation had saved Holland at another period 
 of history ; it might well save Belgium. No one had 
 thought of it. Now it was determined to hold on as 
 best could be done until the country should be 
 flooded. Moreover, at this moment the 42nd Divi- 
 sion, that which we have already seen upon the 
 marshes of Saint Gond, appeared. It counter- 
 attacked, and again fixed the German line. The 
 General, to show his fixed determination to force a 
 victory here, took up his headquarters on the 24th 
 of October as far forward northward as Cassel. 
 
 On the 28th the plain to the east of the Yser, the 
 German trenches and batteries, and the whole land- 
 scape began to disappear under a sheet of water. 
 The enemy would be bound to retire, but before
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 33 
 
 doing so he was to make one supreme effort against 
 this army, which he felt to be at the end of its 
 strength, and whose ruin would give him the coast 
 which he so ardently desired. On the 3oth he 
 attacked in deep columns against the Belgian centre, 
 after a heavy artillery bombardment. 
 
 Ramscappelle was carried, the centre was pierced, 
 the German victory seemed assured. But the 42nd 
 Division was still there, and by a brilliant bayonet 
 charge it mastered the scattered and reduced columns 
 of the enemy, which fell back, this time never to 
 return. The German retreat was conducted through 
 water. Its heavy guns were caught in the mud and 
 lost. It even found difficulty in dragging its field- 
 pieces with it through the slime. The Belgian Army 
 was saved. 
 
 On this same soth of October the British ist Corps 
 was violently attacked in front of Dixmude by 
 considerable enemy effectives. Under the crushing 
 preparation of the German heavy artillery and 
 flooded by the mass of the attack, it weakened. 
 But were it to retreat the flank of our own gth Corps 
 would be exposed. 
 
 General Dubois sent in aid of our allies the feeble 
 resources at his disposal, and himself asked for 
 reinforcements. Foch went immediately to Saint 
 Omer, where Marshal French had his headquarters. 
 It was one o'clock in the morning and the Marshal 
 had just gone to bed. He was awakened, and 
 General Foch said to him 
 
 ' Monsieur le Marechal, your line is pierced." 
 
 ' Yes," was the answer. 
 
 ' Have you any forces disponible at the moment ?" 
 
 ' I have not." 
 
 ' I bring you mine. General Joffre has sent me 
 eight battalions. Take them and go forward." 
 
 The Field Marshal took the hand of General Foch 
 with some emotion and thanked him, and with dawn 
 D
 
 34 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 the struggle began again, supported by this new 
 blood. 
 
 On that same day, the 3ist of October, the enemy, 
 thanks to his crushing numerical superiority, carried 
 Gheluvelt and threatened Hooge. At two o'clock 
 in the afternoon the last English reserves, decimated 
 and exhausted, began to yield, and it looked like 
 the end. 
 
 General Dubois, whose army corps would have 
 been involved in the disaster, came up to Vlamer- 
 tinghe, the post of command of General D'Urbal. 
 General Foch was there. The situation was terrible, 
 but clear. It was essential to hold out twenty-four 
 hours, the time necessary for the i6th and 32nd 
 Corps to arrive and detrain. 
 
 By a providential piece of luck the motor-car of 
 Marshal French passed at the moment of this meet- 
 ing, and an officer of the General Staff, Major Jamet, 
 ran forward towards him. The Marshal, hearing 
 that General Foch was present, agreed to stop. 
 
 But now he was without hope. His last reserves 
 had melted away in the furnace of the battle, his 
 divisions were quite worn out, decimated and 
 shaken. They were no longer capable of any pro- 
 longed resistance, there was nothing left but to die. 
 
 Foch replied, " No, Monsieur le Marechal. The 
 first thing of all to do is to hold out at all costs. 
 Dying can come afterwards. Hold out till this 
 evening. I will come to your aid." 
 
 Even as he spoke, since the Marshal was not 
 fully familiar with French, the General wrote on 
 the back of the order of retreat which the British 
 Staff had drawn up what should be done in order 
 to prolong the resistance. He presented these notes 
 to the Marshal, but the latter was not yet convinced. 
 Foch continued, " If Wellington's infantry will no 
 longer hold, to-day, entrenched, my lads will have 
 to go." Marshal French replied that it would hold,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 35 
 
 and taking his order to retreat, he crossed it out, 
 turned it, and wrote at the foot of Foch's notes 
 these few words, which he signed : " Execute the 
 order of General Foch." For the rest, the day was 
 not over before a French brigade came up in line 
 and helped to check the progress of the enemy. 
 
 It was thus at every point in the line. The un- 
 shakable will, the faith of the General, communi- 
 cated to all, roused courage and multiplied energy, 
 while his clear and sure grasp of a situation and his 
 gift of discovery warded off danger at the moment 
 when all seemed lost. Every one felt, as it were, that 
 his reserves sprang from the earth at the very moment 
 and place where their intervention was indispensable. 
 
 On the ist of November the ist Bavarian Corps 
 captured Messines. Immediately a detachment of 
 cavalry and artillery was formed, under General 
 Mazel, and was brought up. On the 2nd of Novem- 
 ber a battle was engaged between Dixmude and the 
 River Lys, for the Germans were ending their task 
 at the point where they should have begun it. From 
 that date up to the I5th of November they struck 
 against a wall now strong enough not to be shaken 
 by their battering-ram. They launched in dense 
 columns their 2nd, the I3th, the I5th and the iyth 
 Corps, a Bavarian Corps, and a division of the Guard. 
 
 On the 3rd came the furious attack on Ypres. 
 The French 20th Army Corps was brought up in 
 lorries, and the assault was checked. 
 
 The following week was a week of butchery. The 
 savage struggle ceased neither day nor night. The 
 Marines, the 8th and gth Territorial Divisions, cer- 
 tain units of cavalry and of cyclists, the 32nd Corps, 
 recently detrained, contested violently and under 
 the most difficult conditions, with the I2th and I3th 
 German Reserve Corps, for the possession of Dixmude, 
 the Chateau of Woumen, Merckem and Bixchoote. 
 
 Dixmude had been captured from our Marines
 
 36 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 by the enemy as early as the ist of November at a 
 very heavy loss. At the same time Bixchoote was 
 carried ; and the salient of Ypres, in front of which 
 our i6th Corps was holding the 26th German Corps, 
 was on the point of being taken in reverse. But 
 Foch was on his guard. Napoleon made war with 
 the legs of his soldiers ; here the genius for manoeuvre 
 used with equal ease the rapid means of transport 
 at his disposal, and the 22nd Brigade, one of the 
 Brigades of the famous " Division of Iron," was on 
 the spot with two cavalry corps; and the enemy, 
 having missed his victory once more, fell back. 
 
 That was the end. Their wild efforts had cost 
 the Germans 300,000 men. Those efforts could not 
 'be renewed. 
 
 General Foch knew well that his victory was a 
 purely negative one. Victory in the full sense of 
 the word demands the destruction of the enemy by 
 a violent pursuit. But the effectives at his disposal 
 were far too inferior to those of his adversary, and, 
 above all, he had too little heavy artillery with which 
 to reply to the big pieces of the enemy. 
 
 It was a negative victory, but a victory none the 
 less, and a great one. In spite of a formidable 
 deployment of eleven army corps and the admission 
 of incalculable losses, the enemy had proved unable 
 either to outflank us on the left, or to attain Calais, 
 or to pierce our line, though that line had but 
 barely crystallized. General Foch, by his activity, 
 his astonishing grip of a position, his indomitable 
 energy, and his effect upon our allies, had brilliantly 
 and definitely confirmed the results of the first 
 victory which had checked the enemy at the Marne. 
 
 (d) The Artois and the Somme 
 
 Hardly had the last cannon shots on the Yser 
 died down when the situation on the whole of our
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 37 
 
 front was profoundly modified. The enemy, who 
 had by this time made up his mind to turn his main 
 effort against Russia, went to earth in Flanders 
 and in the Artois, as he had already gone to earth 
 in the Somme, Champagne, the Argonne and 
 Lorraine. 
 
 His numerical superiority being still beyond ques- 
 tion and his material incomparably more powerful 
 than our own, we also had to entrench to guard 
 against a new push and to be able to recreate our 
 forces with some sort of security in view of a renewal 
 of the offensive. The winter of 1914-15 was, there- 
 fore, a period of intense but ungrateful labour for 
 General Foch and his staffs, which labour had for 
 its object the transport and accumulation of material 
 upon the scale of which no one in the past had had 
 any conception. An incredible number of trains cease- 
 lessly followed each other upon the tracks, carrying 
 mountains of building material (corrugated iron, 
 armoured plates, rolls of wire, both smooth and 
 barbed, and piquets of wood) ; of military material 
 (guns of all calibres by the thousand, pyramids of 
 shell and munitions of every kind, of which the last 
 operations had shown how necessary it was to con- 
 sume very great quantities, and navvying and 
 entrenching tools by the million). Finally, there 
 was the necessity for special provisionment in food 
 and clothing and coal, due to the winter season 
 which had already begun. 
 
 It was also a period of extreme strain for the 
 troops, who had to dig night and day at their 
 trenches in the frozen mud, often with water up to 
 their knees, and in despite of the weather and of the 
 enemy's heavy artillery, which often destroyed in a 
 few minutes the intensive labour of several days. 
 
 There were also not a few sharp engagements, 
 of which the object was to hold the enemy upon our 
 front in order to prevent him sending as manyjmen
 
 38 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 as he would against our Russian allies, and to keep 
 up among our own troops the " bite " and offensive 
 spirit which are indispensable to active operations. 
 The names of these episodes are St. George, the Ferry- 
 man's House, the Kortekar Inn, Dixmude and Ypres 
 again, Vermelles, Carency, Andechy. These were 
 our feats of arms in November and December 1914. 
 
 Our British allies took for their part their full 
 share of these struggles, under the personal in- 
 fluence of General Foch and in spite of the insuffi- 
 ciency of the means as yet at their disposal. On the 
 26th of January, 1915, they engaged in a glorious 
 struggle at Givenchy, and on the loth of March 
 they carried Neuve Chapelle. 
 
 None the less, the inferiority of our material 
 means was such that these winter operations were 
 unable to prevent the enemy, confidently relying 
 upon the inviolability of his defensive organization, 
 from taking 150,000 men from the Western front 
 and inflicting a grave defeat upon the Russian Army 
 in the region of the Masurian Lakes. 
 
 But by the spring the results of our labour became 
 appreciable, and when the Russian Higher Command 
 let us know that it was about to undertake an offen- 
 sive in Galicia we were nearly ready to support it 
 efficiently, and General Foch was able to consider 
 the organization of an attack in the Artois. He 
 transported his headquarters from Cassel to Prevent, 
 on the road between Saint Pol and Doullens, in order 
 to be in the centre of his theatre of operations ; for 
 he had decided to take as his objective the last 
 bastions of the Artois hills which separate Arras 
 from the plains of the north. Beyond this barrier 
 lay Lens, with its mines and its junction of rail- 
 ways, and beyond also lay Lille and Douai. It was 
 a vital point for the enemy. 
 
 The means put at the disposal of the General were 
 still very inferior. He refused to calculate the
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 39 
 
 breadth of his attacking front on the basis of the 
 number of soldiers he could put into line. He would 
 only accept as the foundation of his estimate the 
 number of heavy pieces which he was given. Now 
 of these very large guns, in spite of all the efforts 
 that had been made, we still had few, while the 
 enemy had many, and in order to obtain that 
 superiority of artillery fire which the General thought 
 necessary for victory the zone of attack had to be 
 very restricted. He therefore prepared to attack 
 upon a front of only 10,000 yards, between Neuville- 
 Saint-Vaast and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. 
 
 On the Qth of May a formidable artillery prepara- 
 tion destroyed the powerful defensive organizations 
 of the enemy and opened the way to our waves of 
 attack. The Germans concentrated their defensive 
 on a number of strongly organized supporting points : 
 Ablain-Saint-Nazaire, Carency, La Targette, Neu- 
 ville-Saint-Vaast, and the celebrated " Labyrinth," 
 which was a complicated network of trenches, 
 cemented dug-outs and lines of barbed wire. In 
 spite of the constant aid of the artillery which 
 delivered several hundred thousand shells a day, 
 and of which the fire was minutely controlled by 
 our airmen, the progress across these underground 
 works and open fields, where every obstacle hid 
 some trap, was very slow. On the iQth of June the 
 objectives first assigned by General Foch were 
 reached. We were the masters of Neuville-Saint- 
 Vaast, of the " Labyrinth," of Carency, of Souchez, 
 and of the spur of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. On the 
 10,000 yards front of the attack we had advanced 
 3000 yards, we had captured 8000 prisoners and a 
 score of cannon, and had held sixteen German 
 divisions for a space of two months. 
 
 It was a victory. But in spite of all the science, 
 all the efforts and all the heroism laid out upon it, 
 it had no decisive character. It had flattened out
 
 40 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 a salient in the German line, but the door thus 
 opened was too narrow to take effectives through 
 in sufficient number : the forces advancing through 
 it would very soon have been caught in reverse if 
 they had ventured into the plain beyond. But this 
 fine military episode had yielded lessons of high 
 value. In the first place, it was now clear that local 
 offensives on a narrow scale were powerless to pro- 
 cure victory. In order to obtain an appreciable 
 result it would be necessary to give a greater develop- 
 ment to the front of attack; and since the breadth 
 of the sector of attack is a function in terms of the 
 heavy guns one can put into line, it was obviously 
 necessary to intensify yet further the manufacture 
 of material and munitions. 
 
 Further, it was essential not to leave the enemy 
 free to use his reserves as he would. Thanks to his 
 central position, he could always be superior to his 
 assailant in any given place, whence the necessity 
 of bringing about important offensives simultane- 
 ously upon all fronts, through obtaining from our 
 allies an intensification of their effort, at any rate, 
 even if we had to wait for the power of attaining 
 unity of command over the war. 
 
 On the 7th of July the first reunion at Chantilly 
 brought together at French headquarters representa- 
 tives of all the armies of the Entente, under the 
 presidency of General Joffre. A decision was taken 
 to attempt offensives in which the English and 
 Belgian Armies should join upon the Western front 
 in order to relieve the Russian front. These offen- 
 sives were delivered upon the 25th of September in 
 Champagne and in the Artois. The Champagne 
 front had been weakened by the enemy, to the 
 advantage of his Russian front. The Germans 
 suffered a defeat there which cost them 20,000 
 prisoners, and might have been decisive had we had 
 more material.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 41 
 
 In the Artois the attack was delivered on much the 
 same ground as that of May, and with the same 
 objectives : the last bastions of the hills of the 
 Artois, which we already held, Notre-Dame-de- 
 Lorette, which dominates the plain of Lens. The 
 enemy's Higher Command was perhaps preparing 
 an offensive in this region, for enemy reserves had 
 already accumulated there, with superior material 
 to ours, and after the first success gained by our 
 troops at Souchez, and by the British at Loos and 
 Hulluch, we were compelled to halt by the powerful 
 counter-attacks and the formidable array of heavy 
 artillery on the enemy's side. Thanks, however, 
 to the exact co-ordination of our efforts, the object 
 aimed at was attained on this occasion ; the German 
 offensive launched against Russia was checked, 
 and the situation of our allies in Galicia was 
 re-established. 
 
 These operations, small as were their results, had 
 proved that it was possible to co-ordinate the efforts 
 of ah 1 the allies effectively. To mould opinion in this 
 direction the French Government took an initia- 
 tive : on the 2nd of December General Joffre was 
 made Generalissimo of the French Armies in all the 
 theatres of war, and General de Castelnau the Chief 
 of his General Staff. This measure strengthened the 
 character of the French Command, but did not 
 produce upon our allies the effect it was expected 
 to do. The conclusions of the further meetings 
 which took place at Chantilly on the 6th, 7th and 
 8th of December, the object of which was to lay 
 down a plan for the operations of 1916, remained 
 rather vague. There was some question of a general 
 offensive to be launched on all fronts as soon as that 
 was possible, and meanwhile a local offensive under- 
 taken mainly by the British, Italian and Russian 
 Armies, which had hitherto suffered less than the 
 French.
 
 42 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The work of examining, studying and preparing 
 the front in view of the projected offensive which 
 General Foch furnished during this disappointing 
 period cannot be analyzed here. Later we shall 
 see the result of these studies, and we shall see how 
 the General found means, when his hour had come, 
 to apply the Napoleonic art, compact of energy and 
 grasp, in spite of the momentary triumph of mere 
 material strength. 
 
 In execution of the conclusions come to at Chan- 
 tilly, the preparations of the Entente made active 
 progress. The British effort was intensified, some 
 Russian units, even, appeared upon the Western 
 front. By reducing its effectives in line the Higher 
 French Command built up a " mass of manoeuvre " 
 of thirty-seven Divisions. 
 
 At the end of the inter-allied discussions the 
 Somme was chosen as the theatre for the great 
 offensive envisaged. General Foch, who had moved 
 his headquarters to Dury in September, had long 
 been preparing that offensive in all its details. 
 Forty French and twenty British divisions were to 
 be put at his disposal. His plan of attack was 
 approved on the I4th of February, 1916. The 
 offensive was to be delivered to the north and to 
 the south of the Somme river on a front of 25,000 
 yards, between Chaulnes and Gomecourt. Nothing 
 remained to be settled by the Higher Command 
 but the date of the attack. That date was to 
 coincide with Russian and Italian offensives, and 
 with the recall from Egypt of certain British 
 troops. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the 2ist of February, the Germans 
 struck against Verdun with very formidable appa- 
 ratus, and in five days ruined all the northern 
 defences of that entrenched camp. In the following 
 days they developed and intensified to the last 
 degree of energy their offensive upon this sector,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 43 
 
 and with every passing day it appeared more and 
 more clearly as a decisive operation. 
 
 A new conference between the Allies, which met 
 on the 1 2th of March, decided that it was necessary 
 to hasten the execution of the offensives already 
 settled in order to relieve Verdun. Hence, the 
 Russian Army was to be ready to attack by the 
 I5th of May, the Anglo-French and the Italians 
 by the ist of June. 
 
 But Verdun gradually absorbed all our reserves. 
 On the I5th of April General Foch was warned that 
 instead of the forty French divisions promised 
 him for his battle he could no longer count on more 
 than thirty. On the I5th of May we could only 
 allow him twenty-six. Happily, British reinforce- 
 ments had already arrived, and when the time came 
 the General was able to dispose of twenty-six 
 English divisions instead of twenty. 
 
 On the ist of June our allies were not ready, and 
 the operation was postponed until the 2Qth. For 
 Verdun could still hold in spite of all the efforts of 
 the German Army. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Higher Italian Command, finding 
 itself menaced by an Austrian offensive which it 
 doubted its power to check, asked Russia to under- 
 take an offensive on her side for its relief. The 
 battle which was still raging at Verdun now awoke 
 at once on the Russian and the Italian fronts. It 
 was a unique occasion for realizing by a great 
 offensive on the Somme the maximum co-ordination 
 of effort which had yet been obtained in the course 
 of this war. 
 
 On the ist of July, after a terrible bombardment 
 which flattened out the German trenches, a vigorous 
 attack was launched between Frise and Estrees, 
 facing Peronne, on a front of 6000 yards. At the 
 first bound the enemy's first positions were carried 
 and our soldiers brought back 5000 prisoners. The
 
 44 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 effort continued throughout the succeeding days, 
 each stage carefully prepared and the whole pro- 
 ceeding h'ke clockwork. On the 2nd of July the 
 second German position was breached by the capture 
 of Frise and Herbecourt. On the 3rd Biscourt, 
 Flaucourt and Assevillers fell, and on the 4th 
 Barleux, Belloy-en-Santerre, and Estres. By the 
 loth the number of prisoners had reached 10,000, 
 seventy-five guns had been taken, and the plain of 
 Peronne was dominated from Briaches, while the 
 important railway junction of Roisel was under 
 our fire at a range of 10,000 yards. 
 
 On the I4th of July, according to the common 
 programme and after a bombardment which had 
 lasted since the nth, the British Army went forward 
 in its turn on a front of 6000 yards. It carried 
 with fine dash Bazentin, Longueval, and the woods 
 Trone and Delville, breaking the resistance of the 
 first and second German lines and capturng 2000 
 prisoners. By the zyth our allies, who were now 
 righting on the third German line, counted as many 
 as n,ooo prisoners. But by this date the Germans 
 had been able to bring up powerful reinforcements, 
 among which were the Prussian Guard. The 
 English lost Delville Wood, and as the Thiepval 
 pivot still held strongly the British offensive could 
 not make progress. Happily, as on the Yser, 
 General Foch was overlooking the execution of his 
 own manoeuvre, and from the 20th of July our troops 
 again took up their attacks, first on a front of 
 3500 yards, to the north of the Somme between 
 Hardaumont and Feuilleres, then to the south of 
 the river, between Barleux and Soyecourt, on a 
 front of 4000 yards. These operations gave us 
 3000 prisoners and pinned down the German 
 reserves. Thus relieved, the British carried Pozieres 
 and drove the enemy out of Delville Wood. 
 
 The results obtained in this month of July had
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 45 
 
 been brilliant, but the consumption of munitions 
 had been so considerable and the field of battle 
 so ploughed up with shell that the operations had 
 to be toned down in the first days of August to 
 permit the re-munitionment of the guns. Moreover, 
 the British Army, whose organization and means 
 were not yet at the full height the war demanded, 
 was fatigued by the efforts already undertaken. 
 Hence the month of August witnessed no important 
 operation save the capture of Maurepas by our 
 troops. 
 
 At the opening of September, the head of munition- 
 ments of all kinds was fairly well re-established, 
 and immediately General Foch undertook a new 
 series of combined offensives, in the directions 
 of Bapaume, Peronne and Nesles. On the 3rd of 
 September, to the south of the Somme, the armies 
 of Fayolle and Micheler carried Berny, Vermande- 
 villers, and Chilly, and took 3000 prisoners. On 
 the 6th they passed Belloy and Chaulnes, and on 
 the 1 2th they conquered Bouchavesnes. 
 
 The English moved in their turn on the I5th. 
 They introduced great armoured cars for attack 
 called " tanks." These machines were invulnerable 
 to rifle fire and made a way for the advance of 
 infantry by crushing the belts of barbed wire, over- 
 throwing low walls, crushing flat the parapets of 
 even the best -made works, and ruining the cemented 
 dug-outs. The enemy's moral was heavily shaken 
 by the apparition of these new engines of war. 
 The Germans lost Ginchy, with 4000 prisoners, 
 and then we pushed back along their whole line 
 between Bouchavesnes and Thiepval, where they 
 left 5000 of their men in the hands of our allies. 
 
 But the bad weather was approaching and making 
 the operations very difficult. Further, these opera- 
 tions were costing in men and in their prodigious 
 quantity of munitions something of which one
 
 46 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 can gather some idea when one considers that in 
 a single day as many rounds were fired by the 
 artillery as in the whole seven months of the war 
 of 1870-71. 
 
 Under these conditions the Higher Command, 
 fearing to exhaust the country and to outstrip the 
 rate of production possible to our munition factories, 
 ordered the cessation of these operations on a large 
 scale. We contented ourselves, therefore, during 
 the months of October and November, with com- 
 pleting the results already obtained and rendering 
 them secure by the occupation of important points 
 such as Ablaincourt, Saillisel and Pressoire, and 
 with taking posts of observation for the artillery 
 such as Sailly, from which the enemy had been 
 able to overlook our lines and could have rendered 
 our rest-billets untenable in the course of the winter. 
 
 From this moment, the opening of October, 
 though the tactical results of the battle of the Somme 
 were yet to be completed, the strategical results 
 were definitely acquired and were very brilliant. 
 Forty German divisions had melted away on those 
 fields of carnage which have been called the shambles 
 of Europe, and as a consequence the Germans had 
 been compelled to give up their attacks on Verdun. 
 The German Crown Prince had hoped to found his 
 reputation as a General upon the capture of the 
 great French fortress. General Falkenhayn, the 
 Chief of the German General Staff, was rendered 
 responsible for the defeat, dismissed on the 5th 
 of September, and replaced by Marshal Hindenburg. 
 On the other fronts, the Russian offensive, in the 
 absence of German reserves, went forward again 
 in the Carpathians; the Italian offensive was 
 victorious in the region of Gorizia. Finally, 
 Rumania, judging definitive victory to be approach- 
 ing, decided on the i8th of August to enter the 
 coalition. These European events, which were
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 47 
 
 due in great part to the vigorous operation upon 
 the Somme and hence to the intensity in attack, 
 the offensive spirit and the activity of General Foch, 
 it would have been impolitic to emphasize at the 
 time, though they were far more important than 
 the capture of twenty-five ruined villages, 35,000 
 prisoners, and 150 German guns, the booty which 
 an order of the day on the 25th of September laid 
 down to the credit side of the group of armies of 
 the north. 
 
 The Council of the Entente. The age limit of 
 service had been reached by General Foch on the 
 3oth of September, 1916; but under the present 
 circumstances it was thought that his services 
 were still too necessary to France for the active 
 and vigorous victor of Saint Gond, of the Yser, the 
 Artois, and the Somme, to be lost in a final retire- 
 ment. This law, which had sacrificed so many 
 eminent chiefs, was modified in his favour. He 
 was accorded the Military Medal, and was maintained 
 upon the active list. 
 
 Yet this was the period when the Government, 
 with the idea of giving more vigour to the conduct 
 of the war, began rejuvenating the Higher Command. 
 General Joffre's position had become doubtful; 
 Generals Foch arid Castelnau were thought too old 
 to conduct operations, and General Foch in par- 
 ticular, who was believed to be in ill-health, was 
 especially aimed at. 
 
 The Generalissimo strongly refused to be separated 
 from a colleague who was so indispensable to him, 
 and discovered a happy means of using to the 
 highest advantage of the country (now that the 
 war was at low pressure in the north) that colleague's 
 power of work and lucidity of intelligence and wide 
 sweep of erudition. On the I3th of December, 1916, 
 he persuaded the Government to create at Senlis 
 a bureau for the study of the principal Inter- Allied
 
 48 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 questions, and gave the direction of this new organ 
 to General Foch. 
 
 This institution corresponded to what had become 
 an urgent necessity of this moment. 
 
 The Generalissimo, heavily burdened by the 
 duty of directing operations on the Western front, 
 could not possibly follow, with all the attention 
 they required, the grave events of which the whole 
 world was the theatre. There was the crushing 
 of Rumania, which had allowed the central empires 
 to break through the blockade which was stifling 
 them and to re-victual themselves. It also per- 
 mitted them to reduce their eastern front con- 
 siderably, and put all the Bulgarian Army at their 
 disposal for an attack on Salonika. There was 
 the revolution which was now rising in Russia and 
 was every day weakening the armies of our allies 
 and giving Germany a greater liberty of action. 
 
 On what point would the mass of enemy effectives 
 thus rendered disponible be directed? Would it 
 be upon Salonika, or upon the Italian front or 
 upon the French? Here was a question which it 
 was of vital importance to grasp, without mention- 
 ing the domestic affairs of the Near East, of Italy, 
 or even of Germany itself, where on the I2th of 
 December the Chancellor had read from the Tribune 
 of the Reichstag proposals for a " German Peace " 
 which he thought he could find means to get accepted 
 by the Entente. 
 
 General Foch only stayed a few days at Senlis. 
 In the immense complexity of the problems he 
 had to solve his lucid mind had rapidly fixed the 
 precise point on which it was necessary to concentrate 
 at the outset. 
 
 In his view there was the one principal theatre 
 of operations on which the most vital and immediate 
 interests were at stake, and victory upon which 
 would solve all other problems. The other theatres,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 49 
 
 whatever their more or less distant interest might 
 be, were secondary. The principal theatre was 
 the Western front, from the North Sea to the 
 Adriatic. It was there that we must prepare to 
 receive the shock of the new German masses and 
 there that we must conquer. 
 
 If the shock should take place in France, there had 
 already been done what was necessary, so far as the 
 means at our disposal allowed, for parrying it. If 
 it took place on the Italian front, the possibility of 
 sending aid to our allies had long been envisaged; 
 it was a question of transport, the study of which 
 had already been carried far. 
 
 There remained (what had not yet been envisaged) 
 the possibility of an outflanking movement by way 
 of Switzerland. Germany had already violated the 
 neutrality of Belgium in the hopes of thus obtaining 
 victory. She. would do the same by Switzerland 
 if she could see a military advantage in that act. 
 Consequently, it was the problem of the defence of 
 Switzerland which imposed itself with the greatest 
 urgency at this moment. 
 
 General Foch went to Mirecourt with the nominal 
 title of " General in Command of the Foch Group," 
 and set to work, actively supported by General 
 Weygand. By the month of March 1917 his task 
 was completely achieved. A plan of operations had 
 been elaborated in full accord with the Swiss General 
 Staff, the battle had been prepared down to its last 
 details ; it would have been delivered by our three 
 Eastern armies, reposing on their right upon the whole 
 army of the Confederation. 
 
 Having fulfilled this important mission, General 
 Foch was called on the i5th of May to the post of 
 the Chief of the General Staff of the Army, replacing 
 General Petain, who had received the command of 
 the armies of the north and the north-east. The 
 General took up his quarters in the Invalides, and
 
 50 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 became at the same time the technical counsellor 
 of the Government, which desired to take a greater 
 part in the direction of the war. 
 
 In the month of July 1917 came the complete 
 breakdown of Russian military power. Happily, the 
 United States, in their indignation against the crimes 
 of the Germans, had come in upon our side since the 
 3rd of February ; but though the intervention of the 
 great Republic might guarantee victory for us, we 
 had none the less to accept a very severe winter in 
 the course of which France, England and Italy 
 would have to hold in check, with their unaided 
 resources, the whole military power of the central 
 empires. 
 
 It was not upon Switzerland, it was upon Italy 
 that the thunderbolt fell without so much as the 
 warning of a lightning-flash. On the 22nd of October 
 a formidable battering stroke of the Austrians and 
 Germans on the Izonzo, accompanied by an out- 
 flanking manoeuvre in the Carnic Alps, seemed to be 
 imminent. On the 25th the German communiques 
 made it clear that the Italian Army had been thrust 
 back on the Izonzo with a loss of 30,000 prisoners 
 and 300 guns. On the 26th the figures rose to 
 60,000 prisoners and 500 guns. And serious 
 rumours spoke of over 100,000 prisoners and 700 
 guns. It was a disaster. 
 
 As early as the 26th General Foch had sent a 
 laconic telegram to General Cadorna, saying, " If 
 you need our troops we are ready to march." 
 
 The transport of four French Divisions, which 
 were later followed by two English ones, began on 
 the 28th. It was. effected at the rate of forty trains 
 in the twenty-four hours, so that the first of our 
 elements detrained in the Lombard plain on the 
 ist of November. The command of this French 
 Army of Italy was given to General Duchene, the 
 Commander of the loth Army. He left on the 2gth,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 51 
 
 after having received precise instructions from 
 General Foch. 
 
 The Higher Italian Command, fearing to find its 
 eastern armies taken in reverse by the German 
 offensive coming from the Alps, was inclined to 
 abandon ground and to fall back if necessary as far 
 as the Mincio. Already the Tagliamento had been 
 forced in spite of an abortive resistance. The 
 evacuation of the Livenza line was in process of 
 execution ; while the enemy's propaganda had pro- 
 duced disastrous effects in certain centres of Italian 
 opinion, and the moral of the army was badly shaken. 
 
 Foch hurried to Italy. He persuaded Cadorna 
 that he had not suffered definitive defeat, that the 
 2nd Army alone was attacked, and that the enemy 
 could be checked on the Piave and the Trentino. 
 To achieve that object it would be necessary to have 
 a plan of operations to which everybody should 
 conform, an energetic command on the points to be 
 held, and, behind the lines, a reorganization of the 
 troops and the formation of a mass of manoeuvre. 
 
 The Italian Army, which had rapidly recovered 
 itself, resisted vigorously on the Piave and on the 
 Plateau of Asiago. It was still on the same line in 
 1918 when the hour of its offensive struck. 
 
 Upon these events there was created at Versailles 
 an Inter-Allied Superior Council of War. It was a 
 hesitating but none the less decisive step towards 
 unity of command. The business of this Council 
 was to bring forward and concord the points of view 
 of the various Governments of the Entente and 
 then to give the Generals commanding the various 
 armies the directing ideas necessary to the attain- 
 ment of the common end. It was clearly a place for 
 General Foch, and he was called to represent France 
 and to preside over the decisions of the Council. 
 
 Now the Higher German Command, confident 
 that it had rendered Italy incapable of undertaking
 
 52 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 any offensive operation for a long time to come, had 
 decided to turn all the efforts of the coalition against 
 France. It wanted to make an end once and for all. 
 Germany was beginning to get hungry, and she 
 was exhausted. It was common sense that France 
 ought to be crushed before the American Army, 
 the instruction of which in the camps of the United 
 States was being hastened, should be in a condition 
 to make themselves felt upon the battlefields of 
 Europe. 
 
 On this account the transport of troops and 
 material from the Russian front to the Western, 
 the importance of which had already been noted 
 in November and December 1917, was intensified 
 in February and March 1918. The whole of the 
 neutral Press was filled with the rumour of a powerful 
 German offensive which was being prepared with the 
 greatest secrecy, with consummate art, and would 
 immediately be launched upon the whole Western 
 front with an effect that would be necessarily 
 irresistible. 
 
 On our side, the Air Service and the Intelligence 
 were able to make certain that by the I5th of March 
 the offensive preparation of nearly the whole enemy 
 front was fully completed : 188 of the enemy divi- 
 sions were identified with absolute certainty, of 
 which 109 alone were in the first line, so that one 
 might presume the existence behind the front and 
 at the disposal of the Higher Command of a mass of 
 manoeuvre of more than eighty divisions. It was 
 further discovered that between the Oise and the 
 sea, facing the Anglo-Belgian armies, the German 
 front had been reinforced by thirty divisions. In 
 front of the French Army it had been reinforced by 
 ten divisions. Lastly, two new armies had been 
 created : one the lyth, in the region of Valen- 
 ciennes, under Otto von Below, facing Montreuil; 
 and the other the i8th, in the region of Le Cateau,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 53 
 
 facing Montdidier, under the command of Von 
 Hutier, the victor of Riga and the specialist in 
 sudden attack. 
 
 That part of the front, therefore, which was 
 menaced by an imminent attack on a formidable 
 scale ran from Ypres to La Fere, about 150 kilo- 
 metres. 
 
 There was some temptation to parry this mortal 
 blow by forestalling it with an immediate offensive. 
 But to those who knew what defensive organizations 
 the Germans had erected in French ground such an 
 enterprise could only seem in view of the numerical 
 superiority of the enemy an act of madness. The 
 defensive organization here mentioned consisted of 
 four principal lines. 
 
 FIRST : First there was drawn, following the 
 front more or less exactly, an immense line from 
 the sea to Switzerland, some 10,000 yards broad, 
 formed of trenches which interlaced everywhere and 
 were covered by forests of barbed wire, with ar- 
 moured emplacements for guns and machine-guns, 
 fortified woods and villages, and every perfection 
 of modern science. It was called the Hindenburg 
 Line, and the different sectors of this formidable 
 " Chinese wall " bore names taken from the heroes 
 of the Nibelungen Wotan, Siegfried, Alberik, etc. 
 
 SECOND : A system of two lines, more or less 
 continuous, formed in a crescent shape, the convex 
 side of which was turned towards Paris, and reposing 
 at one end upon the entrenched camp of Lille, which 
 had been powerfully organized, and at the other on 
 the fortified region of Metz and Thionville. 
 
 The first of these lines was marked by Douai, 
 Cambrai, La Fere, Vouziers, Dun-sur-Meuse, Pagny- 
 sur-Moselle from west to east it was called Hunding, 
 Brunhilde, Kriemhilde, and Michel Stellung line. 
 
 The second of these lines branched off from the 
 first towards Douai, was prolonged by Lequesnoy,
 
 54 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 where it became double as far as Hirson. It covered 
 Rocroi, Mezieres, and Sedan, and ended in the 
 entrenched camp of Metz. 
 
 THIRD : The fourth line, also continuous and 
 very solid, was marked by Valenciennes, Maubeuge, 
 Philippe ville and Givet. It covered the valleys of 
 the Sambre and the Meuse, the vital arteries of the 
 German Army, and was destined to afford time, in 
 case of disaster, for the evacuation of Flanders. 
 
 FOURTH : There were intermediary lines, not 
 yet furnished, but capable of rendering good service, 
 which reinforced in certain sectors the principal 
 lines. 
 
 Further, there were complicated organizations 
 called " switches," which united the lines perpen- 
 dicularly one to the other. The role they had to 
 play was that of great decoys which should canalize 
 a victorious enemy offensive and take that offensive 
 in reverse. 
 
 Only Alsace Lorraine seemed neglected. They 
 were protected by nothing more than the Hindenburg 
 Line, a fortified system going from Strasburg to the 
 Donon Mountain, which seemed to have been made 
 in preparation for a shortening of the front and for 
 confining to Upper Alsace the progress of the Allies. 
 
 The total of this defensive system which anchored 
 the invasion into the body of France will thus be 
 seen to be formidable, and in the existing state of 
 our organization and our material means it was 
 impossible to forestall by an offensive the battering 
 blow which threatened us as imminent. 
 
 The terrible chance of this offensive General Foch 
 had foreseen since the month of November, while 
 he was assuring the re-establishment of the situation 
 in Italy by his presence there. From that moment 
 he had emphasized the urgent necessity for develop- 
 ing the strength of our armies and of giving more 
 play to the articulation of our reserves, of creating
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 55 
 
 an Inter-Allied Reserve, and of multiplying the 
 lateral communications in order to render manoeuvre 
 possible. 
 
 All this had been but imperfectly carried out. 
 The Council of Versailles had indeed decided to 
 create an Inter-Allied Reserve, of which General 
 Foch, with the title of " President of the Executive 
 Committee of the Superior Council of War," was 
 eventually to take command; but this decision 
 had not been carried into effect. Nay, the British 
 Government, having to feed its operations in Asia, 
 reduced the effectives of its armies in France by 
 200,000 combatants. Italy could send workmen 
 to our aid, but no soldiers. The little Belgian 
 Army alone was being reinforced and reorganized 
 in twelve divisions on the French model. 
 
 Finally, in their session of the 3rd of March, 
 and in spite of the energetic protests of General 
 Foch, the Council went so far as to decide on an 
 important reduction of the Inter-Allied Reserve 
 and to envisage nothing more than resisting, as 
 well as might be, the German effort, though this 
 threatened to be of the most formidable type ! 
 
 It was indeed of such a type. On the 2ist of 
 March, at nine o'clock in the morning, after a very 
 short but fearful artillery preparation, the forty-two 
 enemy divisions of the lyth, 2nd and i8th German 
 Armies were hurled between La Fere and Fontaine- 
 les-Croisilles against the seventeen British divisions 
 of the 3rd and 5th Armies. At the outset the front 
 began to crack in the region of St. Quentin. On 
 the 22nd of March it gave way on the eighty kilo- 
 metres of the zone attacked. The retirement 
 of the 3rd and 5th British Armies was carried out 
 rapidly up to the 30th of March, on which date it 
 had gone back thirty kilometres to the general 
 line Arras-Moreuil-Albert-Montdidier. Already a 
 wide breach had opened between the right of the
 
 56 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 5th English Army as it retired westward and the 
 left of the 6th French Army, which, in spite of all 
 the activity it put forth, could not stretch its front 
 quickly enough towards Chauny and Noyons to 
 keep contact with our allies. 
 
 The road to Paris lay open; Hutier poured his 
 reserves in there and they advanced as far as the 
 line Montdidier-Noyons, only sixty kilometres from 
 the capital. There was needed this extreme peril 
 and the crushing force of this blow to open men's 
 eyes and to put an end to international jealousies. 
 It was understood at last that the Entente would 
 be definitely defeated if the efforts of all the Allies 
 were . not co-ordinated towards a common end. 
 On the 26th of March, at Doullens, on the pro- 
 position of the British Government, General Foch, 
 though not yet given the supreme command of 
 the Allied Armies, was charged with " co-ordinating 
 the operations of those Armies." It was under 
 this title that he had won the victory of the Yser. 
 Men's ideas developed with surprising rapidity 
 under the growing menace of imminent disaster; 
 every objection dissolved like smoke, and before 
 the montn of March was ended General Foch had 
 been named "Generalissimo of the French, English, 
 American and Belgian Forces fighting upon the 
 Western Front." 
 
 The Entente had now at last a Chief, and the 
 very first cpndition of victory was at last brought 
 into being. L 
 
 THE GENERALISSIMO 
 A. The Defensive. 
 
 The situation was so difficult that a leader of 
 other stuff would probably have despaired of it. 
 All the decisions that had to be taken were handi-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 57 
 
 capped by a double threat from the enemy, the 
 success of either of which would have been decisive. 
 There was the threat to seize the ports of the Channel, 
 the realization of which would have thrown the 
 English Army back on the sea. There was the 
 threat of reaching Paris, the success of which enter- 
 prise might well ruin the moral of the French people 
 and force its Government to make peace. 
 
 There was therefore no free play for the reserves 
 which, moreover, were already insufficient in number. 
 These reserves had to be disposed in such a manner 
 that they could check any serious advance of the 
 Germans towards the coast and any advance at 
 all towards Paris, or at least, any advance on such 
 a scale as to raise anxiety. 
 
 The army of Below was only twelve kilometres 
 from Amiens and held under the fire of its heavy 
 artillery the sole railway line communicating directly 
 with the northern part of the front. It was under 
 these conditions that the army of Hutier made 
 yet another violent thrust on the 3oth of March 
 towards Paris, in a powerful effort at breaking the 
 line. 
 
 The victor of Saint Gond and the Yser he and 
 his much-reduced staff installed at Sarcus, a village 
 lost in the depths of Picardy judged indeed that 
 the situation was very serious, but not to be despaired 
 of, and that strength of will, activity, energy and 
 intelligence would overcome every difficulty. 
 
 To build up reserves, levies were made from all 
 parts of the front not directly menaced. General 
 Pershing nobly put at the disposition of General 
 Foch the as yet small American Army, which by 
 the terms of our treaties was not to have been 
 engaged in the field of battle till much later. The 
 divisions of this Army at once relieved in the quiet 
 sectors war-trained French divisions, which passed 
 to the line of fire. A new group of Franco-British
 
 58 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 armies, constituted under the command of General 
 Fayolle, succeeded in " welding over " the breach 
 in the line which yawned so wide towards Paris, 
 and thanks to prodigies of heroism and very 
 painful sacrifices as well, the liaison between the 
 French and the British was maintained, and stopped 
 Hutier's powerful offensive dead. 
 
 It seemed that the check was definite enough so 
 far as this field was concerned. Of the ninety 
 German divisions fronting us in this region at 
 least eighty-three had been put through the mill 
 and very severely mauled. There was nothing 
 behind to support the assaulting columns. The 
 German offensive was out of breath. It had failed. 
 
 The German Higher Command, therefore, adopted 
 a new and more modest conception suited to its 
 present resources. Paris seemed hardly accessible, 
 and eighty kilometres was too extended a front 
 for its weakened reserves. Amiens was to be the 
 new objective, and the front of attack was to be 
 only forty kilometres. This new effort was made 
 between the 4th and the 8th of April. It was 
 checked, as its predecessor had been, but only 
 after furious fights. The road to Amiens was barred, 
 as had been that to Paris. The German reserves 
 were getting exhausted; more than 100 divisions 
 had already more or less melted in the furnace. 
 
 Hindenburg would not give up. Amiens cannot 
 be reached; his forces no longer have the strength 
 to attack on a front of forty kilometres. Well, then, 
 he determined to strike with twenty divisions on 
 a front of only twenty-five kilometres, between 
 Ypres and La Basse, with the objectives of Calais 
 and Dunkerque; that is, with the intention of 
 throwing back the British line and separating it 
 from the Belgian. 
 
 On the Qth of April a Portuguese division was 
 badly shaken and dragged into its retreat five
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 59 
 
 divisions of the British Army. The enemy crossed 
 the river Lys and pushed forward as far as Mount 
 Kemmel. 
 
 But this methodical displacement of the German 
 objectives more and more to the north had by 
 now for a long time past given General Foch the 
 key of the situation. His alert mind developed 
 its plan with greater swiftness than theirs. Pain- 
 fully and drop by drop, as it were (for the main 
 railway line by Amiens was under the enemy's 
 fire), the French reserves had for a long time past 
 been passed northward, and already a detachment 
 of General de Mitry's army was supporting the 
 British Army. 
 
 The fighting was exceedingly severe. By the 
 end of April the German armies of the north, which 
 had now thrown into the battle at least 150 divisions 
 (of which fifty had been engaged two or three times), 
 which had also suffered very heavy losses, and which 
 were also showing unequivocal signs of moral 
 fatigue, gave up the attack. Unfortunately, the 
 British Army on its side was too exhausted and 
 too reduced in effectives to be able to pass to the 
 offensive. Moreover, the French reserves were 
 weakened, and the weakening of the British Army, 
 also, compelled General Foch to keep portions of 
 his own reserve in the north. Further, the com- 
 munications were still so precarious as to render 
 manoeuvre difficult. The American Army was 
 growing rapidly, it is true, and every day 6000 to 
 8000 men disembarked in our ports. But this 
 number of men were not trained soldiers. Italy 
 on her side declared that she still needed the two 
 French divisions which we had in her territory, 
 and could only send two divisions of her own to 
 our aid. 
 
 To sum up : after this first passage of arms, the 
 Allies only had at the end of the month of May 172
 
 60 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 divisions to oppose to the 212 German divisions 
 by then reconstituted. The Generalissimo did not 
 dispose of the strategic reserve which would have 
 been necessary for victory, and the double threat 
 of the enemy against Paris and against the coast 
 was still in existence. 
 
 Indeed, the threat against Paris was not slow 
 in denning itself. One of the consequences of the 
 " pocket " seized towards Amiens by Hutier's army 
 had been to create, between La Fere and Mont- 
 didier, an offensive base of about forty kilometres, 
 fronting towards Paris, with the river Oise as the 
 axis for an advance. But this foundation for an 
 advance could not be utilized so long as the wooded 
 hills of the region of Compiegne and Villers-Cot- 
 terets remained in the hands of such a master of 
 manoeuvre as General Foch ; for so long as he held 
 them every operation against Paris was menaced 
 on its flank. 
 
 It was necessary, therefore, to get round this 
 region, which was too difficult a one to be cleared 
 by a frontal attack, and in order to get round it 
 the ridge of the Chemin des Dames must be carried. 
 The French Command, which had been obliged 
 to reinforce points where the danger was vital, 
 relied here upon the natural strength of the ground 
 and had put only five divisions in the first line for 
 the whole forty kilometres between Anizy-le-Chateau 
 and Berry-au-Bac, with four divisions in reserve. 
 
 On the 27th of May twenty-two German divisions 
 sprang to the assault of these positions, swept away 
 the forces defending them, and on the second day, 
 advancing twelve kilometres, reached the banks of 
 the Vesle. On the 2gth of May the enemy had 
 carried Soissons; on the 3ist he forced the passage 
 of the Ailette river; and on the ist of June he 
 entered Chateau-Thierry and stood upon the banks 
 of the Marne from that town up as far as Dormans.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 61 
 
 Henceforward the enemy was in possession of a 
 second base of operations, between Soissons and 
 Chateau -Thierry, which aimed at Paris with the 
 river Marne as the axis for an advance. The 
 capital stands at the centre of a circumference 
 with a radius of sixty kilometres, from which 
 circumference the German waves of attack, cease- 
 lessly renewed, now broke against the hill-forests 
 of Laigle, Compiegne and Villers-Cottere'ts, which 
 our troops heroically defended. Guns of a power 
 hitherto unknown were further delivering upon 
 Paris their daily tons of explosives, which blew 
 in the walls of churches, destroyed manufactories 
 and private houses, opened great craters in the 
 streets, and killed numerous victims, including 
 women and children. It was a knell that the 
 German Higher Command was ringing for France, 
 and an advertisement to the world of what a German 
 victory would mean. 
 
 But France, under the energetic direction of M. 
 Clemenceau, remained firm, and kept full confidence 
 in those iron men to whom she had entrusted her 
 destinies. As for General Foch, never was his faith 
 more ardent, nor his mind calmer or more clear, nor 
 his vision less troubled. 
 
 The fall of Chateau-Thierry, since it cut the 
 railway between Paris and Nancy, imposed fresh 
 delays upon the communications between eastern 
 and western parts of the front. Our reserves could 
 now only move much more slowly. Our troops 
 had therefore for some time longer to hold out where 
 they stood, at the price of sacrifices in men and 
 ground which were occasionally bitter indeed. But 
 things were destined to come right. A sufficient 
 display of activity and of thought brought up 
 reserves before the enemy could finally triumph 
 over the resistance of the poilus, and it was clear 
 at last that we should emerge from the struggle
 
 62 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 victorious. Every one by this time saw and felt 
 this. 
 
 But what General Foch told no one was that he 
 had divined an error the enemy would make, and 
 was at that moment massing reserves in the woods 
 of Villers-Cotterets, from which point he foresaw 
 that there would be a possibility, in no long delay, 
 of attempting a manoeuvre upon interior lines against 
 one of the two branches of the German pincers, 
 or against their centre. Troops were brought up 
 from the east, the centre, and even from the north. 
 American divisions which had barely achieved their 
 training assured the defence of considerable sectors, 
 while, from the 2nd to the I5th of June, our troops 
 resisted formidable attacks directed first against 
 Rheims, then against Compiegne, and finally against 
 the forest of Villers-Cottere'ts itself. 
 
 At the end of this violent fighting Hindenburg 
 had at his disposal to act as a mass of manoeuvre 
 no more than three fresh divisions and thirty more 
 or less tired ones. 
 
 B. The Decisive Counter-Offensive 
 
 A calm succeeded to this tempest. The energy 
 of the enemy was for the moment exhausted, and 
 General Foch used the interval to build up his mass 
 of manoeuvre in the region of Compiegne. 
 
 The " pocket " of Chateau -Thierry was clearly 
 the weak point of the German decision, for Rheims, 
 having held out against every attack, the enemy had 
 no convenient railway at his command by which 
 to feed the battle with men and munitions. It 
 was therefore here that Foch designed to strike on 
 the i8th of July, and he prepared against that date 
 an offensive on a large scale, facing eastward, on 
 the forty-kilometre front between the river Aisne 
 and Belloy. 
 
 Our Air Service had given us warning during the
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 63 
 
 first fortnight of July of a novel enemy activity in 
 the woods north of Dormans. The Germans were 
 gathering in this region men and heavy guns and 
 munitions, and the pontoons necessary for the 
 crossing of the Marne. They were evidently pre- 
 paring a new and formidable push towards Paris, 
 across and southward of that river. They knew 
 that this region was deprived of natural defences 
 and was very lightly held. The Generalissimo, when 
 he received information of these enemy dispositions, 
 refused to change his own in any point. Above all 
 did he refuse to reinforce beyond a certain measure 
 the defence of the Marne. If the enemy were to 
 commit the error of launching his reserves to the 
 south of that river, so much the better. Those 
 troops would then not be facing the forest of Villers- 
 Cottere'ts, and the German " pocket " would be in 
 great peril. Once more there appeared the formula 
 that " a battle is a struggle between two wills," 
 and we are about to see what the resultant was to 
 be when the force of Foch's should clash with that 
 of Hindenburg. 
 
 When the Instructor in General Tactics at the 
 School of War refused to support the defence of the 
 Marne a decision which could not but incite the 
 enemy to press towards this side with the mass of 
 his reserves had he not perhaps in mind, through 
 a flash of genius, the memory of Napoleon refusing 
 to support the right of his army on the day of 
 Austerh'tz? when Davout was retiring that right 
 toward the lakes and luring to his pursuit the 
 Russian reserves so that they evacuated the plateau 
 of Pratzen ? No doubt it will remain the General's 
 secret. At any rate, the fine manoeuvre which was 
 now about to open and which was to be crowned by 
 decisive victory was a development on a large scale 
 of that same operation of which the day of Austerlitz 
 had given, as it were, a cinema model.
 
 64 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 On the 1 5th of July the Germans crossed the 
 Marne and hastened with heavy reinforcements of 
 men and material to gather the fruits of their victory 
 and push forward in great strength towards the 
 south. 
 
 And, on the i8th of July, at dawn, on the day 
 and at the hour which had been settled on long 
 before, Mangin and Degoutte, whose skirmishing 
 line was preceded by a barrage fire and accompanied 
 by tanks, debouched from the forest of Villers- 
 Cottere'ts, and pierced, north of Soissons, upon a 
 front of twenty kilometres, far into the reduced 
 German centre. By the evening of the igth of 
 July the two French armies had captured 20,000 
 prisoners and 400 guns ! 
 
 Under this terrible blow Hindenburg fell back. 
 The Germans evacuated the south bank of the 
 Marne at top speed. On the 2ist they let go 
 their hold of Chateau-Thierry. On the night of 
 the 27th they retreated from the fatal river which 
 once more had proved disastrous to them. On 
 the 29th, pressed in front and flank, they held 
 their line on the Aisne and the Vesle from Soissons, 
 which Mangin had recovered, to a point below 
 Rheims. That glorious city, terribly mutilated, 
 was now victorious. 
 
 A wave of enthusiasm rose throughout the world. 
 As for France, she felt that victory was beginning to 
 spread its wings. The whole country 7 applauded 
 the proposal of M. Clemenceau on the 6th of August 
 that the President of the Republic should name 
 General Foch a Marshal of France. 
 
 " The dignity of Marshal of France," ran the 
 report of the Prime Minister, " is not to be regarded 
 only as a reward for past services. It will rather 
 confirm for the future the authority of that great 
 man-at-arms who has been called to lead tHe Armies 
 of the Entente to a decisive victory."
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 65 
 
 Marshal Foch was about to transform that act 
 of faith into a reality. The operations which were 
 to follow are characterized by a special mark of 
 nervous energy, vigour and marvellous precision. 
 
 The Marshal was about to prove at last by his 
 [action that the principles of the art of war never 
 [change, and that the core of his instruction in the 
 School of war still had its full value; that the 
 Napoleonic idea, at once elastic and clear, had 
 kept all its strength in spite of the formidable 
 apparatus and heavy creations of German industrial 
 war. The battle was let loose over nearly 800 kilo- 
 metres, from the North Sea to Switzerland. The 
 whole line was alight, and half France sounded night 
 and day with the uninterrupted rumbling of the 
 cannon. As the attacks followed each other in a 
 dozen different fields and often overlapped, as the 
 whole scheme of this gigantic drama seems hap- 
 hazard, one might be tempted to imagine that each 
 leader was pushing straight forward, each according 
 to his own temperament, and that hence the advance, 
 obviously general upon the whole front, might seem 
 probably due to the initiative of the various com- 
 manders of sectors, or at the most to that of the 
 various Generals commanding the armies. A more 
 attentive examination of the affair proves the 
 contrary. A single will animated the whole, and a 
 single brain directed the whole, following throughout 
 rigorously a logical method. 
 
 We have already seen that the enemy was 
 anchored into French soil on four principal lines of 
 defence. We shall now see the Marshal pushing 
 the German armies back everywhere to their defences 
 behind the Hindenburg Line, then breaching that 
 strong wall and vigorously attacking points of less 
 resistance, piercing or turning the further lines 
 behind, always advancing, ceaselessly striking, so 
 that the enemy should never have time to rally, to
 
 66 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 reconstitute his reserves, or to manoeuvre them. And 
 this was to proceed until the enemy, finally thrown out 
 of all his trenches and deprived of half his artillery, 
 was reduced to the mercy of his conqueror. 
 
 As to the methods employed to obtain these more 
 than human efforts from tired troops and decimated 
 reserves, to achieve rapid transport of units, material 
 and munitions necessary for each stroke, in spite 
 of the bad condition and congestion of railways 
 which had in part to be actually captured from the 
 enemy; in a word, to accomplish with nineteen 
 armies, representing a total effective of six million 
 men, the marvellous feat which had been accom- 
 plished in 1914 on the Yser with five; it will cer- 
 tainly remain for a century an inexhaustible subject 
 for study and reflection for soldiers. The pushing 
 back of the enemy on to the Hindenburg Line and 
 the reduction of the dangerous Albert-Montdidier- 
 Noyons " pocket " were tasks finally achieved by 
 the 24th of December. This result was the work of 
 six Franco-British offensives. 
 
 FIRST : The Marshal opened what he himself 
 called the " adventure of Amiens " by launching 
 Rawlinson and Debeney between Albert and Mont- 
 didier. Aircraft, artillery and tanks all came into 
 play with the greatest energy and drive. There 
 was an immediate advance of twelve kilometres to 
 Lihous and Le Quesnoy-en-Santerre. When that 
 attack was exhausted the Marshal launched the 
 3rd Army between the Aisne and the Oise. Hum- 
 bert, its commander, was somewhat anxious. He 
 had no reserve at all. " Go forward all the same," 
 said the Marshal. He went forward, he took 
 Ribecourt, then Canny-sur-Matz, reaching the Oise 
 to the south-east of Noyons. 
 
 SECOND : On the 22nd of August a new English 
 offensive appeared between Albert and Fray-sur- 
 Somme. Albert was captured and our allies
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 67 
 
 reached the outskirts of Bapaume. At the same 
 time the vigorous French attack got as far as the 
 river Ailette, carrying Roye and Lassigny. Out- 
 flanked, bewildered and at a loss, Hutier fell back 
 on the 29th of August to the line Peronne-Noyons. 
 Indeed, rather than spoil the symmetry of a fine 
 retreat, he would not defend Noyons, and De 
 Marwitz on his side abandoned Bapaume and 
 Combles on the 3oth. 
 
 THIRD : This was the moment in which to 
 launch a great attack in the north. The General- 
 issimo asked it of Marshal Haig. The latter, 
 though eager, pointed out that he had no great 
 force for such an action. " Attempt it all the 
 same," said Foch; and Haig sent forward Home 
 and Byng upon the Scarpe, upon the 26th of 
 August, thereby bringing about immediately the 
 retreat of Von Quast between Bailleul and Bethune. 
 
 FOURTH : On the 6th of September Rawlinson 
 and Debeney took up their movement again between 
 Peronne and Ham. The enemy abandoned Ham 
 and Tergnier. 
 
 FIFTH : Haig on the i8th of September again 
 took up the attack, which he launched towards 
 Gonzeaucourt upon a front of 20,000 yards, and 
 thus brought the British infantry against the 
 Hindenburg Line itself. 
 
 SIXTH : Finally, on the 24th of September a 
 vigorous offensive on the part of Rawlinson and 
 Debeney, between the Somme and the Omignon, 
 threw Von Hutier behind the great line of defence 
 where it faced St. Quentin. 
 
 Upon this date of the 24th of September the 
 preliminary operations came to an end. Upon a 
 front of 1 60 kilometres from the sea to the Aisne 
 our armies, tired and reduced though they were, 
 but with a heightened moral, were taking in hand 
 the reduction of the Hindenburg Line.
 
 68 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 It was from this date that Germany, which had 
 always thought itself on the eve of victory until 
 then, felt that it was defeated. It could no longer 
 even threaten. The great pieces which had fired 
 on Paris were now silent. 
 
 Here, indeed, one may see the full application 
 of that great principle, " the weaker one is the more 
 one should attack " ; and of that other, drawn from 
 the lessons by the battle of Gravelotte : "In that 
 constant race towards superiority of moralfc the 
 business in hand was to repeat the necessary 
 aggressive acts during a whole day, and that in 
 the absence of strong reserves. The goal was 
 reached by isolated actions rather than by a common 
 plan. In the lack of a great common plan, which 
 had had to be given up, partial plans were brought 
 into being, and what resulted was a victory of 
 moral? all compact of energy and of action." 
 
 It is here necessary to remark that the Hinden- 
 burg Line had already been breached in two places. 
 On the 2nd of September in the Artois the bat- 
 talions of Home, preceded by tanks, had crushed 
 and pushed far into the Drocourt-Queant organiza- 
 tion, just at the point where the three first lines 
 joined. Marshal Foch had the ability to use that 
 success later on before its value was lost. 
 
 On the 1 2th of September, in the Argonne, a 
 brilliant Franco-American offensive, supported by 
 our armoured cars, had taken Von Gallwitz un- 
 awares and had pinched off the bulge of St. Mihiel, 
 and brought the Americans right up to the Michel 
 Stellung. This victory put at our disposal the 
 railway from Verdun to. Nancy, and sensibly 
 bettered the communications of this eastern part 
 of our front. 
 
 After the reaching of the Hindenburg Line 
 assaults were redoubled against the Wotan, Siegfried 
 and Alberik sectors from the sea down to the Aisne.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 69 
 
 We have already remarked that on the 2nd of 
 September Home had breached the Wotan sector. 
 Marshal Foch gave the signal on the 22nd of Sep- 
 tember for another effort in the same region, and 
 this time the tanks got right up to the second line 
 of defence, in front of Cambrai. 
 
 All that part of the Wotan which stretched up 
 as far as Lille was taken in reverse and was no 
 longer capable of defence. Von Quast evacuated it 
 between Armentieres and the river Scarpe. 
 
 Immediately afterwards, on the 28th of Sep- 
 tember, the Marshal launched a Franco-Belgian 
 offensive reaching right up to the sea-coast. Sixt 
 von Arnim could hardly hold his positions. His 
 army, menaced on its left flank, was growing 
 anxious though hardly yet demoralized. The 
 army-group of King Albert of Belgium went for- 
 ward easily enough through the complicated system 
 of the Franken, Prussische, and Bayerische Stellun- 
 gen, thus fully disengaging Ypres, Amentieres and 
 Lens. Then, on the 2nd of October, Rawlinson 
 carried St. Quentin, while on the 3ist of September 
 Home had attacked on a 13,000 yards front towards 
 Le Catelet and Sequehart and gone forward deeply 
 into the Siegfried sector, which was fully pierced 
 by the gth of October. 
 
 On the 3ist of September Mangin had pressed 
 back the right wing of the Crown Prince in the 
 difficult regions of the Ailette, and the battalions 
 of Guillaumat had pushed into the German wire 
 on a front of 15,000 yards between the Vesle and 
 the Aisne. On the 4th of October they outflanked 
 the right of the German armies in Champagne, and the 
 Crown Prince evacuated the belt 45 kilometres long 
 by 15 deep, abandoning Laon on the west and retiring 
 on the east from before the glorious ruins of Rheims. 
 
 Ludendorff now felt that nothing could ward off 
 the approaching catastrophe.
 
 70 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The new Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, 
 wished to formulate an academic Peace pro- 
 gramme and discuss its terms with America. Luden- 
 dorff opposed that plan. The military situation 
 permitted of no delays. If the necessary time to 
 relieve the army of the pressure upon it was to be 
 gained and to confine the approaching disaster 
 within certain limits, an armistice must be asked 
 for. Max of Baden yielded his point on the 5th 
 of October. 
 
 This diplomatic manoeuvre did not constitute 
 a sufficient reason in the eyes of Marshal Foch for 
 checking the military operations. 
 
 On the i2th of October only one sector of the 
 Hindenburg Line still held out, the Alberik Stellung. 
 This was in the region of La Fere, where the power 
 of the first line was reinforced by the immediate 
 neighbourhood of a second; but this second line 
 was turned on the north by English columns 
 debouching from St. Quentin and on the south by 
 French columns debouching from Laon. It was, 
 therefore, not even defended, no more than was La 
 F^re, whereas that place, which had been attacked 
 in more detail, might have held our armies in check 
 for some days. 
 
 On the i3th of October Dixmude, where several 
 German battalions were still holding out, was carried 
 by a Franco-Belgian offensive. The army of Von 
 Arnim had therefore to fall back upon Lille, evacuat- 
 ing the last trenches which it still held towards the 
 sea, and leaving in the hands of our allies 12,000 
 prisoners and considerable material. The right 
 flank of the German armies was now uncovered, 
 and a turning movement had become possible which 
 would take in reverse all the carefully disposed 
 lines of defence which were facing the south-west 
 the direction of the original German ambition. 
 This manoeuvre was emphasized by a disembarka-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 71 
 
 tion from the British Fleet under Admiral . Keyes, 
 executed on the i6th of October, in the port of 
 Ostend, whence the enemy had just fled in haste, 
 leaving behind him his cannon and his magazines, 
 and where the population, in a fever of excitement 
 at their release, had themselves disarmed the 
 enemy's stragglers. The outflanking movement 
 was also reinforced by an offensive movement of 
 the Franco-Belgian army, which caused Thourout, 
 Thielt and Courtrai to fall, and brought the allies 
 to the south of the river Lys, while Von Arnim fell 
 back behind the river Deule, abandoning the coast 
 and its batteries up to the Bruges Canal. 
 
 The Higher German Command could no longer 
 count on anything but certain water-lines to prolong 
 its resistance upon this side. Its strong defensive 
 organizations had been passed and the open plain 
 unrolled before the Allied cavalry, which was 
 scouting as early as the igth of October on a 
 front of sixty kilometres for the general offensive 
 of the armies of Flanders which Marshal Foch was 
 launching in the direction of Ghent. 
 
 On the 20th of October the general situation 
 might be summed up as follows. The Hindenburg 
 Line no longer existed from the sea right down to 
 the Argonne. All the northern part of the Second 
 Line was in our power right to Rethel that is, 
 over an extent of 160 kilometres ; and on that same 
 day a powerful attack delivered by Guillaumat was 
 to carry the Hunding Stellung over a front of fifty 
 kilometres down to the region of Sissone. The 
 Third Line was still nearly intact, save near Le 
 Cateau; but it was taken in reverse by the great 
 outflanking attack which was in progress upon the 
 north and which, as it had reached Toucoing and 
 Roubaix, also menaced the Fourth Line. 
 
 The defeat of Germany thus clearly inscribed 
 upon the ground and map appears equally clearly
 
 72 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 from an examination of the German forces dis- 
 ponible. 
 
 The German Higher Command had now in line 
 only 160 reduced divisions, which is very little 
 for the holding of 750 kilometres. Of this number 
 it had but thirty-one in sector-reserves to assure 
 the relief of troops and to give the men the absolutely 
 indispensable minimum of repose. It only had, 
 to use as a mass of manoeuvre, ten exhausted 
 divisions left in the place of the twenty-four which 
 it could still boast on the 2nd of October, and of 
 the forty-five which it had in hand on the I5th 
 of August. Upon our side, on the contrary, to 
 the 105 French divisions, the sixty British, the 
 twelve Belgian and the two Italian, there had 
 already been added twenty-six American divisions, 
 each in strength of effectives double our own ; while 
 ten more American divisions were on the point of 
 coming in. There were therefore now present 
 215 divisions upon our side, about equivalent in 
 strength to 251 German divisions. It was no 
 longer possible for the enemy to preserve any 
 illusion or keep his eyes closed. Ludendorff took 
 fright at the complete breakdown of his system of 
 defence and at the menace of a turning manoeuvre 
 to which he could make no reply. He declared 
 the situation to be desperate, and the Reichstag 
 was warned in two tumultuous sessions on the 
 24th and 25th of October that a catastrophe was 
 imminent. 
 
 The armistice conditions imposed by the Allies 
 and communicated by Marshal Foch to the German 
 plenipotentiaries underlined the defeat. There was 
 no longer any question of peace proposals; there 
 was question only of a capitulation, in every way 
 similar to that which Bulgaria had accepted and 
 which Austria was on the point of accepting. The 
 Fleet, the pride of pan-Germanism, must be sur-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 73 
 
 rendered ; Belgium and all French territory, includ- 
 ing Alsace-Lorraine, must be evacuated ; the French 
 Army must occupy Metz and Strassburg, and the 
 enemy must allow the Allied Armies to hold the 
 bridge-heads of the Rhine. Marshal Foch still 
 struck with great rapidity and greater and greater 
 vigour, depriving Ludendorff of all liberty of action 
 and of all possibility of rallying. The German 
 General Staff had but one chance for avoiding the 
 fatal blow, and that was to give ground on a very 
 great scale and at the expense of extremely rapid 
 marching, to put its armies together again far to 
 the rear, as for instance behind the Meuse. It had 
 successfully carried out such manoeuvres from the 
 Marne to the Aisne in 1914 and after the Battle of 
 the Somme in 1917. But now, dogged without 
 respite by our troops, who, exhausted and deci- 
 mated but kept up to the mark by the idea of 
 victory and ceaselessly urged forward by an iron 
 will, the enemy could not renew the experiment. 
 The German units disengaged themselves and retired 
 each as best it could, sometimes in mere flight, 
 always leaving behind them many men and an 
 enormous mass of material. 
 
 On the 28th of October, between the Sambre 
 and the Serre, Hutier gave up a belt twenty-five 
 kilometres long by eight kilometres broad, to 
 Debeney, to avoid a breach of his line, but without 
 succeeding in making Debeney lose contact. On 
 the 2nd of November the British Army got round 
 Valenciennes, the right-hand pivot of the fourth 
 and last line of defence. On the 5th of November, 
 Home, Byng, Rawlinson and Debeney let loose 
 a strong attack sixty kilometres long, between 
 Valenciennes and Guise, and this brilliant operation 
 secured 13,000 prisoners. Landrecies, the Forest 
 of Mormal, and the last defences of the Third Line 
 were carried. On that same day, to the north of the
 
 74 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Argonne, the Americans went forward five kilometres 
 on a front of thirty, and King Albert's group of 
 armies already threatened Ghent. 
 
 Ludendorff, against whom the anger of all 
 Germany had now turned, was replaced as First 
 Quartermaster-General by General Greener, but 
 the latter had no more luck than his predecessor. 
 In vain did Hindenburg on the 2nd of November 
 solemnly adjure Germany to make one last effort 
 to save its honour. Germany had decided to 
 capitulate. In vain did the old Marshal call into 
 being a Council of National Defence on the 5th of 
 November, at the moment when the Third Line 
 of defence was breaking down, with the object 
 of organizing a fight to the very end. Greener, 
 in order to avoid the final blow, called in his turn 
 for the immediate signature of the armistice at 
 no matter what price, and to gain even a single 
 day he fell back from Valenciennes to the Meuse 
 over eight or ten kilometres, followed step for step 
 by the eager columns of Debeney, Mangin, Degoutte,. 
 Guillaumat and Gouraud. 
 
 On the yth of November, before the armistice 
 was signed, he fell back with Valenciennes as his 
 pivot. The retreat in the centre was of no less 
 than eighteen kilometres, and on our right the 
 Americans entered Sedan. Foch maintained his 
 hold. " Victory," he had himself once said, " is 
 an inclined plain. On condition that you do not 
 check your movement the moving mass perpetually 
 increases its speed." 
 
 On the gth of November the retreat grew rapid 
 between Ghent and the Meuse. Our cavalry, sent 
 forward to forage, captured whole trains of material 
 and provisions. Our armies advanced along the 
 whole of the immense line. A last offensive was 
 ready to be delivered in the east, where Castelnau's 
 group was to strike in touch with the American
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 75 
 
 Army, which had suffered the least. Probably this 
 shock, delivered by young and eager troops, against 
 tired, demoralized and reduced units, short of 
 munitionment, would have brought about the 
 rupture of the centre, the pouring of the allied 
 masses through an open breach, and the capture of 
 the five armies of the Crown Prince of Bavaria 
 still remaining in Belgium. If a rout, which had 
 become by this time inevitable, was to be avoided, 
 there was nothing for it but to capitulate within 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 On the nth of November the armistice was 
 signed and the German Empire capitulated uncon- 
 ditionally. 
 
 We see, then, that the victory of Marshal Foch, 
 the greatest and most complete in history, had 
 not the external character which victories have 
 borne through centuries; a decisive attack, the 
 breach of the enemy's formation, his flight, and 
 a pursuit. It did not bear this external appearance 
 because Germany, a nation in arms, had capitulated 
 as a whole, in order to avoid the destruction of 
 its troops. 
 
 France in 1871 thought it her duty to continue 
 the struggle for honour after the complete destruc- 
 tion of her army. To this resolution she owes in 
 great part the glory, she at present enjoys. That is 
 well enough; but what, in the light of historical 
 fact, we must never allow to be said or thought, 
 is that the German Army was not conquered. We 
 must clearly understand that if the German regi- 
 ments in their return to German towns passed under 
 triumphal arches it was because the capitulation 
 of Germany as a whole had saved them from 
 disaster. The army of Bazaine was not conquered 
 in 1870. It had even proved victorious at Borny, 
 at Rosenville, at Ladonchamps, and elsewhere. 
 Then its chief capitulated. It never came into
 
 76 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 our heads to say that the army of Metz had not 
 been defeated. 
 
 The representatives of the nation were certainly 
 of the opinion here put forward. On the nth of 
 November, when the Prime Minister, M. Georges 
 Clemenceau, a last and glorious survivor of those 
 who had drawn up the national Protest in 1871, 
 entered the Tribune of the Chamber to read the 
 text of the armistice, the Deputies replied that the 
 following order of the day, enthusiastically adopted 
 upon the vote of 495 members: "The Armies of 
 the Republic and their Chiefs, Citizen Georges 
 Clemenceau, Prime Minister and Minister of War, 
 Marshal Foch, Generalissimo of the Allied Armies, 
 have deserved well of their country." 
 
 The brilliant career of Marshal Foch is not over. 
 His armies are at this moment on guard along the 
 Rhine, seeing to it that a defeated Germany shall 
 exactly carry out that to which she is pledged. 
 Meanwhile, at the conference table, the laws of a 
 new world are under discussion ; and the Marshal 
 is there also, the counsellor of the diplomatists, 
 standing, to the end, where danger threatens. 
 
 The presence of this great soldier in the delibera- 
 tions of the congress, where so many different and 
 conflicting interests are at work, is a sure guarantee 
 that France will not be deprived of the benefits of 
 a victory which she has bought so dearly with the 
 best of her blood.
 
 PRECEPTS
 
 ACTION. In tactics, action is the governing 
 rule of war. 
 
 ACTION OF DEMONSTRATION. Though pre- 
 liminary action is often termed a combat of 
 mere demonstration, it implies an extreme 
 energy on the part of the performers. For 
 troops in action, for secondary first-line units, 
 there is only one manner of fighting, and that 
 is to fight with the utmost vigour, with all 
 available means, utilizing fire, marching power, 
 everything. These are the only principles 
 the rank and file and units used in prepara- 
 tion need consider. To speak to them of a 
 demonstration, a dragging fight, a slow action, 
 still more of keeping still, would amount to 
 inducing them not to act, to preparing them 
 for flight, to breaking their spirit at the very 
 moment when that spirit must be most 
 exalted. 
 
 Such an action, both slow and of long dura- 
 tion, which preparation demands, is a result 
 of the commander's applying the principle 
 of economy of forces in a fashion he alone 
 can appreciate and determine. 
 
 79
 
 80 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The higher command devotes to prepara- 
 tion a minimum of force, so as to be able to 
 reinforce the decisive act as strongly as 
 possible; the subordinate commanders, who 
 are in charge of preparation, establish and 
 reinforce their three lines according to the 
 front ascribed to them and to the efforts to 
 be made. The rank and file, however, when 
 in action, must only know full action, the 
 object of which is to conquer or to hold. 
 
 In consequence, every attack, once undertaken, 
 must be fought to a finish ; every defence, 
 once begun, must be carried on with the utmost 
 energy. 
 
 ACTIVITY OF GENERALS. The Commander 
 of the 2nd Army having been informed 
 at last at two o'clock, by a message from the 
 General commanding the 2oth Division and 
 dated Thiaucourt, 11.30, galloped to the 
 plateau. He covered in fifty-five minutes 
 the space of more than twenty kilometres 
 between it and Pont-a-Mousson. 
 
 Having come before four o'clock to the 
 heights which overlook Gorze, on which the 
 5th Division was fighting, he could gather 
 what the general situation was, and his 
 decision was rapidly formed. 
 
 Towards ten o'clock, after the last shots had 
 t been fired in the wood of Ognons and silence
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 81 
 
 came upon the plateau, Prince Frederick 
 Charles returned to his headquarters at Gorze. 
 
 ADVANCE GUARD. The organ which 
 guarantees the tactical security of a large 
 unit (of an army corps in the case under 
 consideration) is the advance guard, meaning 
 by this general term a detachment placed 
 on the flank, in front or in the rear of the 
 main body; such a detachment to utilize 
 in any case its own resisting power for the 
 benefit of the main body, in order to enable 
 that body to carry out the operation pre- 
 scribed and to comply with the orders received. 
 Further, as that operation, those orders, 
 are constantly changing, it may be at once 
 concluded that the manner of acting of the 
 advance guard, the tactics it will have to 
 resort to, will have to be determined in each 
 particular case by the nature of the operation 
 to be protected as well as by the circumstances 
 (time, space, ground) surrounding the advance 
 guard as it moves forward. 
 
 When one moves at night, without a light, 
 in one's own house, what does one do ? Does 
 . one not (though it is a ground one knows well) 
 extend one's arm in front of one so as to 
 avoid knocking one's head against the wall ? 
 The extended arm is nothing but an advance 
 guard.
 
 82 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The arm keeps its suppleness while it 
 advances and only stiffens more or less when 
 it meets an obstacle, in order to perform its 
 duty without risk, to open a door, for instance ; 
 in the same way, the advance guard can 
 advance and go into action without risking 
 destruction, provided it uses suppleness and 
 strength, manoeuvring power, resisting power. 
 
 In the past, the unknown disappeared the 
 moment the battle-field was entered. 
 
 In Napoleon's time, fighting dispositions 
 were taken at a very short distance in presence 
 of an enemy one could easily see, the power 
 and situation of whom could be easily 
 measured. Later, in proportion as the range 
 and power of arms increased, distances 
 increased too ; troops had to look for shelter, 
 to adopt a more and more dispersed order. 
 Still, the smoke produced by powder enabled 
 the general to reconnoitre, at least partly, 
 the first dispositions of the enemy. The 
 latter disclosed by his fire the positions 
 he was occupying. Smokeless powder has 
 changed the picture and made the unknown 
 both complete and lasting. Going into action 
 to-day reminds one of a struggle between 
 two blind men, between two adversaries who 
 perpetually seek each other but cannot see. 
 Shall our new method, then, consist in rushing 
 straight on, or to the right, or to the left,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 83 
 
 at random? Shall we allow the enemy to 
 throw his arms round our body, to grasp us 
 completely, without our retaining the possi- 
 bility of first grasping him ourselves, and of 
 striking hard? Obviously not. In order to 
 conquer that unknown v/hich follows us 
 until the very point of going into action, there 
 is only one means, which consists in looking 
 out until the last moment, even on the battle- 
 field, for information ; there is only one way : 
 extending the arm before one, utilizing the 
 advance guard, which keeps searching for, and 
 supplying, information even on the battle-field. 
 
 To inform, and, therefore, to reconnoitre, 
 this is the first and constant duty of the 
 advance guard. 
 
 On what should it give information? On 
 the main body of the enemy forces. 
 
 At Pouilly, the Kettler brigade found itself 
 before parties of francs-tireurs who obscured 
 the field of view; it was necessary to try 
 and see beyond them. An advance guard was 
 sent out. It scattered those parties, started 
 reconnoitring, then attacked the village of 
 Pouilly. 
 
 It found the main line of resistance of the 
 enemy behind that place; its mission had 
 then come to an end. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the enemy, with his 
 reconnaissances, with his detachments of
 
 84 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 all kinds, is everywhere. Still, his main 
 body is only to be found on one point, in a 
 certain region. It is the main body we must 
 strike; it is against the main body we must 
 guard ourselves ; it is the main body, therefore, 
 on which we must have information. We 
 must know where that main body actually 
 is; therefore, we must break through the 
 security service which obviously covers it. 
 Our organ of information has therefore to be 
 endowed with force, to possess a breaking 
 power. But even this does not suffice; we 
 must know what the main body is, what it is 
 worth. The advance guard must, then, in 
 order to compel the main body of the adver- 
 sary to make itself known, oblige it to deploy ; 
 but that task presupposes attack that is, 
 full forces in artillery and infantry. 
 
 The reconnoitring mission of the advance 
 guard must be pushed up to that point 
 full information on the main enemy body : 
 that mission comes to an end when this first 
 point, information about the enemy's main 
 body, has been secured. 
 
 There is, however, another circumstance 
 which impedes our manoeuvre, namely, 
 dispersion. 
 
 Troops arrive in a marching column, or 
 even in several marching columns : it takes
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 85 
 
 an army corps, thirteen or fourteen miles 
 long, five or six hours to march past a given 
 point or to make the rear come up with the 
 head of the column; for these five or six 
 hours, the army corps only disposes of part 
 of its forces. Still the officer commanding 
 the army corps cannot think of pouring his 
 forces drop by drop into action, even if he 
 is aware of the direction to be taken; he 
 must therefore first manage to assemble, 
 then to deploy and array his troops facing 
 their objective. 
 
 Under different circumstances, another 
 mode of assembling has to be resorted to. 
 
 The army of Alsace in 1870 had to con- 
 centrate its ist, 5th, and 7th Corps before 
 risking a battle; its advance guard, the 
 Douai division, might enable it to do so. 
 
 It was the same case at Jena, at Montenotte. 
 
 In either case, the preparatory operation, 
 which may last a long time, must be covered ; 
 otherwise it will be endangered. This implies 
 security, which it is the business of the advance 
 guard to supply. The latter must enable 
 all the fighting troops to fall into line in spite 
 of the enemy's presence. 
 
 To cover the forces, first while assembling, 
 then while being put into action, such is the 
 second mission devolving on the advance 
 guard.
 
 86 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The main body must in any case be pro- 
 vided with a zone of manoeuvre, but it is also 
 necessary to hold safely all the issues which 
 the main body must utilize in order to deploy. 
 
 To hold these issues safely means enabling 
 troops to perform under good cover the double 
 operation of arrival and deployment. The 
 advance guard must hold the keys of the 
 avenues of approach whereby arrival is 
 effected or debouching from which deploy- 
 ment is made. 
 
 But there remains a further point. So long 
 as we have not beaten or at least attacked 
 the enemy, he keeps his freedom of action ; he 
 remains free to alter his situation or to shun 
 the manoeuvre we are preparing against him. 
 
 The two first results attained by the advance 
 guard 
 
 The reconnoitring of the enemy : 
 
 The covering of our own forces these 
 would not be of the slightest use to us if the 
 advance guard did no more. 
 
 The reconnoitred enemy might at the 
 last moment alter his dispositions, or, if need 
 be, steal away. The manoeuvre we had 
 carefully prepared and covered would be 
 void from the very moment we began to 
 carry it out. 
 
 The reconnaissance must therefore be 
 followed by an attack, made by the advance
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 87 
 
 guard with the object of fixing the adversary, 
 more especially if, in the course of the recon- 
 naissance, the enemy has been found to be 
 manoeuvring. 
 
 You cannot strike an enemy who is running 
 away in order to shun the blow. You must 
 first take him by the collar to compel him to 
 receive the blow. 
 
 Taking the enemy by the collar is the 
 function of the advance guard. 
 
 Those three unavoidable conditions of war : 
 the unknown, dispersion, freedom of the enemy, 
 gave rise to the advance guard and determine 
 its threefold task, which is : 
 
 1. To inform, and therefore to reconnoitre up 
 to the moment the main body goes into action. 
 
 2. To cover the gathering of the main 
 body and to prepare its entrance on the field. 
 
 3. To fix the adversary one intends 
 attacking. 
 
 The proper way of handling an advance 
 guard naturally results from this threefold 
 task : 
 
 I. There must be an offensive 
 i. In order to reconnoitre; that is, in 
 order to peer through the service of security 
 established on his side by the adversary, and 
 to reach his main body and compel it to show 
 itself.
 
 88 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 2. In order to conquer the ground necessary 
 to the protective mission of the advance guard. 
 
 3. In order to conquer the ground necessary 
 to its own preparatory mission, as well as the 
 space needed by the main body for going 
 into action; room for approach, and room 
 of deployment. 
 
 That offensive must, however, be methodi- 
 cally conducted. 
 
 II. Then there must be a defensive, after 
 one has finished scouting ; after one holds 
 the ground necessary to the protection and 
 preparation of the main body's action, and 
 after one has nothing left to do but to keep it. 
 
 So regarded, the tactics of the advance 
 guard make an appeal to the resisting power 
 of a force, and to its ability to last out. They 
 utilize to this end everything which may 
 further these two distinct properties, positions, 
 "points d'appui," long-range fire, manoeu- 
 vring to the rear, in retreat. 
 
 III. Lastly comes an offensive again, in 
 order to immobilize an adversary who might 
 otherwise get away or manoeuvre. 
 
 The composition of the advance guard : 
 This composition is determined by the 
 
 threefold mission an advance guard has to 
 
 fulfil : 
 
 In order to reconnoitre, you obviously need 
 
 cavalry ; but infantry and artillery are equally
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 89 
 
 needed in order to overcome the first resistance 
 of the enemy, to reach his main body, and to 
 compel the latter to deploy. 
 
 In order to cover and to last out, firing troops, 
 moreover troops firing at a long range, are, 
 as we have seen, indispensable; they must 
 be capable of resistance, of holding their 
 ground strongly : hence the need of infantry 
 and artillery. 
 
 In order to fix the enemy, the offensive 
 must obviously be, resorted to and must be 
 carried far enough to threaten the adversary 
 at close quarters, otherwise he may escape : 
 the more need for infantry. 
 
 We conclude, therefore, that the advance 
 guard must be composed of all three arms, 
 if it is to become that organ of information, 
 of protection, and of preparation, which we 
 desire. 
 
 The advance guard, then, needs all three 
 arms. And as it acts independently, it must 
 also be under a single commander. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Of the advance guard with its threefold 
 mission : 
 
 To inform ; 
 To protect; 
 
 To come up to, and keep in touch with, the 
 enemy ;
 
 90 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 we might also say that it is necessary up to 
 the very moment when the main body goes 
 into action, that is, until the main body has 
 actually deployed and begun to act upon the 
 enemy. 
 
 We insist on this point because people 
 willingly acknowledge, in practice, an advance 
 guard to be necessary in front of a marching 
 column ; they are less prepared to acknow- 
 ledge that necessity where an assembled force 
 is concerned; they deny it altogether con- 
 cerning a deployed force. 
 
 ***** 
 
 In countries with numerous communica- 
 tions, one ought not to manoeuvre a priori 
 against an enemy in possession of his freedom 
 of movement. One ought to begin by getting 
 hold of him ; once that preliminary condition 
 has been fulfilled, the opportunity will arise 
 to carry out a manoeuvre the effect of which 
 shall be safe and certain. 
 
 The advance guard, which has fulfilled the 
 first part of the task, getting information, 
 must then fulfil the second, keeping a hold 
 on the adversary, keeping actually in touch 
 with him, so as to make it possible to organize 
 a well-founded and right manoeuvre, that is, 
 a manoeuvre corresponding to the circumstances. 
 The advance guard attacks the enemy if he 
 tries to escape. It resists by means of a
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 91 
 
 defensive and of a retreating manoeuvre if 
 he attacks. 
 
 ADVANCE GUARD, IN RETREAT. His l tactics 
 are an excellent example of the tactics which 
 should be employed by retreating outposts. 
 The line of retreat should be safeguarded ; the 
 main points of it occupied in time; such 
 movements of the enemy as might endanger 
 'it, watched; fighting troops which one intend 
 to withdraw should not be reinforced. Such 
 troops should successively retire under pro- 
 tection of supporting troops. Finally, the 
 main body must fall back without the enemy 
 perceiving the movement (so far as this is 
 possible), and covered by a rear guard which 
 later on falls back upon and is received by the 
 main force. 
 
 Retreating advance guards must fight, while 
 keeping in mind their twofold task : observing 
 the enemy and delaying him in his approaches. 
 
 Advance guards delay the enemy, by com- 
 pelling him to take up fighting dispositions, 
 to assemble, to deploy, to use his superiority 
 in order to outflank. 
 
 The nature of the ground, as well as the 
 distance of the force to be covered, determine, 
 of course, how long the resistance must last ; 
 
 1 General Cervoni's in the Voltri affair (Italian 
 Campaign of 1796).
 
 92 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 however, under any circumstances, the losses 
 will depend upon the resistance one has de- 
 cided to make. And it is also for this reason 
 that resistance must not be resorted to 
 whenever the necessary time can be secured 
 in another way. 
 
 The difficulties of a running fight are : 
 (i) the danger of being turned : once turned, 
 the advance guard no longer covers the main 
 body; it may, besides, be cut off; (2) the 
 danger of being assaulted from too short a 
 distance, which makes it very difficult to 
 extricate the fighting troops; and (3) the 
 necessity of fighting by fire and from a great 
 distance, in order to act on the enemy at 
 long range. 
 
 The arrangement of forces corresponding 
 to these various conditions generally consists 
 in having each of the successive positions 
 occupied by a relatively strong body of 
 artillery, in principle by all the guns available ; 
 and by infantry numbers proportionately 
 sufficient to guard and support that artillery ; 
 while the remainder of the infantry prepare, 
 and carry out the occupation of, the second 
 position. 
 
 Numerous cavalry are also required to 
 discover and parry outflanking movements.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 93 
 
 They usually form the reserve on each position 
 taken. 
 
 Thus an advance guard consisting of six 
 battalions, six batteries, six squadrons, will, 
 as a rule, bring up to the first position its 
 six batteries, two or three battalions, and its 
 six squadrons, while the other battalions 
 occupy the second position, where the artillery 
 will join them at a trot after leaving the first 
 position; finally, the cavalry covers the 
 retreat of the last infantry elements from the 
 first position and afterwards resumes its r6le 
 of a general reserve. 
 
 In an advance guard manoeuvring in retreat 
 so as to cover a manoeuvre of the main body, 
 as well as in an advance guard going ahead 
 in order to find and seize the enemy, a strong 
 body of cavalry, supported by artillery and 
 infantry, is a necessary part. 
 
 THE ADVANCE GUARD. GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 In the Napoleonic system, thanks to an 
 organism designed to give security and kept 
 at high tension and called " covering troops " 
 or " general advance guard," a defensive 
 concentration does not only mean a defensive 
 battle, still less the successful occupation of 
 a given position, but rather the power to 
 parry the enemy's attack by some final 
 manoeuvre which will be defensive or offensive
 
 94 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 according to circumstances, and will always 
 be secure of its power of action. For instance, 
 supposing it is one's business to execute a 
 defensive manoeuvre; the operation evidently 
 involves the occupation of some position 
 which has been chosen definitely beforehand. 
 But there is no necessity that the troops 
 should have been previously kept in the 
 proximity of this position, for the organism 
 designed to give security guarantees them, 
 just at the moment when the need arises, the 
 time and space to reach the position and to 
 establish themselves there. If this arrange- 
 ment of a general advance guard had been 
 applied by Moltke in 1870 it would have per- 
 mitted him further to extend the region over 
 which the 2nd Army gathered upon the 
 line ; to bring up part of his forces further to 
 the south, and, when the moment had come, 
 to march towards the Neunkirchen-Homburg 
 district to make use of a third road, that from 
 Landau to Pirmasens, which road was, more- 
 over, covered by the 3rd Army. He could 
 have turned two army corps on to that road, 
 and have thus lightened and improved his 
 movements across a belt of country densely 
 wooded and still difficult. 
 
 ARMIES, GROUPS OF. An army, like an army 
 corps, is nowadays a subordinate unit. It
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 95 
 
 does not involve creation, the exercise of an 
 art, but simply execution. One has to rise 
 higher and study the functioning of a group 
 of armies. Then only do the accomplished 
 facts reappear as a suitable field to explora- 
 tion, to nourish our study and to provide our 
 theories with some foundation. 
 
 ARMIES ORGANIZED. After Metz and Sedan 
 there remained no army in France worthy 
 of that name, and yet, in spite of all, the 
 enemy was compelled to a hard campaign of 
 four months before he could get peace. 
 Armies fully organized do not, therefore, 
 represent the whole of a country's military 
 resources. 
 
 ART OF COMMAND. The art of command is 
 not that of thinking and deciding for one's 
 subordinates as though one stood in their 
 shoes. 
 
 ART OF WAR. The art of war, like every 
 other art, has its theory and its principles, 
 or it would not be an art. 
 
 The art of war does not consist for the 
 highest officers and for the commanders of an 
 advance guard in falling upon the enemy like 
 a wild boar. In order to have a general 
 common action there must be mutual under-
 
 96 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 standing and there must be consultation and 
 submission of the subordinate to a direction 
 above himself, which direction is not limited 
 to the drawing up of plans, but has the task 
 also of effective command. What would one 
 say of the conductor of some orchestra who, 
 after having indicated what piece of music 
 was to be played, should withdraw to a 
 distance from the instruments, leaving to the 
 executants the duty of starting the affair and 
 arranging it among themselves as best they 
 could manage it ? 
 
 ARTILLERY. The Austrian artillery had 
 also proved very superior to the Prussian 
 artillery in armament, in tactics and in 
 training ; they were, in consequence, superior 
 in their fire. They inflicted on the succes- 
 sively arriving Prussian batteries losses which 
 prevented the latter from keeping up the 
 struggle. In spite of that, the Prussians 
 conquered at the end of the day. Artillery 
 action is not, then, any more than cavalry 
 action, of such a decisive value as to settle 
 finally the result of a battle. 
 
 In the future we shall frequently see artillery 
 action remain indecisive, on account of the 
 range and of the difficulty of observation with 
 smokeless powder. Should we check our 
 attack, for that reason, until our artillery
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 97 
 
 has secured an undisputable superiority ? 
 Obviously not. 
 
 . ARTILLERY, HEAVY. Side by side with the 
 quick-firing light field-piece are to be found 
 in all the German army corps a group of 
 howitzers of loj centimetres calibre, and in 
 certain army corps batteries normally with 
 out-teams, but furnished with harness, and 
 consisting some of mortars of 21 centi- 
 metres, which are destined to attack those of 
 our forts designed to check invasion and our 
 small places; others (in greater number) are 
 howitzers of 15 centimetres, with a projectile 
 of 40 kilogrammes or so and a strong charge. 
 What is expected of this artillery ? 
 
 1. To master the field fortification of the 
 adversary. 
 
 2. To reinforce their own field organization. 
 
 3. To master the field artillery of the 
 adversary. 
 
 4. To crush under a fire which is incon- 
 testably superior the objective chosen for 
 the decisive attack. The Saint Privat of the 
 future will not only be bombarded by the 
 artillery of the guard of the I2th and of 
 the loth Corps, but also by the mobile 
 heavy artillery attached to the army as a 
 whole. 
 
 In this fashion there is added a new element 
 H
 
 98 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 to the breaching power of field artillery in 
 order that it may master that power of the 
 defensive which is certainly growing every 
 day. It is for the same reason that the 
 38,000 men who constitute the personnel of 
 the heavy batteries are called to take their 
 place in action in the field instead of waiting 
 until they are attacked in their fortified 
 places of Strasburg or Metz or they them- 
 selves are called to attack Toul or Epinal. 
 There you have another development of 
 that constant principle of economy of force, 
 which counsels not the specialization of forces 
 nor their affectation in some invariable fashion 
 to one only particular task, but throws them 
 all in, whatever be their type, to the decisive 
 act of war which is battle. 
 
 ASCENDANCY IN MORAL. Thus do we sum 
 up the conduct of General Alvensleben in 
 the first place, and the next that of Prince 
 Frederick Charles, a conduct which, as we 
 see, was made up of a superb use of reason 
 accompanied by virile decisions and that gift 
 of command which can still animate the 
 troops at the last stage of exhaustion. We 
 have seen what use of forces was made corre- 
 sponding to such a tactic. In the unin- 
 terrupted race for moral ascendancy, even 
 though they could not hope for a decisive
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 99 
 
 success, 1 it was their business to repeat the 
 necessary acts of aggression all day long, and 
 that in the absence of any strong reserves. 
 The thing was done by a series of isolated 
 actions in the lack of a general combination. 
 The using up of units piecemeal, which is 
 always an evil, became on this occasion a 
 necessary evil. The commanders suffered 
 that evil while reducing it to its least possible 
 limits. It was necessary to present certain 
 units before others could arrive. They did 
 so, but not without making sure that each 
 effort should have a strength which might 
 allow it to hope at least for a result. Thus 
 a brigade was not launched squadron by 
 squadron or battalion by battalion, but in 
 its entirety. In the absence of a great 
 general movement, which had had to be 
 given up, they brought to bear what we may 
 call partial general movements. 
 
 We have seen by what fortunate decisions 
 upon the field of battle itself Alvensleben and 
 Frederick Charles corrected the imperfect 
 dispositions taken at Pont-a-Mousson or at 
 Herny; and by what constantly offensive 
 posture they had not only conjured the defeat 
 which threatened them, but saved a strategic 
 manoeuvre which had been designed without 
 a base and without security for its action. 
 
 1 At Gravelotte. 
 
 4
 
 100 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 By their continuous aim at a moral ascendancy 
 which was to be maintained at all costs, they 
 had imposed their decision, which was to 
 check their adversary. It was a victory of 
 moral, compact of energy and of action, 
 upon their side, singularly facilitated, one 
 must admit, by the absence of will on the part 
 of their adversary. 
 
 ATTACK. The actions round Wysokow show 
 what conditions of ground are required for 
 attack. The Austrian attack penetrated into 
 the village because it was strongly supported 
 by artillery, that is undeniable; but also, 
 and above all, because it had at its disposal 
 covered avenues of approach, defiladed ways 
 of access, which brought the attacking forces 
 under shelter from enemy fire up to 300 or 
 400 yards from their objective. A sound 
 attacking direction is one which provides 
 covered approaches for infantry, and which 
 makes it possible to use both arms (artillery 
 and infantry) against a common objective, 
 with that full development of the means of 
 action which is derived from numerical 
 superiority. 
 
 With modern arms, of which we have seen 
 the full power on the ground of Nachod, the 
 Austrians suffered their heaviest losses when 
 they retreated after an unsuccessful attack,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 101 
 
 or when they abandoned a position they had 
 lost. It was less costly to them either to 
 advance in attack or to keep on the defensive. 
 Hence the two principles which command 
 modern tactics : any attack once undertaken 
 must be carried home ; defence must be sup- 
 ported with the utmost energy ; those are the 
 most economical policies. These principles 
 must prevail in practice; they make it, 
 moreover, absolutely imperative for the direct- 
 ing mind, the commander, to know, to foresee 
 and to solve the difficulties which the attack 
 is bound to meet; not to undertake any 
 attack that cannot be carried home, that 
 cannot be organized and brought up under 
 cover, prepared, supported, guarded up to the 
 last moment. 
 
 ATTACK, DECISIVE. Theoretically a well- 
 conducted battle is a decisive attack successfully 
 carried out. 
 
 Nevertheless we must acknowledge that, 
 besides the ultimate execution of decisive 
 attack, such an attack must be : 
 
 1. Well directed by means of scouting; 
 
 2. Secondly, prepared; and, 
 
 3. Thirdly, protected and utilized ; in view 
 of the enemy being otherwise able first to 
 conceal his disposition; secondly, to alter 
 them; thirdly, to impede our preparations;
 
 102 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 and, fourthly, to make similar prepara- 
 tions. 
 
 Hence the necessity of a series of disposi- 
 tions (of security-dispositions, if you will), 
 the object of which will be, first, to reconnoitre 
 the enemy ; secondly, to immobilize him ; and, 
 thirdly, to paralyze him and absorb his activity. 
 
 Such dispositions are included in what is 
 termed the first frontal attack, which is rather 
 the preparation of battle than battle itself. 
 
 But reconnoitring that enemy, wherever he 
 shows himself, requires large forces; im- 
 mobilizing him requires large forces : you 
 cannot stop him with nothing ; and paralyzing 
 him, holding him, requires, again, both large 
 forces and time. 
 
 Finally, the frontal attack, to which one 
 may have intended devoting but small num- 
 bers (so as to keep faithful to theory), in 
 practice will absorb the largest part of our 
 forces, as well as take up the largest part of 
 the time, at our disposal; while our decisive 
 attack only uses the smaller part of our troops 
 and lasts but for a short space of time ; hence 
 a second optical delusion, which has confirmed 
 (in superficial minds) the belief that the frontal 
 attack was the true battle ; for their judgment 
 was based on quantities (forces and time), 
 not on results an error which thus brought 
 them back to the doctrine of parallel battle.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 103 
 
 Let us beware of such superficial views. 
 Even should theory fail when applied by 
 unskilful hands, should the essentials of 
 theory be lost in accessories or its foundation 
 be obscured by detail, history and reason 
 have shown us that there is in battle only 
 one valid argument : the decisive attack. 
 This alone is capable of ensuring the result 
 desired, for it overthrows the enemy. 
 
 Decisive attack is the supreme argument 
 used by modern battle, which itself is a 
 struggle between nations fighting for their 
 existence, for independence, or for some less 
 noble interest; fighting, anyhow, with all 
 their resources and passions. These masses 
 of men and of passions have to be shaken and 
 overthrown. 
 
 If we study in detail the attack of Mac- 
 donald's l column, for instance (which includes 
 all the phases of the tragic act of battle), we 
 should find its attack : 
 
 1. Prepared (a) by a charge of 40 squadrons 
 (the object of which was to make it possible 
 for the attacking column to assemble) ; (b) by 
 fire from 102 guns (in order to halt and shake 
 the enemy). 
 
 2. Carried out by 50 battalions (22,500 
 men). 
 
 1 At Wagram.
 
 104 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 We should find that mass of infantry un- 
 able to act by fire, in view of the formation 
 it has taken ; unable to use the bayonet. The 
 enemy nowhere awaits the shock. Finally, 
 it does no harm whatever to the adversary; 
 on the contrary, it suffers a great deal 
 itself ; it was reduced to 1500 victorious men 
 when it reached its objective, Siissenbrunn. 
 
 In summing up, we should find that this 
 decimated force was able to beat the decimating 
 one; moreover, this decimated force deter- 
 mined the forward movement of the whole 
 army, the victory on the wide Marchfeld. 
 
 This result was secured not by physical 
 means these were all to the advantage of 
 the vanquished it was achieved by a purely 
 moral action, which alone brought about 
 decision and a complete decision. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Owing to its continually offensive attitude, 
 the preparation has finally succeeded in 
 throwing back the enemy's first lines, in 
 carrying the enemy's advanced posts and in 
 immobilizing him by the series of its efforts 
 and by threatening him with close attack. 
 It holds him exposed to a more violent attack. 
 
 But it is by this time in a state of exhaus- 
 tion ; the greatest part of its reserves are in 
 action, units are mixed, the number of officers 
 is reduced, ammunition begins to grow scarce.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 105 
 
 The preparation is now confronted by the 
 main enemy forces, by important obstacles; 
 a ground swept by fire or strong " points 
 d'appui " (strongly occupied and only to be 
 approached with difficulty). 
 
 In front, there is a (so to speak) " im- 
 passable " zone; no defiladed ways of access 
 . are left ; a hail of bullets sweeps the ground 
 in front of the first line. But success has not 
 yet been secured ; " nothing is done so long 
 as something remains to be done " (Frederick). 
 The laurels of victory are at the point of 
 enemy bayonets. They must be plucked 
 there ; they must be carried by a fight hand 
 to hand, if one really means to conquer. 
 
 To reinforce the troops of preparation in 
 order to attain the result would be without 
 effect : a battle of parallel lines would begin 
 and would remain powerless. 
 
 To run away or to fall on, such is the un- 
 avoidable dilemma. To fall on, but to fall 
 on in numbers and masses : therein lies salva- 
 tion. For numbers, provided we know how 
 to use them, will allow us, by means of the 
 physical superiority placed at our disposal, 
 to get the better of that violent enemy fire. 
 Having more guns we can silence his own ; it 
 is the same with rifles, the same with bayonets, 
 if we know how to use them all. 
 
 Ground must next be considered. It
 
 106 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 determines the objective of the decisive attack. 
 Up to 800 or 600 yards the attack suffers 
 heavily, and has little effect of its own. 
 
 Our art consists, then, in reducing this belt 
 to the smallest limits, and in launching the 
 attack from as close to the enemy as possible, 
 and ground is the element which furnishes 
 us with our means. 
 
 On the other hand, the attack once launched 
 must proceed rapidly, and yet for that purpose 
 it needs ground devoid of obstacles, which 
 does not mean devoid of cover. The ideal 
 conditions are a ground open but rolling, and 
 the important point is the rapidity of the 
 advance. Ground, we see by this, deter- 
 mines, as I have said, the point of attack, for 
 if we have combined these two conditions, 
 the power of attacking from close by and of 
 rapid advance, the admitted difficulties of a 
 central attack disappear. 
 
 The Rdle of Artillery. To make a breach on 
 the front of attack, to open the way for 
 infantry, to keep it clear once it is open, to 
 sacrifice itself if need be in order to enable 
 infantry to perform its task, to watch the 
 batteries and counter-attacks of the enemy ; 
 such is at this moment the mission of our 
 artillery. 
 
 To this end, the largest possible number of 
 guns enters into action towards the point of
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 107 
 
 attack. There can never be too many guns, 
 there are never enough of them. 
 
 All the artillery groups placed near that 
 point, those which would still be available 
 and could enter in line : corps artillery, the 
 artillery of the infantry divisions, of the 
 cavalry divisions, of second-line army corps, 
 those which have taken part in the prepara- 
 tion and which are now without an object; 
 all of them work in the same direction, by 
 means of a fire both violent and suddenly 
 unmasked, the intensity of which continually 
 increases. 
 
 In order to fulfil this task, it is enough that 
 artillery should see ; all the batteries which 
 can act from their position must be left where 
 they are. They must, on the contrary, be 
 moved if they cannot see. Such are the tactics 
 to be adopted. 
 
 A quarter of an hour's quick fire by a mass 
 of artillery on a clearly determined objective 
 will generally suffice to break its resistance, 
 or at any rate to make it uninhabitable and 
 therefore uninhabited. 
 
 The mass of artillery must then open a 
 quick fire a quarter of an hour before the 
 infantry mass enters in line. Such will be 
 the rule ; artillery fire must begin later if the 
 infantry attack, starting from a great distance,
 
 108 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 needs a longer time before coming within 
 efficient range for infantry fire. 
 
 Against what should fire be opened ? 
 Against the obstacles which may delay the 
 march of infantry. 
 
 The first obstacle is the enemy gun. It 
 will be the first objective assigned to artillery 
 masses. 
 
 Once superiority shall have been secured 
 in that struggle, obstacles and shelters cover- 
 ing the road to that objective will have to be 
 smashed, or at any rate made untenable. 
 The second part of the same task of prepara- 
 tion will consist in destroying and riddling 
 with projectiles the infantry occupying or 
 surrounding them. 
 
 Once the road is open, it must be kept clear ; 
 once the breach is made, the enemy must be 
 prevented from filling it ; therefore one must 
 be able to go on firing against the part of the 
 enemy front which is our target until it shall 
 be assaulted by the attacking infantry. 
 
 The success of the attack must also be 
 ensured by striking at any kind of troops the 
 enemy may oppose : fresh batteries, counter- 
 attacks. 
 
 In order to fulfil this third rdle, the artillery 
 masses prepare groups of batteries (called 
 groups of attack and of counter-attack), 
 designed to follow and support the infantry
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 109 
 
 columns, as well as to manoeuvre in the 
 directions which threaten danger. 
 
 The Role of Infantry Artillery has shaken 
 the enemy's resistance; infantry must now 
 overthrow him. In order to decide the enemy 
 to retreat, we must advance upon him; in 
 order to conquer the position, to take the 
 enemy's place, one must go to where he is. 
 The most powerful fire does not secure that 
 result. Here begins more particularly the 
 action of infantry masses. They march 
 straight on to the goal, each aiming at its own 
 objective, speeding up their pace in propor- 
 tion as they come nearer, preceded by violent 
 fire, using also the bayonet, so as to close on 
 the enemy, to be the first to assault the 
 position, to throw themselves in the midst of 
 the enemy ranks and finish the contest by 
 means of cold steel and superior courage and 
 will. Artillery contributes to that result 
 with all its power while following, supporting, 
 covering the attack. 
 
 In the presence of an enemy master of his 
 own fire and free to use it against the on- 
 coming mass, a formation, however skilful 
 it may be, will not generally make it possible, 
 of itself, to advance under fire over an open 
 ground, not even to cross, under those con- 
 ditions, spaces of any length ; losses would be 
 incurred which would break the organization
 
 110 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 and above all the spirit of the troops, of 
 the infantry mass. 
 
 To-day, even more than in the past, the 
 art will consist, during this period of the 
 march, in utilizing all the defiladed ways of 
 access and all the cover provided by the 
 ground. The formation to be given to the 
 mass, far from aiming at symmetry, at har- 
 mony, at regularity, must only tend to 
 enabling the greatest possible numbers to 
 secure those advantages of cover which 
 nothing can replace. 
 
 On the contrary, in the second phase of 
 combat, from a distance of 600, 700, 800 yards 
 from the previously reconnoitred enemy posi- 
 tion, the mass is able to develop its whole 
 power : firing-power and striking-power. 
 The formations to be adopted must tend to 
 make the most efficient use possible of these 
 two means of action : to make one succeed 
 the other without a hitch, so that the com- 
 bined effects of fire and assault should be 
 superimposed and added one to the other. 
 
 The consideration of what fire one may 
 oneself receive now becomes a secondary 
 matter; the troops are on the move and 
 must arrive ; moreover, there is but one means 
 to extenuate the effects of enemy fire : it 
 is to develop a more violent fire oneself,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 111 
 
 capable at least of getting to ground and 
 paralyzing the enemy; another means con- 
 sists in rapid advance. 
 
 To march, and to march quickly, preceded 
 by the hail of bullets; in proportion as the 
 enemy is hard pressed, to bring forward more 
 and more numerous troops, and, moreover, 
 troops well in hand, such is the fundamental 
 formula for the formations to be taken and 
 tactics to be adopted. 
 
 A body of infantry formed in double line 
 obviously fulfils the twofold condition of 
 providing powerful fire and rapid advance. 
 Therefore such a body will, for a certain time, 
 be equal to the task. But the mass melts 
 away while performing that task; it soon 
 stops and becomes exhausted before reaching 
 the position. Hence the necessity of having 
 a second line which should be particularly 
 strong, coming nearer and nearer to the first, 
 designed to prevent the attack from receiving 
 a check, to push the first line on ahead, to 
 draw it along on to its destined position. We 
 thus have the second-line battalion (or bat- 
 talions) of the regiment in fighting order, 
 launching (in order to make an end) into the 
 more and more billowy, confused, mixed line, 
 whole companies in close order (line or column) 
 and fully commanded.
 
 112 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 To-day, as in the past, the attacking mass 
 cannot succeed unless it possesses the firm 
 will to reach its objective. Any force charged 
 with carrying out a decisive attack must 
 be full of Bugeaud's maxim : " When the 
 moment has come to act, you must march on 
 and meet your enemy with that energy and 
 self-possession which alone enables a man to 
 perform anything whatsoever." 
 
 Therefore we must have vigour, speed, 
 violence, no long halts, and therefore a quick 
 pressure from troops behind so as to urge 
 forward the first-line troops. These must be 
 the characteristics of action at that moment. 
 
 The Role of Cavalry. At the very time 
 when the crisis of the tragedy, the infantry 
 attack, is developing, the squadrons of the 
 attack suddenly appear out of a cloud of 
 dust on the flank or in the rear of the position. 
 They, too, have had to reach the ground 
 where the fate of the day is to be settled, and, 
 since distance is no obstacle to them, they 
 have found sheltered ways of access which 
 have enabled them to reach at any rate the 
 external wing of the attack. They charge 
 thence on anything that is still resisting 
 among the enemy, or on enemy cavalry as 
 it attempts to charge the attacking infantry, 
 or on arriving enemy reserves as they come 
 up.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 118 
 
 For cavalry as well as for other arms, then, 
 there is both a necessity and a possibility 
 of acting, and this by means which must be 
 entirely left to the commander's initiative, 
 the object being to facilitate the decisive 
 attack. That attack is a victory for all. It 
 sometimes arises even from the apparently 
 fruitless efforts of some, but in every case 
 from the concord between different arms, from 
 the resultant of their converging efforts, from 
 an assault delivered arm in arm. 
 
 ATTACK, OBJECTIVE OP. The objective of 
 the attack must be determined beforehand. 
 Taking the same things into consideration, 
 namely, the space to be covered under enemy) 
 fire and the superior efficiency which has to be/ 
 produced and maintained on the selected point 
 of attack, we are led to the following con- 
 clusion : the first objective selected must be 
 that point occupied by the enemy which is 
 nearest to us and on which we may apply a 
 numerical superiority, which should guarantee 
 superior efficiency. 
 
 BATTLE. As there is direction, convergence 
 and a result, it may well be assumed that logic 
 governs here, as everywhere : that it asserts 
 its full rights; that it imposes itself in its
 
 114 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 most ruthless vigour. There is such a thing 
 as a theory of battle. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 A purely defensive battle is a duel in which 
 one of the fighters does nothing but parry. 
 Nobody would admit that, by so doing, he 
 could succeed in defeating his enemy. On the 
 contrary, he would sooner or later expose 
 himself, in spite of the greatest possible skill, 
 to being touched, to being overcome by one 
 of his enemy's thrusts, even if that enemy 
 were the weaker party. 
 
 Hence the conclusion that the offensive 
 form alone, be it resorted to at once or only 
 after the defensive, can lead to results, and 
 must therefore always be adopted at least 
 in the end. 
 
 Any defensive battle must, then, end in an 
 offensive action, in a thrust, in a successful 
 counter-attack, otherwise there is no result. 
 Such a notion will seem to some elementary; 
 still it cannot be omitted without all the ideas 
 one ought to hold on war becoming confused. 
 This idea was ignored by the French army of 
 1870, otherwise they would not have given 
 the name of a victory to the battles of the 
 I4th and i6th of August, 1870, and others 
 which might have become victories, but cer- 
 tainly did not deserve that name at the stage 
 in which they were left. To use a term current
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 115 
 
 at the time, " positions had been maintained," 
 and no more. Nothing could be expected 
 to come of such battles. Maintaining a 
 position is not synonymous with being vic- 
 torious; it even (implicitly) prepares defeat 
 if one stops there, if an offensive action is not 
 resorted to. 
 
 Joseph de Maistre wrote : "A battle lost 
 is a battle one thinks one has lost; for," he 
 added, " a battle cannot be lost physically." 
 Therefore, it can only be lost morally. But 
 then, it is also morally that a battle is won, 
 and we may extend the aphorism by saying : 
 A battle won, is a battle in which one will not 
 confess oneself beaten. 
 
 BATTLE, PARALLEL AND OF MAN(EUVRE. 
 
 Parallel battle or battle of lines, in which one 
 goes into action at all points, and in which 
 the commander-in-chief expects a favourable 
 circumstance, or a happy inspiration (which 
 are not usually forthcoming) to let him know 
 the place and time when he must act ; unless 
 he leaves all this to be decided by his lieu- 
 tenants, while the latter, again, leave this 
 to their own subordinates. So that in the 
 end the battle is won by the privates : an 
 anonymous battle.
 
 116 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Let us analyze this theory of " the parallel 
 battle." What do we discover ? 
 
 Troops go into action everywhere; once 
 in action, they are supported everywhere. 
 In proportion as forces are used up, they are 
 renewed and replaced. Such a battle con- 
 sists in putting up with a constant, a suc- 
 cessive, wear and tear, until the result ensues 
 from one or more successful actions of par- 
 ticular combatants subordinate commanders 
 or troops. Such actions all remain second- 
 rate, because their decision never involves 
 more than a portion of the forces engaged. 
 As for the whole, it is but a chain of more or 
 less similar combats, in which command is 
 broken up, has to specialize the means of 
 action in detail, and in which the issue must 
 proceed from a sum (or excess) of successful 
 local results which escape the direction of 
 the commander. 
 
 This is therefore a battle of an inferior kind 
 when compared to the battle of manoeuvre 
 which makes an appeal to the commander-in- 
 chief's action, to his manoeuvring ability, to 
 a sound and combined use of all the forces 
 present; which achieves a true economy of 
 those forces, by attempting to concentrate 
 effort and mass on one selected point and 
 neglecting all else ; which remains to the very 
 last a combination due to one command
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 117 
 
 of combats varying in intensity, but all 
 aiming in the same direction to produce a 
 final resultant : an intentional, resolute and 
 sudden action of masses acting by surprise. 
 
 The parallel battle uses inferior methods, 
 and is bound to lead to inferior results. 
 
 Its weakness lies in the fact that attack, 
 in such a battle, develops everywhere with 
 equal force, and ends by exerting a uniform 
 pressure against a defender who in his turn 
 offers a uniform resistance ; a resistance 
 which, however, is more efficient than the 
 pressure, because the defender disposes of 
 special advantages such as shelter, fire-power, 
 etc., which the assailant does not possess to 
 the same degree. 
 
 Such a battle means bringing up forces 
 piecemeal; it soon amounts to throwing 
 drops of water into a sea. 
 
 We have a wave breaking against a strong 
 dam. The dam will not be broken. 
 
 Suppose, however, we should, as a result 
 of some mental vision, discover a crack in 
 the wall of the dam; a point of inadequate 
 resistance. Or, again, should we manage, 
 by means of a particular combination of 
 forces, to add to the rhythmical and method- 
 ical action of the wave some kind of water- 
 hammering capable of breaking the wall of 
 the dam on some one point, then the balance
 
 118 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 would be upset; the mass would rush in 
 through the breach made, and carry the 
 whole obstacle. Let us look for the crack, 
 for the point of inadequate resistance, or let 
 us organize to this end our water-hammering 
 on one point of the enemy line ; we shall thus 
 attain the one result. 
 That is the " battle of manoeuvre." 
 Defence, once it has been overthrown on 
 one point, collapses on all. Once the resist- 
 ance has been pierced, the whole line falls. 
 
 In the parallel battle, tactics attempt, 
 consciously or unconsciously, to break the 
 other party's resistance by slowly and pro- 
 gressively using up enemy forces. To this 
 end, fighting is kept up everywhere. It is 
 fed everywhere. Reserves are devoted to 
 this supporting task. Reserves become a kind 
 of reservoir of forces from which one draws 
 what is necessary to making up the wear and 
 tear which continues and must be repaired. 
 Art consists in still keeping a reserve up to 
 the point where the enemy has none left, so 
 as to be able to have the last word in a struggle 
 where wear and tear is the only valid argu- 
 ment. In such a battle, however, reserves 
 have no place allotted to them beforehand; 
 they have to be everywhere, so that it should 
 be possible to use them according to our 
 needs that is, to continue the action on the
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 119 
 
 whole front. They afterwards scatter and 
 melt away in a combat where a favourable 
 circumstance is always hoped for, without it 
 being known where and when such a circum- 
 stance may be found, and where their only 
 effect is to prevent the struggle from coming 
 to an end. 
 
 In the battle of manoeuvre, on the other 
 hand, the reserve is a club, prepared, organ- 
 ized, reserved, carefully maintained in view 
 of carrying out the one act of battle from 
 which a result is expected the decisive attack. 
 The reserve Ts spared with the utmost parsi- 
 mony, so that the instrument may be as 
 strong, the blow as violent as possible. 
 
 Such a reserve must be hurled in the last 
 instance, without any thought of sparing it; 
 with a view to carrying by force a selected 
 and well-determined point. It must there- 
 fore be hurled as one block, in the course of 
 an action exceeding in violence and energy all 
 the combats of the battle, under the con- 
 ditions demanded by surprise, mass, and 
 speed. We envisage a single goal; a deter- 
 mining act in which all our forces take part, 
 either in order to prepare it, or in order to 
 carry it out. 
 
 The notion of a parallel battle was the 
 ruling one in the French army of 1870; or 
 rather it was an absence of notion regarding the
 
 120 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 conduct of battle as a whole. Adequate proof 
 of this may be derived from official and 
 private narratives recording the struggles of 
 that tune. The Germans are always sup- 
 posed to have achieved victory, because 
 numerous reinforcements came up, as though 
 these numerous reinforcements had not been 
 troops reserved and brought up in the num- 
 bers and in the time required to produce that 
 demoralizing effect which overthrows an 
 army ! 
 
 This way of putting things shows clearly 
 enough that, if such fresh troops had arrived 
 on our side, they would have been used as 
 reinforcements not as a means of under- 
 taking a special and decisive action which no 
 one contemplated. 
 
 BATTLE, MODERN. What has been said 
 about the philosophy of battle and about the 
 arguments advanced regarding it remain true 
 in the main, even in these modern days of 
 long range, rapid fire, and vast numbers, 
 because it is the same moral being, man, who 
 is fighting ; the forces in action are ruled by 
 the same mechanics. 
 
 The various acts of battle will, therefore, 
 remain the same : to prepare, to carry out, 
 
 and to utilize the decisive attack. 
 
 *****
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 121 
 
 The first object of preparation is to supply 
 the commander with the intelligence he needs 
 in order to direct and execute, with full know- 
 ledge of the case, the decisive act of battle. 
 Considered from that standpoint, it involves 
 seeking the objective to be struck, for the 
 means and ways leading to that objective, as 
 well as determining the enemy's situation. 
 The part it plays in thus looking for direction 
 and information has to be carried on until the 
 moment when the decisive act is performed 
 that is obvious but it also begins sometimes 
 several days before the battle. If one has to 
 deal with large units, for instance, with whole 
 armies, the information collected during these 
 days concerning the situation and distribution 
 of enemy forces, already indicate how one's 
 own forces must be distributed, and largely 
 determine the direction and importance of 
 the decisive attack, although it is impossible 
 to think of altering one's plan at the last 
 moment. 
 
 Thus the strategical advance guards of 
 Napoleon (more particularly those of 1806 
 and 1809) supply by their intelligence service 
 a basis for the Napoleonic manoeuvres, as 
 well as providing later on, by their resistance 
 and their hold over the enemy, the pivot 
 around which that manoeuvre develops. 
 But, besides what has just been said,
 
 122 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 preparation must also conceal the direction 
 and moment of the decisive attack; it must 
 cover the organizing process : hence a new 
 mission, that of protecting and covering the 
 attack. 
 
 Preparation must at the same time maintain 
 the previously reconnoitred situation of the 
 enemy, deprive him of the means and possi- 
 bility of preparing a manoeuvre on his part; 
 therefore, immobilize him by depriving him 
 of the physical possibility of assembling an 
 adequate force which he might victoriously 
 oppose to the effort of the decisive attack; 
 to this end, undertake a number of actions 
 against the enemy. 
 
 In order to fulfil this twofold task, prepara- 
 tion must attack the enemy wherever he 
 shows himself, so as to inflict serious losses 
 on him, to deprive him of his means of action, 
 to paralyze him, to threaten him, which 
 prevents him from removing his forces to 
 some other place. Its attitude must there- 
 fore be a resolutely offensive one. 
 
 But it must at the same time keep him off 
 if he becomes threatening, it must be able to 
 resist and know how to do it. While acting, 
 preparation must prepare the means of suc- 
 cessfully defending itself. N 
 
 To conquer and to maintain with ever- 
 increasing vigour is its formula,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 123 
 
 Preparation troops will in practice soon be 
 found, not to start one single action, but to be 
 fighting several partial actions, conducted 
 independently of each other with the object 
 of conquering the resisting centres of the 
 enemy. 
 
 As the latter is also attempting to do the 
 same thing (until he has been completely 
 immobilized), or as he is trying to recapture 
 the points he has lost, there results a series 
 of offensive and defensive actions, with a 
 view to disputing the points of the ground, 
 and all this generally imparts to the combat of 
 preparation a special kind of tenacity, of 
 desperation, of length, producing among the 
 enemy a wear and tear of strength and means 
 of action, losses, physical and moral exhaus- 
 tion, all of which are equally desirable results. 
 
 Hence also the duration of the combat of 
 preparation which has been improperly termed 
 a dragging fight; while it actually results in 
 a constant offensive, carried on everywhere, 
 moreover, under difficult conditions; in case 
 of failure, it changes into a defensive prepared 
 beforehand and kept up with desperation, so 
 that it remains in either case the very reverse 
 of a slack action. 
 
 To attack the important points of the 
 ground, to carry them, to occupy them; to
 
 124 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 defend them, if they are attacked; to retake 
 them if they are lost; to make them a new 
 base for new progress if the enemy does not 
 attack them : such are the processes prepara- 
 tion-troops must continuously maintain, until 
 the enemy gives up every hope of conquering 
 and leaves the place, or until they stop of 
 themselves as a result of complete exhaustion. 
 But even in this latter case they have to 
 establish themselves in front of the enemy, 
 so as to threaten him or to drive him back if 
 he attempts to advance. 
 
 As has, then, been seen, preparation con- 
 sists in a multitude of partial combats, each 
 of which, in order to secure success, to lead 
 to decision, that is, to the conquest of the 
 objective selected, involves a decisive act, 
 a convergence towards the same point, at 
 the same moment, of all available co-ordinated 
 efforts. Such a decisive act will contain, 
 in a lesser, but still certain proportion, the 
 three phases involved by battle : preparation, 
 execution, utilization. In the case of each of 
 these phases, the use and formation of troops 
 are directed by the principles which should 
 command the corresponding acts in battle. 
 
 It is also certain that such a great number 
 of actions cannot be directed by a single man. 
 The commander-in-chief plays his part by
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 125 
 
 dividing the task of preparation between a 
 certain number of subordinate officers, to the 
 initiative of each of whom, according to his 
 own means, he leaves the reduction of the 
 enemy. 
 
 General Victor commands at Garnsdorf, 
 General Claparede commands at Beulwitz. 
 
 The commander reserves to himself the 
 main task, that of directing and carrying 
 out the decisive attack, and he also reserves, 
 in any case, the possibility of intervening up 
 to the last moment with the help of general 
 reserves. 
 
 Preparation finally ends in a general action 
 along the whole front, in sometimes a very 
 hard and often very long struggle. There- 
 fore, although this operation should theoretic- 
 ally only absorb a minimum of forces, it 
 requires in reality serious sacrifices, which 
 the commander must make ungrudgingly, so 
 long as the waste thus incurred does not 
 endanger the subsequent phases and more 
 particularly the success of the decisive act; 
 sacrifices which he must make early, as the 
 deployment of forces, that is, the process of 
 establishing units facing their objectives, 
 must take place out of the reach of guns, and 
 therefore at a very great distance. 
 
 Preparation is, then, a multitude of partial
 
 126 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 combats, the object of which generally is to 
 conquer successively, on the field, " points 
 d'appui " or commanding points, organized 
 and transformed into resisting centres and 
 starting-points for new offensive actions ; 
 each of these combats involving three acts 
 preparing, carrying out and utilizing a decisive 
 action. 
 
 In such a preparation, what should be the 
 part played by each different arm ? 
 
 PART PLAYED JBY THE THREE ARMS 
 
 Artillery. Artillery must obviously be the 
 first to act, owing to its range, its mobility, 
 and the fact that it can easily come into 
 action and go out of it in order to proceed, 
 when necessary, to some other place; more- 
 over, it can act so as to get hold of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Therefore the artillery of the main body, 
 the largest part of which is marching close 
 behind the head of the column, will speed up 
 its movement. Protected by infantry, it 
 reinforces the artillery of the advance guard. 
 
 What, then, are these bodies of artillery 
 about to do? 
 
 The guns will help the advance guard in its 
 mission, which consists in reconnoitring, 
 immobilizing, and wearing down the enemy;
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 127 
 
 this implies taking the offensive; therefore 
 guns will break the obstacles opposing infantry 
 " points d'appui," and enemy artillery. 
 
 As soon as progress becomes possible, the 
 guns will avail themselves of that opportunity 
 and advance in their turn in order to settle 
 in a final way the fate of the enemy artillery. 
 They will undertake to this end a struggle 
 at a short range. This is the artillery duel. 
 It is obviously a matter of the highest import- 
 ance to secure as soon as possible a superiority 
 in that duel between guns holding under their 
 powerful fire the whole of the ground they can 
 observe. 
 
 To this end, superiority of numbers must 
 be secured immediately; a long line of fire 
 must be immediately organized; all guns 
 must be brought up, nothing must be kept 
 in reserve. Such is first of all the tactical 
 formulae for gunners engaged in an artillery 
 duel. 
 
 Once the enemy artillery has been over- 
 thrown or silenced, the guns must return to 
 the task of helping infantry, by preparing 
 the attack on the points which are the latter's 
 objectives. 
 
 That preparation involves (as we shall see 
 by and by, more particularly when studying 
 the decisive attack) clearing the ways of access, 
 the approaches leading to the objective, as
 
 128 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 well as breaching the objective ; following up 
 the attack. 
 
 Opening a way for infantry on the whole 
 front so as to enable it to reach decisive acts ; 
 helping it in these attacks, in these decisive 
 acts; these are the tactics of artillery in the 
 course of the preparation. 
 
 These two successive and different functions 
 of artillery, first in the artillery duel and next 
 the infantry actions, leads to a corresponding 
 difference in the grouping of batteries. In 
 the first case (artillery duel), divisional 
 artilleries must attempt to join the corps 
 artillery, under the effective or nominal 
 command of the officer commanding the 
 artillery of the army corps. All the batteries 
 must then try to form a whole, the artillery of 
 the army corps working in a common direction 
 (which does not mean in a single place). 
 
 In the second case (infantry action, artillery 
 in support of infantry), divisional artilleries, 
 of course, remain under the orders of the 
 generals commanding the divisions ; they are 
 reinforced by all or part of the corps artillery, 
 which thus becomes an artillery attached to 
 infantry under the orders of generals com- 
 manding the divisions. The whole artillery 
 of the army corps tends to become divisional,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 129 
 
 and therefore to dividing itself and acting 
 in two or three directions, those of the 
 divisions. 
 
 Moreover, in proportion as arms are im- 
 proved (quick-firing rifles and guns), infantry 
 is compelled, when advancing, to move under 
 cover, at least from gunfire; to this end, 
 infantry has to utilize all practicable defilades 
 and to follow them for the longest time 
 possible. The necessity of cover increases 
 every day. 
 
 But these ways of access are easily para- 
 lyzed nowadays by weak troops occupying 
 '' points d'appui " and armed with quick- 
 firing rifles, or enfilading with a few quick- 
 firing guns (two or three). Formerly many 
 guns were needed to produce an effect. To- 
 day, a few suffice. Hence this consequence, 
 that the numerous ways of access, more and 
 more necessary to infantry, would be im- 
 practicable if infantry were not helped from 
 close at hand by an artillery capable of putting 
 out of action the resisting means of the 
 enemy. The union of both arms has become 
 more necessary than ever. It is only when 
 preceded by shells which break obstacles and 
 silence the fire of enemy guns, that infantry 
 will manage to move even in small numbers 
 along its avenues of approach. And as the 
 
 divisional artillery, be it reinforced or not, 
 K
 
 130 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 could not fire from one single central position 
 along all these means of access in order to 
 clear them, that artillery will often be brought 
 to subdivide itself in order to follow and help 
 infantry troops. Thus we shall have guns 
 attached to a brigade or to a regiment, this 
 being a temporary device which must not 
 alter our organic constitution, but on the 
 contrary must be made to show what elas- 
 ticity and suppleness have to be displayed 
 nowadays in managing an army. It is further 
 obvious that the inconvenience resulting from 
 the parcelling and apportionment of batteries 
 becomes much smaller when we pass from a 
 gun firing two shots a minute to a gun firing 
 twenty. 
 
 One must nevertheless not lose sight of the 
 fact that the moral effect, the characteristic 
 of artillery, increases rapidly with the con- 
 centration of fire. It is only by means of 
 an action en masse that one can even attempt 
 to secure important and decisive results. 
 
 Moreover, artillery possesses in the highest 
 degree the means of effecting surprise : it is 
 able, as soon as it appears, to make effect 
 follow upon menace without delay. The 
 reality of the blow follows the first apparition 
 of danger. It must see to it that its action 
 keeps this characteristic, and even possesses
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 131 
 
 it, if possible, to an ever-increasing degree; 
 to this end, destruction must be made to 
 coincide with the entrance of guns in line, 
 and, as few direct hits are wanted to put the 
 enemy out of action, artillery must attempt 
 from the moment of opening fire to bracket 
 the objective widely. 
 
 Infantry. Though it is artillery which 
 begins the battle, it cannot do so unless it is 
 safely protected. The alternative is too great 
 a risk. 
 
 Infantry must therefore open the battle- 
 field for artillery and constantly cover the 
 batteries by occupying points wherefrom it 
 can protect them. 
 
 The preparation-force must further im- 
 mobilize the enemy. This makes it necessary 
 for infantry to strike at the enemy, to threaten 
 him with a close attack, with assault, and first 
 of all to approach as near as the distance 
 required for such an operation. 
 
 These efforts mainly devolve upon the 
 first-line troops, as a result of the necessity of 
 keeping the others covered at a distance, 
 of reserving them in order to maintain and 
 supply the preparation. 
 
 They cannot be directed by a high com- 
 mand, nor by a commander acting from the 
 rear and sending up troops. Yet these first-
 
 132 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 line operations cannot succeed without having 
 forces at their disposal. It therefore behoves 
 officers commanding first-line units (com- 
 panies, battalions) to display initiative and 
 understanding in order to combine the action 
 of their forces, however disorganized they 
 may be, against the objectives to be suc- 
 cessively carried; in order to reduce to a 
 minimum such forces as are holding the con- 
 quered points of the ground, and to use the 
 rest of their forces against the points which 
 have still to be conquered. 
 
 Once progress has become impossible, they 
 must try and attain by their fire the enemy 
 artillery and organize their forces in order to 
 drive back the enemy's attempts; this will 
 be the last phase of preparation, until the 
 moment when decisive attack is to be carried 
 out. 
 
 BATTLE, PLAN OF. All acts of battle should 
 tend to : 
 
 1. Preparing that conclusion; be they 
 called the action of an advance guard, frontal 
 attack, artillery duel, encounter of cavalry, 
 they cannot be studied and conducted alone, but 
 only in so far as they prepare the conclusion ; 
 
 2. Carrying out that conclusion ; and 
 
 3. Utilizing it by pursuit, so as to destroy 
 the fallen enemy.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 183 
 
 Therefore, and from the outset, it is neces- 
 sary to make a plan involving such a succession 
 of efforts and a corresponding distribution of 
 forces. 
 
 CAVALRY. The Prussian cavalry 1 remained 
 in action right up to the end. After breaking 
 the attempts made by the enemy in order to 
 debouch from the wood, they attacked the 
 enemy artillery, captured three guns, and 
 afterwards carried out the pursuit. Although 
 their professional value was inferior to that 
 of the Austrian cavalry, they knew how to 
 fulfil their mission in the battle, how to 
 act in compliance with the advance guard's 
 tactics; above all, they were handled by a 
 commander who utilized them to the utmost 
 even to the very close of the action. 
 
 CAVALRY, IN ACTION. As far as the cavalry 
 action south of Wysokow 2 is concerned, both 
 parties have claimed victory. Both may be 
 right, if that action be only considered in 
 itself. As a matter of fact, the Austrian 
 cavalry was proved to possess dash, ma- 
 noeuvring efficiency, undeniable professional 
 value. But they were not properly com- 
 
 1 At Nachod, in 1866. 
 
 2 In the same action, Nachod, 1866.
 
 134 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 manded. The Prussian cavalry were more 
 cautious, less well trained : they had the 
 same pluck, the same quickness, the same 
 versatility in manoeuvring. And they were 
 commanded. They showed tactical ability. 
 If we only consider the result, it was they 
 who obtained the victory. Two cavalry 
 forces do not fight in order to find out which 
 is the better force of the two. There is 
 always a general situation to be considered, a 
 tactical goal to be reached. For the Austrian 
 cavalry, as well as for the Austrian infantry, 
 the object here was to reach the approaches 
 of the Nachod pass. They failed to do so. 
 For the Prussian cavalry, as well as for the 
 Prussian infantry, the object was to protect 
 that issue. They secured that result. 
 
 Among other mistakes, the Austrian cavalry 
 were faulty in omitting to scout, to protect 
 themselves in the direction of Wysokow; 
 hence a decisive surprise. The general use 
 made of cavalry by either party leads to a 
 similar remark. General Steinmetz had his 
 whole cavalry (about twelve squadrons) on 
 the battle-field. The Austrian commander, 
 who had more than thirty squadrons at his 
 disposal, only managed to send five into 
 action. He had numbers on his side; yet 
 it was by numbers that his cavalry were 
 beaten.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 135 
 
 CAVALRY CORPS. The authorities did well, 
 after the experiences of 1812 and of 1866, 
 to give up the permanent organization of 
 cavalry corps, which are difficult to feed, 
 clumsy to manoeuvre, and generally come up 
 too late. Nor should we to-day be led to 
 reconstitute the same at the opening of a 
 war. We have not to envisage scouting over 
 great distances such as those of the Palatinate 
 in 1870, considering the effectives actually 
 assigned to the function of covering and the 
 distances which separate the opposed cover- 
 ing screens. There are but twenty-seven 
 kilometres from Chateau-Salins to Nancy. 
 To employ such corps in order to turn one 
 or other of the wings of the enemy's cover- 
 ing screen would only lead one on to a 
 lengthy enterprise which doubtless will be 
 without result. On the other hand, cavalry 
 used in masses will fulfil to-day as in the 
 past (1806), as a covering or as a manoeuvring 
 advance guard, the role of a highly mobile 
 large reserve capable of reinforcing a point 
 which is about to yield or of parrying a 
 turning movement. Even after the first 
 encounters, when the opposing armies shall 
 have taken the field, one must use cavalry 
 masses to obtain the first information, and 
 this only an unquestionable numerical superi- 
 ority can procure.
 
 136 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 CHARACTERS OF WAR. Were I to speak 
 about strategy and general tactics in Brussels 
 instead of in Paris, my study would bear on 
 a particular form of war. The situation of 
 Belgium is known to you : a neutrality 
 guaranteed by Europe, which is perhaps 
 nothing more than a word, but has, in any 
 case, hitherto saved the existence of that 
 little State; further, the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of two great Powers, Germany and 
 France, from neither of which does any serious 
 military obstacle separate that State, by either 
 of which it might be easily conquered if the 
 other neighbour, or Europe as a whole, did 
 not intervene in the struggle. The special 
 theory of war that would have to be pre- 
 sented to the Belgian Army would have a 
 well-determined object, namely that of de- 
 laying as much as possible the advance of 
 the invading neighbour. The study would 
 then consist in finding out how the Belgian 
 Army can perform such a part, by avoiding 
 the decision by arms and adjourning the 
 judgment of battle. 
 
 Such a conclusion would necessarily in- 
 fluence the whole military state of the nation : 
 organization, mobilization, armament, fortifica- 
 tion, as well as the instruction of the troops, 
 not excluding the training of the company 
 and even of the individual private.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 137 
 
 If from Brussels we proceed to London, we 
 again find a different situation, different 
 ambitions. Those are equally familiar to 
 you. There you would find an insular situa- 
 tion which ought to be maintained intangible 
 by a protecting organization; also the ambi- 
 tion of maintaining and developing an Empire 
 beyond the seas and in both hemispheres. 
 This would require another way of handling 
 the problem, another theory of war. 
 
 So, again, in Madrid. Every idea of terri- 
 torial extension on the Continent is tem- 
 porarily discarded by Spain in view of its 
 geographical situation, of the nature of its 
 frontiers, of its political, financial state, etc. 
 . . . What does, then, such a country request 
 from its army? The maintenance of the 
 integrity of national territory. Would not in 
 that case the best lesson on the art of war 
 be derived from reading certain pages of the 
 history of Spain from 1808 to 1814? 
 
 The same is true of Rome, or Berne. Each 
 country finds itself in a different situation, 
 requiring a distinct handling of the problem. 
 
 COMMANDMENT. An army which desires to 
 conquer must be provided with a factor of 
 the first order, command : and the man who 
 would undertake the conduct of battle must 
 possess a certain gift : that of commanding.
 
 188 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 To think and to will, to possess intelligence 
 and energy, will not suffice for him ; he must 
 possess also the " imperative fluid " (De 
 Brack), the gift of communicating his own 
 supreme energy to the masses of men who 
 are, so to speak, his weapon; for an army 
 is to a chief what a sword is to a soldier. 
 It is only worth anything in so far as it receives 
 from him a certain impulsion (direction and 
 vigour). 
 
 " The Gauls were not conquered by the 
 Roman legions, but by Caesar. It was not 
 before the Carthaginian soldiers that Rome 
 was made to tremble, but before Hannibal. 
 It was not the Macedonian phalanx which 
 penetrated to India, but Alexander. It was 
 not the French army which reached the 
 Weser and the Inn, it was Turenne. Prussia 
 was not defended for seven years against the 
 three most formidable European Powers by 
 the Prussian soldiers, but by Frederick the 
 Great." 
 
 These are Napoleon's words. What would 
 he not have written, and still more rightly, 
 had he included in his enumerations that 
 dazzling period of history, the fascinating 
 memory of which will live through future 
 centuries under the name of " the Napoleonic 
 epic," and to which he gave all its life by his 
 own gigantic personality !
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 139 
 
 Great results in war are due to the com- 
 mander. History is therefore right in making 
 generals responsible for victories in which 
 case they are glorified; and for defeats in 
 which case they are disgraced. Without a 
 commander, no battle, no victory is possible. 
 
 Is it not again this influence of the com- 
 mander, the very enthusiasm derived from 
 him, which alone can explain the unconscious 
 movements of human masses, at those solemn 
 moments when, without knowing why it is 
 doing so, an army on the battle-field feels it is 
 being carried forward as if it were gliding 
 down a slope. 
 
 It is, moreover, easy to perceive why such 
 an influence is necessary. Let us come to 
 that point. When the moment arrives for 
 taking decisions, facing responsibilities, enter- 
 ing upon sacrifices decisions which ought to 
 be taken before they are imposed, responsi- 
 bilities which ought to be welcomed, for the 
 initiative must be secured and the offensive 
 launched where should we find a man equal 
 to these uncertain and dangerous tasks were 
 it not among men of a superior stamp, men 
 eager for responsibilities? He must indeed 
 be a man who, being deeply imbued with a 
 will to conquer, shall derive from that will 
 (as well as from a clear perception of the only 
 means that lead to victory) the strength to
 
 140 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 make an unwavering use of the most formid- 
 able rights, to approach with courage all 
 difficulties and all sacrifices, to risk every- 
 thing; even honour for a beaten general is 
 disgraced for ever. 
 
 " It is difficult to appreciate correctly what 
 moral strength is required to deliver after 
 having completely thought out the conse- 
 quences one of those great battles upon 
 which the history of an army and of a country, 
 the possession of a crown depend." So wrote 
 Napoleon. He added that, " generals who 
 give battle willingly are seldom found " ; 
 and " a morally strong personality must be 
 understood to mean not one who is only 
 possessed of strong emotions, but one whose 
 balance is not upset by the strongest possible 
 emotions " (Clausewitz). 
 
 Let us salute, too, that sovereign power of 
 the commander, just as he will be saluted by 
 drums and bugles when appearing on the 
 battle-field ; a power necessary to the organ- 
 ization of the whole, of the final thrust, and 
 alone capable of fixing fortune. 
 
 Let us at the very beginning of our study 
 make note of that capital factor : the com- 
 mander's personal action. No victory is 
 possible unless the commander be energetic, 
 eager for responsibilities and bold under- 
 takings; unless he possess and can impart
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 141 
 
 to all the resolute will of seeing the thing 
 through; unless he be capable of exerting a 
 personal action composed of will, judgment, 
 and freedom of mind in the midst of danger. 
 These are natural gifts in a man of genius, 
 in a born general; in an average man such 
 advantages may be secured by means of work 
 and reflection. 
 
 In order to manifest itself, such a personal 
 action requires the temperament of a chief (a 
 gift of nature), ability to command, inciting 
 power, which teaching cannot provide. 
 
 The effects of that personal action are 
 numerous, for by using such gifts (natural or 
 acquired), it finds in the most unlimited use 
 of forces a means of increasing the efficiency 
 of such forces; it also transforms its instru- 
 ment, giving birth, as it were, to officers and 
 troops, creating an ability and devotion which, 
 failing such spark or impulsion from above, 
 would have remained sunk in mediocrity. 
 
 This task of the commander becomes an 
 immense one where modern numbers are 
 concerned. It is, indeed, seldom possible for 
 a single man to fulfil it; several men are 
 needed. This is the new conception which 
 the French Revolution brought into war, by 
 making the personal initiative of subordinate 
 chiefs (all working in the same direction and 
 complying with the same doctrine) concur
 
 142 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 in setting up a complete direction of armies. 
 It became, at any rate, a fully developed 
 reality with the German armies of 1870. 
 
 One should remark in their headquarters 
 the presence of the King; the Commander- 
 in-Chief of the Allied Forces with his great 
 General Staff; of the German Princes; and 
 also of the Minister of War, of the Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs, and of the Federal 
 Chancellor. There, indeed, you have an 
 example of command in nations going to 
 war. The whole power of the Government 
 accompanies the Commander-in-Chief , in order 
 to put at his disposal all the resources of 
 diplomacy, of finance, and of the national 
 soil; in order that the military enterprise 
 to which the nation has given all its energies, 
 and one to which it proposes to devote all 
 the power of its authorities, may succeed. 
 ***** 
 
 The formula, " strike hard and strike at 
 the main mass," does not sum up the whole 
 of war, at least so far as the Higher Command 
 is concerned. There is one essential condition 
 from which the latter cannot escape, and 
 that is, to strike all together, to co-ordinate. 
 Lacking that, you get disaster. 
 
 COMRADESHIP. The Germans fought at 
 Spicheren with a mass of 60,000 men, splen-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 143 
 
 didly bound together by the sole emotion of 
 comradeship. 
 
 CONCENTRATION. A concentration ought to 
 be carried out in a region where the armies 
 can be supplied, whether an offensive or a 
 defensive follows upon the conclusion of that 
 operation. It should take into account both 
 the direction of attack and the line of retreat 
 to be kept open. The same railway lines 
 which carry the concentration into effect 
 generally allow of an easy supply for the 
 army, provided always that the retreat in 
 case of check can be made over the most 
 important part of the ground, and therefore 
 that the zone of concentration should lie 
 just in front of that region. 
 
 Our concentration ought to cover the 
 frontier provinces menaced by invasion. 
 Public opinion has too much influence to-day 
 to allow the Government to leave those 
 frontiers without defence. Further, were they 
 to act thus, they would be depriving them- 
 selves of resources and territory, and they 
 would lose ground which would have to be 
 recovered. But the protection of these pro- 
 vinces is not identical with their occupation. 
 One must reconcile this idea of protection 
 with the necessity of all the troops being 
 absolutely required to combine for decisive
 
 144 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 actions. Therefore we must keep intact the 
 principle of assembling all one's forces, and 
 one must provide the guarantee desired for 
 the threatened provinces either indirectly, 
 as Moltke provided protection for southern 
 Germany in 1870, or by the aid of covering 
 troops. 
 
 To satisfy in one and the same system these 
 political necessities and the military necessities 
 as well, such are the fixed limits of the task 
 imposed at the outset upon our staffs. 
 ***** 
 
 The German concentration of the future 
 will not be a reunion of forces directed to 
 various ends. It is directed towards a ma- 
 noeuvre which has been planned a priori. It 
 is an attack all planned out; its execution, 
 in direction and in means already fixed. It 
 will be preceded by the highest degree of 
 preparation, in order to permit the advance 
 against the enemy, and this preparation 
 will be based, to conclude, upon resolution 
 and will; that is, upon spiritual conditions 
 which secure the initiative, and the sub- 
 ordination of the adversary, from the first. 
 The whole thing is a constant effort to seize 
 the direction of the struggle at the earliest 
 possible moment. However highly these 
 characteristics may be developed, we must 
 remark that in order that the manoeuvre
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 145 
 
 should lead to its military result the over- 
 throw of the adversary it will have to strike 
 hard and strike exactly in the right place. 
 To that end there must be nothing about it 
 haphazard. It must be fully informed, and 
 the action must be planned with a deter- 
 mined direction strictly denned before it is 
 undertaken. Further, it must be planned 
 with common sense, and the direction chosen 
 must be that which will produce the chief 
 effect and where the army can wage battle 
 with large results. Lacking such an end, 
 rapidity of movement and initiative itself are 
 worthless. Therefore let the direction be 
 chosen beforehand upon considered reasons. 
 The great European States have drawn up 
 projects of concentration to be realized at 
 the moment war breaks out. These plans 
 are partly indicated by the lines of railway 
 and the opportunities for detraining. They 
 are also partly evident from the measures 
 undertaken in time of peace. Further, there 
 are documents, known either partially or as 
 a whole, which allow one to reconstitute, 
 partially or entirely, the projects which have 
 been decided upon. Commerce and industry 
 have increased the number and the efficiency 
 of railway lines purely commercial in their 
 object. Therefore : 
 
 i. It is no longer necessary for us to fully
 
 146 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 employ all the railways which lead to the 
 frontier. There are more than we need, 
 both in their number and in the work they 
 can do. On account of this it is possible to 
 make a combination, or indeed several com- 
 binations, of the use one proposes to make 
 of those lines. 
 
 2. The fact that the personnel is now fully 
 instructed with a view to that object allows 
 us to wait till the very last hour before draw- 
 ing up our combination for the distribution 
 of our forces. Here is a contrast to the 
 position which existed in 1870. There has 
 reappeared the power to create a concen- 
 tration at the last moment, and by that very 
 fact to create surprise, in the Napoleonic 
 manner, if to the elastic use of railways one 
 adds a combination of march by the roads. 
 
 COVERING TROOPS. The organisation of a 
 strong covering screen, once accomplished, 
 will necessarily have its effect upon the 
 events of the first days after the declaration 
 of war. 
 
 DEFENCE OF A VILLAGE. The distribution 
 of troops devoted to the defence of a place 
 includes a garrison, an occupying force, 
 numerically as weak as possible; a reserve 
 as strong as possible, designed for counter-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 147 
 
 attacking and for providing itself, at the 
 moment it goes into action, with a security- 
 service which will guard it from any possible 
 surprise. 
 
 The occupying numbers may be calculated 
 on the following basis : at the moment when 
 the enemy reaches the outskirts of the village, 
 we oppose him with one rifle per yard to 
 make resistance serious and adequate. The 
 enemy can generally assault only one side of 
 the outskirts of the village. It is only after 
 measuring that part of the outskirts and 
 organizing a central redoubt, that the numbers 
 of the force attached to the direct defence of 
 the village can be fixed. At Wysokow, 1 the 
 force devoted to this task was the equivalent 
 of three battalions. 
 
 This calculation must never lead to our 
 devoting to the occupation of the " point 
 d'appui " the whole force available, however 
 weak that force may be ; part of it must always 
 be kept in reserve for the counter-attack. 
 
 DIRECTION. The power to command has 
 never meant the power to remain mysterious, 
 but rather to communicate, at least to those 
 who immediately execute our orders, the 
 idea which animates our plan. 
 
 1 In the action of Nachod, in the Austro-Prussian 
 war of 1866.
 
 148 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 If any one ever had the chance of playing 
 the mysterious r6le in war it was Napoleon. 
 For his authority was beyond question, and 
 he had taken upon himself to think out 
 everything and decide everything for his 
 army. Yet in his correspondence he always 
 put his views and his programme for several 
 days to come before the Commanders of his 
 army corps. And if we call to mind a number 
 of his proclamations we shall see that his very 
 troops were made aware of the manoeuvre 
 he intended. Souvarov said exactly the same 
 thing. Every soldier should understand the 
 manoeuvre in which he is engaged. He was 
 convinced that one can get anything out of a 
 force to which one speaks frankly, because 
 such a force will understand what is asked 
 of it and will then itself ask no better than 
 to do what is required of it. 
 
 ***** 
 
 General von Kirchbach, 1 commanding the 
 loth Division, had forestalled the column on 
 the field of action; he had found his way, 
 and had witnessed the loss of the Waldchen 
 and the cavalry action. 
 
 As soon as his troops arrived he ordered 
 the general commanding the igth Brigade 
 to retake and occupy the Waldchen, while 
 he himself proceeded to Wysokow, which the 
 
 1 At Nachod, as above.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 149 
 
 Commander of the army corps had ordered 
 him to occupy. 
 
 DISCIPLINE. To be disciplined does not 
 mean that one does not commit any breach 
 of discipline ; that one does not commit some 
 disorderly action; such a definition works 
 well enough for the rank and file, but not 
 at all for a commander placed in any degree 
 of the military hierarchy, least of all, therefore, 
 for those who find themselves in the highest 
 places. 9 
 
 To be disciplined does not mean, either, 
 that one only carries out an order received 
 to such a point as appears to be convenient, 
 fair, rational or possible. It means that one 
 frankly adopts the thoughts and views of 
 the superior in command, and that one uses 
 all humanly practicable means in order to 
 give him satisfaction. 
 
 Again, to be disciplined does not -mean 
 being silent, abstaining, or doing only what one 
 thinks one may undertake without risk ; it 
 is not the art of eluding responsibility ; it 
 means acting in compliance with orders 
 received, and therefore finding in one's own 
 mind, by effort and reflection, the possibility 
 to carry out such orders. It also means 
 finding in one's own will the energy to face 
 the risks involved in execution. In a high
 
 150 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 place, discipline implies mental activity and 
 a display of will. Laziness of mind leads to 
 indiscipline, just as does insubordination. 
 In either case it is an error; a guilty act. 
 Incapacity and ignorance cannot be called 
 extenuating circumstances, for knowledge is 
 within the reach of all who seek it. 
 
 ***** 
 
 In a time such as ours when people believe 
 they can do without an ideal, cast away what 
 they call abstract ideas, live on realism, 
 rationalism, positivism, reduce everything to 
 knowledge or to the use of more or less 
 ingenious and casual devices let us acknow- 
 ledge it here in such a time there is only 
 one means of avoiding error, crime, disaster, 
 of determining the conduct to be followed 
 on a given occasion but a safe means it is, 
 and a fruitful one ; this is the exclusive 
 devotion to two abstract notions in the field 
 of ethics : duty and discipline ; such a devo- 
 tion, if it is to lead to happy results, further 
 implies besides, as the example of General von 
 
 Kettler shows us, knowledge and reasoning. 
 ***** 
 
 Those words : common action, union of 
 forces, mean the reverse of independent, 
 isolated, or successive, action which would 
 fatally lead to dispersion. It is obvious, 
 therefore, that any one of the units which
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 151 
 
 is a component part of the whole force is 
 not free to go where it wishes (union in space) , 
 nor to arrive when it likes (union in time) ; 
 to allow itself to be directed by its chief's 
 private views, however sound they may 
 appear to be; to act on its own account; 
 to seek the enemy and fight him where and 
 when it likes even should the undertaking 
 be a successful one. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The crime lay in the fact that Garibaldi, 1 
 after being ordered to join the Eastern Army, 
 had not done so. He never thought of carry- 
 ing out his orders. His conduct was dictated 
 by his own personal views, by his craving for 
 personal success. 
 
 No material impossibility prevented him 
 from obeying, had he attempted to do so : 
 the Pelissier Division remaining at Dijon 
 would have sufficed to absorb General von 
 Kettler's activity; the army of the Vosges 
 might freely have joined the Eastern 
 Army. 
 
 Garibaldi and General de Failly, 2 although 
 their military origins were very different, 
 reached the same result, disaster, by following 
 the same ways : mental indiscipline, neglect of 
 
 1 Near Dijon, in 1870. 
 
 2 Also in 1870. He failed to execute an order to 
 concentrate on Bitche early in the war.
 
 152 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 military duty, in the. strictest sense of the 
 term. 
 
 DIVERSITY IN WAR. In war there are none 
 but particular cases; everything has there 
 an individual nature; nothing ever repeats 
 itself. 
 
 In the first place, the data of a military 
 problem are but seldom certain ; they are 
 never final. Everything is in a constant 
 state of change and reshaping. These data, 
 therefore, only possess a relative value as 
 compared to the absolute value of mathe- 
 matical terms. 
 
 Where you have only observed one com- 
 pany, you find a battalion when you come to 
 attack. 
 
 One regiment of 3000 rifles, if well cared 
 for, represents, after a few days campaigning, 
 2800 rifles; less well managed, it will no 
 longer include more than 2000. The varia- 
 tions in the moral of a force are at least as 
 ample. How, then, compare two regiments 
 with each other? Under the same name 
 they represent two utterly different quantities. 
 Illness, hardships, bivouacking at night, react 
 on the troops in various ways. Certain troops 
 after such an ordeal are soon only a force in 
 name. They are nothing but columns of 
 hungry, exhausted, sick men. Or you may
 
 153 
 
 have a division still called " a division " 
 though it shall have lost part of its batteries, 
 etc. . . . The same is true of the tactical 
 situation, which varies as seen by the one 
 side or the other. The interest of one of the 
 adversaries is not the mere reverse of the 
 interest of the other : so with their tactics. 
 Suppose one force has to escort a convoy, 
 while the other has to attack it : could the 
 manner of fighting be the same on both 
 sides ? Evidently not. On the same ground, 
 under the same circumstances of time and 
 place, one would have to proceed differently 
 in each of these 'cases. 
 
 The same regiment, the same brigade, will 
 not fight in the same manner when they have 
 to carry out the pursuit of a beaten enemy 
 and when they will have to meet a fresh 
 adversary, although they will use in both 
 cases the same men, the same rifles, the same 
 numbers. 
 
 Again as regards two advance guard en- 
 gagements : one can never be a mere repeti- 
 tion of another because, independently of 
 the fact that the ground varies from one to 
 the other, they are both governed by differ- 
 ences other than those of time and space. 
 
 The consequence of all this is that each 
 case considered is a particular one, that it 
 presents itself under a system of special
 
 154 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 circumstances : ground, state of the troops, 
 tactical situation, etc. . . . which are bound 
 to impress upon it an absolutely original 
 stamp. Certain factors will assume an addi- 
 tional importance, others a lesser one. 
 
 This absence of similarity among military 
 questions naturally brings out the inability 
 of memory to solve them ; also the sterility 
 of invariable forms, such as figures, geo- 
 metrical drawings (e'pures), plans (schemas), 
 etc. One only right solution imposes itself : 
 namely, the application, varying according 
 to circumstances, of fixed principles. 
 
 DOCTRINE OF WAR. What is the form of 
 this teaching sprung from history and destined 
 to grow by means of further historical studies ? 
 
 It appears in the shape of a theory of war 
 which can be taught which shall be taught 
 to you and in the shape of a doctrine, which 
 you will be taught to practise. 
 
 What is meant by these words is the con- 
 ception and the practical application not of a 
 science of war nor of some limited dogma, 
 composed of abstract truths outside which 
 all would be heresy, but of a certain number 
 of principles, the application of which, though 
 they will not be open to discussion once they 
 shall have been established, must logically 
 vary according to circumstances while always
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 155 
 
 tending towards the same goal, and that an 
 objective goal. 
 
 The doctrine will extend itself to the higher 
 side of war, owing to the free development 
 given to your minds by a common manner 
 of seeing, thinking, acting, by which every 
 one will profit according to the measure of 
 his own gifts; it will further constitute a 
 discipline of the mind common to you all. 
 ***** 
 
 There are fixed principles to be applied in 
 a variable way, according to circumstances, 
 to each case ; for each is always a particular 
 case and has to be considered in itself : such 
 is our conclusive formula for the time being. 
 Now does not such a conclusion bring us 
 back, on the field of practical application, 
 to the very intellectual anarchy we had hoped 
 to remedy by creating unity of doctrine and 
 establishing a theory of war ? 
 
 Not in the least. Whatever may be your 
 present impression, you will soon find that, 
 in applying fixed principles to various cases, 
 concordance reappears as a consequence of a 
 common way of facing the subject a purely 
 objective way. 
 
 From the same attitude towards things will 
 first result a same way of seeing them, and 
 from this common way of seeing, arises a 
 common way of acting.
 
 156 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The latter will soon become itself instinc- 
 tive : another of the results aimed at. 
 * * * * * 
 
 A wild fowl flies up in front of a sports- 
 man; if it goes from right to left, he fires 
 in front and to the left ; if from left to right, 
 he fires in front and to the right ; if it comes 
 towards him, he fires high ; if away from him, 
 he fires low. 
 
 In each of these cases, he applies in a vari- 
 able way the fixed principle : to get three 
 points upon one straight line, his eye, the 
 sight and the quarry, at the moment the 
 shot takes effect. 
 
 Whence does he derive his method of 
 application ? Does he resort to discussion 
 of the problem? He has not got the time. 
 He unconsciously derives his method of 
 application from the sight of his object under 
 the particular surrounding circumstances : 
 he swings from left to right, or the reverse, 
 at a given speed; a purely objective process. 
 And from seeing as quickly as possible, there 
 naturally results a tension of all the means 
 in one single direction; he has practised the 
 art of acting rationally without reflecting. 
 
 What we need, then, in order to apply a 
 principle, is to look at the object in itself 
 under the conditions of the moment, and, 
 so to speak, through the atmosphere of the
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 157 
 
 particular case characterizing the situation. 
 Our own object is the enemy, on whom we 
 desire to act in a given way according to the 
 day, to the mission we have been given; we 
 have to make reconnaissance of the enemy, 
 or to pin him, or to delay him, or to strike, 
 etc. 
 
 Thence from the sole consideration of the 
 object must be derived, first by means of 
 reasoning (when, as here, in this school we 
 have to study), later when in the field, 
 automatically our whole conduct, our whole 
 
 manner of acting. 
 
 * * * > * * 
 
 A doctrine of war consists first in a common 
 way of objectively approaching the subject; 
 second, in a common way of handling it, by 
 adapting without reserve the means to the 
 goal aimed at, to the object. 
 
 ECONOMY OF FORCES. The principle of 
 economy of forces gives us the means of 
 reconciling these two apparently contradictory 
 conditions ; to strike with an assembled whole, 
 after having supplied numerous detachments. 
 
 The principle of economy of forces is the 
 art of pouring out all one's resources at a 
 given moment on one spot; of making use 
 there of all troops, and, to make such a 
 thing possible, of making those troops perma-
 
 158 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 nently communicate with each other, instead 
 of dividing them and attaching to each 
 fraction some fixed and invariable function; 
 its second part, a result having been attained, 
 is the art of again so disposing the troops 
 as to converge on, and act against, a new 
 single object. 
 
 In practice the new 1 theory of war, based 
 on the principle of economy of forces and 
 characterized in the highest degree by initia- 
 tive, attack, and well-conceived action has 
 for its outcome the following : 
 
 1. Action in one direction (namely, that 
 which is implied in the strategical plan) by 
 means of tactics; that is, by using military 
 means as skilfully as possible. For instance, 
 once the direction of Voltri 2 had been aban- 
 doned, the army marched first on Montenotte, 
 then on Dego ; once Dego had been given up, 
 on Millesimo ; Millesimo having been settled, 
 the army came back on Dego, etc. 
 
 2. In each of the successively adopted 
 directions, victory is secured by using all the 
 forces, or at least the main body; in the 
 other directions, safety is ensured by as few 
 troops as possible, their mission being not 
 to beat the enemy, but to delay him, to 
 paralyze him, to reconnoitre : so Cervoni in 
 
 1 Revolutionary or Napoleonic. 
 
 2 During Napoleon's Italian campaign of 1796.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 159 
 
 face of Beaulieu, Massena at Dego, Serurier 
 in face of Colli. 
 
 3. In strategy as in tactics, a decision is 
 constantly enforced by mechanics, by apply- 
 ing to part of the enemy forces a main body 
 made as strong as possible, by devoting to 
 that task with the greatest possible care all 
 the forces which have been freed elsewhere. 
 Once this part of the enemy forces has been 
 destroyed, another has to be dealt with 
 promptly by again applying the main body, 
 in order to be successively the stronger on a 
 given point at a given time. 
 
 In order to do things in that way, forces 
 must be constantly arranged according to a 
 system : 
 
 (1) attacking in order 
 
 to reconnoitre ; 
 
 (2) to fix the enemy, 
 
 On the peri- 
 
 vance guards 
 
 to the benefit of 
 
 phery,anum- / x ,, . , , 
 
 her of ad- 3 the mam body; 
 
 (4) or parrying an at- 
 
 tack in order 
 
 to cover the 
 main body; 
 2. In the rear, the main body manoeuvring 
 in the direction of the objective aimed at. 
 
 We cannot be victorious everywhere : it 
 will suffice for us if we are victorious on one 
 point. We must fight everywhere else with
 
 160 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 a minimum of forces in order to be over- 
 whelming on that point. We must economize 
 everywhere else, in order to be able to spend, 
 regardless of loss, on the point where we 
 desire to secure a decision ; the mass must 
 be applied there, and therefore be made and 
 reserved beforehand. 
 
 EDUCATION OF THE COMMAND. The char- 
 acteristic feature to be noted in all the 
 French Commanders who were sent to the 
 relief of Frossard * was their completely passive 
 attitude ; they consistently awaited direction 
 from without. If we find our French Com- 
 manders in that state of mind we must be 
 concerned to discover the system which 
 produced it in them. 
 
 The foundations of this system were essen- 
 tially a false conception of the rights and 
 duties of a Commander. 
 
 This conception merged the thoughts of the 
 will of subordinates throughout a whole army 
 in the thoughts of the will of its Commander- 
 in-Chief. It took no account of distance, of 
 time, of accident, nor even of the independent 
 initiative of the adversary; yet these are all 
 things which imperil it or demand in one 
 fashion or another spontaneous decisions 
 upon the part of subordinates. 
 
 1 During the Battle of Spicheren.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 161 
 
 From this there results an absolute central- 
 ization, wholly theoretic, opposed to practical 
 needs, denying every inferior the right to 
 think or to act without an order. Hence also 
 there results in those inferiors an inveterate 
 habit of blind obedience, inert, complete, and 
 set up as a sovereign law. It involves in- 
 activity, inaction, and at last the abandon- 
 ment of the offensive idea, for the subordinate, 
 left without action during the greater part 
 of his career, cannot suddenly become a chief 
 endowed with the faculty of decision. This 
 method further suppresses personality and 
 initiative even in the leaders below the 
 Supreme Command. They also have only to 
 wait for orders. Then they come themselves 
 to neglecting the numerous daily necessities 
 of life in the field which cannot be regulated 
 by the Higher Command. They do not 
 throw out sufficient guards ; they do not scout 
 and obtain information; they dare not use 
 their cavalry. And this last catches the 
 general evil and becomes imitative and timid 
 when by chance it is sent on a reconnaissance. 
 Soon there follows a complete blindness upon 
 what the enemy may be at. Inaction leads 
 to surprise, and surprise to defeat, which is 
 after all only a form of surprise. 
 
 EVOLUTION OF WAR. From 1813 onwards 
 
 M
 
 162 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 the Germans organized upon a large scale 
 that national war which had sprung from the 
 French Revolution. At Waterloo it was their 
 conscript recruitment, universally applied, 
 which brought success to the British Army, 
 based upon volunteer and paid recruitment, 
 itself defeated by the French Army based 
 upon restricted conscription. After Napoleon 
 had laid down the direction of the strategy of 
 national war, Clausewitz and Moltke made 
 clear its foundations to their general staff. 
 In the hands of this body the conduct of great 
 masses could then be undertaken without 
 difficulty. It was thus that the Prussian 
 genius, though it created nothing, by giving 
 the French ideas their most methodical and 
 the widest possible development, by manu- 
 facturing, as it were, the war of masses upon 
 a gigantic scale, reached the unprecedented 
 success of Metz and Sedan and of Paris. In 
 our own day this evolutionary process still 
 continues in the Prussian State which has 
 become the German Empire. The same idea 
 of preparing for a gigantic struggle is care- 
 fully maintained. The organization for it is 
 continually grow'ing. New corps are created. 
 Professional and intellectual development are 
 assured upon the largest scale ; the command is 
 chosen with the most minute care. It is a clear 
 warning to us of what the future will bring forth.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 163 
 
 FIRE. What do the present 1 German dis- 
 positions show? 
 
 They disclose first of all a theory : up to 
 800 yards, fire produces but a weak effect, 
 and must therefore be resorted to as little as 
 possible; at 800 yards it becomes decisive; 
 an undisputable superiority must then be 
 secured. Their practice follows from this 
 theory : the dispersion and dropping out on 
 the way of men and cartridges must be care- 
 fully avoided up to 800 yards. From that 
 moment on, expenditure must be lavish, a 
 large number of rifles being thrown together 
 into line; on the other hand, riflemen must 
 be commanded, brought up in companies, or 
 at least in whole platoons, with a complete 
 set of cartridges. 
 
 Such tactics are capable of ensuring the 
 efficiency, duration and violence of fire re- 
 quired, owing to a constant direction given 
 by a commander previously taught in training- 
 camps to practise the technique of fire and 
 owing to a direction received by men pre- 
 viously exercised in these same training- 
 camps to practising the mechanism of fire 
 in war. 
 
 Thus do exercises carried out in peace time 
 (training-camps, grand manoeuvres, etc.) 
 prepare troops in the highest degree for 
 
 1 In 1901.
 
 164 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 performing on the battle-field the act of 
 fighting by fire. 
 
 One can no longer engage with an unshaken 
 adversary, as one could in former times, by 
 merely appealing to energy. The most solid 
 moral qualities melt away under the effect of 
 modern arms, if one allows the enemy to use 
 all his power. Attack is necessarily checked 
 if the question of superiority of fire is not 
 decided at a given distance. That superiority 
 alone permits the attack to make new pro- 
 gress because it deprives the enemy of part of 
 his means, strikes at his moral, reduces his 
 effectives, consumes his munitions, destroys 
 cover, and renders him incapable of making a 
 full and complete use of his arms. 
 
 But since the struggle between the fire- 
 power of either adversary has now become 
 inevitable, we must prepare for it and organize 
 it in time of peace, or it will not be capable of 
 execution in time of war. We must be clear 
 upon the results which we seek to obtain and 
 the means by which we seek to obtain them : 
 upon our method of command and upon what 
 a given force can deliver. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The 2nd battalion of Prussian 37th which had 
 stood its ground alone against a large part of 
 the Austrian efforts x had particularly checked 
 1 At Nachod, as above.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 165 
 
 these efforts by its fire during the whole 
 morning. Yet it had fired only 32,000 car- 
 tridges. This meant an average of thirty- 
 two cartridges per man. We see, then, that 
 considerable results may be secured by con- 
 suming a relatively small and easily provided 
 quantity of ammunition, provided the fire is 
 
 well directed. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Fire has become the decisive argument. 
 The most ardent of troops, those the spirit 
 of which has been enhanced to the highest 
 degree, will always want to conquer ground by 
 performing successive bounds, but they will 
 meet with heavy difficulties and incur consider- 
 able losses whenever their partial offensive 
 has not been prepared by effective fire. They 
 will be thrown back on their starting-point, 
 with still more severe losses. A superiority 
 of fire, and, therefore, a superiority in direct- 
 ing and performing fire and in making use of 
 fire, will become the main factors upon which 
 the efficiency of a force will depend. 
 
 Officers must keep the direction in hand as 
 far as the assaulting distance. Therefore, 
 fire by command, or at least fire directed and 
 mastered (volley fire or fire at will of a short 
 duration and in squalls) is the only kind 
 that good infantry will deliver when engaged 
 in a lively action. On the contrary, slow,
 
 166 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 continuous fire, undirected fire (wasteful fire), 
 as well as disorderly fire at will, in which the 
 objective has not been sufficiently determined 
 or in which the number of cartridges fired or 
 the effect produced is not checked, must be 
 absolutely prohibited as leading to a useless 
 waste. 
 
 FORTIFICATION ON THE FIELD. The troops 
 of the initial attack have to make use of 
 improvised fortification in order to protect 
 the points conquered against enemy counter- 
 attacks. 
 
 Not only will first-line companies try and 
 reinforce with the help of all the means within 
 their reach and to their best ability the 
 extreme " points d'appui " they may occupy 
 at certain moments, but second-line com- 
 panies and battalions must also consolidate 
 those points in proportion as the progress of 
 the action brings them up. 
 
 Finally, partial reserves, with or without 
 the help of engineers, may organize supporting 
 positions in prevision of a failure. 
 
 FREEDOM OF MARCH. While organizing 
 one's intelligence service by cavalry, one has 
 to foresee at the same time the case when 
 the enemy is reconnoitred within less than a 
 day's march from the column. In order to
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 167 
 
 ensure the freedom of marching then, it is 
 necessary to locate between the road followed 
 by the column and the enemy some resisting 
 force capable of holding that enemy during 
 the time the column is marching past. 
 
 GAPS. A gap, a valley is not specially 
 dangerous ; there are roads outside the valleys 
 on the highest plateaus; indeed, there are 
 roads wherever commerce or any kind of 
 necessary connection requires them. But a 
 road in a valley or on a plateau is only 
 dangerous to us in so far as it is or can be 
 used by the enemy. If the enemy does not 
 utilize it, it does not exist tactically ; that is, 
 everything goes on as if it did not exist at all. 
 
 GENIUS AND WORK. Are we to say that 
 the power of Genius is supreme and mere 
 Work suffers from radical impotence? This 
 might be a well-founded conclusion if Genius 
 were, as Work is, within reach of everybody. 
 But it is not. 
 
 We will, on the contrary, lay stress on the 
 efficiency of work, of method, of science, in 
 the absence of Genius, which is as rare as all the 
 great gifts of Nature. We shall see Theory 
 start by getting her lessons from Genius, and 
 then commenting on and discussing those 
 lessons : "Is not what Genius has done the
 
 168 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 best of rules to be followed, and can theory 
 do anything better than show why and how 
 this is true? " (Clausewitz). Also we shall 
 find later on " Science giving a great number 
 of its adepts the benefit of its fruits, put- 
 ting within 'reach of an average intellect 
 the understanding and the conduct of great 
 military affairs, infusing into the very veins 
 of an army the principles of experience, 
 warranting in other words a community of 
 thought, wherefrom individual initiatives and 
 rational decisions spring up as an ultima 
 ratio " (General Bonnal). We shall see the 
 results of work, method, science. We shall 
 see in 1870, the Prussian General Staff, a set 
 of average minds, successfully conducting a 
 great war with three or four armies, though 
 the difficulties which the matchless genius of 
 Napoleon had met in 1812 and 1813 are 
 notorious. In spite of his scale, Napoleon 
 failed in his task. The body had but one 
 head ; it lacked muscles, articulations, limbs, 
 without which such a vast whole could not 
 live. 
 
 Yet what were the numbers of 1812 and 
 1813 as compared with those of 1870 ? What 
 are these latter as compared with those of 
 to-morrow? The technical side of war- 
 railways, balloons, telegraphy, etc. has in- 
 creased in a similar way. " To-day, the
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 169 
 
 Commander-ii>Chief cannot sum up every- 
 thing in his own person. Genius itself will 
 want auxiliaries full of initiative and well 
 taught. How much more will any general 
 who does not belong to the stars of first 
 magnitude need to be helped and completed ! 
 Managing an army is too complex for a single 
 man. Certain technical branches require, 
 besides, special knowledge " (von der Goltz). 
 
 How, then, in the enforced absence of a 
 sufficient genius, can the means be found 
 rationally to conduct the enterprise, the war, 
 with such masses of men, if not among a 
 corps of officers who shall have -been trained 
 by method, work, science, whom the same 
 spirit shall pervade, who shall submit to a 
 common mental discipline, who shall be 
 numerous enough to be able to move and 
 manage the heavy machine of modern armies ? 
 
 Those are happy, who have been born 
 believers, but they are rare men. One is not 
 born with learning either. Every one of us 
 must make for himself his faith, his convic- 
 tions, his knowledge of things. Here, again, 
 the result will not be produced by a sudden 
 revelation of light coming in a flash or by an 
 instantaneous development of our faculties. 
 We shall only reach it by a continuous effort 
 of penetration, absorption, assimilation, by a 
 repeated and detailed labour. Do not the
 
 170 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 most elementary of arts require the same from 
 us? Who would boast of teaching within a 
 few moments or even within a few lessons 
 fencing, riding, etc. ? 
 
 HISTORY. To keep the brain of an army 
 going in time of peace, to direct it continually 
 towards its task of war, there is no book more 
 fruitful to the student than that of history. 
 If war, in its just aspect, is but a struggle 
 between two wills more or less powerful and 
 more or less informed, then the accuracy of 
 decisions arrived at in war will always depend 
 upon the same considerations as those of the 
 past. The same errors reappear, leading to 
 the same checks. The art of war is always 
 to be drawn from the same sources. 
 
 INFANTRY IN ACTION. We find that in- 
 fantry action, having been more or less trans- 
 formed under the influence of modern arms, 
 subdivides itself into : 
 
 i. A period of marching, as far as to 
 about 800 yards range in order to reach the 
 fire position (that is, the distance which allows 
 of a fire of a sure efficiency, or the nearest 
 position which may be reached under cover), 
 during which the force does little harm to 
 the enemy, but suffers a serious harm unless 
 it evades it by resorting to :
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 171 
 
 (a) Formation; a weak protection in the 
 presence of modern armament. The less 
 vulnerable formations are still much too risky 
 to make marching possible. 
 
 (b) Firing very little; such fire, in spite of 
 its slight efficacity, to be capable of maintain- 
 ing a certain confusion among the enemy, of 
 partly paralyzing his means of action. 
 
 (c) Ground, and such sheltered approaches 
 as the ground may contain. In this last lies 
 the only really efficient means of advancing 
 in spite of the enemy's fire, for the enemy 
 then ceases to see. From that method may 
 be deduced the formation or formations to be 
 adopted. Such a formation must enable the 
 men to utilize well-reconnoitred approaches; 
 moreover, in view of their having to undertake 
 fire action at an early stage, such a formation 
 must avoid scattering the troops, disorganizing 
 them, or allowing them to use up their cartridges ; 
 it must transform them into a well-commanded 
 and well-supplied firing-machine. 
 
 2. A second period, that of fire-action : 
 the object being to secure superiority as soon 
 as it can be effectively secured and kept, that 
 is, from about 800 to 600 yards. Such an 
 achievement requires new faculties on the 
 part of the rank and file and of the Commander. 
 
 Rank and File : must be capable of under- 
 taking, .keeping up for ten, fifteen, twenty,
 
 172 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 thirty minutes and sometimes more an effi- 
 cient, increasingly violent, constantly con- 
 trolled and directed fire. 
 
 The Commander : must be aware of the 
 results aimed at, of the technical means of 
 attaining them (nature of fire, number of 
 cartridges, etc.), also of the practical means of 
 directing troops in action, of employing them ; 
 of enabling such troops to last out and pro- 
 duce an effect, and this in spite of physical 
 fatigue, of nervous excitement, of confusion, 
 etc., all of which are disturbing factors which 
 cannot be suppressed, and must therefore 
 be taken into consideration, as they partly 
 determine the manner of employing troops. 
 ***** 
 
 An action with the arms in use to-day 
 confirms and reinforces the accuracy of Napo- 
 leon's saying : ' The firearm is everything ; 
 the rest is nothing." 
 
 As a matter of fact, modern rifles produce 
 important effects up to 1500 yards; guns at 
 a distance three times greater. The " hail of 
 bullets " sometimes becomes no metaphor 
 but a reality. We have nothing but numerous 
 swarms of skirmishers lying on the ground, 
 forming a continuous line, preventing the 
 enemy from advancing, but equally incapable, 
 on the other hand, of putting the enemy to 
 flight by the mere effect of fire.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 173 
 
 If, then, the assault, attack with the bayonet 
 in the powerful sense of Souvarov's phrase : 
 " The bullet is crazy, the bayonet alone is 
 intelligent " always reappears as a supreme 
 and necessary argument in order to complete 
 the adversary's demoralization by threaten- 
 ing to board him as if he were a vessel, also 
 in order to create fear, which puts the enemy 
 to flight, it nevertheless remains undeniable 
 that superiority of fire is an advantage one 
 ought to secure ; first, in order to reduce him, 
 to make it easier to assault him ; and secondly, 
 in order to reach the level in moral which is 
 required for the assault. 
 
 INSPIRATION. Failing definite knowledge 
 founded on security which alone makes it 
 possible to act surely, the only thing one can 
 rely on is a more or less happy inspiration. 
 
 Von Moltke does not believe in his own 
 inspiration any more than in that of Prince 
 Frederick Charles. 1 It is to give some sort 
 of hint that he imparts to the latter his own 
 view ; but he is aware that he cannot impose 
 either his view or the prince's. He thus 
 leaves the Commander of the 2nd Army 
 free to act according to his own inspiration 
 (which is as well founded as his own), and 
 
 1 During the Prussian advance through Lorraine in 
 August 1870.
 
 174 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 to develop any manoeuvres he likes, with all 
 the means at his disposal, in spite of the 
 known impossibility of a part of the forces 
 of the 2nd Army acting on the i6th on the 
 left bank of the Moselle. After opening the 
 door to error, he, in effect, gives over the 
 command. 
 
 INSTRUCTION. Covering the point of de- 
 bouching for the arrival, for assembly, and, 
 finally, for the entry into action of the army 
 corps, becomes an important and pressing 
 matter; it is 8.30 a.m., the advance guard 
 will have to perform that heavy covering 
 task unaided for nearly four hours. This 
 function is first ascribed to the 27th Prussian 
 regiment. 1 That regiment had not fired a 
 shot since 1815. It had not taken any part 
 in the affray at Schleswig-Holstein in 1864. 
 A fifty years' peace-training was about to be 
 applied here against the Austrian army which 
 had fought recently (in 1859). We shall soon 
 find, on one side, men who know war without 
 having made it, the Prussians ; on the other, 
 men who have not understood war even after 
 waging it. 
 
 ***** 
 
 No combat could be maintained between 
 one body of troops having neither theory, nor 
 
 1 At Nachod, as above.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 175 
 
 training, nor fire discipline, therefore deprived 
 of efficiency in action, and another body of 
 troops perfectly trained, shooting and using 
 fire with discipline, undeniably superior on 
 the battle-field, even though it can display 
 there but part of what it knows and what it is 
 able to do. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The truth is, no study is possible on the 
 battle-field; one does there simply what one 
 can in order to apply what one knows. There- 
 fore, in order to do even a little, one has already 
 to know a great deal and to know it well. 
 
 THE INVESTMENT OF A PLACE. The same 
 principle applies to the investment of towns, 
 which with a due economy of forces may be 
 done by besieging forces no more than equal 
 to the besieged (Metz and Paris in 1870 are 
 examples). 
 
 In what does such an investment consist ? 
 
 In a line of permanently occupied outposts, 
 enabling the investing force to occupy, in 
 case of attack, a previously organized first 
 line of resistance. The attack occurring, 
 alarm is given by the outposts ; the first line 
 of resistance is then occupied; the reserves 
 prepare. After the attack has dealt (perhaps 
 easily) with the line of outposts, it must, in 
 order to advance, break this first line of
 
 176 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 resistance. In this attempt it is compelled 
 to concentrate its efforts and therefore to dis- 
 close the direction it is taking. Such reserves 
 and investing troops as are not being attacked 
 and are nearest to that direction, proceed to, 
 and establish themselves on, a previously 
 organized main line of resistance, while the 
 resistance of the first line is maintained. 
 
 They there offer a further resistance which 
 gives the whole investing army the time to 
 concentrate at I, in the direction adopted by 
 the attacking force, and thus to fight there 
 with all available forces combined. 
 
 The same principle applies to attack. 
 There, too, the maximum of efficiency is 
 secured by applying the principle of economy 
 of forces and by arranging one's forces accord- 
 ing to an organized system. 
 
 An attack could not be efficient if it were
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 177 
 
 made in several directions at the same time. 
 One's forces would be separated into several 
 parts. If the enemy presents himself from 
 two different directions, the offensive is 
 organized in one direction only, the most 
 advantageous one; in the other direction, 
 one does no more than hold the enemy in 
 check. The reserves that is, the main body 
 are therefore placed (i) so as to support 
 and accomplish the attack which has been 
 devised by the commander and which is the 
 main object of his plan; (2) so as to be able 
 if necessary to reinforce eventually the parry- 
 ing blow elsewhere, which otherwise might 
 prove inadequate. In proportion as decision 
 comes nearer, all these reserves stream towards 
 the point of attack, where the day will be 
 decided, and thus bring into play all available 
 forces. 
 
 INVIOLABILITY OF THE FRONT. In the future 
 as in the past there will be armies of manoeuvre 
 and armies of frontal attack, the first being 
 called on to bring about the decision which 
 the latter prepare. Whether we call these 
 last an advance guard, after the Napoleonic 
 system, or a " centre," after the system of 
 Moltke, it is evident that the tendency is to 
 increase the strength of the first category, 
 which is given the task of the decisive attack
 
 178 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 and to reduce the effectives of the second as 
 far as it is possible consistently with keeping 
 their fronts solid and inviolable, for that is 
 indispensable. But this quality can in great 
 measure be furnished by a strong artillery 
 and defensive works. Hence the extension 
 to-day of heavy artillery in the field, of 
 armoured guns and of fortifications upon the 
 field of battle. 
 
 MANCEUVRE. Every manoeuvre must be 
 the development of a scheme; it must aim 
 at a goal. 
 
 Napoleon regarded manoeuvre as no more 
 than a development of reconnoitring the enemy. 
 Exploration is successively modified by any 
 strong advance guard because it is capable, 
 first, of supporting exploring parties searching 
 for news; secondly, the enemy having been 
 found, of itself taking up the intelligence 
 service, and, to this end, of transforming 
 exploration into a reconnaissance; thirdly, 
 capable, after finding and reconnoitring the 
 enemy, of fixing him for such a length of time 
 as is necessary for the main army to arrive. 
 
 The main body of the army follows behind, 
 ready to utilize those results immediately, to 
 set up a system or a combination. How could 
 this army manoeuvre otherwise than surely 
 and securely, being protected by those dis-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 179 
 
 positions which constantly aim at scouting, 
 at covering and preparing the manoeuvres ? 
 
 Does not every duel, moreover, every fight 
 against a living and free adversary, develop 
 in the same way? 
 
 On guard . . . Cover yourself. 
 Engage the sword . Establish contact. 
 Stretch out the arm . Threaten the adver- 
 sary in the direct line 
 so as to fix him. 
 
 Double or disengage or Manoeuvre only when 
 what not. this stage is reached. 
 
 MANOEUVRE, A PRIORI. In a country of easy 
 communications like Hungary (and it is the 
 same case in a great part of Europe), the 
 enemy remains free to move in every direction so 
 long as we have not seized him. The a priori 
 manoeuvre on Raab x may then : 
 
 1. Either strike into the void, if the enemy 
 does not come on. 
 
 2. Or be parried : forestalled on that point, 
 he will make for another. 
 
 3. Or even bring about a crisis : incite the 
 enemy to attack Macdonald and to rout him. 
 
 MANCEUVRE, TURNING. An outflanking ma- 
 
 1 In 1809. Prince Eugene's campaign under Napo- 
 leon.
 
 180 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 nceuvre is specially convenient when attack- 
 ing a rear guard, for the latter cannot fulfil 
 its mission once it has been turned. 
 
 MASS. " They (the Austrians) have many 
 good generals, but they try to keep an eye 
 on too many things ; they try to see, to keep, 
 to defend everything : depots, lines of com- 
 munication, the rear, such and such a strong 
 position, etc. Using such methods, they end 
 by adopting, when on the defensive, the 
 cordon system; when on the offensive, they 
 end by attacking in several directions, or 
 rather in conducting several attacks at the 
 same time; in the one case, as in the other, 
 they end in dispersion, which prevents them 
 from commanding, from combining one single 
 affair, from striking hard; they end in 
 impotence. 
 
 " / see only one thing, the mass ; I try to 
 destroy it, feeling sure that the accessories will 
 then tumble down of themselves." * That is 
 the counter-thesis to the old theory; the 
 destruction of the enemy's masses and, there- 
 fore, the necessity of organizing the use of 
 our own masses. 
 
 There is one absolute principle, which must 
 direct all our combinations and disposi- 
 tions, and this is that, in order to dispose 
 1 Napoleon on his Austrian campaigns.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 181 
 
 of the adversary's masses, we have to ensure 
 the working of our own. Such must be the 
 directing thought of any chief. 
 
 THE MILITARY SPIRIT. In proportion as 
 numbers increase, and with them time and 
 distance, the road the subordinate must follow 
 becomes longer and more difficult. The 
 supreme command, in the narrow sense of 
 the word, also loses something of its precision. 
 It may still determine the result to be 
 obtained, but no longer the ways and means 
 to reach it. How can these numerous scat- 
 tered troops be sure of arriving in time, unless 
 each of them keeps a clear vision of the single 
 goal to be attained, unless each of them keeps 
 the freedom of acting towards that end ? In 
 other words, we must have : 
 
 A mental discipline, as a first condition; 
 showing and prescribing to all subordinates 
 the result aimed at by the commanding 
 officer. 
 
 Intelligent and active discipline, or rather 
 initiative, a second condition, in order to 
 maintain the right and power of acting in the 
 desired direction. 
 
 Here comes in the superior notion of a 
 military spirit which makes an appeal, first 
 of course to the will, after that to the intelli- 
 gence. Such a notion clearly involves an act
 
 182 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 of deliberate thought, of reflection ; it excludes 
 mental immobility, want of thought, intel- 
 lectual silence all of which are well enough 
 for the rank and file who have but to perform 
 (although it would certainly be better for 
 them to understand what they have to per- 
 form), but which would never do for the 
 subordinate commander; the latter must 
 bring to fruit, with all the means at his dis- 
 posal, the scheme of the higher command; 
 therefore he must, above all, understand that 
 thought, and afterwards make of his means 
 the use best suited to circumstances of which, 
 however, he is the only judge. 
 
 MOBILISATION. The 3rd Army 1 had been 
 ordered to be the first to be ready, therefore 
 it could not receive corps the mobilization of 
 which would be slow or the transport long. 
 Thus we see that the type of battle designed 
 determines the concentration of troops in time 
 as well as in space, and therefore determines 
 the transport and conditions of mobilization 
 to be arranged in time of peace. 
 
 This is as much as to say that the mili- 
 tary operations begin to-day in time of 
 peace, which shows us" once more the import- 
 ance from the strategical point of view of our 
 peace dispositions, our mobilization, and our 
 
 1 The Third German Army in the campaign of 1870.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 183 
 
 transport. We cannot arrange these as things 
 apart; they are not independent of our idea 
 of what the coming battle will be. If we wish 
 that battle to take such and such form we must 
 make sure of. its preliminaries beforehand. 
 
 OBJECT OF WAR. The determination of the 
 final goal of a war, the decisive objective, falls 
 evidently to the political side of national life, 
 which alone can tell us why war is made at all 
 and why the nation takes up the sword after 
 laying down the pen. The determination of 
 that final objective is in every case a matter 
 for particular judgment. 
 
 It was an error in the determination of 
 this final goal which brought about the check 
 of Napoleon in 1812. He erroneously believed 
 that the conquest of Moscow and of half 
 Russia would assure him the peace which he 
 desired. If we consider our eastern neigh- 
 bour l we find it to-day in the shape of an 
 empire which is a confederation of states 
 some to the south of the river Maine, others 
 to the north; a northern Germany and a 
 southern Germany, with different interests 
 and different temperaments, but having its 
 head in the north, in the old Prussian capital 
 of Berlin. It is there one should go to strike 
 
 1 The German Empire organized by Prussia before 
 the war.
 
 184 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 the last blow. But on the line of the Maine, 
 at Mayence, one could, to begin with, cut 
 this power into two halves. A rational plan 
 would therefore consist in marching on 
 Berlin by Mayence. Not because Mayence is 
 a convenient place for crossing the Rhine, 
 not because the left bank here dominates the 
 right bank, or vice versa, but because it is 
 the point where the interests of the north and 
 those of the south meet and therefore also 
 separate. 
 
 When Moltke took Paris for his objective 
 he was clearly aiming at the heart of France, 
 of a France which was largely centralized in 
 one point, its capital. Similarly, when he 
 proposed to settle the whole affair north of the 
 Loire he knew very well what conditions led 
 him to that determination. Moltke, basing 
 himself on the usual formula, of course fixed 
 as his first object the mass of the enemy's 
 forces, but even in doing so he looked further, 
 to Paris and to the Loire, and it was this 
 which determined his manner of approach 
 towards the first objective. 
 
 His strategy consisted in marching on Paris 
 and on the Loire until he could seize a govern- 
 ment which had lost its armed force and had 
 no power remaining to dispute the issue. But 
 he would do so passing by Metz and by Sedan 
 by the north, by all the points where he could
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 185 
 
 find a French force to defeat. For that was 
 the first condition. Unless he settled that 
 there was nothing done, and it was the posi- 
 tion of the enemy forces which determined 
 the order to be followed by the invasion. 
 
 To seek out the enemy's armies the centre 
 of the adversary's power in order to beat 
 and destroy them; to adopt, with this sole 
 end in view, the direction and tactics which 
 may lead to it in the quickest and safest way : 
 such is the whole mental attitude of modern 
 war. 
 
 OPEN ORDER. It is by the spirit of " a nation 
 in arms " originated by the French Revolu- 
 tion that fighting in open order (ordre en 
 tirailleurs) may be understood as a normal 
 form of fighting, and as having to be rationally 
 and quite soundly developed until it becomes 
 that " rush of a team " which turns a modern 
 battle into a struggle between armed crowds. 
 
 It is doubtful whether such methods can 
 be applied with success where the private has 
 no direct interest in war and is not the true 
 defender of a national cause. 
 
 It is not likely that such methods would 
 succeed where you had an army of merce- 
 naries, or of old soldiers, as in the case of 
 the present 1 English army, which necessarily 
 1 1901.
 
 186 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 makes an appeal to steadfastness and dis- 
 cipline in the ranks in order to make up for 
 the moral qualities of man, for individual 
 valour and initiative; the same applies to an 
 army such as the Austrian, composed of 
 various races, of heterogeneous elements, each 
 with distinct aspirations. 
 
 PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. Here is what cannot 
 be foreseen at the outset of operations, and 
 especially cannot be foreseen so far as regards 
 the details of their execution : to steer 
 operations as circumstances demand and 
 according to conditions revealed step by step : 
 to make such strategy go forward from result 
 to result at a slow and certain pace, but always 
 in the direction aimed at and always towards 
 the objective which has been assigned for 
 every effort, after a preliminary examination 
 of the general situation, political as well as 
 military : to keep one's vision clear however 
 winding the road may be which we have to 
 follow if we have to reach our goal. 
 
 The plan of campaign when we look at it 
 thus ceases to be a mere plan of operations, 
 and this truth fully justifies the Emperor's 
 epigram that " there was never such a thing 
 as a plan of operations " ; a remark which 
 certainly did not mean that he did not know 
 where he was going.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 187 
 
 He had his plan of campaign his final goal. 
 He went forward, settling point by point as 
 circumstances might demand the means of 
 approaching and reaching that goal, and 
 these were : 
 
 1. Dispositions thoroughly discussed long 
 before and prepared as to their execution in 
 every detail governing the first battle without 
 any necessity for considerable change. 
 
 2. Later, developing a governing idea which 
 would lead him to the grasping of his final 
 goal. Upset or dominate the Government, 
 occupy territory, and as you go direct opera- 
 tions as events determine, but retain for your 
 master object the defeat of the forces opposed 
 to you. Such is the programme for war, 
 fully dependent upon a true plan of campaign. 
 
 POSITIONS, DEFENSIVE. Owing to their 
 volume of fire, modern arms make manoeu- 
 vring under fire impossible; owing to their 
 range, they make it necessary to take up fight- 
 ing dispositions at a great distance, to deploy 
 very far away ; owing to the rapidity of their 
 fire, such necessities may be enforced by even 
 relatively small numbers. 
 
 Any occupied position unavoidably delays 
 the adversary, provided the position be a 
 good one. What is a good position in the 
 modern sense of that word? A ground
 
 188 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 favourable to the defensive, which in its turn is 
 composed of fire and steadiness ; it is a site 
 provided to this end with : 
 
 Points from which one may observe and 
 fire at a long distance; 
 
 Obstacles, that is, " points d'appui " : 
 strong points. 
 
 If that twofold condition is fulfilled, the 
 enemy is compelled to manoeuvre from a 
 distance until the last moment (assault of the 
 obstacles), to bring into action all his means, 
 artillery, infantry ; that is, to advance pain- 
 fully, to lose time while he should be going 
 forward as rapidly as possible. 
 
 PREPARATION IN WAR. Preparation in 
 modern war is more necessary and must be 
 pushed further than in the past. 
 
 The necessity of pushing preparation as 
 far as possible is to be found in the conduct 
 of any tactical operation. 
 
 THE PROTECTION OF NATIONAL TERRITORY. 
 
 Here l we clearly see the part which modern 
 war assigns to the idea of defence or protec- 
 tion of territory. It is summed up in the 
 union of all means at our disposal in the 
 direction which is most favourable for attack, 
 
 1 In the plan of Moltke for the war against France 
 in 1870.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 189 
 
 and this done, one covers directly or in- 
 directly the important points of a country. 
 For one's adversary cannot menace those 
 points without first facing the encounter of 
 our forces. And that condition governs 
 everything. 
 
 Direct and immediate protection of the 
 national soil is often inefficient, and as things 
 develop becomes useless. History has taught 
 us that lesson ever since Valmy. Brunswick 
 was master of the road to Paris, yet he could 
 do nothing against the capital, although the 
 road to it was open. Later, when he had 
 failed in his effort of the 2Oth of September, 1 
 he had to retire rapidly to save himself from 
 destruction. You get nothing save through 
 a victory. Secondary interests should there- 
 fore be eliminated unless they obscure our 
 view of the principal objective and of the sole 
 means of attaining it : which is by a mass of 
 troops of the utmost strength at our disposal. 
 Let us not divide, as would men of short views 
 in war, the defence of the country into that 
 of Paris, of the coast, of the Cotentin, of 
 Provence, or of other frontiers that may be 
 menaced. The security of all these points 
 depends upon the union of our forces in a 
 
 1 The so-called Cannonade of Valmy, when the 
 Prussians failed to take the heights on which the French 
 Army stood.
 
 190 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 central point whence they may act offensively 
 against the army of invasion. 
 
 SUPPLY. The millions of men who will be 
 gathered to-day in the neighbourhood of the 
 enemy who must be ready to fight him at 
 short notice can no longer put into practice 
 the old formula, "Disperse for food; con- 
 centrate for fighting." That formula would 
 give their effectives neither of the results 
 sought. The army must at once march and 
 feed itself in dense formation, and therefore 
 draw its sustenance from its immediate rear. 
 The old system of provisionment going for- 
 ward with the army, which was upset by the 
 system of local requisitions under the Revolu- 
 tion, has now again become necessary. It 
 has come to birth again from the very develop- 
 ment of national armies. Railways being 
 necessary for the feeding of a modern army, 
 at least at the beginning of a war, that army 
 cannot go far from the tracks. Again, in 
 case of check, it has to retire towards the 
 interior zones which can feed it, that is, 
 towards the regions where production of 
 goods and food is taking place. The national 
 territory becomes the base of operations for 
 the forces in the field, and the railways be- 
 come their necessary lines of communication. 
 It is thus that national war as it develops
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 191 
 
 has lessened the rdle of the capital as the goal 
 of operations, and has brought out the new 
 necessities of national objectives. 
 
 RANK -AND FILE. When under fire, the 
 man in the rank and file obeys the voice of 
 the officers he knows : company-commanders, 
 section-commanders. The line soon turns 
 into separate small batches of individuals 
 who cannot be carried forward unless they 
 are led individually and are known by name 
 to their commanders. 
 
 RECONNAISSANCE. Such * is a reconnaissance 
 directed by Bonaparte and by Massena under 
 very difficult circumstances. 
 
 1. Even to these ardent men, the conduct 
 of troops did not consist in rushing head- 
 down on the enemy. You must act with full 
 knowledge of the case, and proportion your 
 aims and actions to your available means. 
 You must begin by reconnoitring. 
 
 2. In order to reconnoitre, one must compel 
 the enemy to show himself wherever he may 
 be. To this end, he has to be attacked until 
 his position and his front has been clearly 
 defined. Hence several attacking columns 
 are necessary. The attack, however, is not 
 
 1 The reconnaissance towards Dego on the 13 th of 
 April, 1796, in the campaign of Italy.
 
 192 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 made with the intention of bringing on the 
 action; therefore each column will only 
 supply, ahead of itself, some patrols, some 
 skirmishers who will advance, fall back, easily 
 disengage themselves at a given moment. 
 The best means are : action from a distance, 
 firing at the longest range possible, always so 
 acting as to exercise pressure on the enemy 
 without allowing oneself to be tied up. 
 
 In the rear of the combatant troops a 
 number of main bodies were held ready to 
 act as supporting troops (being established on 
 supporting points and on points where there 
 was observation for fire). The points of 
 communication and assembly in the rear 
 were also held (Bormida crossing, village of 
 Rochetta). 
 
 RESERVE, STRATEGICAL. The unforeseen 
 appears as much in strategy as in tactics. 
 The larger the dispositions we have to take 
 the less the risk of surprise. Great strategical 
 operations are accomplished as a rule so slowly 
 and over spaces so vast, their results are 
 generally so little subject to variation, one 
 has the time to see them coming and to take 
 up one's dispositions. Hence the consequence 
 that a strategical reserve has no reason for 
 existence, in so far as it is prepared for meet- 
 ing the unforeseen, save when one has lost
 
 the power to act and is reduced to merely 
 awaiting the action of the enemy. 
 
 When our business is that of a strategical 
 defensive the reserve appears again as the 
 sole means at our disposal for parrying the 
 principal effort of the enemy when it shall at 
 last have been discovered. As spaces and 
 effectives increase in scale manoeuvre will 
 take place upon greater and greater distances. 
 The three German armies in line upon the 
 5th and 6th of August, 1870, presented, as we 
 all know, a front of about a hundred kilo- 
 metres. It is no exaggeration to expect a 
 similar extension in the future. In such 
 conditions a reserve may easily have fifty or 
 sixty kilometres to go, or even more, in order 
 to reach the field of action and to come up 
 against the objective assigned to it. Such a 
 manoeuvre, if it is to have its effect in time, 
 will need more rapid methods of progress than 
 have hitherto been suggested or it will fail. 
 Specially organized use of the railways would 
 seem the sole procedure permitting a reserve 
 to come into useful action under most 
 circumstances. 1 
 
 RESERVES. The scene took place at 
 Abukeer, during the battle. Bonaparte was 
 
 ' * Written before the development of the internal 
 combustion engine, 
 o
 
 194 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 dictating an order to his Chief of Staff, 
 Berthier (a man who kept everything in 
 mind, and particularly the filling up of 
 blank order forms) . Bonaparte stopped, and 
 Berthier asked him what troops he desired 
 to form the reserve. 
 
 "Do you take me for MoreauP" answered 
 Bonaparte. There was obviously no such a 
 thing in his mind as a necessary reserve. 
 Troops must be reserved, but only in order 
 to manoeuvre and to attack with more energy 
 than the others. Such was the use of forces 
 he had been led to by the idea of an attack 
 which must, in the last result, exclude any 
 reserve, any caution. 
 
 RETREAT. The losses suffered by the Prus- 
 sians, at the moment when they undertook 
 the retreat from Gilly, 1 show well what diffi- 
 culty troops experience in extricating them- 
 selves from an attack if they wait too long 
 before beginning their movement. This 
 necessity would nowadays be felt earlier, 
 because modern arms extend their powerful 
 effects to a far longer range. 
 
 ROADS. It is readily written that one 
 
 should always keep one road for each army 
 
 corps. To act otherwise, they say, is to risk 
 
 famine for the troops from the difficulty of 
 
 1 In the campaign of Waterloo.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 195 
 
 bringing up convoys in time. In practice 
 the rule often cannot be applied. Further, 
 even when the rule is applied (when the 
 thing is possible), to restrict one road to the 
 march of each army corps leads one, if one 
 is not very careful, to a premature deploy- 
 ment of one's forces, and to an order in line 
 without depth incapable of manoeuvre. And 
 these are very grave inconveniences which ought 
 generally to make us abandon the system. 
 
 SECURITY. The best commanded armies 
 have marched, have manoeuvred, amidst the 
 unknown. It was unavoidable. They have, 
 however, got the better of that dangerous 
 situation, they have come out of it victoriously 
 by resorting to security, which enabled them 
 to live without suffering damage in an atmo- 
 sphere full of dangers. 
 
 A constant preoccupation, while we prepare 
 and combine an action against the enemy, 
 must be to escape his will, to parry any 
 undertaking by which he might prevent our 
 action from succeeding. Any military idea, 
 any scheme, any plan, must therefore be con- 
 nected with the conception of security. We 
 must, as if we were fencing, attack without 
 uncovering ourselves, parry without ceasing 
 to threaten the adversary. 
 
 Security is based on two elements, two
 
 196 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 mathematical quantities : time and space ; 
 also it contains a third element : the resisting 
 power of the troops. 
 
 This notion of Security, which we express 
 by means of a single word, divides itself into : 
 
 1. Material security, which makes it pos- 
 sible to avoid enemy blows when one does 
 not desire to strike back or cannot do so; 
 this is the means of feeling secure in the 
 midst of danger, of halting and marching 
 under shelter. 
 
 2. Tactical security, which makes it possible 
 to go on carrying out a programme, an order 
 received, in spite of chance unfavourable 
 circumstances produced by war ; in spite of the 
 unknown, of measures taken by the enemy of 
 his own free will; also to act securely and 
 with certainty, whatever the enemy may do, by 
 safeguarding ones own freedom of action. 
 
 The German army of 1870 still kept to 
 mere tactical security. Yet we find the 
 notion of strategical security in its fullest 
 sense in all Napoleon's wars, as well as 
 among the German staffs of 1814 and 1815. 
 The theory is likely to rise again to-day, for 
 it has been fully alive in the past. 
 
 STRATEGY. No strategy can henceforth pre- 
 vail over that which aims at ensuring tactical 
 results, victory by fighting.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 197 
 
 A strategy paving the way to tactical 
 decisions alone : this is the end we come to 
 in following a study which has produced so 
 many learned theories. Here, as everywhere 
 else, as in politics, the entrance upon the 
 stage of human masses and passions neces- 
 sarily leads to simplification. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Strategy is but a question of will and 
 common sense ; in order to keep that double 
 faculty in the field, you must have fostered 
 it by training, you must possess a complete 
 military culture (humaniUs militaires), you 
 must have examined and solved a number of 
 
 concrete problems in your art. 
 
 ***** 
 
 It is by movement that troops assemble 
 and prepare for battle. Movement governs 
 strategy. 
 
 You must seek the shock; hence a new 
 set of reasons for movement : movement in 
 order to seek battle; movement in order to 
 assemble one's forces on the ground; move- 
 ment in order to carry out the attack. 
 
 Such is the first law that governs the theory, 
 a law from which no troop can ever escape 
 and which has been expressed by the military 
 formula : of all faults, one only is degrading, 
 namely inaction.
 
 198 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The 5th Prussian Corps would not have 
 managed to debouch from Nachod if it had 
 been definitely thrown back. If one observes 
 that, on the same day, the ist Corps suffered 
 a severe check at Trautenau, the entrance 
 into Bohemia would have been rendered 
 impossible to the 2nd Army. What would 
 then have become of General von Moltke's 
 plan? Let us .acknowledge once more that 
 strategy, however brilliant it may be, is at 
 the mercy of tactics. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Let us no longer suffer strategy to be tied 
 fast to geography, to mere ground, to seeking 
 positions, and the " keys " of a country ; 
 but rather let strategy take account in a 
 national war of the main national interests 
 and the main organs by which a nation lives. 
 
 STRATEGY AND TACTICS. Strategy in the 
 first place demands the seeking for our 
 particular battle and the preparation for it, 
 and these in the very best conditions. Our 
 battle once won, it enters a new phase of 
 the same type of object in view, the next 
 battle. 
 
 Tactics is concerned with the reasonable 
 conduct of the battle once engaged. A good 
 tactic obeys at once certain spiritual laws 
 and certain mechanical principles, aiming
 
 through both to such an overthrow of the 
 adversary as shall be beyond question. 
 
 Though history shows us these two frac- 
 tions of the art of war reaching various mutual 
 proportions in the hands of a Napoleon or a 
 Moltke or their adversaries, these two frac- 
 tions none the less remain dominated in 
 their combination, and characterized to-day 
 by the developments each military action 
 has gone through, and especially by these 
 three, a tendency to maximum national 
 recruitment, the increase of available effec- 
 tives, and the perfection of armament. 
 
 STUDY. Men called to the conduct of 
 troops should prepare themselves to deal 
 with cases more and more varied upon an 
 ever-increasing horizon of experience. They 
 can only be given the capacity to arrive at a 
 prompt and judicious position by developing 
 in them through study their power of analysis 
 and of synthesis; that is, of conclusion in a 
 purely objective sense, conclusion upon prob- 
 lems which have been actually lived and 
 taken from real history. Thus also can they 
 be founded through the conviction that comes 
 from knowledge in a confidence sufficient to 
 enable them to take such decisions upon the 
 field of action. 
 
 SURPRISE. Surprise consists in the hard
 
 200 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 fact that the enemy suddenly appears in 
 considerable numbers, without his presence 
 having been known to be so near, for want 
 of information, and without it being possible 
 to assemble, for want of protection ; for want, 
 in one word, of a security-service. 
 
 Where there is no strategical security, there 
 is strategical surprise ; that is, a possibility 
 for the enemy to attack us while we are not 
 in a position to receive him under good con- 
 ditions; a possibility for him to prevent our 
 insufficiently protected assembly from taking 
 place. Further, our forces as they go into 
 action, go astray, imperil themselves by 
 taking wrong directions, owing to lack of 
 reconnoitring, of information, and owing to 
 imperfectly understanding the notion of 
 security ; an idea which implies the art of 
 acting not only securely but also surely, that 
 is, with full knowledge of the case. 
 
 The notion of strategical security was 
 completely ignored by the German armies 
 of 1870, and the result of that fault in con- 
 ducting the war was that they often found 
 themselves in a particularly critical situation. 
 Nothing but the immobility, the complete 
 passiveness of the French made it possible 
 for them to come out of such situations 
 without a disaster. 
 
 Strategical security was, however, known
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 201 
 
 and put in practice by the Germans of 1813 
 and 1814. Taught by the severe lessons 
 received from the Emperor, they had grasped 
 its importance. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Material surprise means losing material 
 security; we have, in case of such surprise, 
 the enemy freely firing into our billets, our 
 bivouacs, or our marching columns. 
 
 Tactical surprise means endangering tactical 
 security, losing freedom of action. This would 
 have been the case with the 5th Corps in 1870, 
 more especially with the Lespart Division, 
 had the enemy come on during the days of 
 the 5th or 6th of August. The marching 
 forces would have had to risk a battle on the 
 very road they were following. Instead of 
 continuing their movement, they would have 
 had to fight ; they would never have arrived. 
 ***** 
 
 The means of breaking the enemy's spirit, 
 of proving to him that his cause is lost, is 
 surprise in the widest sense of that word. 
 
 Surprise bringing into the struggle some- 
 thing " unexpected and terrible " (Xeno- 
 phon) ; " everything unexpected is of great 
 effect" (Frederick). Surprise depriving the 
 enemy of the possibility of reflection and 
 therefore of discussion. 
 
 Here we have a novel instrument, and one
 
 202 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 capable of destructive power beyond all 
 knowledge. However, one cannot obtain this 
 at will; setting an ambush, attacking in 
 reverse, are possible in a small war, but 
 impracticable in a great one ; it is necessary, 
 therefore, in great wars to produce a danger 
 which the enemy shall not have the time 
 to parry or which he shall not be able to 
 parry sufficiently; a destructive force which 
 should be known, or seem, to the enemy 
 to be superior to his own ; to this end, forces 
 and thereby undisputable efforts must be 
 concentrated on a point where the enemy is 
 not able to parry instantly, that is, to answer 
 by deploying an equal number of forces at 
 the same time. 
 
 To surprise amounts to crushing an oppo- 
 nent from a short distance by numbers in 
 a limit of time ; otherwise, the adversary 
 though overtaken by numbers retains the 
 power to meet the attack, to bring up his 
 reserves, in which case the assailant loses the 
 advantage of surprise. 
 
 He also loses that advantage if surprise 
 starts from a great distance, for the enemy 
 may then, owing to the range and delaying 
 power of modern arms, regain the time to 
 bring up his reserves. 
 
 Such are the conditions of numbers, time, 
 space, military action must fulfil in order to
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 203 
 
 contain these elements of surprise which are 
 necessary to the destruction of the enemy's 
 spirit. 
 
 Hence the superiority of manoeuvring armies, 
 which alone are capable of quickness and 
 nimbleness in preparing an attack ; launching 
 it at short distance, and carrying it out quickly. 
 
 One similarly perceives the common inten- 
 tional features possessed by the attacks in 
 flank of former generations ; the oblique order 
 of Frederick; the " event " of the Napoleonic 
 battle, and the decisive (generally enveloping) 
 attacks of modern battle. 
 
 Under these various shapes there appears 
 a development of this common idea of a 
 surprise ; the idea of trying to produce 
 among the enemy the same moral effect 
 terror; of creating in the enemy's mind, by 
 suddenly using unexpected and undeniably 
 powerful means, a feeling of impotence, the 
 conviction that he cannot conquer, that he 
 is vanquished. 
 
 To break the enemy's will : such is the 
 first principle we derive from our study; to 
 break it by means of an unexpected and 
 supremely violent stroke such is the fir^t 
 consequence of that principle. 
 
 TACTICS. Individual valour in the rank 
 and file is insufficient to create victory.
 
 204 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 From being decisive in the elementary origins 
 of combat, it gradually loses its influence, 
 its weight, in proportion as the numbers 
 employed increase. Had Napoleon developed 
 his thought, he would have told us that at 
 the battle of the Pyramids, a handful of 
 Frenchmen, commanded by him, had con- 
 quered about 30,000 of these Orientals, 
 though the latter were quite as valiant as, 
 and even individually . superior to, the 
 French. 
 
 What is it, then, that determines the 
 result ? What is it that provides victory ? 
 
 Tactics, Order, Manoeuvre. 
 
 There are such things as advantageous 
 tactics and rational fighting dispositions, that 
 is, a combination of forces set up by the 
 Commander. The influence of that Com- 
 mander, of that directing mind, soon becomes 
 considerable and decisive; it gets the better 
 of the sum of individual valour whenever 
 the numbers of the fighters is large, as, for 
 instance, at the Pyramids. Let us learn a 
 lesson from this. In the presence of such a 
 situation, let us admit self-examination and 
 confirm our conclusions. 
 
 We, the French, possess a fighter, a soldier, 
 undeniably superior to the one beyond the 
 Vosges in his racial qualities, activity, intelli- 
 gence, spirit, power of exaltation, devotion,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 205 
 
 patriotism : he is the mameluke as opposed 
 to the French cavalrymen. 
 
 If we are beaten, it will be due to the 
 weakness of our tactics. Let us then find, 
 and provide our soldiers with, those tactics 
 which get the better of numbers and valour 
 as at the Pyramids; which will doubly 
 enable us to get the better of an army the 
 individual valour of which is inferior to our 
 own. 
 
 TACTICS, GERMAN. The same care 1 for 
 effectively directing fire in action is found 
 nowadays to prevail in certain German 
 manoeuvre's. The procedure of a body of 
 infantry may be quoted as an instance among 
 others. 
 
 We find here first a very thin and dis- 
 continuous line. Behind, at a distance of 
 about 300 yards, a few supports corresponding 
 to the intervals within the line. Three or 
 four companies in all are deployed on the 
 whole front. The remainder of the division 
 follows behind in irregular and almost indis- 
 
 1 " Another phenomenon of some importance has 
 again been observed since the war of 1870. What I 
 mean is that new principle obtaining among the in- 
 fantry, a principle according to which infantry is careful 
 to submit its fire to a more exacting discipline than in 
 the past, also to accept a scientific direction in spite 
 of the dispersed order which itself characterizes its modern 
 mode of action." Von der Goltz.
 
 206 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 tinguishable lines. The echelons (usually com- 
 panies in line on two ranks) follow each other 
 at a distance of about 500 yards, separated, 
 moreover, by changing intervals. 
 
 At about 800 yards from the enemy, the 
 line opens fire and is immediately reinforced 
 by its supports, the intervention of which 
 produces one, two, or three bounds forward. 
 
 At 600 yards, the line is formed by men in 
 close alignment as a result of the entry into 
 line of other companies; a long interval of 
 time then passes for preparing the attack. 
 The fire develops and reaches an extreme 
 violence; the dispositions of march are 
 condensed into dispositions of attack. 
 
 The attack is launched, etc. 
 
 TEACHING, PRACTICAL METHOD OP." Be- 
 tween those two terms, scientific conception 
 and the art of commanding, there is a gulf 
 which the method of teaching must bridge 
 if it is to deserve the name of a practical 
 method. 
 
 " Application must therefore be resorted 
 to." 
 
 Here appears, at the same time as the 
 method, the object which is being aimed at : 
 it consists in passing from the scientific 
 conception to the art of commanding, from 
 truth mastered and known to the practical
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 207 
 
 application of that truth. The gulf was 
 bridged by the Prussian School. In proof, 
 consider the Commanders of the vanguards 
 in 1866. Although they had only recently 
 left their school, they started the business 
 of that campaign with a pluck, a skill, and 
 thereby an efficiency which had hitherto 
 been thought to belong exclusively to men 
 who had already fought both often and well. 
 
 Let us do the same; let us cross the gulf 
 by the same roads, the same bridges. 
 
 In order to do this, we must have a practical 
 teaching including application made to par- 
 ticular cases of fixed principles, drawn from 
 history, in order (i) to prepare for experience, \ 
 (2) to teach the art of commanding, (3) lastly, I 
 to impart the habit of acting correctly without 
 having to reason. 
 
 TENACITY. Forces were lacking to carry 
 the offensive further and to overthrow the 
 enemy. 1 Nevertheless, fatigue and slackness 
 had become general after so long and so 
 violent a struggle. The bodily forces of the 
 opponents were exhausted. One last attack, 
 even were it executed by small forces, might 
 in such circumstances produce a considerable 
 
 1 This deals with the evening of the Battle of Razon- 
 ville, i6th August, 1870, and the enemy in question 
 were the French opposed to the Germans.
 
 208 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 result. It was necessary, therefore, that the 
 will of the General in command should not 
 be overborne by the exhaustion of his troops. 
 On the contrary, his will had to find some 
 way of using the last gasp of energy in his 
 men and his horses; he had to ask of them 
 one last and supreme effort to march against 
 the enemy. 
 
 But the adversary might act in the same 
 fashion. His resources also permitted him 
 to obtain in such a moment not only normal 
 results but effective success. 
 
 The enemy's constant returns to the offen- 
 sive proved that he still had fresh troops. 
 His activity might spread; and that was a 
 danger to be avoided at all costs. 
 
 The necessity therefore imposed itself of 
 forestalling him, of attacking before he did. 
 An order was immediately sent to the reduced 
 battalions of the 6th Division, which were 
 assembled before Vionville, to attack by way 
 of the sunken road of Razenville against the 
 French batteries of the Roman road. The 
 centre of the German line to the west and 
 south of Vionville consisted of a great battery 
 which had suffered heavily in the struggles 
 of the day. Many horses were lacking. The 
 munitions were nearly exhausted. By chang- 
 ing position it would lose the immediate 
 advantage of a calculated range. These con-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 209 
 
 siderations were, under the conditions, of no 
 value. The artillery received the order to go 
 forward, in order to produce not material 
 effects it lacked every means of achieving 
 them but a result purely moral. It had to 
 affirm the determination to win, the power 
 to go forward, and hence to establish the 
 victory which was still sought and desired. 
 
 THE UNKNOWN. The unknown is the 
 governing condition of war. 
 
 Everybody is familiar with this principle 
 (so you might think), and being familiar with 
 it will distrust the unknown and master it; 
 the unknown will no longer exist. 
 
 This is not true in the least. All armies 
 have lived and marched amidst the unknown. 
 
 VICTORY. No victory without battle. 
 * * * * * 
 
 Far from being a sum of distinct and 
 partial results, victory is the consequence of 
 efforts, some of which are victorious while 
 others appear to be fruitless, which never- 
 theless all aim at a common goal, all drive 
 at a common result : namely, at a decision, 
 a conclusion which alone can provide victory. 
 ***** 
 
 Victory always falls to those who deserve 
 it by their greater strength of intelligence and 
 of will.
 
 210 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The will to conquer : such is victory's 
 first condition, and therefore every soldier's 
 first duty; but it also amounts to a supreme 
 resolve which the commander must, if need 
 be, impart to the soldier's soul. 
 
 If the will to conquer is necessary to offering 
 battle with any chance of success, it is criminal 
 in the Commander-in-Chief to deliver or accept 
 battle without possessing that superior will 
 which must provide direction and impulsion 
 for all. 
 
 And if battle is thrust upon him by circum- 
 stances, he must decide to give battle, to 
 fight, in order to conquer in spite of it all. 
 
 On the other hand, one must not fight for 
 the sake of fighting. " Battles concerning 
 which one cannot say why and to what purpose 
 they have been delivered are commonly the 
 resource of ignorant men " (Marechal de Saxe). 
 
 However obvious these points may be, 
 they seem to have been overlooked during 
 the tragic periods of our history. 
 
 E. g. : the great battles round Metz (i6th, 
 i8th, and 3ist August, 1870), in which we see 
 an army fighting bravely without its chief 
 desiring to secure victory. How could victory 
 be thus secured ? 
 
 As a matter of fact, the great events of 
 history, the disasters it relates from time to 
 time, such as the collapse of French power in
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 211 
 
 1870, are never accidental, but result from 
 dominating and general causes; from forget- 
 ting the most elementary moral and intellectual 
 truths, as well as from relaxing that activity 
 of mind and body which is the very life and 
 sanity of armies. 
 
 WAR, FORM OF. A war not only arises, but 
 derives Us nature, from the political ideas, the 
 moral sentiments, and the international rela- 
 tions obtaining at the moment when it breaks 
 out. 
 
 This amounts to saying : try and know 
 why and with the help of what you are going to 
 act ; then you will find out how to act. 
 
 WAR (FUTURE). The next * war, using bal- 
 loons, telegraphs, railways, and quick-firing 
 artillery and heavy artillery well hidden upon 
 a large scale, will treat the problems which 
 were set for solution in the past according to 
 the same principles but in a new fashion. In 
 this order of ideas we shall see the next war 
 presenting an organization of the German 
 armies and of their special engines of war, 
 corresponding to an object which will be 
 assigned to each army and which will depend 
 upon a common manoeuvre governing the 
 whole force. The next war will further show 
 that such a manoeuvre, prepared beforehand 
 1 Written in 1901.
 
 212 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 with a novel increase of forces, with a novel 
 variation of armament, and these set to their 
 task in adequate fashion, will present ele- 
 ments of success which we should never see 
 in a manoeuvre improvised at the last moment 
 without special means already on the spot to 
 reinforce the characteristics of the action. 
 
 On our side, in order to check this German 
 manoeuvre we ought also to make use of all 
 our troops no matter of what sort, repartition 
 them between the various armies, and give 
 them every kind of new armament attached 
 to the special r6le which will be assigned to 
 each army in an offensive manoeuvre, which 
 will be prepared in detail, or at any rate at 
 the very outset, in some defensive organiza- 
 tion. It will be in vain to cite the fact that 
 the data of the problem are not yet deter- 
 mined or to quote that as an argument for 
 putting off the manoeuvre and the organiza- 
 tion of siege warfare which it will involve. It is 
 only twenty-seven kilometres from Nancy to 
 Chateau-Salins, fifty from the Metz-Sarrebourg 
 railway to the Moselle. Therefore the field of 
 hypothesis and of all possible combination is 
 very limited, as are also the material difficulties 
 to be overcome and the space to be traversed. 1 
 
 1 This was written under the conception that the 
 neutrality of Belgium would be respected. Translator.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 213 
 
 Without mentioning the armies on the wings 
 which will come up against forts and small 
 fortified places, and will therefore receive and 
 use howitzer batteries, it is to be presumed 
 that we shall also find in the armies of the 
 centre charged with frontal attack the same 
 type of armament in great proportion. 
 Troops flanked on either side cannot ma- 
 noeuvre; they are compelled, if they are to 
 advance, to overset and destroy the obstacles 
 which stop them. The method to use is 
 clearly that of heavy artillery. When they 
 reach the limit of their offensive power there 
 still remains the task of holding out, and to 
 achieve this task recourse will be had to the 
 method of siege warfare. The number and 
 calibre of guns will be increased and protection 
 will be sought for high trajectory pieces in 
 the nature of the ground, and for flat trajec- 
 tory in armoured plates and turrets. 
 
 WAR, METHOD OF. The old systems of 
 war, above all concerned with the conserva- 
 tion of an army's strength, looked to achieve 
 their end by trick, by threat, by negotiation, 
 by manoeuvre, by local combat, by the 
 occupation of enemy territory, by the capture 
 of towns. Modern war, since Napoleon, uses 
 reckless of cost all the means at its disposal. 
 It has but one method, the act of force. It
 
 214 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 does not discuss with the enemy until it has 
 crushed him in battle and completed his ruin 
 by pursuit. 
 
 WAR, OBJECTIVITY OF. The military art 
 is not an accomplishment, an art for dilet- 
 tante, a sport. You do not make war without 
 reason, without an object, as you would give 
 yourself up to music, painting, hunting, lawn 
 tennis, where there is no great harm done 
 whether you stop altogether or go on, whether 
 you do little or much. Everything in war 
 is linked together, is mutually interdependent, 
 mutually interpenetrating. When you are 
 at war you have no power to act at random. 
 Each operation has a raison d'etre, that is an 
 object ; that object, once determined, fixes 
 the nature and the value of the means to be 
 resorted to as well as the use which ought to be 
 made of the forces. That object is, in each 
 case, the very answer to the famous question 
 Verdy du Vernois asked himself when he 
 reached the battle-field of Nachod. 
 
 In presence of the difficulties which faced 
 him, he looked into his own memory for an 
 instance or a doctrine that would supply him 
 with a line of conduct. Nothing inspired 
 him. " Let history and principles," he said, 
 "go to ' the devil ! after all, what is the 
 problem ? " And his mind instantaneously
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 215 
 
 recovered its balance. This is the objective 
 way of treating the subject. Every military 
 operation must be approached from the side 
 of its object, in the widest sense of that word, 
 What is the Problem? 
 
 WAR, PRINCIPLES OF. There is such a thing 
 as a theory of war. That theory starts from 
 a number of principles : 
 
 The principle of economy of forces. 
 
 The principle of freedom of action. 
 
 The principle of free disposal of forces. 
 
 The principle of security, etc. . . . 
 
 This teaching of principles does not, how- 
 ever, aim at a platonic result such as mere 
 learning or as merely filling your mind with a 
 number of new and certain truths. " War 
 is above all a simple art, an art wholly of 
 execution " (Napoleon). 
 
 Failing the conscientious following of the 
 lessons of history, peace-time instruction is 
 bringing us slowly, but surely, back to the 
 false method of " fencing," by virtue of the 
 omnipotence falsely ascribed to material 
 power. 
 
 The French of 1870, just like the Prussians 
 of 1806, are a proof of this truth. In both 
 cases, as von der Goltz puts it, " when the 
 enemy became threatening, strategists gave 
 themselves up to the study of the ground,
 
 216 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 established imaginary plans of campaign and 
 looked for positions which they might or 
 might not discover." 
 
 Is this not the very summary of our last war 
 and its pitiful history? 
 
 1. Positions : there is Cadenbronn, there 
 is Froeschwiller, there is the forest of Haye, 
 all of which are supposed in turn to ensure 
 the country's salvation. 
 
 2. Imaginary plans. We decide that the 
 Rhine must be passed : where, when, how, 
 with what means ? It does not matter. The 
 junction with the Austrians will be made 
 in Bohemia. The generals think they can 
 pigeon-hole military plans. They believe any 
 combination to be valid by itself, independ- 
 ently from circumstances of time, place, goal 
 to be reached. It reminds one of a lawyer 
 preparing what is called an " omnibus " 
 speech, a speech suitable to any possible 
 case. 
 
 3. The notion of battle has totally disap- 
 peared and it has disappeared because people 
 believe they can do without it, because they 
 believe they can, like the immortal Berwick, 
 earn victory without fighting that when 
 troops are being led into the fight, it is from 
 a skilful handling of these troops, mutually 
 related to each other, from a perfect way of 
 falling in, from some new formation or general
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 217 
 
 disposition, that success will come. A battle 
 is prepared for as if it were a parade; no 
 mention is made either of the enemy, or of 
 blows to be delivered (see the orders for the 
 battle of Champigny), or of the hammer that 
 must strike the blow. No mention is made 
 of the use of Force. 
 
 These erroneous considerations will fre- 
 quently reappear, without your knowing it, 
 in your own decisions; they will call forth 
 my criticism whenever you undertake out- 
 flanking operations or operations on the rear 
 of the enemy which will draw all their assumed 
 value from the mere direction in which they 
 will be made; whenever you undertake to 
 threaten without attacking ; whenever you 
 resort to mere plans, geometrical drawings, as 
 if certain dispositions, certain figures possessed 
 a virtue in themselves. 
 
 All this is as flimsy as a paper wall. 
 
 You cannot push a staunch adversary back 
 by means of a skilfully selected direction. 
 You cannot even stop him without really 
 attacking, any more than a paper wall can 
 prevent rain and frost from entering a 
 house. 
 
 Being positive in its nature, war, which we 
 are about to study, only admits of positive 
 solutions. There is no effect without a 
 cause ; if you want to produce an effect, you
 
 218 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 must develop the cause; and in war you 
 must apply force. 
 
 If you want to push the enemy back, beat 
 him ; otherwise, nothing is done ; and there 
 is only one means of doing this : namely 
 fighting. No victory without fighting. 
 
 WAR, SCIENCE OF. Nobody will venture 
 to-day to assert that there could be a science 
 of war. It would be as absurd as a science 
 of poetry, of painting, or of music. But it 
 does not in the least follow that there 
 should not be a theory of war, just as there is 
 one for each of these liberal and peaceful arts. 
 It is not theory which makes a Raphael, a 
 Beethoven, or a Goethe, but the theory of their 
 art placed at their disposal a technique with- 
 out which they could not have risen to the 
 summits they reached. 
 
 WAR, TRANSFORMATION OF. War, like all 
 other human activities, undergoes changes; 
 it does not escape the law of evolution. We 
 live in the century of railways, coaches were 
 none the less useful in their day. But we 
 must not use coaches to-day when we want 
 to travel fast and well. 
 
 To deny the change wrought in warfare 
 amounts to denying the effects of the French 
 Revolution, which was not only philosophical, 
 social, and political, but also military. Not
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 219 
 
 only did it dare to declare war on kings and 
 tyrants, but also victoriously to oppose the 
 inexperienced but at the same time violently 
 impassioned bands of the levee en masse to 
 the minutely and rigidly trained troops of the 
 older Europe. 
 
 To us, at this moment of history, in the 
 midst of modern Europe, that old fencing 
 and those antiquated methods are illustrated 
 by a certain kind of warfare in which there 
 is no decisive solution, nothing but a limited 
 end a warfare consisting in manoeuvres 
 without fighting, submitted on the other 
 hand to absolute rules, of which I will here 
 give a few typical instances : 
 
 Joly de Maizeroy gave the following defini- 
 tion of war : ' The science of war consists 
 not only in knowing how to fight but even 
 more in avoiding combat, in selecting posts, 
 in directing the marches so as to reach the 
 goal without committing oneself ... so 
 again as to decide to fight a battle only when 
 it is deemed indispensable." To defer, to 
 put off, such is the formula. 
 
 We again come across this " war without 
 battle " in the pages of Massenbach, who con- 
 sidered it the supreme form of the military 
 art. 
 
 Again, the same kind of warfare was charac- 
 terized in the following way by Marshal de
 
 220 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Saxe, a man of undeniable ability : "I am 
 not in favour of giving battle; especially at 
 the outset of a war. I am even convinced 
 that a clever general can wage war his whole 
 life without being compelled to do so." 
 
 Entering Saxony in 1806, Napoleon writes 
 to Marshal Soult : " There is nothing I desire 
 so much as a great battle." The one wants 
 to avoid battle his whole life; the other 
 demands it at the first opportunity. Further, 
 these theories have the vice of building up 
 magnificent systems on the mere properties 
 and intrinsic value of ground. 
 
 Again, we see Schwartzemberg, in 1814, 
 proceed by Bale, run up against the obstacles 
 of Switzerland, completely isolate his own 
 army and expose it a hundred times to the 
 striking blows of an even disarmed Napoleon, 
 face all these risks, in order to secure the 
 advantage of entering France through the 
 Langres plateau ; because the Langres plateau 
 gives birth to the Marne, the Aube, the Seine, 
 etc. . . . and constitutes (geographically) the 
 strategical key to France. Bliicher's judgment 
 about this view is well known. 
 
 To be brief, the idea of a result to be ob- 
 tained by conquering had totally disappeared 
 from all these conceptions. The notion of 
 force had been replaced by the notion of 
 figure ; the mechanics of war had become the
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 221 
 
 geometry of war; intention stood instead of 
 fad ; threat instead of stroke, of battle. 
 ***** 
 
 Such a formalism also leads to pedantry. 
 The Austrian Generals, after they had been 
 beaten by Bonaparte, were heard to exclaim : 
 "It is not possible to disregard, as much as 
 does this man, Bonaparte, the most essential 
 principles of the art of war ! " 
 
 Truly enough, a new era had begun, the 
 era of national wars, of wars which were to 
 work at a fearful potential; for those wars 
 were destined to throw into the fight all the 
 resources of the nation; they were to set 
 themselves as their goal, not a dynastic 
 interest, not 'the conquest or possession of 
 a province, but the defence or the propaga- 
 tion of philosophical ideas in the first place, 
 next of principles of independence, of unity, 
 of immaterial advantages of various kinds. 
 Lastly they staked upon the issue the interests 
 and fortune of every individual private. 
 Hence the rising of passions, 1 that is, elements 
 of force, hitherto in the main unused. 
 
 Do you now catch the antithesis of these 
 two epochs that before and that after the 
 Revolution ? 
 
 1 Already, in the past, the most violent contests had 
 been caused by the religious wars, which were wars for 
 an idea.
 
 222 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 On one side, an extreme utilization of 
 human, ardently impassioned, masses; an 
 absorption of all the activities of society; 
 an entire subordination to the needs of the 
 hour of the material parts of the system, 
 such as fortification, supply, use of ground, 
 armament, billeting, etc. 
 
 On the other side (eighteenth century), a 
 regular and methodical utilization of those 
 material parts which become the bases for 
 various systems; for systems which would 
 of course change with the moment, but would 
 none the less always tend to make such a use 
 of the troops as to spare the army, the capital 
 of the sovereign : an army not really caring 
 for the cause for which it is fighting, though 
 not lacking in the professional virtues, in 
 particular the virtues of military spirit and 
 honour. 
 
 The fancy for the " old fencing," for 
 " antiquated methods," for " ancient pro- 
 cesses," periodically reappears in peace-time 
 among those armies which do not study 
 history and therefore forget the very thing 
 which above all gives life to war : namely 
 action, with all its consequences. 
 
 The undeniable reason for this is that all 
 these systems are wholly based on things you 
 can touch in peace-time, on the material 
 factor which keeps all its importance in mere
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 223 
 
 drill and manoeuvres, while in peace-time the 
 moral factor cannot be either clearly grasped 
 or made use of. 
 
 For instance, the battle of the Alma or 
 any similar one, if it were reproduced in the 
 course of manoeuvres, would turn out a 
 Russian victory and a French defeat; the 
 ground demands such a result. You would 
 conclude : escarpments of such a nature as 
 those of the Alma being insurmountable, it 
 is useless to guard them. 
 
 Such and such a percentage is attained by 
 rifle-fire against a target; such and such are 
 the effects of artillery. Therefore attack 
 must be utterly incapable of success. The 
 conclusion drawn from this would be that 
 you must yourself avoid attack, and wait 
 for that of your adversary : go back to the 
 war of positions and skilful manoeuvring; 
 starve your enemy of supplies by outflanking 
 him, etc. At each improvement in armament 
 you would have to return to the defensive. 
 
 Now the same problems, if studied in the 
 book of history, suggest an exactly contrary 
 answer. 
 
 The battle of the Alma was undeniably a 
 French victory. It follows therefrom that 
 any ground may be successfully stormed by 
 the enemy if it is not defended by rifle-fire, 
 that is by watchful and active men.
 
 224 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Any improvement of firearms is ultimately 
 bound to add strength to the offensive, ta a 
 cleverly conducted attack. History shows it, 
 reason explains it. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 War became national in the first instance 
 as a means of conquering and guaranteeing 
 the independence of each existing nation. 
 (French of 1792-3, Spaniards of 1804-14, 
 Russians of 1812, Germans of 1813, Europe 
 of 1814.) It was marked at this stage by 
 those glorious and powerful manifestations 
 of national passions which are named Valmy, 
 Saragossa, Tarancon, Moscow, Leipsig, etc. 
 
 Later on, war, though still national, was 
 made with the object of acquiring by force 
 unity of races, nationality. This was the thesis 
 of the Italians and Prussians in 1866, 1870. 
 This will be the thesis in the name of which the 
 King of Prussia, made Emperor of Germany, 
 will claim the German provinces of Austria. 
 
 But we find to-day a third kind of national 
 war arising, bent on conquering economic 
 advantages and advantageous treaties of 
 commerce for each nation. 
 
 After having been the violent means by 
 which peoples enforced their own admittance 
 into the world of nations, war is now becoming 
 the means they use to enrich themselves. 
 
 National egotism, breeding self-interest in
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 225 
 
 politics and war, and making war a means 
 of satisfying the growing cravings of the 
 nations, these nations therefore bringing into 
 the fight a growing concentration of passion ; 
 a more and more excessive feeding of war, 
 including the use of the human factor and of 
 all the resources of the country such is the 
 picture of modern warfare. It was truly 
 said, then, that " Nations are like men who 
 prefer losing their life to losing their honour, 
 and who prefer staking their last resources to 
 confessing themselves vanquished. Defeat 
 is the ruin of all " (von der Goltz). Such are 
 the origins of modern war. Here is its moral : 
 you must henceforth go to the very limits 
 to find the aim of war. Since the vanquished 
 party now never yields before it has been 
 deprived of all means of reply, what you 
 have to aim at is the destruction of those very 
 means of reply. f 
 
 What, then, are the means of furthering 
 this more and more national, more and more 
 interested, more and more egotistic policy; of 
 furthering a more and more impassioned, 
 violent war? 
 
 " Mobilization nowadays takes up all the 
 intellectual and material resources of the 
 country in order to ensure a successful issue " 
 (von der Goltz). 
 Q
 
 226 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 All resources : a noteworthy difference 
 with previous systems of recruiting (such as 
 enlistment, drawing of lots, substitution, etc.), 
 which, even under the Revolution and the 
 Empire, left unused a great number of 
 citizens. 
 
 All intelligent resources : while previous 
 systems allowed the wealthy and educated 
 part of the nation to escape. 
 
 Moreover, mobilization takes men already 
 trained to military service; they have all 
 previously gone through a course of military 
 training, while the mass-levies of 1793 or 
 the German landwehrs of 1813 embodied in- 
 experienced men only. 
 
 Therefore, while being more considerable 
 in numbers and better trained, the modern 
 mass is also more sensitive. 
 
 The human factor already possessed an 
 undeniable predominance over the material 
 factor at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. Is it not clear that this predomi- 
 nance is still growing in every way ? 
 
 But, again, the army we propose to set 
 up is not a professional army. It is an army 
 of civilians belonging to all callings, to all 
 ranks of society, and wrung from their own 
 people : which callings, society, people, cannot 
 indefinitely do without them. War brings 
 discomfort, puts everywhere a stop to life.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 227 
 
 Hence the consequence that such war cannot 
 last long, that it must be conducted with 
 violence and reach its goal quickly ; otherwise 
 it will remain without result. 
 
 It may be stated, then, that such features 
 as war already possessed at the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century are still more 
 marked at the end of the century : a national 
 war; a war of numbers; a war violent and 
 at quick march. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The nature of war at the end of the nine- 
 teenth century : a more and more national 
 war; more and more considerable masses; 
 ever-increasing predominance of the human 
 factor. 
 
 ZONE OP MANOEUVRE. Troops should always 
 be the masters of the ground of their neigh- 
 bourhood to the limit of their range; other- 
 wise they may be outflanked, caught and 
 destroyed before being able to fight, and this 
 space which has to be kept free from the view 
 and attack of the enemy we call the " Zone of 
 manoeuvres."
 
 JUDGMENTS
 
 ON WARS 
 
 The Civil War in Vendee and (the Napoleonic) 
 Spanish War 
 
 THE enlightened soldiers and German 
 patriots of 1812-13 had discovered how to 
 hold their own against the French armies by 
 studying the occasionally victorious resistance 
 which Vendee and Spain, acting alone and 
 unsupported, had furnished. From that 
 study they had deduced processes which, 
 once transferred from the Bocage of Vendee, 
 or from the hilly ground of the Peninsula 
 into the plains of Northern Europe, proved 
 totally inapplicable or powerless. The prin- 
 ciple of a national rising had, none the less, 
 survived. They had, therefore, only to deter- 
 mine the forms of war which suited best their 
 own temperament and country in order to 
 attain at last those results which we know 
 they did attain. 
 
 Conversely, the misappreciation of " the 
 nature of one's material " explains, to a large 
 extent, the impotence of our armies on the 
 
 231
 
 232 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Loire in 1870-71. The mass-levy, revolution- 
 ary in its essence, decreed by the dictator 
 Gambetta, ill suited a certain type of mind 
 which issued from the imperial armies and 
 had been trained to expect little more than 
 order, method and perfect regularity in an 
 armed force. 
 
 Campaign of 1796 in Italy 
 
 See the section " Economy of Force " in 
 The Principles of War. 
 
 Wars of Napoleon 
 
 The whole of this art consisted in " creating 
 number," that is, in having number on one's 
 side at the chosen point of attack; and the 
 means of obtaining this was economy of force. 
 Having secured this " creation of number," 
 the next step was to prolong the action of 
 one's machine by making the fullest possible 
 use of the disorder into which the appearance 
 of superior numbers at the decisive point will 
 have thrown the enemy's army, and also the 
 fullest possible use of the moral superiority 
 which such a situation will have created in 
 one's own force. ... In such a summary 
 you have the formula of Napoleonic war. 
 
 Campaign of 1809 in Austria 
 See the passage on " Moral Ascendancy " in 
 The Principles of War.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 233 
 
 Campaign of 1809 in Italy 
 
 See the passage on " Strategic Security " in 
 The Principles of War. 
 
 Campaign of Prussia (1806). (Battle of 
 Saalfeld) 
 
 The troops set out at a brisk pace, on a 
 fine autumn morning, before dawn (5 a.m.), 
 the air being fresh and biting. 
 
 The men were rather heavily loaded with 
 three days' food in their haversacks; they 
 carried only three days' supply because they 
 had already consumed five days' supply out 
 of the eight with which they had started : at 
 Wiirtzburg (four days' biscuits) ; at Schwein- 
 furt (four days' bread). 
 
 They marched well, in spite of that. We 
 have here the Grand Army in full possession 
 of its powers. Songs were heard all along 
 the column ; new songs written for this new 
 war. 
 
 At the first halt, the Emperor's proclama- 
 tions were read to the troops : the proclama- 
 tion to the army, and that to the peoples of 
 Saxony, through which the army was about 
 to march. They were greeted by thousands 
 of cheers : " Vive 1'Empereur ! " which woke 
 the remotest echo of those silent passes. 
 Then the march was resumed at the same 
 brisk pace.
 
 234 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 At the head of the troops rode Marshal 
 Lannes, the most brilliant commander of an 
 advance guard ever known, the victor of 
 Montebello, in whom we shall soon find cause 
 to admire calm, measure, caution, as well as 
 decision and energy. He was just thirty- 
 seven years old. 
 
 His Chief of Staff represented the elder 
 element in the column : General Victor, forty 
 years old. Then came : Divisional Com- 
 mander, Suchet, thirty-four years old ; Briga- 
 dier Claparede, thirty-two ; and Brigadier 
 
 Reille, thirty-one. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The Prussian division had its back to the 
 Saale ; in case of a check, it could only retire 
 over the bridge of Saalfeld or over that of 
 Schwarza. It was easy to measure its forces. 
 It could not be reinforced for a long time. 
 Lannes therefore determined to attack, thus 
 keeping to the spirit of the instructions he had 
 received. 
 
 What did Prince Louis intend to do on 
 his side ? 
 
 Led by a very Prussian instinct, he left 
 to the French the uncomfortable and difficult 
 slopes which rise towards the woods, made for 
 the plain and kept to the bottom of the 
 valley, where regular manoeuvres would be 
 easier. It was, indeed, at that time a matter
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 235 
 
 of principle with the Prussian Army that one 
 should attack in such fashion to rehearse 
 Rosbach all over again; that attack must 
 take place when the enemy debouches from 
 difficult ground, out of a pass, for instance; 
 to attack in echelon was (then) with them 
 the last word of military science. In order 
 to achieve that manoeuvre, what you need 
 before all else is an open ground for manoeuvre. 
 The Prussians at that time did not know how 
 to fight in any other fashion. Caput mortuum, 
 as Frederick would have said. 
 
 Moreover, as a result of the eighteenth- 
 century views prevailing within the Prussian 
 Army, they did not doubt that the French 
 would take Saalfeld as an objective. Saalfeld 
 was a storehouse, a road junction, a crossing 
 of the Saale, a complete geographical ob- 
 jective. Unfortunately for Prince Louis, 
 generals trained by the French Revolution 
 ignored that whole science of geographical 
 points, which is foreign to war, which is the 
 very negation of struggle, which is a symptom 
 of decay, which, in any case, is ce fin du fin 
 qui est la fin des fins. They knew one thing 
 only, they desired but one thing, a thing 
 which is undeniably the true goal : the defeat 
 of the enemy. 
 
 The Prussian Army not only lacked sound 
 views; it also lacked food. To mention but
 
 236 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 one point, they found it extremely difficult, 
 in this pasture country, and in October to 
 feed the horses of one small division ! 
 
 There is irony here. An order arrived 
 during the battle to the effect " that the 
 forage rations must be equalized with the 
 greatest care," such rations not being in 
 existence at all. Formalism was expected 
 
 to save everything. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Scouting was undertaken ahead, to the 
 right, and to the left; insufficiently strong 
 patrols were supported by the cavalry brigade ; 
 the latter had been reinforced by an " elite " 
 -battalion. It further disposed of certain 
 artillery with a view to " taking soundings " 
 of the ground as well as for resistance. 
 
 The opportunity had come for tearing 
 through the screen formed by the enemy 
 outposts at the issue of woods ; the advance 
 guard had immediately intervened, and, owing 
 to its composition, it had succeeded in getting 
 a clear view of things, at least towards Saalfeld 
 and Crosten. 
 
 Light cavalry parties had also occupied 
 Beulwitz as well as the eastern corner of the 
 forest, on the right above the gap of the Saale. 
 They scouted from that point in all directions 
 in order to confirm such reports as had 
 already been received concerning the enemy.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 237 
 
 In the presence of this situation, once the' 
 Marshal has decided to attack, how will the 
 action develop against the enemy who stood 
 so neatly drawn up at the foot of the hills ? 
 
 Before organizing the attack, its direction 
 must first of all be fixed. Shall he attack 
 by the right ? There is no manoeuvring space 
 in that direction; moreover, Saalfeld, a 
 strong " point d'appui," closely bordered by 
 the Saale, would have in that case to be 
 carried as a first step. 
 
 Shall he attack in front ? This would 
 amount to taking the bull by the horns, to 
 making it possible for the enemy to use the 
 advantages of his line by means of fire and 
 march. It would mean attacking him in his 
 strongest part. 
 
 By the left ? There covered ways of access 
 are available as well as an easy manoeuvring 
 ground, that is, a wide ground without 
 obstacles yet well provided with cover. 
 
 In that direction, the attack may be pre- 
 pared without the enemy being aware of it ; it 
 may be launched, without being stopped by 
 important obstacles; it may develop upon 
 the fullest scale which the forces available 
 allow. 
 
 The attack will therefore be launched on 
 that side, in the space extending between 
 Aue, the Sandberg and Wolsdorf, which
 
 288 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 ground is easy to advance over, though 
 hilly. 
 
 It was now 10 a.m. The French column 
 was arriving, but its march grew slower, 
 owing to the heat of the day and the con- 
 gestion of the roads; three or four hours 
 passed before all the forces could be assembled 
 on the reconnoitred ground. 
 
 But during such a long lapse of time, the 
 enemy might attack the debouching column ; 
 he must be prevented from doing so ; that is 
 the task of the advance guard. 
 
 To stand on guard by getting hold of every- 
 thing that helps one to check the enemy's 
 advance, such is the first act in the prepara- 
 tion for battle. Hence the occupation of 
 ridges from which to fire ; hence the occupa- 
 tion and defensive organization of villages, 
 so as to increase the resisting power of a force 
 the numbers of which are reduced to a 
 minimum. 
 
 The assembled enemy may also change place, 
 undertake a manoeuvre, in short, alter the 
 dispositions against which our attack is being 
 organized. How can he be prevented from 
 doing so? By attacking him, but without 
 risking anything; with weak numbers but 
 on a wide front, so as to spare the forces. 
 Hence an offensive made by small units 
 starting from villages which shall remain
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 239 
 
 occupied. Thus we shall see in this battle 
 swarms of skirmishers advancing through 
 gardens, orchards, hollow roads, in order to 
 threaten the enemy and to extend the action 
 far ahead from the outskirts of the villages. 
 
 After having been first used as centres of 
 resistance, those villages next become starting- 
 points for a number of offensive actions. 
 
 To sum up, a number of occupied villages 
 marking the ground with strong points, and 
 connected with each other by means of lines 
 of skirmishers, who, being on the ridges, can 
 see and act while under cover and provide 
 elements for a partial offensive : such is the 
 first line. 
 
 There must be in the rear a reserve of 
 mobile troops kept for an emergency. This 
 reserve will be, in our present case, composed 
 of cavalry. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 From the corner of the wood to Beulwitz 
 the distance was 3500 yards ; Lannes was 
 not afraid, as we have seen, to spread, for the 
 purposes of an advance guard, over so con- 
 siderable a front, only three battalions and 
 a half and the cavalry brigade ; and this with 
 muskets the efficient range of which was not 
 superior to 150 or 200 yards. Such are the 
 dispositions, such the dispersion, to which 
 some people object even nowadays, with
 
 240 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 quick-firing rifles which really and powerfully 
 sweep the ground over a range of 1200 to 
 1500 yards. They object to such dispositions 
 by quoting the regulations which prescribe 
 that the front of a battalion in action must 
 never be more than 300 yards. Those regula- 
 tions were never meant to contradict what we 
 see Marshal Lannes doing here. For the 
 object, here, is not to beat the enemy, there- 
 fore no " front of action " is in question. 
 Troops are so far only taking possession of the 
 ground, which they do by putting a certain 
 number of watchmen at all the entrances 
 watchmen who should be able to shut the 
 doors if a thief comes, and also, after having 
 strongly established themselves, to beat up 
 the neighbourhood and see what has become 
 of the thief, and, if need be, to chase him. 
 
 We shall soon have the combat, the attack 
 proper; then we shall see the fronts comply 
 with the rules ; then we shall find the average 
 front of a battalion to be far less than 300 
 yards. 
 
 Such a situation, once secured on the 
 French side, was to continue for some time 
 without much change. Meanwhile the whole 
 first part of the programme was carried out, 
 that is, preparation.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 241 
 
 i 
 
 At the same time an order arrived from 
 Prince Hohenlohe to remain at Rudolstadt 
 and not to attack. A retreat by Schwarza, 
 in case of a check, became more and more 
 important. Prince Louis ordered the foot 
 battery and the ist Mufling battalion to 
 occupy the Sandberg. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 We have, then, the whole of the French 
 cavalry, the whole of the French artillery (less 
 two guns) and four infantry regiments (out of 
 five) attacking at once an enemy already 
 shaken by fire, so as to finish him off ; attack- 
 ing by surprise, that is, with an undeniable 
 superiority of means, suddenly, and from a 
 short distance, that very point of the enemy 
 line which had been selected as the easiest 
 to approach and had been specially prepared 
 as a point of attack : the front of the attack 
 is 1500 or 1800 yards wide for all the acting 
 troops; this is less than the 300 yards of 
 front to a battalion prescribed by the regula- 
 tions. 
 
 The theory which has been put in practice 
 is here obvious : one clearly sees how the 
 manoeuvre of long duration (from 9 a.m. to 
 3 p.m.) aims exclusively at bringing about 
 the powerful, undisputable conclusion by 
 means of all the main forces ; such a conclu- 
 sion being preceded by a preparation to
 
 242 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 which the smallest numbers possible were 
 devoted. 
 
 That preparation includes the combat of 
 the advance guard, the object of which was 
 reconnoitring, fixing, if need be stopping the 
 enemy; this combat is followed by a frontal 
 attack which completes the enemy's im- 
 mobilization and wears him; it ends in a 
 decisive attack, a surprise in time and space, 
 effected by means of number, speed, choice of 
 starting-point, and of a peculiar violence 
 which turns the attack into an avalanche. 
 
 When we try to apply our theory to modern 
 circumstances, changes must of course be 
 made, so as to take into account the influence 
 of modern arms upon battle ; but the picture 
 remains the same in the main. 
 
 The battle of Saalfeld, had it to be fought 
 to-day, would not be conducted in any other 
 fashion. 
 
 ***** 
 
 What a methodical spirit there is in this 
 action conducted by the young Marshal ! 
 One wonders which deserves to be most 
 admired in him, the enlightened wisdom with 
 which he patiently prepared the battle for 
 six hours, or the fitness and dash with which 
 he launched his final attack. So true is it 
 that the art of fighting does not consist, even 
 with the most eager and energetic of chiefs,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 243 
 
 even when the best of troops are available, in 
 falling on the enemy blindly. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The Simonet artillery section had fired 
 264 rounds. The divisional artillery had not 
 used up quite so much ammunition about 
 236 rounds. The infantry had fired about 
 200,000 cartridges, which makes the rather 
 considerable average of 20 per man. 
 
 Campaign of 1813-1814 
 
 See the passage on " Strategical Security " 
 in The Principles of War. 
 
 Campaign 0/1815 
 
 See the passage on " Strategical Security " 
 in The Principles of War, and also, in the Judg- 
 ments on Men, see " Bliicher," " Wellington " 
 and " Ziethen." 
 
 The War of 1866 (The Battle of Nachod) 
 
 The contrasting distribution on the ground 
 of each of these two opposing army corps, 
 5th Prussian and 6th Austrian, shows better 
 than any words could do how each side 
 understood war, how each side made war. 
 
 On the Prussian side we see : 
 
 An army corps assembled, astride of the 
 road it is to follow, its reserves behind it on 
 the same road ; it is ready to act with all its
 
 244 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 means; its commander is with the troops, 
 effectively commanding ; here we have a true 
 combination of a force and a will. Moreover, 
 after Steinmetz shall have moved his army 
 corps, he will have effected a junction with 
 the advance guard; he will be on the 27th, 
 at 8 a.m., at Nachod. 
 
 An advance guard is already holding the 
 road far ahead, on the Mettau, ensuring the 
 tactical security of that corps, clearing the 
 road for it ; so deeply conscious of its mission 
 that, as early as in the evening of the 26th, 
 it has got up as far as Nachod. 
 
 Early on the 27th, a flank guard will be 
 sent, to Giesshiibel in order to protect the 
 movement. Giesshiibel lies in Austrian terri- 
 tory; by occupying it on August 26th, the 
 offensive scheme which had just been framed 
 was sure to be disclosed. None the less occu- 
 pied it was, in order to protect the movement 
 of the army corps once that movement had 
 begun. 
 
 Such dispositions clearly show what sense 
 of action inspired to the highest degree the 
 commander of the army corps and the com- 
 mander of the advance guard. They were 
 both securing, by means of that advance 
 guard (preparation), of that flank guard (pro- 
 tection) the possibility of carrying out the 
 single action which was to be undertaken with
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 245 
 
 all forces well in hand and in the same 
 direction. 
 
 Their idea was to act with everything on 
 one point ; they were free to do it, owing to 
 security ; they were about to attain a decision 
 owing to the economy of forces which had 
 been achieved in apportioning those forces 
 throughout the column. 
 
 On the Austrian side : 
 
 The army corps has deployed on a front 
 of more than six miles, which enables it to 
 get housing, to live, and to march comfort- 
 ably. It is a situation which does well enough 
 so long as no enemy is present, but it little 
 corresponds to the necessities of war. Be- 
 sides, the army corps is distributed in five 
 distinct elements : four brigades and an 
 artillery reserve. 
 
 Suppose, then, the enemy (who in war is 
 always the prime objective of all combina- 
 tions) should disclose his presence, the 6th 
 Corps would not be in a position to act owing 
 to its being scattered : it ought to be possible 
 for the Austrian forces to join up, but no time 
 is left for that ; there is no service of security 
 which might provide the two or three quiet 
 hours required for concentration on the front of 
 more than six miles which has been taken up. 
 
 The Austrian Higher Command perceived 
 only the subjective part of its task : securing
 
 246 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 the means of keeping and leading an army. 
 It had completely lost sight of the object 
 to which that army is devoted : fighting. 
 Nothing was prepared for carrying on fighting 
 under good conditions. The notion of war, 
 the sense of action, had disappeared; they 
 had been replaced by mere staff work, though 
 staffs have always been incapable of creating, 
 of themselves alone, such a thing as victory. 
 ***** 
 
 The Prussian cavalry remained in action 
 right up to the end. After breaking the 
 attempts made by the enemy infantry to 
 debouch from the wood, they attacked the 
 enemy artillery, captured three guns, and 
 afterwards carried out the pursuit. Although 
 their professional value was inferior to that 
 of the Austrian cavalry, they knew how to 
 fulfil their mission in the battle, how to act 
 in compliance with the advance guard's 
 tactics ; above all, they were handled by a 
 commander who utilized them to the utmost 
 right up to the end. 
 
 The Austrian artillery had also proved 
 very superior to the Prussian artillery in 
 armament, in tactics and in training; they 
 were, in consequence, superior in their fire. 
 They inflicted on the successively arriving 
 Prussian batteries losses which prevented 
 the latter from keeping up the struggle. In
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 247 
 
 spite of that, the Prussians conquered at the 
 end of the day. Artillery action is not, then, 
 any more than cavalry action, of such a de- 
 cisive character as definitely to decide the 
 issue of any contest. 
 
 We shall in future wars frequently see an 
 artillery duel remain undecided on account 
 of the length of range and of the difficulty of 
 finding cover against the various directions 
 from which the enemy may present his fire. 
 The batteries occupied in this function of 
 meeting the enemy's fire ought, therefore, to 
 seize those points on the flank of the attack 
 whence an artillery surprise might appear, 
 and also to discover and receive the general 
 counter-attack which cannot fail to take place 
 in the course of the action. 
 
 The War of 1870 
 
 (The reader must not expect under this heading even 
 the briefest summary of the military operations which 
 have been dealt with in so masterful a fashion in 
 Marshal Foch's book The Conduct of War. Save for 
 several leading episodes and a few explanations which 
 were absolutely necessary for the comprehension of the 
 events described, the only things here reproduced are 
 the judgments of the Marshal on the more prominent 
 points of the campaign.) 
 
 (a) Moltke's Plan and Concentration 
 
 [Following his plan, which had been drawn up 
 in 1869, Moltke did not cover the concentration
 
 248 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 of the German armies which were to operate 
 against France by any force capable of resisting 
 an enemy offensive. The thirteen army corps 
 were concentrated in three masses : 
 
 The ist Army (Steinmetz), (jth, 8th, and 
 later the ist Corps and two divisions of cavalry), 
 in the region of Treves. 
 
 2nd Army (Frederick Charles), fard, ^th 
 and loth Corps, Guard, and two divisions of 
 cavalry), in the region of Mayence. 
 
 $rd Army (Prince Royal of Prussia), ($th 
 and nth Prussian Corps, ist and 2nd Bavarian 
 Corps, the Wurtemburg Corps, and two divisions 
 of cavalry), in the region of Landau. 
 
 The 6th and jth Corps formed for the moment 
 a Strategic Reserve.} 
 
 If Moltke found security for his concentra- 
 tion in distance alone and forbade himself all 
 effective covering troops, he was guided to 
 this conclusion by political reasons. He had 
 a high idea of the value of the French, as he 
 had followed them in the Crimea, in Italy, 
 and in Mexico ; and he desired at the outset 
 to preserve the German troops from any kind 
 of check, even from any retirement. The 
 neutrality of Austria and of Italy and the 
 alliance of southern Germany could only 
 thus be made absolutely certain. Further, 
 would the ist Prussian Corps thrown forward
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 249 
 
 as covering troops manoeuvre with sufficient 
 suppleness to escape ruin and disaster? 
 The crude doctrine of " going forwards," 
 which had been so warmly taught for several 
 years past, might have received at the very 
 threshold of the war a formal contradiction 
 and a blow which would have definitely 
 ruined its prestige. And how would it have 
 been possible to have made such an army 
 fight in retreat and then afterwards launch it 
 again to the attack? 
 
 These were no doubt the difficulties which 
 had struck Moltke, although he was a disciple 
 of Clause witz. He was an example of the 
 gulf that separates theory from practice. 
 He believed in mathematics rather than in 
 manoeuvre, and in number rather than in 
 moral force. He did not judge himself 
 capable of a greater hazard than that which 
 he adopted, and though he thus proved him- 
 self upon a lower plane than Napoleon, one 
 cannot avoid admiration for the wisdom of 
 a man who co-ordinated his views with his 
 means, and who, though by way of less genius 
 and in a more plodding fashion, yet through 
 an -exact knowledge and a just observation 
 of his adversary, discovered the way to 
 dominate that adversary continuously and 
 to attain results which have never been 
 surpassed in history.
 
 250 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 [Moltke proposed to march upon Paris, 
 leaving on one side the French Army, which he 
 was persuaded would come up to accept battle.] 
 
 He did not envisage the case of the French 
 manoeuvring otherwise than upon the direct 
 line, changing their groupment, condensing 
 their forces to the right or to the left and 
 striking against one of his wings. The idea 
 of a manoeuvre seemed to him as unrealizable 
 for his adversary as for himself. 
 
 [Moltke put together a general advance guard 
 of seventy-six squadrons, distributed across all 
 his front, supported by an infantry division, 
 and proceeding about one day's march in front 
 of the army.] 
 
 The task of reconnaissance was set to 
 detachments of cavalry sent out in the most 
 diverse directions and supported by infantry 
 units, some of which were carried by vehicles. 
 
 Such a method as this is very weak; for 
 it is incapable of seeing through any service 
 of security which has been seriously organized. 
 It is incapable from its lack of means of attack 
 (infantry and artillery) of compelling the 
 enemy to show himself if he does not wish to 
 do so. Therefore this system of reconnais- 
 sance only allows you to discover what the 
 enemy has been good enough to allow you
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 251 
 
 to discover. Under this system to get to 
 work Moltke needed twenty-four hours. He 
 would have that space of time at his disposal, 
 so it seemed, if the enemy were to strike 
 against the 5th Division. But at the end of 
 that space of time what would he have been 
 able to concentrate? Obviously no more 
 than the forces within one day's march. 
 And of what strength were they? 
 
 [Turning to the programme of the marches 
 which had been arranged, we see that the con- 
 centrations possible within a limit of twenty-four 
 hours were as follows.] 
 
 The 2nd Army could concentrate on itself. 
 
 The ist Army could concentrate on itself. 
 
 The 3rd Army could concentrate on itself. 
 
 Therefore if the enemy were to attack at 
 the end of the period allowed he would strike 
 one of these armies, the 2nd, the ist, or the 
 3rd, but only one. In other words, he would 
 have only one-third of the total adversary 
 forces opposed to him. .The three armies 
 were too far apart one from the other to join 
 and take part in a common affair. 
 
 He would come to the same result if, 
 instead of concentrating each army upon 
 itself, a general concentration were attempted 
 upon some one point of the front. 
 
 And this inconvenience would be exagger-
 
 252 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 ated if the enemy were to appear without 
 attacking the 5th Division. Now the enemy 
 might very well so appear, as we see when 
 we consider the extent of ground over which 
 he had the choice of attack. In that case 
 even the twenty-four hours' delay would be 
 eliminated. 
 
 \Moltke envisages and organizes a priori 
 according to a set plan a battle upon the Sarre 
 before he has any precise information upon the 
 French Army.} 
 
 I. He could get this battle of his upon the 
 Sarre on the 8th and gth of August : (a) if 
 the French did not attack before the date 
 fixed; (b) if the French did not retire; or 
 (c) if the French manoeuvred neither to right 
 nor to left. In a word, this combination of 
 Moltke's could only succeed against an enemy 
 who was of his own nature, as it were, im- 
 mobile; since there was nothing in the plan 
 of attack to pin and hold him in the interval 
 between the making of that plan and the day 
 fixed for the battle. 
 
 II. Further : 
 
 (a) If the French were to attack before the 
 8th or the Qth not all the three German 
 armies could be present at the battle as we 
 saw above.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 253 
 
 (b) If the French were to retire the 
 manoeuvre would strike a blow in the void. 
 It would be necessary to plan out another 
 manoeuvre, and a critical situation would 
 arise and would remain in being during the 
 whole period of such preparation. For the 
 armies would not only have struck in the 
 void, but would have also effected a con- 
 centration for that purpose. They would 
 have got into a dense formation which would 
 necessarily hold them immobile for some days. 
 
 (c) Were the French to manoeuvre by the 
 right or by the left of the point of attack 
 chosen by the Germans, notably were they 
 to attack towards the east, the German 
 manoeuvre which had thus been settled in 
 advance would create an entanglement which 
 might last indefinitely, and in the midst of 
 which it would be necessary to take up a new 
 direction and to plan and put in movement 
 the new manoeuvre required. 
 
 III. A decision was obtained by a single 
 army upon one wing (the 3rd Army in the 
 Battle of the Sarre). 
 
 It was about one-third of the total forces 
 available. A large mass, no doubt, and 
 capable of securing a tactical result, a day's 
 victory; but on the other hand incapable 
 of drawing from that result the immense
 
 254 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 consequences which follow from manoeuvre 
 and from the Napoleonic type of battle, in 
 which, as we shall see below, the obtaining 
 of a decision depends upon the use of the bulk 
 of one's forces. 
 
 IV. The reunion of forces had to be made 
 upon the battlefield itself, and during the 
 action ; the ist, 2nd and 3rd armies, uniting 
 upon the Sarre towards the Qth of August. 
 (So it was with Sadowa, for the three armies 
 of 1866). This operation therefore remained 
 up to the very last day uncertain, hazardous, 
 and at the mercy of the adversary's ma- 
 noeuvre. It left in the same uncertainty the 
 final tactical result to be obtained, the decision. 
 
 Let us contrast against this conception of 
 attack Moltke's (that is, against the direct 
 manoeuvre effected with the same force as 
 that which gives battle) the system of 
 Napoleon. Whether we are dealing with the 
 campaign of 1805, of 1806, or of 1807, the 
 force that gives battle, organized in triple 
 column or mass, possesses a head, a special 
 organ, which is the general advance guard 
 in 1806 this was the ist Reserve Corps of 
 cavalry, under the orders of Murat. The 
 manoeuvre consists in seeking out the adver- 
 sary with this advance guard, which is of 
 sufficient strength for such a task, and which
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 255 
 
 can, if necessary, be reinforced. Then only, 
 with the mass of his troops, with his whole 
 army, with his battle force informed upon 
 the enemy's position, and reunited in one 
 whole before the action, the Emperor 
 manoeuvred and attacked the adversary, 
 already pinned by his advance guard. He 
 turned that adversary with the mass of his 
 army, appearing and acting in one gesture 
 against the lines of communication. It is 
 thus that we get those battles with reversed 
 fronts which are the characteristic of Napo- 
 leonic wars and the consequences of which 
 are so considerable. 
 
 When we compare these leaders of armies 
 from the point of view of the way in which 
 they join battle, we see Napoleon turning the 
 enemy's army before the battle with the mass 
 of his own army which he has already gathered 
 together, and only attacking after this had 
 been done. We see Moltke turning his 
 adversary during the battle with only a part 
 of his forces (the 3rd Army in the Battle of 
 the Sarre), and effecting his concentration 
 upon the battlefield itself by the convergence 
 of columns. The first leader aims with 
 more security at a victory which will be more 
 fruitful in results, thanks to a strategy 
 moulded upon an axis of attack which would 
 allow such result, and thanks to the conduct
 
 256 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 of troops which he can combine with mastery 
 both of time and of space through his use bf 
 an advance guard. 
 
 In Napoleon's manoeuvre there appears a 
 very real danger, which is that while one is 
 preparing to turn one's adversary one may 
 oneself be turned, and that in advancing 
 to cut the communications of one's adversary 
 one may lose one's own. Hence it is that we 
 see that great man so much preoccupied with 
 his line of operations. Hence it is also that 
 in 1806, to quote but one example, he provides 
 himself with a double base, the Danube and 
 the Rhine. 
 
 With modern armies, which are too large 
 to be supported on occupied country alone, 
 and which can only exist by being fed from 
 the country behind them, the consequences 
 of a manoeuvre against the lines of communica- 
 tion are considerably increased. If it makes 
 good the enemy is ruined. On the other 
 hand, since these communications are re- 
 latively short they are easy to cover. It is 
 very difficult, indeed, to reach them, as also 
 to prepare and to execute a battle with 
 reversed front, seeing the vast numbers of 
 modern effectives and certain other modern 
 conditions. 
 
 [The immense size of the means at our
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 257 
 
 disposal to-day of men and provisionment of 
 all kinds, the vastness of what one has to trans- 
 port, and consequently the necessity of arranging 
 long beforehand a relatively rigid plan of trans- 
 port, have this consequence : that concentration 
 must be decided and carried out almost fully 
 before any information upon the enemy has 
 reached us.] 
 
 Perhaps we ought to seek- in these modern 
 difficulties of execution the reason which 
 made Moltke confine himself to a more 
 prosaic manoeuvre than the manoeuvre of 
 Napoleon with its artistry and genius. For 
 that prosaic manoeuvre is easier to bring to 
 success. If so, we must recognize once more 
 the prudence and wisdom of a theory which 
 maintained the principle of force in action, 
 which is always true. He relied on frontal 
 attack and on such an attack being decisive, 
 but only because it seemed to him the best 
 application of force that could be made, given 
 the proportion of the effectives and the 
 manner to which he was limited in his conduct 
 of his enterprise. Such as it was, this method 
 determined an arrangement of forces un- 
 doubtedly judicious, if we analyze it as an 
 occupation of the front, but equally doubtful 
 if we analyse it in depth. 
 
 For so far as the forces are organized in
 
 258 PRECEPTS AND JUDGEMENTS 
 
 depth that is, if we are considering the 
 relations between the more advanced and 
 the less advanced troops we have seen that 
 Moltke's theory of an advance guard was that 
 of a large cavalry body supported, but at 
 some marches' distance behind, by a division 
 of infantry ; and that this suffered from two 
 defects : (i) it was doubtful as an organism 
 for obtaining information; (2) it was an 
 organism with an insufficient power of 
 resistance. 
 
 But what is much more important he 
 did not even call this organ into being as one 
 united force, and he did not keep it under his 
 sole orders. He distributed all his disposable 
 forces between his three armies. With what 
 result? Each army having its own goal 
 devotes to the attainment of that goal all 
 the means at its disposal. Therefore the 
 cavalry corps, which the theory takes for 
 granted, no longer really exists, and the task 
 which was thought indispensable for the 
 development of the general and common 
 manoeuvre is not fulfilled. 
 
 We learn a lesson directly from this con- 
 sideration. In order that the service of an 
 advance guard which even Moltke had 
 recognized to be necessary should be as- 
 sured, it is essential that this advance guard 
 should be constituted as one organism,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 259 
 
 independent of the armies and under the 
 direct orders of the General Commanding-in- 
 Chief. 
 
 As for Moltke, seeing that he had no such 
 particular organ to hand, we can easily foresee 
 that two things will happen to him : 
 
 1. He will not get information, or if he 
 does he will be the last to obtain it ; and in 
 the absence of information he will either 
 postpone his decisions or he will make them 
 upon hypothetical situations, and to do that 
 is to act blindly. 
 
 2. In the lack of covering troops to render 
 secure the concentration of all his forces, 
 those forces, dispersed for the purpose of 
 marching, will come upon the enemy by sur- 
 prise without having had the time to unite. 
 
 We may sum up by saying that all informed 
 strategic direction is organically forbidden 
 him by the very nature of his disposition, 
 and that he will be condemned to advance 
 his armies from one surprise to another. And 
 what will be the result of that ? The action 
 of his troops answers the question. Thus 
 led, they will of course strike the moment 
 they meet the enemy, not because they have 
 orders to do so, but because they have no 
 orders to the contrary nor could they have, 
 since they did not know where the enemy 
 was to be found. Thrust suddenly into the
 
 260 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 presence of the adversary, they have to decide 
 for themselves, and nothing but the military 
 spirit can dictate the conduct they shall 
 pursue. 
 
 While the Higher Command still keeps its 
 decisions in reserve the troops conclude their 
 action. While the Higher Command abstains 
 from effective direction on account of the 
 mist which surrounds it, the armies take 
 direction upon their own account. It is they 
 that conduct the strategic manoeuvre, which 
 in effect has passed into other hands than 
 that of the Higher Command. 
 
 Lacking all foundation for action, all know- 
 ledge of the subject in hand, the primordial 
 instinct of action inspires the troops and they 
 attack. The strategical manoeuvre designed 
 increases its activity, but can it continue to 
 exist as a deliberate manoeuvre ? That is 
 what we are about to examine. 
 
 The troops join battle in a complete 
 ignorance of the enemy's general situation 
 and of the situation of the particular army 
 they are meeting. Hence you have two grave 
 flaws at the very outset of their action. 
 First, from the tactical point of view they are 
 in very great danger of striking an adversary 
 far superior to themselves; secondly, from 
 the strategic point of view, battle would be 
 joined in a point not chosen by the Higher
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 261 
 
 Command at a moment not chosen by it 
 either, and in a fashion which its will has not 
 decided. Battle thus conducted is impro- 
 vised, unforeseen, and cannot be fully guided. 
 Such are the necessary conclusions of this 
 method. The issue would be fatal in the 
 presence of an active adversary, and we 
 sum up the whole by saying that an action 
 which has been engaged ill by its strategy 
 leads surely to disaster, save where superior 
 tactics turn the scale in its favour : for 
 these last are always decisive. 
 
 Let us then retain the following con- 
 clusion : The superiority of the Napoleonic 
 combination, with its advance guard, which 
 not only procures an attack with those great 
 effects of which we have just spoken, but 
 also gives security. For that advance guard 
 allows one to strike where one wills, as one 
 wills and when one wills, and that with full 
 information ; the advance guard being organ- 
 ized to discover, to attack, to resist, and to 
 retire. 
 
 Let us take things as they stood after the 
 campaign of 1806. 
 
 As against this avowed incapacity of the 
 German organization that is, of the German 
 Higher Command as against this necessity 
 in which it found itself of always consulting 
 the decisions of subordinates, are not both
 
 262 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 the organization and the theory of Napoleon 
 superior? His theory guaranteed the power 
 of really commanding by organizing security 
 against the enterprise of the enemy, and there- 
 fore against the premature action of his own 
 troops. It prevented his projects from being 
 blocked and his calculations upset. That 
 theory further guaranteed his troops against 
 the attractive effect of battle until the moment 
 when he himself desired to exercise it. It 
 gave endurance to that which is commonly 
 only a flash of light, and it gave it such 
 endurance by making security permanent 
 in the hands of the General in Command, 
 and thus making him capable of effectively 
 
 directing operations. 
 
 ***** 
 
 We can easily see in this twentieth century 
 where such conceptions as Bernhardi's would 
 lead to. Napoleon's higher conception of 
 surprise was a surprise effected first in space 
 and then in time. But Bernhardi uses only 
 one of these terms. He depends upon a 
 surprise in terms of time, that is, upon the 
 rapidity of executon dependent upon very 
 minute preparation, and therefore he leaves 
 aside the other elements on which a manoeuvre 
 
 should be built. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The German General Headquarters reached
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 263 
 
 Mayence on the 7th August, 1870. If the 
 French had attacked before that date they 
 would not only have found armies in the 
 disorder of formation, but even armies not 
 yet provided with command. 
 
 And when the command was organized 
 it continued at Mayence. General Head- 
 quarters proposed to direct operations upon 
 the basis of information coming from the 
 Saar, seventy-five miles off, information to 
 be obtained for it by the cavalry screen of 
 the 2nd Army. 
 
 That is as much as to say that the infor- 
 mation would be insufficient. For though 
 the telegraphic transmission of news in a 
 sense eliminates distance, yet Headquarters, 
 under these conditions, would get a very 
 distant impression : Headquarters would not 
 have that real knowledge which can only be 
 provided by local atmosphere. Moreover, 
 the cavalry screen in question, squadrons 
 reconnoitring and directed to their task by 
 the Commander of the 2nd Army, could not 
 be fully conversant at every moment with the 
 intentions or needs of General Headquarters 
 at Mayence. The result was that the latter 
 either did not get the information it needed, or 
 got it tardily or incompletely; and all this 
 was due to the lack of an organ at once suit- 
 able to its function and under its direct orders,
 
 264 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 In a similar situation Napoleon would have 
 visited his own advance guard, not only with 
 the object of learning things more rapidly 
 but also with the object of seeing things for 
 himself and at first hand; with the object 
 of himself directing his own service of infor- 
 mation, and of keeping in hand the conduct 
 of that advance corps upon whose discoveries 
 and progress his manoeuvre would be founded. 
 
 (b) The March to the Saar (from 3rd to 6th 
 August, 1870). 
 
 [Moltke took the offensive on the 3rd August. 
 The ^rd Army had orders to cross the river 
 Lauter and enter Alsace. The ist and 2nd 
 Armies were to march to the Saar River. 
 Orders which had been misunderstood led to a 
 disputebetweenSteinmetz and Frederick Charles. 
 The former refused to leave free the roads which 
 were necessary to the marching of the latter. 
 Meanwhile, Napoleon III launched the whole 
 of the 2nd Corps (under Frossard) reconnoitring 
 in the direction of Saarbriick, where there was 
 nothing but a thin covering screen of the enemy.] 
 
 The concentration of the German 2nd 
 Army was protected by nothing but distance. 
 
 Its cavalry, disposed in three groups, was 
 to be employed according to this same absence
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 265 
 
 of principle, the neglect of an advance guard. 
 The Commander went so far as to divide it 
 into four columns, to wit, on the right two 
 columns : the Redern Brigade of the 5th 
 Division was to march on Volklingen by 
 Nahe, and the Barby Brigade of the same 
 division was to march on the same place by 
 another road to the left. In the centre, the 
 6th Division of Cavalry was to march on 
 Neunkirchen by way of the Glau Valley, while 
 on the left the Bredow Brigade, reinforced 
 by one more regiment and accompanied by 
 General Rheinbaben, was to march by way 
 of Alzey to Durckheim, Kaiserslautern and 
 Homburg. 
 
 These mounted troops had been given the 
 mission, according to the instructions of 
 Frederick Charles, to hide the movement 
 of his forces from the enemy, and at the same 
 time to discover the general situation, posi- 
 tions and movements of the enemy. In 
 particular to appreciate at their just value 
 any incursions which the French might make 
 into German territory. 
 
 This cavalry was followed at an interval 
 of a day's march by two divisions of infantry 
 marching by two separate roads : the 5th 
 Division of the 3rd Prussian Corps and the 
 8th Division of the 4th. 
 
 But the army could only have been informed
 
 266 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 during its march by this large body of cavalry 
 on the one condition, that the enemy should 
 continue motionless, and should leave an 
 empty space between him and the German 
 advance. In the contrary case, that is, in 
 the case of a partial offensive, however 
 restricted, the French would have compelled 
 the German cavalry to retreat, and that 
 without this cavalry being in any way able 
 to measure the importance of the attack ; and 
 in such a case the German cavalry would 
 have lacked means of resistance. The Ger- 
 man Command suspended the march across 
 the wooded region without any serious reason, 
 then, without waiting further, it chose to 
 abandon information, and on the 3ist July 
 ordered the 2nd Army to advance. 
 
 But observe that if the French had taken 
 the offensive, had sent one of their Army 
 Corps to observe the ist Army, and, with 
 their other four Army Corps, had marched 
 against the 2nd Army, they would, at the 
 opening of August, have found that 2nd 
 German Army in the following position : its 
 3rd Corps would have been debouching from 
 Worrstadt with the loth Corps behind it on 
 the march, and its 4th Corps would have 
 been debouching from Kaiserslautern eighteen 
 miles away from the road by which the last- 
 named bodies were debouching, and behind
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 267 
 
 that 4th Corps a long way behind was the 
 Guard. 
 
 Clearly a situation of that kind was excel- 
 lent for the four French army corps. They 
 would have arrived without meeting any 
 obstacle capable of checking their march 
 and have found themselves able to strike 
 at three German corps at the most. What 
 would then have become of Moltke's thesis : 
 " Prince Frederick Charles will have at his 
 disposition more than 194,000 infantry " ? 
 The Prince would indeed have had that 
 number at his disposition, but he could not 
 have withdrawn them in time from the 
 wooded district which was crossed by only 
 two roads, and he therefore could not have 
 presented them all together against his adver- 
 sary. His weakness would have been due 
 to the lack of an advance guard, which, 
 had it existed, would have been able both to 
 have informed him of the urgent need for 
 concentration and also guaranteed him by its 
 resistance the time in which to realize that 
 concentration. Security, which the Germans 
 had thought to establish by the mere deploy- 
 ment of their cavalry screen, was lacking, and 
 the situation of their army was precarious. 
 
 On the 3ist July, Napoleon III received 
 information that Steinmetz at the head of 
 the 7th and 8th German Army Corps was
 
 268 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 marching southwards. He further heard that 
 great masses of troops were concentrating at 
 Mayence and at Mannheim. 
 
 But the Commanders of the French army 
 corps informed him that they were not yet 
 ready to pass the offensive, and in conse- 
 quence of this situation the French General 
 Headquarters decided on a compromise. It 
 was a decision which would necessarily fail 
 to reach any object. What was ordered was 
 an offensive reconnaissance which would, 
 as they thought, compel the enemy to dis- 
 close his strength. This reconnaissance was 
 conducted by the 2nd French Corps marching 
 on Saarbriick and supported on its right by 
 a division of the 5th French Corps debouching 
 from Sarreguemines on the right bank of the 
 Saar, and on its left by a division of the 
 3rd J French Corps acting against Wehrden. 
 Further to the west there was to be a 
 demonstration by the 4th French Corps at 
 Saarlouis. 
 
 It was under such conditions as these that 
 the affair of Saarbriick was engaged on the 
 2nd August. This affair, in which were 
 engaged the French forces just enumerated, 
 began at ten o'clock in the morning and ended 
 shortly after noon. All this great mass of 
 French troops only came across two Prussian 
 companies and afterwards one Prussian bat-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 269 
 
 talion (the 2nd Battalion of the 4oth 
 Regiment), and these were soon compelled to 
 retreat with a loss of four officers and seventy- 
 nine men. That was the affair of Saarbriick, 
 which has been called ironically, but very 
 justly, " A battle of three divisions against 
 three companies," or, again, " A manoeuvre 
 against an imaginary enemy." 
 
 One lesson stands out clearly from the 
 event. 
 
 Quite a weak force (the one Prussian 
 battalion in this case), even though attacked 
 by vastly superior forces, will be neither 
 surprised nor destroyed if it puts up a guard 
 and knows how to manoeuvre a retreat ; 
 knowledge which is the proper role of covering 
 troops, whose business is not to obtain victory 
 but to permit the preparation thereof. 
 
 On our side the very contrary to this took 
 place. The day after the morrow of Saar- 
 briick, the Douai Division, which had for its 
 mission the role of acting as advance guard 
 to the army of Alsace, was thrown away in 
 sheer loss at Wissembourg because it had not 
 guarded itself but had allowed itself to be 
 surprised ; that is, because it had not known 
 how to carry out the functions of a covering 
 organ. 
 
 As for the final result of the French opera- 
 tion of the 2nd August, it was nil. Nor
 
 270 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 could it be otherwise. The French had mere 
 empty spaces before them; they were per- 
 fectly free to cross the Saar. But their 
 Commanders had not the intention, nor had 
 they put themselves into a position, to 
 profit by those circumstances, and had the 
 spaces not been empty, but filled with the 
 adversary in force, then the action of the 
 French Commanders would have called down 
 upon them a storm which they had not the 
 means to receive. Once more do we see an 
 example of this prime truth : one does not 
 reconnoitre with the mere object of recon- 
 naissance but with the object of obtaining 
 information for an operation which one has 
 all the means for carrying out. 
 
 On the German side there continued to 
 exist divergent views in the command of the 
 ist Army, because Moltke did not explain 
 himself sufficiently, and issued dispatches 
 that were too brief. The Supreme Command 
 was not properly obeyed because it was not 
 understood. Its plan for reaching and fight- 
 ing its adversary was upset by an insufficiently 
 directing order, even before it was begun. 
 We conclude that it is not enough to draw 
 remarkable plans, but that it is necessary 
 to add to these, from the very opening of 
 operations and during all their execution, 
 an effective command which fully communi-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 271 
 
 cates its thought and its will and gets that 
 thought and will fully executed by its subor- 
 dinates. Moltke, as Chief of the General 
 Staff, achieved only half of each of these two 
 tasks. 
 
 Contrast him, here, with the way in which 
 Napoleon acted during the period of " fog " 
 which is always characteristic of the opening 
 of a campaign. In spite of his uncontested 
 authority we find him writing to his Marshals 
 letters several pages long with the sole object 
 of thoroughly indoctrinating them : showing 
 them exactly what he wants. For Napoleon 
 knew very well, essentially authoritative man 
 though he was and chary of superfluous ex- 
 planation, that an order which through its 
 short and imperative form eliminates argu- 
 ment and prevents discussion may well, on 
 that very account, prove insufficient to fully 
 " brief " those subordinates who stand in the 
 highest places of the military hierarchy. He 
 knew that mere blind obedience does not 
 necessarily involve a rational and logical 
 execution of an order, an execution conform- 
 able to the intention of the Commander-in- 
 Chief. To get oneself understood one must 
 explain : one must speak or write at some 
 length. Apart from mere orders a General 
 has to give to his subordinates directions ; and 
 apart from directions he must maintain an
 
 272 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 ordinary correspondence with them. In mili- 
 tary, as in civil life, if people wish to under- 
 stand each other they must write and they 
 must speak to each other. Silence or laconical 
 phrases only suffice the Commander under 
 those conditions where he is making no 
 demand upon the intelligence of his sub- 
 ordinates. 
 
 (c) The Battle of Spicheren (6th August) 
 
 [The 2nd French Corps (Frossard) lay 
 between Saarbruck and Forbach on the heights 
 of Spicheren. The four Divisions of the $rd 
 Corps under Bazaine lay round Sarreguemines, 
 Marienthal, Puttelange and St. Avoid on the 
 sector of a circle which had Saarbruck for its 
 centre and a radius of about twelve miles. The 
 4th French Corps under Ladmirault was at 
 Boulay, the Guard at Courcelles. Steinmetz, 
 who had been wrongly directed by Moltke, 
 launched the jth German Corps on the Saar. 
 Kamecke attacked the French with the i^th 
 German Division. The 8th German Corps 
 came up in aid. On our side the four Divisions 
 of the 3rd French Army Corps did not move. 
 Their intervention on the evening of the 6th 
 August might have led, to the destruction of the 
 whole ist German Army, which had engaged 
 itself up to the hilt and was by that evening 
 thoroughly worn out.]
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 273 
 
 The decision which the German General 
 Kamecke, though he commanded no more 
 than a division, had taken off his own bat, 
 produced the Battle of Spicheren. As this 
 German offensive had been neither desired 
 nor prepared by the German Higher Command 
 it ran the risk of falling with insufficient forces 
 and without any general direction upon an 
 intact enemy with regard to whom the Staff 
 of the I4th Division had only the vaguest 
 information. 
 
 The consequences of this decision were 
 incalculable. Common sense demanded that 
 before attempting the adventure of the 
 Rotherberg its results should have been 
 gauged. Common sense demanded that, 
 before attacking, the adversary should have 
 been reconnoitred in order to find out in 
 what strength he was on this point and on 
 the neighbouring heights; for on this point, 
 as on others, General Kamecke's decision went 
 wrong from lack of information. He attacked 
 without knowing what he had in front of him 
 and without seeking to know it. General 
 Kamecke's decision proceeded neither from 
 a rational interpretation of his own r61e as 
 Commander of a ist Line Division in a group 
 of several armies, nor from an acquired 
 knowledge of the enemy's situation, which he 
 systematically left unconsidered. His deci-
 
 274 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 sion proceeded simply from military ardour, 
 from the preconceived and fixed idea of 
 always attacking. It is, no doubt, a senti- 
 ment which a soldier must respect, but it is 
 not sufficient to settle the conduct of advance- 
 guard Commanders. It is their business, 
 above all, to work for the advantage of the 
 masses following them, to prepare for a 
 manoeuvre which has been planned by a 
 higher command (which aims, of course, at 
 fighting with all its strength), and of this 
 manoeuvre the Commanders of the advance 
 guard had neither the task of hastening the 
 date nor determining the site. 
 
 Let no one read into the above criticism 
 any attack upon those most necessary military 
 virtues, initiative and the offensive spirit. 
 They are present in more than one Chief of 
 Napoleon's Grand Army, but their acts con- 
 stantly show us that they associated these 
 virtues with another equally necessary one 
 discipline and especially discipline of the 
 intelligence. They show further how this 
 virtue of discipline in the Subordinate Com- 
 mand, by extending the action of the Superior 
 Command (which continually enlightens and 
 leads them) made it possible to realize great 
 general operations which the German School 
 of 1870 thought to reach by the mere initiative 
 of subordinates left to themselves : sub-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 275 
 
 ordinates who were ignorant of what an 
 absent Higher Command desired, and found 
 themselves in front of an enemy of whom 
 they had very little information. 
 
 To return to Spicheren. 
 
 The sound of Kamecke's cannon, that of 
 the I4th Division, called to the field of battle 
 the i6th Division, and, further, called to the 
 field the 5th Division of the German 2nd 
 Army. There was a unity in views, an 
 activity, an initiative, a confidence and a 
 solidarity in the Prussian Army, which ran 
 through all ranks; and thus, immediately 
 called on to an improvised battle, these three 
 divisions from three different corps turned 
 what might have been a death-stroke into a 
 living action. Every Commander had the 
 hardihood to act and to decide, and the 
 superior, though his inferior had acted too 
 hastily, adopted and approved of the decision 
 which was taken and modelled his conduct 
 upon the dispositions which had resulted. 
 On every side you have the feeling for action, 
 the necessity for the offensive in all its 
 splendour. An army which is thus electrified 
 from top to bottom with such a spirit of drive 
 is already very nearly victorious. 
 
 The Battle of Spicheren arose from the 
 interpretation of a certain situation on the 
 part of Commanders of ist line troops, which
 
 276 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 situation was unexpected and which situation 
 they were not in a position to judge fully; 
 yet before the end of the day the equivalent 
 of two whole army corps was working together 
 on that chance battlefield. 
 
 That is a result which is very well worthy 
 of remark, especially if we observe that it 
 was uniquely due to the spirit of solidarity 
 and of comradeship and not to the action 
 of the Higher Command. Nevertheless these 
 effectives were quite insufficient for the attack 
 upon a powerful and intact army in excellent 
 moral, such as was the French Army on the 
 6th August, 1870. 
 
 In sum total : the battle was not prepared 
 in any way. It broke out in a fashion not 
 considered. It was engaged without order 
 and was conducted in a fashion which could 
 not be explained. In undertaking this action 
 the Commanders of the advance guard, 
 General Kamecke especially, trod underfoot 
 that idea of the manoeuvre and the " Battle 
 between all the armies," to which idea their 
 Chief, Moltke, was, unknown to them, sub- 
 ordinating everything. They began to plead 
 without having all their brief. They launched 
 that great argument, the battle, without 
 having it fully in hand. They ran the very 
 greatest risks for the obtaining of a victory 
 which had no appreciable result. In place
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 277 
 
 of that battle of two whole armies which 
 had been prepared by the Germans on the 
 Lauter for the 7th, in place of that battle of 
 three whole armies prepared upon the Saar 
 for the gth, what had taken place was an 
 awkward blow with three divisions only 
 against a single French corps. There was 
 indeed a tactical success but none of those 
 great results which might have been expected 
 from Moltke's full manoeuvre. That ma- 
 noeuvre aimed a blow, with the whole of his 
 forces acting in surprise against the still 
 incomplete and inactive mass of the various 
 French corps. It would logically have re- 
 sulted in a Sedan in Lorraine. Kamecke's 
 decision produced the thunderclap of Spi- 
 cheren, and that thunderclap warned the 
 French and saved them (for the moment) 
 from complete destruction. 
 
 We conclude that no system of command 
 will work which thus leaves some projected 
 manoeuvre (and battle especially) at the 
 mercy of a decision taken rightly or wrongly 
 by a subordinate Commander who is neces- 
 sarily ignorant of the general situation. 
 
 Moltke thought he could provide for every- 
 thing, either commanding informed from day 
 to day, as in 1866, or himself arranging the 
 movements of his army corps. In the place 
 of the directions and general instructions
 
 278 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 which Steinmetz, finding himself left ignorant, 
 demanded, and in place of those long letters 
 from Napoleon to his Marshals, Moltke gave 
 nothing but short telegrams, and events show 
 how wrong was this method of action. 
 
 The truth is that there was lack of any true 
 Higher Command. Moltke was no more 
 than a Chief of a Staff, and his action never 
 exceeded the intellectual functions of that 
 position. He constantly appeals to brain- 
 work, to reason, and especially to calculation 
 when he is projecting a manoeuvre; but he 
 then remains content with confiding it to 
 paper, he remains content with a daily order, 
 concise and terse, instead of being at the pains 
 to make it thoroughly understood and there- 
 fore realized. The German armies lacked a 
 united command at their head which could 
 hope to impose his plan upon men and chiefs 
 and realize it : which at the right moment 
 could take in one hand and direct the unique 
 and decisive argument of war to action of 
 battle. It is because Moltke had not this 
 faculty of command that he had to carry on, 
 right up to the i8th of August, the attack 
 which he had prepared upon the Saar for 
 the gth, and which had escaped him not 
 through his enemy's action but through the 
 initiative of his subordinates. 
 
 Even admitting that Moltke should have
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 279 
 
 acted in the clearest fashion and should have 
 been thoroughly obeyed, he could not, lacking 
 an advance guard, guarantee any duration to 
 the manoeuvre he had projected; for he was 
 not able to prevent his battle force from 
 stumbling into a premature action which 
 should have nothing to do with the great affair 
 he had in mind. His system of attack with 
 the centre and two wings would only work 
 with an enemy who himself did not attack, 
 did not retire, did not manoeuvre, wholly 
 infirm and yielding to any foreign seizure. 
 
 The French dispositions had permitted by 
 the 7th August the following concentration : 
 the 3rd French Corps at Puttelange, the 4th 
 French Corps at High Homburg, and the 
 French Guard in the neighbourhood of St. 
 Avoid ; and, to unite with that mass of men, 
 the 2nd Corps which had not been destroyed 
 at Spicheren. They could therefore attack 
 upon the left bank of the Saar the three 
 German Corps 7th, 8th and 3rd which 
 were quite isolated, and could attack them 
 with a mass of 130,000 men. During two 
 whole days, the 7th and 8th August, these 
 three German corps were in the presence, and 
 at the mercy, of the whole united French 
 forces of Lorraine. 1 
 
 1 As this passage, like many others in the book, 
 consists of portions of a main work put together for
 
 280 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 [Owing to the lack of a general advance 
 guard Moltke marched with bandaged eyes, and 
 after the Battle of Spicheren lost contact with 
 the French during their retreat.} 
 
 On the evening of the 8th August, the 
 Commander of the German 2nd Army having 
 'found nothing in front of him during his 
 manoeuvre against the French forces in Alsace, 
 and, further, receiving no instruction from 
 General Headquarters, which was no better 
 informed than himself, took no further dis- 
 position for the gth and limited himself to 
 ordering the corps in the ist line to bring 
 up their columns to the advance positions, 
 and to those of the 2nd line to concentrate. 
 Once more the necessary consequence of 
 giving up the principle of seeking the enemy's 
 principal army in order to fight it was im- 
 mobility. For the same reasons the German 
 General Headquarters at Homburg, being 
 
 the sake of brevity, the general thesis may need some 
 explanation. I would point out to the reader that 
 Marshal Foch's object in this examination of the War 
 of 1870 is twofold : first, he shows how the German 
 Higher Command neglected the use of the advance 
 guard, and how, therefore, it missed any great oppor- 
 tunities and, at the same time, continually exposed 
 itself to risk. Secondly, he desires to insist upon the 
 fact that the lack of initiative and the proper com- 
 prehension of war on the French side missed all the 
 opportunities thus afforded, and led necessarily, in spite 
 of Moltke's defect, to disaster. Translator.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 281 
 
 far from all contact with the adversary, 
 could give no orders, and the situation might 
 have been prolonged indefinitely if the sub- 
 ordinate Chiefs of the ist Line, using their 
 own initiative, had not themselves determined 
 the directions in which that Higher Command 
 should have fixed them. How much easier 
 would the task have been, or, at any rate, 
 how much fuller the conceptions of a German 
 Army Commander, who, in coming up on the 
 6th to give battle, should on the yth have 
 undertaken the necessary reconnaissance and 
 have summoned for this all available cavalry 
 and thrown forward a strong advance guard 
 on to the road from St. Avoid to Metz ! He 
 would have discovered the situation of his 
 adversary in that direction and pinned him; 
 he would have done the same on the neigh- 
 bouring roads; and with each successful 
 discovery he would have " framed " the mass 
 of his adversary's forces. But Moltke re- 
 mained no more than the Chief of Staff to an 
 elderly King : he would not himself intervene 
 in the great decisions of the war. Such a 
 Supreme Command at the head of the Ger- 
 man armies could never give to a struggle 
 that continuous and crushing effect which 
 
 Napoleon gave it. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Alvensleben, the General in command of
 
 282 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 the 3rd German Army Corps, having heard 
 during the night of the 8th-gth August from 
 the 6th Division of German cavalry that the 
 French had evacuated St. Avoid, decided to 
 take his own corps thither. 
 
 As usual, those in the ist line saw what 
 was going on better than did those behind 
 them. The Commander who occupies that 
 ist line, especially if he has forces capable of 
 penetrating in some degree the fog with which 
 he is surrounded in those directions which 
 are vital, is soon able to judge his opponent's 
 situation, or, at any rate, to occupy the 
 gaps his opponent leaves and to profit by 
 them. 
 
 Moltke, though instructed on the morning 
 of the gth quite certainly of the situation 
 in the Boulay-Bouzonville region, and begged 
 by Steinmetz to " feel " the enemy's left with 
 infantry and artillery, still kept the Ist Army 
 motionless; and the reason of this was that 
 he was little occupied with his enemy's move- 
 ments : that which concerned him was 
 getting his own armies into line for the 
 manoeuvre on the Moselle which he was 
 preparing. The 2nd Army could only get 
 his last corps up on to the Saar by the loth, 
 and, preoccupied with this idea, Moltke could 
 see no object in moving, and it would have
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 283 
 
 been contradictory to this idea for Moltke 
 to have moved his ist Army on the gth. 1 
 
 (d) The March on to the Moselle 
 
 [German General Headquarters came to Saar- 
 bruck on the gth August and made arrangements 
 to continue the offensive movement in the direc- 
 tion of Moselle, whither it was thought that the 
 enemy (the French) had retired, whereas, as a 
 fact, the enemy had fallen back on Metz.] 
 
 The halt of the German armies on the 
 Saar continued. The movement was not 
 definitely renewed until the nth. The ist 
 and 2nd German armies which had crossed 
 the Saar, having been attacked and beaten 
 on the 6th August, were still without move- 
 ment on the loth. They devoted all that 
 day to repose or to arranging themselves upon 
 the roads that they were to follow. 
 
 Therefore the immediate effect of the 
 German victory at Spicheren, though there 
 
 1 For this passage the reader also requires some 
 amplification. The point is that Moltke, lacking the 
 advance guard, instead of keeping in touch with the 
 French retreat was uniquely preoccupied with an a 
 priori manoeuvre of getting all his main troops in line 
 for an action which, he supposed, would take place on 
 the Moselle. Had he possessed or used an advance 
 guard he would have known the direction of the French 
 retirement, which, as a fact, he wholly misconceived.
 
 284 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 was added to it another victory at Frce- 
 schwiller on the same day, was to check the 
 German masses. They could not sustain and 
 pursue these good results without stopping, 
 taking breath and rearranging themselves. 
 It took them four days. Their system of 
 attack, of which we have already analyzed 
 the military weakness, would seem to be still 
 weaker from the general point of view of the 
 whole nation at war. For, after all, victory 
 is only a means of arriving at the end of war : 
 at the destruction of the organized forces of 
 the adversary, which alone can give one the 
 power of immediately using the moral and 
 material victory given us by victory. To 
 admit a check in time, therefore, is to give 
 the adversary a chance of recovering from 
 the first blows. If we look back upon those 
 first battles of August 1870 we discover that 
 they had indeed thrown the French Com- 
 mand into the most complete disarray, for 
 that Command was quite unequal to the task 
 which it had undertaken; but the French 
 troops were not shaken. Dispersed as they 
 were they could only discover that they had 
 been overborne by a crushing numerical 
 superiority. All they asked was to be allowed 
 to avenge their initial checks. They still felt 
 certain of victory if they could be launched 
 all combined to the attack. To stand fast
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 285 
 
 upon the Saar, as the Germans did, had not 
 only the effect of saving their adversary from 
 destruction : it also allowed the French 
 Command to pull itself together, to use the 
 strong military feeling of its soldiers, and its 
 considerable material means of action. The 
 French Command might have struck on the 
 yth, 8th or Qth with the whole French Army 
 of Lorraine against those three German corps 
 blinded and cut off in the country in front of 
 Saarbriick. They might have set the whole 
 campaign on a new footing. They might 
 have put up any plan they chose. They 
 were free to retreat whither they would for 
 the purposes of reorganization, reinforcement 
 and advance; or they could, alternatively, 
 concentrate on any point they might choose 
 in the whole district and thence attack with 
 all their forces any sector they might select 
 on the long line of the invading armies. 
 
 Remember how Napoleon " fell like light- 
 ning " on a part of the opposing army, 
 overthrew it and then " taking advantage of 
 the disorder which this manoeuvre never 
 failed to create with the enemy's forces, 
 attacked in another quarter with the least 
 possible delay." Remember the stages of 
 that rapid, uninterrupted march of 1806 : 
 Saalfeld on the loth October; Jena, Auer- 
 stadt on the i4th; Halle on the lyth; the
 
 286 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 entry into Berlin on the 25th ; Prentzlow on 
 the 28th; Liibeck on the 6th November; 
 from such a series of dates one gets a very 
 different idea of war, and one also gets from 
 it the impression of a more powerful brain, a 
 more energetic will, a more elastic armed force 
 at the service of both, strongly and intimately 
 united. If the Germans were compelled to 
 halt upon the Saar, as history seems to 
 prove, is it not clear evidence of the difficulty 
 the German Higher Command had in re- 
 taking possession of itself and of its army in 
 unforeseen events, the conduct of which had 
 entirely escaped that Command ; is it not a 
 proof that the artist was using a tool too 
 heavy for his hand : a tool that slipped from 
 his fingers or dragged him onward by its 
 weight the moment he began to use it, and 
 so disturbed him that he lost sight of his 
 object, which was the destruction of the 
 principal enemy army? 
 
 Moltke disposed of the ist, 3rd, 5th, 6th 
 and 1 2th Cavalry Divisions and a Division 
 of the Guard six Divisions all told. What 
 a capacity for discovery had he in 'hand if 
 he had made of all of these, or even of a part, 
 one body ! That he refrained from doing so 
 proves that he did not really believe informa- 
 tion to be indispensable : that he no more 
 pursued the art of acting in full knowledge
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 287 
 
 of his circumstance than he did the art of 
 acting in security from an adverse surprise. 
 The idea of strategic security, of obtaining 
 knowledge of one's foe in order to make that 
 knowledge the basis of one's decisions, escaped 
 him ; as did also the idea of covering oneself 
 in order to obtain security for later move- 
 ments. He based his decisions on deductive 
 reasoning, on chances logically established. 
 He planned, and he even acted upon, a basis of 
 no more than hypothesis. 
 
 He said to himself that after the double 
 check of the 6th August (Frceschwiller and 
 Spicheren) that adversary ought if he were 
 acting logically : 
 
 (a) First to concentrate his forces in Lor- 
 
 raine and retire them beyond the 
 line of the Moselle. 
 
 (b) To bring up as quickly as possible his 
 
 forces from Alsace, retiring them with 
 that object through Nancy and join- 
 ing them up with the forces of 
 Lorraine behind the Moselle. 
 
 (c) To effect all this rapidly lest his com- 
 
 munications with Paris should be cut 
 by the German 3rd Army. 
 
 Upon such reasoning the French Army, 
 from Moltke's point of view, ought to have 
 been in full retreat on the gth. It would be
 
 288 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 impossible to catch it up before it crossed the 
 Moselle. Hence Moltke's new manoeuvre. 
 
 His deductions were clearly logical and 
 rational. The way in which he thought his 
 enemy would behave was the way in which 
 his enemy probably would behave. It was 
 ,not the way in which his enemy did behave. 
 Here we perceive the character peculiar to 
 the man who works in his study, which was 
 essentially that of the German Staff. He 
 constantly appeals to reason and then bases 
 his projects on rational conjectures and 
 hypotheses, but unfortunately this method 
 did not always square with the reality of 
 things, which reality is often odd and unlikely 
 because it arises from causes which one cannot 
 grasp or even from causes which remain 
 permanently incapable of explanation. Had 
 Moltke been a man of action in a higher 
 degree he would have taken more account of 
 the human factor, with its highly variable 
 effects. He would have tried to have founded 
 his military plans upon some reality which 
 had first been sought and at last possessed. 
 
 With that object he would have organized 
 that prime agent of intelligence, the advance 
 guard of all arms ; or even that mere mass of 
 cavalry, the necessity of which had struck 
 him in Berlin as early as the 6th of May, but 
 which he could not constitute in the theatre
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 289 
 
 of war itself because he was not in command 
 of troops, but only a Chief of Staff. 
 
 Moltke's way of reasoning, his way of 
 dealing with the unknown, became traditional 
 in the Prussian Army. Von der Goltz has 
 said : " Surely the dispositions which your 
 adversary should reasonably take up are the 
 best foundations upon which we can build 
 our own plans. ' ' But the history of Napoleon, 
 the clearest-headed and the most intuitive 
 of military leaders (in 1806), gives one the 
 immediate answer. It denies such a thesis. 
 It shows us the great Captain going forward 
 only when he has a path well lit and therefore 
 sure, and that because he always worked 
 upon the fullest information. 
 
 A cavalry screen thrown out along the 
 whole front can grasp the outline of the situa- 
 tion ; it cannot grasp the arrangement of 
 troops behind the front, nor their distances 
 from that front. As for the infantry sent 
 forward to support such cavalry, all it can do 
 is to guarantee the cavalry a retirement : it 
 has no other function. 
 
 When it is used as an advance guard to 
 attack and to be attacked they drag in the 
 corps to which they are attached, and these, 
 in turn, drag in more or less the neighbouring 
 columns of troops. It is Spicheren all over 
 again : that is, the very contrary of an action 
 u
 
 290 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 determined and conducted by an enlightened 
 will. 
 
 In this the inferiority of Moltke's system of 
 attack is notorious. He asked of his battle- 
 force every function combined. It had to 
 reconnoitre, to cover itself, to march, to 
 manoeuvre and to fight. As any one could 
 see, and as events proved, no one of these 
 acts could be fully carried out. Recon- 
 naissance was only made at short range; of 
 protection there was none; marching was 
 slow; concentration was never complete. 
 When the battle came nearly half the troops 
 were missing; even on the i8th August the 
 whole of the 3rd German Army was absent 
 and the 4th Corps of the 2nd. 
 
 This marching disposition, imperfect of 
 itself, became still more imperfect through 
 the direction given to the advance. That 
 direction was not aimed at the mass of the 
 adversary, intact though that mass still was. 
 If we consider the three zones of action 
 adopted by Moltke in its defence we shall see 
 that the centre of the German forces was 
 directed on to the region just on the south of 
 Pont-a-Mousson. The manoeuvre was firmly 
 based upon Pont-a-Mousson and remained so 
 quite independently of what the position on 
 the Moselle might be. This disposition had 
 been given its different direction once and
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 291 
 
 for all, and being highly rigid by the very 
 nature of its organization could only march 
 on the Moselle with its centre aiming at the 
 district of Pont-a-Mousson and Dieulouard. 
 Yet even theoretically the mass of the enemy 
 was not in this district, and the whole value 
 of the advance turned upon the condition 
 that the adversary, who could be neither 
 sought, nor pinned down, nor even observed, 
 should remain absolutely inactive. 
 
 Lacking its own organ of information, the 
 German General Headquarters was the last 
 to be informed of the position and movements 
 of the enemy. 
 
 This kind of war eliminates the idea of an 
 active enemy who may appear at any moment 
 and attack. It is based on the idea of going 
 forward without seeking one's opponent, 
 without standing on guard against him, at 
 least until the moment when the work really 
 opens and when one finds oneself before the 
 position where one supposes the adversary 
 to be. It is a strategy terribly at ease with 
 itself, and the weakness of such conception 
 appears even in the presence of such a Higher 
 Command as was the French Higher Com- 
 mand of 1870. 
 
 (e) The Surprise on the River Nied 
 During the loth of August the squadrons
 
 292 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 which were reconnoitring for the right wing 
 and centre of the 2nd German Army had re- 
 established contact with the French Army, 
 and by evening had reached the river called 
 the " French " Nied. This cavalry there 
 discovered a line strongly held, and they saw 
 behind it important enemy masses in good 
 positions. It observed the enemy's bivouacs, 
 camps and posts, and the columns on the 
 march from Metz towards Courcelles, Pange 
 and Mont. Here we have a clear case of 
 strategic surprise. Great enemy masses have 
 been suddenly discovered, there is no chance 
 of holding them before the I4th, and as yet 
 we are but on the eve of the. nth. 
 
 If it be necessary to attack, attack will be 
 impossible before the i6th or lyth. 
 
 The 3rd German Army had no choice but 
 to fight where it stood, with no chance of 
 success. It was compelled to form the pivot 
 of the German conversion, and that for several 
 days. The situation of the general advance 
 corps would have been very different from 
 that of this cavalry, thus dragging in the 3rd 
 Corps. It would have had plenty of space 
 behind it, it could have manoeuvred the 
 retreat without fear of destruction and at 
 the same time it would have covered and made 
 secure the German concentration and the 
 manoeuvre that was projected. Here we
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 293 
 
 find, for the first time, the weakening effect 
 of this marching, happy-go-lucky, towards the 
 Moselle : the weakening effect of that easy 
 strategy which, since it principally derives 
 from logical reasoning exclusive of informa- 
 tion upon realities, is wholly abandoned to 
 abstract conclusions. 
 
 . The enemy (the French in this case) had 
 been left free in his movements, and could, 
 whenever he chose, make the German con- 
 version towards the Nied useless. Neverthe- 
 less the German General Headquarters stuck 
 to the plan of that conversion and only modi- 
 fied it in its execution by making the troops 
 on the left wing march in echelons so as to 
 give them power to take up as quickly as 
 possible the direction at Pont-a-Mousson. 
 As a fact this position was to lead them a 
 little later on to the line of Faulquemont - 
 Verney. For this modification was but a 
 half measure derived from the fact that the 
 Command did not know how it was to act 
 in the long run, and that half measure weak- 
 ened the final action. The total of the forces 
 available could only arrive at the desired 
 point later, and from this erroneous idea more 
 than one crisis arose. 
 
 As early as the nth of August a piece of 
 reconnaissance carried out by an officer of 
 the ist Army which reached Pontigny at
 
 294 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 2.15 in the afternoon gave information that 
 the banks of the River Nied had been evacu- 
 ated by the French between Pontigny and 
 Northen. The heights behind this line were 
 no longer occupied; a camp established at 
 Northen the day before and estimated at 
 50,000 men had disappeared. This informa- 
 tion reached German Headquarters by tele- 
 gram at quarter-past nine in the evening of 
 the same day. At the very moment, there- 
 fore, when Moltke had given his order for 
 concentration in front of the River Nied 
 the situation turned out to be changed, and 
 the order no longer corresponded to that 
 situation. 
 
 On that same day, nth August, another 
 reconnaissance thrown out by the 3rd German 
 Cavalry Division remarked as early as five 
 o'clock in the morning that a camp of about 
 40,000 men in the region of the Ponds was 
 striking its tents. " From the west of the 
 French Nied the roads leading from St. 
 Avoid and from Boulay to Metz were covered 
 with deep columns of all arms going towards 
 that fortress. The reconnaissance followed 
 them up beyond the Ponds and at half-past 
 eleven in the morning it saw the enemy rear 
 guard halt at Bellecroix, the fork of the two 
 roads. Other information came in con- 
 firming this."
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 295 
 
 On the morrow, the I2th August, the 
 German reconnaissance passed Bellecroix and 
 caught sight of numerous French encamp- 
 ments which seemed to stretch up to the very 
 walls of Metz. 
 
 Important groups of French troops were 
 also seen to the west of Puche (the ist Division 
 of Cavalry), to the west of Laquenexy and of 
 Coincy (6th Division), and in the neighbour- 
 hood of Grigy and Borny (6th Division). 
 
 In front of the German left wing recon- 
 naissance parties gave information that the 
 countryside was clear between Moyenvic and 
 Nancy. Nancy, Dieulouard and Pont-a- 
 Mousson were not occupied by the French. 
 It was the same thing on the right wing 
 between the Nied and the Moselle. The 
 weakness of Moltke's disposition of troops 
 which we have already seen in the march 
 on the Saar and then in the march on the 
 Moselle occurred again when he had to cross 
 that river in the presence of his adversary; 
 for it was a system which attempted to do 
 everything at once, both to act and to cover, 
 and it showed itself powerless to fulfil these 
 two tasks. Being faced with the chance of 
 reaching the left bank of the Moselle and of 
 holding up the enemy on the right bank the 
 German Command tried to take both objec- 
 tives at the same time and ended in a forma-
 
 296 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 tion in two masses separated by the obstacle 
 of the river, let alone by the distance between 
 them. The consequence was, as at Rohr- 
 bach, an extreme dispersion of troops. After 
 having guaranteed themselves in a certain 
 measure from the most immediate danger, 
 which was that of the right bank, their dis- 
 position gave rise to another peril equally 
 great upon the left bank, and they had not 
 the power to bring up succour. 
 
 (f) The Battle of Borny (iqth August) 
 
 Steinmetz, since he left his subordinate 
 Commanders in such ignorance of his plans, 
 might at least have nourished a desire to 
 command fully on his own account; but he 
 did not do so. He kept his headquarters at 
 Varize, nearly twelve miles from the 7th 
 Corps, and never left them. He seemed 
 no keener on leading his army than on 
 informing it. 
 
 [Bazaine, having been given the command 
 of the 2nd, ^rd and ^th French Corps and of 
 the Guard, decided to abandon the Nied and to 
 fall back on Verdun. The crossing of the 
 Moselle was a longer operation than he allowed 
 for. On the i^th August the 26th German 
 Brigade, under General von der Goltz, which 
 formed the advance guard of the jth German
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 297 
 
 Corps, attacked those French forces which had 
 not yet crossed the river (the $rd Corps, the Guard 
 and a division of the qth Corps] at Borny.] 
 
 General von der Goltz, with the 7th Corps, 
 was in command of its advance guard at 
 Laquenexy. He there received, during all 
 the morning of the I4th August, information 
 which indicated that the French were retreat- 
 ing towards Metz. At one o'clock in the 
 afternoon a Reserve officer reached him with 
 the message that the ist German Corps was 
 about to attack. The General, therefore, 
 began to take stock of his attitude, and, bit 
 by bit, came to a decision. In spite of the 
 storm which it would certainly raise against 
 himself on the part of the Army Commander 
 (Steinmetz), under whom he had recently 
 directly served and whose hasty character he 
 knew, he prepared to attack. At a quarter 
 to two he communicated his decision to his 
 Army Corps Commander, General Zastrow. 
 Then, as information kept flowing in and con- 
 firming the French retreat, he gave the order 
 to attack at three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 The decision so taken was at once com- 
 municated to the Commanders of the I3th 
 and I4th Divisions, to the Commander of the 
 ist Army Corps, and to the Commander of 
 the ist Division of Cavalry.
 
 298 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 The ist German Army Corps had not re- 
 ceived its instructions from Steinmetz, any 
 more than had the 7th ; but Lieut. -Col. 
 Brandenstein from General Headquarters had 
 given the ist Corps an idea of the general 
 situation. 
 
 At half-past three General von der Goltz 
 had concentrated his advance guard at 
 Laquenexy and had begun his movement. 
 He was master of the Chateau of Aubigny, 
 of part of Colombey and of the heights to 
 the south of that village. These points he 
 held with three battalions. He soon found 
 himself threatened by the Saarbriick road 
 towards Montoy. He engaged two further 
 battalions in that direction and managed to 
 occupy La Planchette. His two batteries 
 had taken up their positions to the south- 
 west of Coincy. It was by this time past 
 five o'clock. The enemy (the French) opened 
 the attack (by which they proposed to turn 
 and dislodge the weak Prussian advance 
 guards) with a heavy fire. This new phase 
 of the action was not without peril for the 
 Germans, but just at that moment reinforce- 
 ments appeared upon their side. The second 
 half of the 3Oth Division came up from the 
 east to the aid of its advance guard, which 
 was being severely pressed, while, towards 
 the north, the ist Corps answered von der
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 299 
 
 Goltz's call at top speed and was already 
 engaged. 
 
 The advance guard of the two divisions 
 of the ist German Corps appeared, the first 
 by the Saarbrtick road, the second by the 
 Saarlouis road, and they came up nearly 
 simultaneously. First, they brought their 
 artillery into play that of the ist Division 
 to the south-west of Montoy, that of the 
 2nd to the south of the Noisseville brewery ; 
 while their infantry tried to force its way 
 southward the ist Division by Montoy and 
 La Planchette towards Nauvillier, the 2nd 
 Division round Noisseville towards Nouilly. 
 
 About six o'clock in the evening the greater 
 part of the infantry of all three German 
 advance guards (i. e. the advance guard of 
 the I3th, the ist, and the 2nd Divisions) was 
 engaged in a very uncertain action, .which, 
 happily for the Germans, became stronger 
 as the artillery line, composed at first of no 
 more than the batteries of their advance 
 guard, was reinforced every moment by the 
 batteries of the mass of the army. By six 
 o'clock in the evening no less than sixty 
 Prussian pieces were in action. 
 
 By a quarter-past 'five General Zastrow 
 took over the direction of the action. He had 
 been informed at four o'clock of the decision 
 which had been taken by the Commander of
 
 300 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 his advance guard, and a quarter of an hour 
 later he heard that action was in progress. 
 He immediately retired to the heights of 
 Colombey. He could not approve the initia- 
 tive taken by his subordinate, for it was 
 contrary to the instructions which the Com- 
 mander of the army had given, but he under- 
 stood that the affair had become serious, that 
 it was no longer possible to break it off, and 
 he therefore took direction of the battle from 
 the left wing of the line. 
 
 Towards seven o'clock Zastrow received an 
 order from Steinmetz, which order was 
 brought by an artillery officer who had left 
 Varize at 5.30. It ran thus : " The battle 
 must be broken off and the troops must 
 return to the positions occupied earlier in the 
 day." Zastrow replied that the action was 
 too far advanced for such a thing to be 
 possible : "In the present situation it is 
 impossible to break away without exposing 
 ourselves to the most cruel losses. Your 
 order shall be obeyed as soon as the thing 
 shall become at all possible, especially after 
 the evacuation of the wounded." But when 
 night had fallen Zastrow ordered the con- 
 quered positions to be occupied in order to 
 confirm his victory. 
 
 General Manteuffel, commanding the ist 
 Corps, received the same order from Stein-
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 301 
 
 metz just as the action was drawing to a 
 close, and he gave identically the same answer 
 as Zastrow had given : " We have thrown the 
 enemy back. Short of a directly contrary 
 order I shall continue to hold the ground 
 now conquered in order to evacuate my 
 wounded and to confirm the victory." 
 
 As for the Commander of the 8th Corps 
 (who was placed in reserve of the ist Army), 
 since, like all the rest, he knew nothing of 
 his Chief, Steinmetz', intention and had 
 heard nothing, he asked Headquarters at 
 Varize (towards four o'clock) whether he 
 ought to advance, and, if so, in what direc- 
 tion. Steinmetz replied, with exasperation, 
 that he must wait for orders; and the Com- 
 mander of the 8th Corps, although his Generals 
 .of Division, and Manteuffel from the ist 
 Corps, begged him to go forward, refused to 
 move on account of Steinmetz' prohibition. 
 About half-past eight o'clock in the evening 
 he received an order from Steinmetz to move 
 the 32nd Brigade to the Ponds and the army 
 corps as a whole to Varize. He replied that 
 on account of the lateness of the hour the 
 movement could not be immediately executed, 
 but it should be undertaken on the morrow 
 at the earliest moment. 
 
 To sum up : Of three Commanders of army 
 corps, two had received the order to break off
 
 302 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 the battle, and the third had received the 
 order to go forward and support the troops 
 engaged in the battle ! 
 
 No one of the three had obeyed orders, and 
 Steinmetz flew into the most violent passion. 
 He went himself to Manteuffel. The meeting 
 took place at a quarter-past nine in the evening 
 near the Amitie Farm, not far from Noisse- 
 ville. It was extremely violent. Steinmetz 
 reproached Manteuffel with having given 
 battle against his orders, with "having suffered 
 defeat, and with being the cause of the con- 
 siderable losses which had been sustained. 
 The two men stood facing each other at the 
 entry to the burning village, the one in a 
 passion, carried away, and quite forgetting 
 his duties as a Chief; the other in a calm, 
 respectful attitude. As they so stood the 
 band of a regiment passed by playing a 
 victorious march. 
 
 With men like Steinmetz weak characters 
 lose all confidence in themselves, strong char- 
 acters resist. Manteuffel said what he had 
 to say with all possible courtesy ; he pointed 
 out that there were circumstances in which a 
 General could only depend upon his own 
 judgment and must act upon his own re- 
 sponsibility even if he had to act against 
 orders received. He said that such a case 
 had presented itself during that day. He
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 303 
 
 asked that bivouacs might be placed upon the 
 conquered positions in order to 'confirm the 
 victory that had been won. Steinmetz, how- 
 ever, kept to his original decision of retiring 
 the army corps. He again reproached Man- 
 teuffel with lack of discipline, and gave him 
 one hour only in which to get his troops into 
 some sort of order, pick up his wounded, and 
 retire. At eleven o'clock the ist Corps 
 retreated. 
 
 Zastrow did not see Steinmetz that night. 
 After he received the order mentioned above 
 and had told his troops to bivouac on the field 
 of action he was joined (at a quarter to eleven 
 at night, as he sat at dinner with his Chief of 
 Staff in the Chateau of Penge) by Steinmetz' 
 orderly officer, who had brought him the order 
 to retreat. Luckily he had at his side Lieut.- 
 Col. Brandenstein of General Headquarters, 
 who during all the early part of the day had 
 urged the reconnaissance, and later had called 
 vigorously for action. 
 
 Strong in the support which Brandenstein 
 gave him, Zastrow sent back word to Stein- 
 metz that his (Zastrow's) orders for the night 
 to his troops had already been delivered, and 
 that the retreat, which it would be very 
 difficult to undertake at that moment, should 
 be taken in hand as early as possible the next 
 day.
 
 804 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Lieut. -Col. Brandenstein left Penge at 
 once, and at three o'clock in the morning of 
 the I5th he had got back to General Head- 
 quarters at Herny, which he had left for 
 twenty-four hours. All that space of time 
 had been given up to inspiring and supporting 
 the decisions of the Troop Commanders on 
 the front line. He immediately explained to 
 Moltke what had taken place, and Moltke, 
 conforming himself as usual to events, sent 
 at five o'clock in the morning this telegram 
 to the ist Army : " The ist Army will occupy 
 the ground it has conquered." 
 
 Steinmetz yielded and betook himself to 
 the ground in question. 
 
 The King was already on the spot. He 
 received Steinmetz on the heights of Flan- 
 ville ; then he sent for Manteuffel and Zastrow 
 and thanked them for having undertaken the 
 battle. Turning particularly to Zastrow and 
 holding out his hand he said : "I thank you 
 above all for having kept your army corps 
 upon the conquered positions." 
 
 Then, after a moment of silence, the King 
 added : " Goltz is a lucky man. This is the 
 second time that he has shown initiative and 
 resolution." 
 
 Here we see what character a really strong 
 Command should bear. It should be careful, 
 when it has once chosen and instructed its
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 805 
 
 agents, to trust to their initiative and to 
 leave them to take the very gravest decisions, 
 even though those decisions be sometimes 
 contrary to orders actually given. It should 
 trust them to fill upon the spot those gaps 
 which the strategy of the study is bound to 
 leave, because such strategy cannot have its 
 eyes everywhere. 
 
 Brigadier-General von der Goltz, after 
 warning the neighbouring troops, launched 
 off into the fight with his one brigade, and 
 this it was which saved the strategical 
 manoeuvre of Moltke. Since an unexpected 
 attack is imposed by equally unexpected 
 circumstances, and since the tactical result 
 may be compromised by troops acting spon- 
 taneously and without plan, we must prepare 
 for such circumstances a special force which 
 should be capable by its organization and 
 by its range of manoeuvre to act without 
 involving the mass of the army. Such a 
 force is the strategic advance guard. But 
 let the Higher Command keep in proximity 
 to that advance guard and in touch with it; 
 that is the point from which he can best seize 
 his adversary's situation and the attitude 
 of the enemy, and that is the point where he 
 can design the conduct to be followed by 
 his own troops with the greatest judgment. 
 That is also the point where he can make his
 
 806 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 own thought best understood and give it his 
 greatest value. It is there alone that he can 
 guarantee the rational development of the 
 manoeuvre he has undertaken. 
 
 We have seen how the absence of this 
 direction by the Higher Command caused 
 one of the chief inconveniences in the im- 
 provised attack of von der Goltz, which 
 inconvenience was the obvious disarray in 
 the Command of the ist Army on the night 
 on the I4th. Von der Goltz, in trying to fill 
 the gap which Moltke had left in his strategy, 
 the Commanders of army corps in trying to 
 help von der Goltz in this task which was 
 beyond his own strength, escaped wholly 
 from the authority of the army Commander, 
 who was, so to speak, partially blind of his 
 own will to begin with, and later entirely so. 
 Finally, we have seen that nothing less than 
 the direct intervention of a particular organ 
 to wit, the Prussian Grand General Staff, 
 directly supported by the Royal Power was 
 necessary to put things right again. But 
 such a method of going to work is to follow 
 the perilous road of reaching order by way of 
 anarchy. 
 
 (g) The Battle of Gravelotte (i6th August) 
 
 [Bazaine, marching on Verdun, had to halt 
 at the cross-roads of Gravelotte, a point which
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 307 
 
 had got congested, and his army corps bivouacked 
 along the road from Rezonville to Metz. The 
 ist and 2nd German Armies crossed the Moselle 
 at Pont-a-Mousson, Dieuloiiard and Malbach. 
 They left Metz and the French to the north and 
 launched off in pursuit of an enemy which 
 Moltke imagined to be upon the Meuse. A 
 cavalry reconnaissance sent by chance towards 
 the north discovered the bivouacs of the army 
 of Metz, and the German Corps immediately 
 gave battle. But even by the end of the day 
 these corps could only put in line, after a most 
 violent action, 90,000 men against 135,000 of 
 the French. The Germans were thrown back. 
 But Bazaine, instead of following up the 
 offensive, fell back upon Metz.} 
 
 The whole of the 2nd German Army, with 
 its cavalry division, its regular army corps 
 organization, and even its rear service, was 
 hurried forward to the Meuse, the crossing 
 of which Moltke was determined to secure. 
 
 On the morning of the i6th, the various 
 fractions of the German army started without 
 the above-mentioned decisions having been 
 altered, without anybody, as we have seen, 
 attempting to verify the accuracy of the 
 initial assumption; besides, until i p.m., 
 nothing in the reports received by the 3rd 
 Corps had appeared to Prince Frederick
 
 808 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Charles to be of such a nature as to induce 
 him to alter in any way the measures he had 
 adopted. The true situation was only known 
 at that moment at the headquarters of the 
 2nd Army. It would have been known 
 earlier if it had only been sought for, as is 
 clearly shown by the facts now known. 
 
 But the certainty and quietude which 
 occupied Prince Frederick Charles's mind 
 were not shared by all his subordinates : 
 
 " Infantry General von Voigts-Rhetz (com- 
 manding the loth Corps), feeling some anxiety 
 on account of those French bivouacs, the 
 existence of which had been reported on the 
 preceding day, thought it necessary to com- 
 bine, with the movement of his army corps 
 on Saint-Hilaire, a strong reconnaissance on 
 the camps observed in the evening of the 
 I5th in the neighbourhood of Rezonville. 
 He had attached to that operation the 5th 
 Cavalry Division under General von Rhein- 
 baben, which he also reinforced, very early 
 on the i6th, with two horse batteries from the 
 corps artillery brought from Thiaucourt to 
 Xonville by the Chief of Staff of the loth 
 Army Corps, Lieut. -Col. von Caprivi, under 
 escort of the 2nd squadron of the 2nd Regi- 
 ment of Dragoon Guards. In order to sup- 
 port this reconnaissance, the order was also
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 309 
 
 given to half the 37th Infantry Brigade which 
 was at Thiaucourt to join, at Chambley, the 
 detachment of Colonel von Lynker, sent out 
 from Noveant in the Moselle valley. General 
 von Voigts-Rhetz intended to march, mean- 
 while, from Thiaucourt on Saint-Hilaire, with 
 the remainder of the I5th Division. ..." 
 
 Here is a highly practical lesson. People 
 in high quarters believed they could do 
 without security ; the performers in the front 
 rank reinstate security. They do not advance 
 blindfold in the midst of danger. It was 
 merely human ; such a game would have 
 proved too risky for them. However, they 
 reinstated security imperfectly and too late 
 to undo the harm that had been done. Prac- 
 tice as well as theory show, then, that the 
 best way is to attend to security before doing 
 anything else, and to form an advance guard. 
 ***** 
 
 The 3rd Corps had marched into an ant- 
 hill. The French army, instead, of being in 
 full retreat towards the Meuse, was com- 
 pleting the evacuation of Metz; its moral 
 was excellent, having been even enhanced 
 by the fight on the I4th. It was assembled 
 between the two roads to Conflans and Mars- 
 la-Tour, four miles from Gorze. The 3rd 
 Corps came up and struck full against that 
 assembly. Under what conditions will the
 
 310 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 2nd German Army meet the main and yet 
 unbeaten forces of the adversary ? 
 
 At ii a.m., when the battle was in full 
 swing, all the various army corps, other than 
 the 3rd, were on their way to reach the 
 cantonment assigned to each : the loth was 
 marching by the road to Thiaucourt, Saint 
 Benoit, and Maizeray, at an average distance 
 of 10 1 miles from Vionville ; the Guard, at a 
 double distance, about 24 miles; the 4th at 
 a triple distance, 33 miles; the I2th, gth and 
 2nd, in second line, were more than a day's 
 march to the rear. 
 
 Under those conditions, the 2nd Army 
 could only oppose to the French forces 
 debouching from Metz, on the i6th, one full 
 army corps, the 3rd and the greater part of 
 the loth, on the I7th, three or four army 
 corps. 
 
 It had to wait until the i8th to assemble 
 the largest part of its forces. 
 
 We have here, then, a strategical surprise 
 in the fullest sense of the word. In the 
 presence of an enemy who should have been 
 an active and able tactician, or even in the 
 presence of a Commander who had the object 
 of war in mind, it would have become im- 
 possible for the 2nd Army to assemble on 
 the i6th or even on the lyth, for assembly 
 would have meant disaster; it would have
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 311 
 
 become impossible for the two other armies 
 to lend that 2nd Army any efficient help : 
 else, what would have become of their own 
 situation ? 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Following the order given on the i6th of 
 August, 1870, at midday, the 2nd German 
 Army was dispersed on the I7th over a front 
 and depth each of some twenty-five miles. 
 On the i8th it was to be still more dispersed, 
 reconnoitring towards the Meuse. Three 
 army corps were to march to the north-west 
 and the rest of the army (four corps) to go 
 westward, i. e. to turn its back on what had 
 been seen of the enemy. 
 
 Everything developed according to plan. 
 Everything was envisaged except battle. 
 It was a fashion of conducting war which 
 eliminated all consideration of the enemy : 
 the enemy was regarded as a negligible 
 quantity. This enemy was to be thrown 
 back upon Thionville or upon the Belgian 
 frontier by the three army corps that were 
 marching northward, while the other four 
 were to go forward at their ease towards the 
 Meuse in order to seize the crossings of that 
 river. One of them, even, the 4th Army 
 Corps, had a special objective given to it; 
 the Fortress of Toun. 
 
 When actual battle unexpectedly took the
 
 312 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 place of this imaginary pursuit which had 
 been planned in the blindness of the Higher 
 Command, Alvensleben, like Frederick Charles 
 a little later, had no choice but to accept that 
 battle and solve the problem as best he could. 
 In that very hard task both men showed 
 themselves to be models which we can admire 
 without reserve. They resolutely took the 
 offensive and kept it up till the end of the day 
 with the object of acquiring and maintaining 
 over their adversary, in spite of every diffi- 
 culty, that moral ascendancy which is the 
 true stuff of victory. 
 
 The German troops were found to have lost 
 in the course of the battle, when it was over, 
 15,000 men and more than 700 officers, and 
 this out of only two army corps. The French, 
 out of no less than five army corps, had only 
 lost 16,000 men and rather more than 800 
 officers. 
 
 Such was the price which the German 
 Higher Command, having the sense of war, 
 and with their judgment informed by the 
 sight of the battlefield, were willing to pay in 
 order to repair the errors and mechanical 
 blindness of work elaborated in the study. 
 And once again tactics turned the tables and 
 redeemed the disasters of strategy : the 
 soldier saved the Higher Command. 
 *****
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 313 
 
 The dispositions of the Prince had been 
 brought up during the night at Gorze and 
 had been happily expanded and completed 
 by his subordinates, and were in process of 
 execution in the first hours of the morning 
 of August I7th. And there we see that 
 unity of doctrine, still more that unity of 
 feeling, which between them create victory. 
 But can one admit that the conditions corre- 
 sponded completely to the needs which the 
 situation had admittedly produced, or to the 
 dangers which might well be expected, or to 
 the results which were aimed at ? 
 
 ***** 
 
 In these orders may clearly be perceived 
 the mind of Moltke, as also the manoeuvre 
 which he thought he could realize. In his 
 view, as in that of Prince Frederick Charles, 
 the French were in retreat, and in retreat 
 towards the north. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Let us remember Napoleon's quotation on 
 the necessity for an army's always being in 
 a position to put forth the whole resistance of 
 which it is capable; on the necessity, for a 
 General, of never basing his decisions on any- 
 thing but reports which are certain and true 
 at the moment when those decisions are to 
 be carried out. 
 
 Whenever men like von Moltke and Prince
 
 314 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Frederick Charles are seen to err, people are 
 inclined to think that the problem outreaches 
 the limits of human perception; they feel 
 inclined to charge with foolish conceit any 
 one attempting to be more clearsighted or 
 more farsighted. Theory, at any rate, is 
 tempted to such a conclusion. But is it not 
 the chief characteristic of study that it 
 attempts to discover the means of reducing 
 the chances of committing those errors of 
 which human nature is always capable, or 
 of lessening the consequences of such errors 
 once they are made ; of removing the limits 
 of the unknown, of bringing the mind from 
 ignorance to knowledge, so as to make our 
 intelligence more efficient ? Is it not char- 
 acteristic of science that it should, by means 
 of a series of discoveries, place within reach 
 of average men the possibility of doing better 
 than did the superior men of the past, by 
 teaching them processes which genius has 
 discovered ? 
 
 It is in a slowly progressive manner that 
 truth is mastered. 
 
 (h) The Battle of St. Privat (iSth August) 
 
 [After Resonville, Moltke thought that the 
 French were in retreat towards the north. In 
 reality they had retired upon Metz, and had 
 taken up a position facing west. The two
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 315 
 
 German armies were sent towards the north, 
 marching by echelons of army corps, the left 
 forward. Therefore, when the enemy was at 
 last discovered, the German army corps had to 
 execute a conversion by the right in order to 
 come into the battle. There was even a plan 
 of attack in such a fashion as to turn the French 
 Right, which Moltke thought to be at Aman- 
 villers, then at St. Privat, while it was, as a 
 fact, at Roncourt, still further to the north.} 
 
 Moltke, it has been said, ordered a recon- 
 naissance, and there is quoted as proof his 
 order of the lyth. It was indeed judged by 
 him that the enemy's positions should be 
 reconnoitred and the results communicated 
 to Flavigny, where General Headquarters 
 designed to be early upon the i8th, in order 
 to pick up the information which would be 
 necessary to the direction of the action ; but 
 such a proceeding was hardly an order 
 necessitating certain execution. The vague 
 expression of need is a very different thing 
 from command. Apart from the necessary 
 feebleness which accompanies age, we are 
 bound to admit in the German Command a 
 weakness of strategic doctrine ; for that Com- 
 mand proposed to solve the unknown (which 
 is inherent in war) by mere logic. The result 
 was that on the i8th it stumbled from one
 
 316 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 surprise into another. It lost from the very 
 beginning of the day all power of direct 
 action. The result is easy to foresee, and the 
 sequel will show from what source victory 
 did as a fact arise. For, I repeat, the Germans 
 had to do with an adversary condemned by 
 his chiefs to a complete immobility, to a 
 mere defensive attitude, and to being riveted 
 to the Fortress of Metz. 
 
 While General Headquarters were getting 
 to Pont-a-Mousson, Steinmetz had come to 
 the south of Gravelotte and had observed the 
 enemy's positions in the neighbourhood of 
 the points called Point-du-Jour and Moscow. 
 He noted a great animation among them, 
 and he had seen the adversary making field 
 defences. He had concluded that the French 
 neither meant to march northward nor to 
 attack, but simply to resist on the spot. 
 Moreover, the enemy masses which could 
 thus be seen were a real peril on account of 
 their proximity to the 7th German Corps, 
 which the ist German Army could not sup- 
 port on account of the nature of the ground. 
 We see, then, that Steinmetz had the best 
 appreciation of the enemy's position. But 
 as he kept entirely apart from the meeting 
 at Flavigny his observations remained without 
 profit. 
 
 Towards four o'clock, as he reached Ars,
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 317 
 
 his headquarters, he received the order from 
 Moltke dated two o'clock. 1 He fell into a 
 violent passion, said that this way of going 
 to work, giving orders to his army corps over 
 his head, was lacking in decency, and that 
 there was no reason left for his occupying his 
 command at all. What had happened was 
 that the authorities had kept the ist Corps 
 on the right bank of the Moselle out of his 
 sphere of action and withdrawn the 8th 
 Corps, and left him commanding but the yth 
 Corps. Two Generals its own Commander 
 and Steinmetz himself were more than was 
 necessary (he said) to command this single 
 army corps. Steinmetz belonged to that 
 category of officers who think they own their 
 troops, and if he saw the greater part of his 
 Command withdrawn from him his bitterness 
 soon led to personal attacks. 
 
 To pass from this : shortly after six o'clock 
 in the evening he communicated to his army 
 the order which he had received, and par- 
 ticularly gave directions to the /th Corps to 
 occupy on the morrow from five o'clock in the 
 morning, and to hold at all costs, the northern 
 fringe of the wood of Vaux, and that fringe 
 of the wood of Ognons which looks towards 
 
 1 It was an order commanding the movements of 
 two-thirds of Steinmetz' army of three corps, without 
 consulting him.
 
 818 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Gravelotte, so that the corps would be drawn 
 up facing north and east. 
 
 Steinmetz next gave General Headquarters 
 an account of the orders he had delivered, 
 and also communicated his observations on 
 the attitude of the French. He seems in the 
 same dispatch to have asked for the 8th 
 Corps to be given back to him, or, at any 
 rate, to have asked to have it moved more 
 towards the east. 
 
 This communication reached Pont-a-Mous- 
 son in the night. Moltke was asleep and he 
 was not wakened. 
 
 [Steinmetz then occupied the region of Ars 
 with the jth German Corps, instead of sending 
 that corps towards Gravelotte as the orders of 
 Moltke had directed.} 
 
 Steinmetz turned his back on the objective, 
 and refused the means indicated by Moltke. 
 He allowed himself to be hypnotized by the 
 task of occupying Ars, and thus aggravated 
 the already doubtful position of his army. 
 
 The insufficient foresight shown, on the 
 German side, must be counted, from the I7th 
 of August onward, to the debit of this easily- 
 angered character : only thus can we explain 
 his strange conduct during the battle of the 
 morrow. 
 
 *****
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 319 
 
 [What follows concerns the action of the iSth 
 August.] 
 
 The German General Headquarters arrived 
 at six o'clock in the morning on the heights 
 to the south of Flavigny. 
 
 The only news it got was that the preceding 
 night had been calm upon the front of both 
 armies. It showed a certain irritated sur- 
 prise at not having later information than 
 that dated two o'clock in the afternoon on the 
 day before. It is true that it had asked for 
 nothing and ordered nothing. It had not 
 even indicated in what direction reconnais- 
 sance might be of service. A Higher Com- 
 mand really anxious to act with a knowledge, 
 above all things, of the general situation, 
 would have gone at a gallop from Vionville 
 to the Etain Road, taken in hand the system 
 of discovery, sent forward a mass of squadrons 
 with batteries accompanying them in the 
 direction where novel interest had arisen 
 that of St. Privat and supported that 
 cavalry and those guns with an advance 
 guard of infantry and artillery capable both 
 of maintaining and continuing the recon- 
 naissance, or, alternatively, of receiving the 
 squadrons and protecting them should they 
 have to retreat. In the light of what such a 
 Command would thus have discovered what
 
 820 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 would have been in a sense under their very 
 eyes there would have been time to continue 
 the manoeuvre of the army. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Prince Frederick Charles determined to 
 take action. He was aware of important 
 French forces to the west of Metz. Cavalry 
 patrols sent forward from the gth German 
 Corps had found nothing towards the north- 
 east. Therefore the French positions could 
 not expand beyond La Folie ; he determined 
 to attack in that direction with such forces 
 as might be necessary to carry the position. 
 
 Thus, while General Headquarters turned 
 its gaze towards the Briey Road, and while 
 the ist Army remained motionless on the 
 Plateau of Gravelotte, Prince Frederick 
 Charles, at Vionville, alone took the resolution 
 of acting towards the east with part of his 
 army. Is not the anarchy in this way of 
 conducting the war by the German Higher 
 Command striking ? Does it not suggest the 
 question, " Who was really in command? " 
 
 Yet (a singular thing) this movement 
 ordered by Prince Frederick Charles became 
 the enveloping attack, the decisive action, 
 of a battle which was as yet neither engaged 
 nor even planned. 
 
 It was evidently a very sound idea to engage 
 in the direction of La Folie, for that would
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 321 
 
 get the German Command out of the con- 
 dition of the " unknown " in which it still 
 remained. It was also sound to demand this 
 effort of the gth German Corps, for that was 
 the corps nearest to the objective. But the 
 movement ought to have been ordered as a 
 mere reconnaissance, because as yet nothing 
 was known : and it ought to have been kept 
 strictly to that role : 
 
 I. It was only at half-past ten in the 
 morning of this day, the i8th August, 
 that German General Headquarters 
 began to see things as they were : 
 the French army to the west of 
 Metz (where it had been, as a fact, for 
 several days, and the Germans had 
 been moving up and down the whole 
 morning of the i8th in front of it !). 
 Moltke did not even yet know 
 whether the French army was on the 
 march or stationary. Might it not 
 be in retreat upon Briey ? 
 
 II. Anyhow, without any further certain 
 information, he put the right of his 
 troops in position at Montigny-la- 
 Grange. This was to turn out an 
 error and a false direction. 
 
 III. In this doubt of his (which later was 
 to be solved by his subordinates) he
 
 322 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 planned a manoeuvre with a double 
 alternative objective; it was aimed 
 to act (a) upon the enemy in retreat, 
 or, alternatively, (6) against the 
 enemy in position. 
 
 IV. But this manoeuvre would have two 
 totally different values, according to 
 whether the one or other of these 
 hypotheses should turn out to be 
 that with which he had to deal. For 
 if there were no retreat going on the 
 two armies would come to the shock 
 on the enemy's positions. Whereas 
 if a French retreat was in progress 
 (on which point Moltke was still 
 without news), no attack could be 
 delivered save with two German 
 corps, the Guard and the I2th, 
 which alone could take the offensive 
 through the district of St. Marie. 
 For the other corps had each already 
 received their objectives elsewhere. 
 Therefore we have here a notorious 
 divergence of effort, with all the 
 weakness that might result from it, 
 at the decisive point. 
 
 And what would happen to 
 Moltke's manoeuvre if in place of 
 the two hypotheses which he allowed 
 for, a third should turn out to be the
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 323 
 
 reality ? We see here once more the 
 perils and the incertitude of a mili- 
 tary combination which lacks the 
 solid base of serious reconnaissance, 
 and particularly of reconnaissance 
 in the useful direction that whence 
 danger threatens. It is an excellent 
 example of how powerless one is to 
 prepare a battering blow in a direc- 
 tion on which one is not thoroughly 
 instructed. 
 
 V. But let us admit that the manoeuvre 
 
 would result in an attack on the 
 enemy's positions. There are still 
 8000 yards of marching for the 
 Guard before it can attack, and 
 nearly 12,000 for the i2th German 
 Corps. In other words, three hours 
 must pass before contact with the 
 enemy will take place; therefore 
 one is supposing the enemy to be 
 motionless, for one is leaving him 
 free to move if he chooses. Indeed, 
 if the enemy were to move in one 
 direction or another every element 
 in the manoeuvre would at once be 
 called into question. 
 
 VI. Further, who shall give the signal for 
 
 this attack, which it is desired, of 
 course, to deliver simultaneously?
 
 There would be necessary, in order 
 to arrive at such synchrony, a 
 Commander who could watch the 
 masses of his troops arriving and 
 taking their distances at a good 
 useful parallel from the enemy's 
 positions. But no one (so far) knew 
 how far those enemy positions ex- 
 tended ! There was nothing but 
 guesswork on this point. Again, 
 for such a purpose one would require 
 a Commander who should march 
 with the most distant troops (the 
 1 2th and the Guard), troops which 
 were asked to solve, even as they 
 marched, the doubtful question of 
 whether the French were retiring 
 on Briey. That Commander, again, 
 must arrive at a just decision accord- 
 ing to circumstances, and come to 
 such a decision as he accompanied 
 the forces. But Moltke remained 
 at Flavigny. Given that, one can 
 foresee -how, in spite of the way in 
 which the French played into the 
 hands of the Germans, the pro- 
 gramme elaborated by the German 
 Headquarters did not come off. 
 Above all, there was no synchrony. 
 The victory which was gained
 
 825 
 
 reposed entirely upon the intelligent 
 initiative of the subordinate Com- 
 mands, not upon an enlightened and 
 effective Higher Command. That 
 Higher Command remained through- 
 out incapable of fulfilling its task. 
 
 Towards noon the German Higher Com- 
 mand (which had put its army in movement 
 from five o'clock in the morning and had yet 
 only gained some 8000 to 10,000 yards of 
 ground) had abandoned, without thorough 
 examination, its theory that the French were 
 in retreat towards Briey, and had admitted 
 the establishment of the French on the west 
 of Metz from Point-du- Jours up to Montigny- 
 la-Grange. The taking up of the new direc- 
 tion had been a long business, though it was 
 effected in the presence of an enemy who 
 did not move and who was badly protected; 
 but long as it was it remained incomplete. 
 However, as German Headquarters thought 
 they were quite certain of the position of the 
 French Right, as the 2nd German Army was 
 equally certain, the decision was taken to 
 throw what was supposed to be a defeated 
 army back into Metz. 
 
 Even as Prince Frederick Charles was 
 giving his last orders the cannon was heard 
 just after midday towards Verndville. But
 
 826 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 before the Commander-in-Chief had given 
 any new orders, the troops on the left of the 
 2nd Army had further probed the situation 
 and on their own initiative had taken their 
 dispositions, corresponding to the new state 
 of affairs. Thus the Guard let it be known as 
 early as 11.30 that St. Marie-aux-Chenes was 
 occupied by French infantry and that there 
 were many French troops at St. Privat. 
 The Guard also let it be known that on 
 account of these circumstances and of the 
 instructions received it would march not on 
 VerneVille but on Habonville. 
 
 The I2th Corps sent information at 11.45 
 that the enemy was in position at Moineville 
 and St. Marie-aux-Chenes ; consequently, that 
 this army corps was about to march against 
 these two places, covering itself by a flank 
 guard towards Valleroy. 
 
 The manoeuvre continued, therefore, to 
 prolong itself both in time and in space. 
 The combined action of the two corps, the 
 Guard and the I2th, was still awaited. 
 Because they had not reconnoitred the posi- 
 tions which they desired to attack, the 
 Germans passed from one surprise to another. 
 
 It was imperative for the Germans that 
 they should win this action of the i8th be- 
 cause, if they did not, all their plans would 
 be upset. Therefore it was determined to
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 327 
 
 attack St. Privat immediately, and with the 
 Guard alone, because it was impossible to 
 count upon the arrival of the I2th Corps, 
 either in time to be of use or in the required 
 direction. Such was the end of Prince 
 Frederick Charles' original plan : the plan 
 of attacking with the gth Corps. He had to 
 give it up. Moreover, as the plan which he 
 next adopted (attack by the Guard) led to a 
 check, there was neither a victory of the and 
 Army to be put to the credit of its General, 
 nor a victory of the armies as a whole to be 
 put to the credit of Moltke. To the one as 
 to the other insufficiency of reconnaissance 
 had forbidden a sufficient power of direction 
 to develop the projected combination. 
 ***** 
 
 At from 600 to 800 paces behind the 
 advanced ridge which covers St. Privat the 
 Guard halted in a condition of complete 
 exhaustion. Of 11,600 men which had en- 
 gaged in the action, hardly 4,600 were left fit 
 to maintain the struggle. The proportion 
 of officer losses was even heavier than this; 
 in certain battalions not an officer was left. 
 The Prussian Guard was at the mercy of any 
 counter-offensive the French might choose to 
 make. But none was made. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The capture of St. Privat at eight o'clock
 
 328 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 in the evening decided the defeat of the French 
 right wing. But it was only the arrival of 
 the 1 2th Corps after it had marched all day 
 under the direct and personal instructions of 
 its own Commander, the Prince Royal of 
 Saxony, which permitted this result to be 
 obtained. 
 
 It was the initiative of the Corps Com- 
 mander of the 1 2th which assured the decision 
 of St. Privat in time. At every other point 
 the German efforts had remained impotent ; 
 and it is he whom we ought to recognize as 
 the true victor of that day, or, at least, as 
 the true author of the 2nd German army's 
 success. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Steinmetz and Zastrow thought, still earlier 
 in the day, that the enemy was in retreat and 
 even in rout ! At three o'clock in the after- 
 noon the Commander of the ist Army 
 (Steinmetz) had sent this order to the ist 
 Division of Cavalry grouped to the west of 
 Malmaison : " The ist Division will imme- 
 diately go forward and cross the depression 
 of Gravelotte." At the same time he ordered 
 the 7th Corps to go forward with its infantry. 
 ***** 
 
 The advanced infantry, sent by the 8th 
 Corps (the 3 ist Brigade) and by the 7th 
 Corps (the 27th Brigade) to reinforce the
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 329 
 
 cavalry, found shelter in the woods of the 
 ravine of the Mance at the moment when this 
 ist Cavalry Division met with its disaster. 
 Nevertheless, its entry into the line was 
 thereby delayed. 
 
 The check was complete; first, from the 
 point of view of moral, through the profound 
 impression which the disaster produced ; next, 
 from the point of view of material, for two 
 batteries had been destroyed by the French 
 fire and a third had been lost in the ravine. 
 Three others were wandering about without 
 the power to engage. The artillery of the 
 7th Corps was reduced to thirty-six pieces. 
 The situation would have become very critical 
 for the 8th Corps if the enemy had only taken 
 advantage of that moment. 
 
 To sum up : On the right German wing, 
 to which General Headquarters had par- 
 ticularly attached itself, the battle was lost, 
 and lost under conditions which forbade its 
 renewal on the iQth. The last available 
 corps, the 2nd, had come up in the night, 
 lost its direction, and bunched confusedly 
 at a range of no more than 200 to 300 yards 
 from the enemy. 
 
 The last information from the 2nd Army 
 was as early as four o'clock in the afternoon, 
 and at that moment nothing decisive had 
 occurred.
 
 830 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 One understands well enough, therefore, 
 why Moltke came back to Rezonville towards 
 eleven o'clock that night, " sombre and taci- 
 turn." The physical fatigue he suffered 
 he had been going from four o'clock in the 
 morning to five in the afternoon of the I7th, 
 and, on this day of the i8th, from three o'clock 
 in the morning to that night was the least 
 cause of his mood. Beyond that there was 
 the very bad impression which he had 
 gathered of the fight in the ravine of the 
 Mance. He had left the field of battle with 
 regret. He had certainly gathered no laurels 
 and he had no reserves with which to 
 begin the struggle again upon the following 
 day. 
 
 Doubtless at this moment he thought with 
 bitterness of the 4th Corps which he had 
 sent off against Toul and Commercy, and of 
 the 3rd Army halted near Nancy. Either the 
 one or the other, had he but had the foresight 
 to retain them, would now have proved a 
 precious auxiliary to the solution of his 
 problem. 
 
 Nevertheless, he awaited the dispatches 
 of Prince Frederick Charles, and, though he 
 was in perplexity, kept the calm which he 
 always showed in great circumstances. He 
 was even able to take his regular sleep, which 
 was a proof of the balance of his nerves as
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 331 
 
 well as of his strength of character. After 
 midnight there came news of the victory of 
 Frederick Charles. He received that news 
 with apparent indifference and as though he 
 had never doubted its arrival. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Moltke was but a Chief of Staff. The 
 General Headquarters of the German Army 
 in 1870 could not, on account of its com- 
 position that is, on account of the age and 
 the character of its principal personalities 
 hope to drive the war at the pace it should 
 have had. 
 
 In the absence of an effective superior 
 Command, there were two battles upon this 
 1 8th of August : that of St. Privat which was 
 a victory and one in which Moltke was not 
 present, but in which his ideas were followed ; 
 another at Gravelottes which was a check. 
 There Moltke was present and yet was unable 
 to make his views predominate. 
 
 (i) The Manoeuvre of Sedan 
 
 [The army of Bazaine had been reduced to 
 a stationary condition under Metz after St. 
 Privat. Moltke then invested it with the ist 
 and 2nd German Armies, while he formed a 
 4th Army composed of the tfh Army Corps, the 
 I2th Army Corps and the Guard. This army
 
 332 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 / 
 
 went off to operate in concert with the three 
 German armies which had been victorious at 
 FrcKschwiller , against the army of MacMahon ; 
 which last had been concentrated at the camp 
 of Chalons and had been reported in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Rheims.] 
 
 We here see one of the characters attaching 
 to Moltke's strategy : the battle dependent 
 upon superior numbers conditioned by space 
 a mathematical dimension. This concep- 
 tion, which had produced the concentration 
 on the Rhine and the Battle of Marnheim, 
 Moltke repeated on the 25th of August when 
 it was his task to stop the French Army on 
 its march from the camp of Chalons towards 
 Metz. 
 
 Given that this army, composed of four 
 army corps, had been noted on the 23rd 
 August at Rheims, it could, by the 25th, be 
 on the Aisne River, and by the 27th on the 
 Meuse. It could therefore be quite certainly 
 held at Damvillers : because the German 
 forces could reach that point in three days 
 (that is, on the 28th). From that date the 
 following German forces could arrive there : 
 two corps from the Army of the Metz, three 
 from the army of the Meuse, two corps from 
 the 3rd Army. That is, seven corps all told 
 against the French four.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 333 
 
 On the 28th of August, therefore, the 
 French would find themselves at this point 
 (Damvillers), within a march of the Meuse, 
 engaged in battle under conditions of very 
 notable numerical inferiority. It may be 
 seen from the map that Damvillers, standing 
 as it does from Vouziers to Metz, is the centre 
 of a circle which, within a radius of less than 
 the distance from Damvillers to Vouziers, 
 included all seven German army corps. 
 
 If one looks at the matter solely from the 
 point of view of the result which Moltke was 
 aiming at, this strategy had a mathematical 
 certitude about it which was full of grandeur 
 and simplicity. His result once obtained, his 
 concentration once realized on the 2Oth of 
 August at Damvillers (as during the first days 
 of August at Marnheim), Moltke evidently 
 would have his battle under the most favour- 
 able conditions. But can he be sure before- 
 hand of that result ? Can he be sure of 
 effecting his concentration? He is in the 
 presence of an adversary who is in action 
 and who is separated from him by no 
 great obstacle. What guarantee has he of 
 achieving his groupment of troops without 
 interference ? 
 
 It is here that the inferiority of Moltke's 
 strategy to that of Napoleon's (in 1806, for 
 instance) appears. Napoleon's strategy of
 
 334 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 1806 implied a concentration which at its 
 origin was frankly defensive, only to become 
 as frankly offensive at its close. The opera- 
 tion was covered, at every moment of its 
 development, in its every phase, by a special 
 organ which gave it strategic security : first, 
 by covering troops ; then, by general advance 
 guard. Should the enemy appear and 
 menace, Napoleon did not only seek security 
 in the element of space but also through 
 this force (the advance guard) capable of 
 manoeuvre and, if necessary, of resistance. 
 
 Moltke in 1870 did not apply these theories. 
 He did not believe in strategic security or in 
 the necessity of a covering force. 
 
 Had he done so, the result he was aiming at 
 (concentration of forces) could have been 
 achieved more surely and at less distance in 
 spite of the enemy. Moreover, during all 
 the time that this concentration was being 
 effected it would have been, thanks to the 
 covering force, not only safe from the blows 
 of the adversary, but also capable of starting 
 a new manoeuvre or transforming that already 
 begun, if such a necessity should impose itself 
 during the process of concentration. 
 
 It is remarkable, in spite of its absence in 
 1870, that strategic security had been both 
 known and practised by the German staffs, 
 notably in 1814 and 1815.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 335 
 
 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR 
 The Russian Army was constituted and 
 maintained its being at the extremity of a 
 single line of railway over 7000 miles in 
 length. The Japanese Army was grouped 
 and had to act on the far side of a sea 700 
 miles broad (the distance from Port Arthur 
 to Nagasaki). The theatre of operations, 
 Corea and Manchuria, has bad roads and few 
 railways. The war in this region, therefore, 
 went at a slower pace than it would have done 
 in the more intensely living countries of 
 Europe. In spite of a Higher Command of the 
 very first order, it could not achieve those 
 sudden strategic deployments, those rapid 
 marches and those lightning attacks whence 
 the first shocks of European struggles spring 
 upon us like thunderclaps. 
 
 Again, the war did not put the national 
 existence of either party at stake, but only 
 their future. The political object of the war 
 was therefore restricted ; and therefore, also, 
 the lessons it has for us are neither complete 
 nor of immediate interest. The moral it 
 affords is not one which we have to copy. 
 But having once granted all this, we still see 
 that the war obeyed the same dominating 
 principles, especially on the Japanese side, 
 as appear in other campaigns.
 
 336 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 After methodical preparation the Japanese 
 Command realized to its full limits the idea 
 of strategic security. The I2th Japanese 
 Division first disembarks at Tchemulpo, far 
 from the enemy, and then advances to cover 
 the disembarkation of the ist Army at 
 Tchinampo, 160 miles nearer the adversary. 
 
 The army thus constituted crosses the 
 Yalu River in order to cover the disembarka- 
 tions of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Armies in the 
 Peninsula of Laiutang, so as to cut the com- 
 munications of Port Arthur. The whole 
 thing was a practical example of the theory 
 of the Napoleonic advance guard. 
 
 When the Japanese passed to action an 
 offensive spirit inspired all their decisions, 
 and personal initiative animated the whole. 
 Strategically as well as tactically they at- 
 tacked; but their attack was not merely 
 simple or frontal. It was constantly accom- 
 panied by manoeuvre. It aimed strategically 
 at the communications of its adversary, 
 tactically at the envelopment of a wing with 
 the object of destroying that wing and, 
 again, of reaching the line of communication. 
 At Mukden Nogi's army was not so much 
 concerned with crushing the Russian Right 
 by a flank attack as with getting behind it in 
 order thus to compel the retreat of all the 
 enemy forces. Hence we may say that the
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 337 
 
 manoeuvre-battle of the Napoleonic epoch and 
 of 1870 was transformed into an operation- 
 battle lasting several days. One may say that 
 the decision, even on the battlefield itself, 
 had become a strategic affair and that the 
 union between strategy and tactics was far 
 closer than it has been in earlier days. 
 
 Since the assailant extends his lines beyond 
 limits hitherto known, and the double pressure 
 of frontal attack and flank attack are very 
 greatly enlarged, a new call is made both upon 
 the power of weapons and upon field fortifica- 
 tion (the Japanese linesman was never with- 
 out his entrenching tools) ; further, to render 
 command possible under such circumstances, 
 it depends upon the wire. 
 
 We have seen in all this that the mind 
 retains the same universal conception of the 
 essential act of war, but that by a wider and 
 more careful use of material means it renders 
 that act practicable in an ever-increasing 
 dimension of space. The advance of modern 
 industry modifies the forms of war and con- 
 tinues the evolution of the art of war, but it 
 does not produce a revolution therein : it 
 does not affect in any point the fundamental 
 principles of the conduct of war.
 
 338 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 \ 
 ON MEN 
 
 ALVENSLEBEN 
 
 German general : Commander of $rd German 
 Corps in 1870. See, in the Precepts, the 
 heading, "Moral Ascendancy." 
 
 BEAULIEU 
 
 Austrian General, commanding the Army of 
 Italy against Bonaparte in 1796. 
 
 Beaulieu had just taken over the command 
 of the Austrian Army (he no longer com- 
 manded the Sardinians) ; he was seventy- 
 two years old and had a situation and a 
 reputation to save. " He was the product of 
 sixty years of official pedantry, the thing most 
 likely to depress the mind and the heart. 
 He was the old servant of an old monarchy, 
 the instrument of a heavy and starched aulic 
 council " (Clausewitz) . What would such a 
 man look for? Before all he would try to 
 avoid risking either his own reputation or the 
 army and the interests of the monarchy, even 
 if at such a game neither of them should gain 
 anything. 
 
 His schemes, as well as his temperament, 
 were inferior to those of Bonaparte. He still 
 contemplated taking the offensive, but only
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 339 
 
 in order to drive the French from the Riviera, 
 to take the department of Alpes-Maritimes ; 
 join hands with the English; thenceforward 
 continue a war of posts in the mountains, and 
 threaten, if need be, the French in Provence. 
 How greatly did such a conception of 
 warfare differ from the new idea launched 
 by Carnot, " follow up the enemy until com- 
 plete destruction ensues " ! Beaulieu's type 
 of war was conducted for partial gains only. 
 Preparation, execution, would likewise in- 
 volve but a reduced and partial use of the 
 means at hand. 
 
 BLUCHER 
 
 Prussian Field-Marshal engaged in the 
 campaign 1806, 1807 and 1813, where he com- 
 manded the inner army of Silesia ; the cam- 
 paign of 1814 in France and 0/1815 in which 
 he decided the Battle of Waterloo. [In June 
 1815 his dispositions were judicious, his whole 
 army could be concentrated in two days on 
 whatever side Napoleon might present himself 
 and in the direction where he might be attacked. 
 He threw out two "feelers," the ist and the -yd 
 Corps. Nevertheless, his own concentration 
 which he had fixed for his army was somewhat 
 too much exposed to an enemy offensive. In 
 the face of an adversary such as Napoleon he 
 had neither time nor space to manoeuvre.]
 
 340 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Let us remember, besides, what Scharn- 
 horst so rightly said when Bliicher was 
 appointed Commander of the army of Silesia 
 in 1813 : "7s it not the manner in which the 
 chiefs fulfil that task (commanding, imparting a 
 resolve to other men's hearts), which makes them 
 true warriors, much more than all other abilities 
 or faculties theory may require from them ? " 
 
 Facts were soon to vindicate the sound- 
 ness of this appreciation of Bliicher, whom 
 courtiers were still calling an imbecile and 
 a sick old man, an embodiment of impotence ; 
 although owing to his influence over the 
 country he was to his fellow-citizens the 
 very embodiment of patriotism and had 
 taken in hand all national claims ; although 
 owing to his popularity within the army he 
 had conquered the soldier's love by con- 
 stantly attending to the soldier's interests and 
 was able to request, undertake, attain any- 
 thing. Reposing on so considerable an in- 
 fluence, this man who dared to face the 
 French Caesar a man of a little mind, but of 
 a will, of a passion which would never tire 
 and would never lay down arms was to 
 draw whole nations into the war and lead 
 his armies to victory, just as he was to carry 
 to Paris the sovereigns of Europe, and this 
 in spite of themselves at least, as regarded 
 one of them, the Emperor of Austria, who
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 341 
 
 did not desire to dethrone his son-in-law and 
 to make his daughter a widow. 
 
 BONAPARTE 
 
 Just as the political revolution, which had 
 recently taken place, might have come to an 
 end after an ephemeral existence with the 
 Directory, for instance had not Bonaparte 
 proved, by taming it, that it was possible to 
 base on these new principles the organization 
 of a lasting society, so, without superior 
 minds such as Hoche, Carnot, Bonaparte, 
 and certain other Generals of the Revolution, 
 the conception of the mass-levy, of war with 
 unlimited resources, would have risked re- 
 maining a mere fancy, an Utopia confuted by 
 the armies and theories of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 To master that epoch of the Revolution, it 
 would not have sufficed to apply ancient 
 processes to the new situations and resources 
 created by it, as did commonplace men. 
 
 Therein lies the greatness of a time which 
 supplied the man who was to launch the new 
 principles Carnot and the men who were 
 to apply those principles : Hoche, Bona- 
 parte, etc. 
 
 So long as the early Generals of the Revolu- 
 tion were left to themselves, they continued, 
 in spite of the fact that they were waging a
 
 842 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 national war, to apply the methods of the 
 eighteenth century to seek positions, lines, 
 cordons. 
 
 Moreover, as a result of the new processes 
 (for instance, the army housed and fed by the 
 country it occupied) and of the considerable 
 numbers used, the line, the cordon were still 
 extended; weakness increased. 
 
 For a long time the remedy was not per- 
 ceived by average minds. 
 
 Let us remember that Moreau himself 
 entered Germany in 1800, four years after 
 1796, with an army which by destination, 
 by organization, contained one centre, two 
 wings, one reserve an eminently rigid con- 
 ception of things; while every one of these 
 organs, like every early army of the Republic, 
 had its own distinct, and purely geographical, 
 object. This brings us back to the metaphor 
 of the specialization of credit; to fixed and 
 invariable apportionment. 
 
 And as one infirmity involves another, 
 what do we see when Moreau enters Germany ? 
 
 Such a block, composed of elements not 
 interchangeable, drawn up on an invariable 
 model, sometimes advancing, then going back, 
 stopping in order to establish itself on a 
 position, never seeking battle such are the 
 manoeuvres of 1800 around Ulm, the retreat 
 from the Black Forest, etc.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 343 
 
 CARNOT 
 
 It was Carnot who first initiated this 
 manner of understanding, organizing, and 
 conducting war. This we have from Du- 
 mouriez, the victor of the Argonne, who 
 cannot be suspected in the matter since, after 
 betraying his country, he never failed to 
 sneer at his contemporaries more especially 
 at those in office. Yet he wrote in his 
 Recollections : 
 
 " Carnot it was who created the new state 
 of things in military affairs ; a state of things 
 which Dumouriez had barely the time to 
 adumbrate and which was perfected by 
 Bonaparte." 
 
 The reason why the application was not 
 at first very clear was because Carnot did not 
 himself act in the field. Nevertheless it was 
 he who wrote these words : 
 
 " All the armies of the Republic will have to 
 act offensively, but not everywhere with the same 
 amount of means (the apportionment of means 
 depends on the goal to be reached). We 
 must have a most offensive and decisive cam- 
 paign ; we must constantly pursue the enemy 
 until he shall be completely destroyed (a new 
 result to aim at !)." 
 
 All his correspondence shows that he was 
 the first, in that period of commotion and
 
 344 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 revolutionary chaos, to try and put things 
 in order once more. He sought to remedy 
 the scattering and crumbling which were 
 ruining France's considerable forces (fourteen 
 armies in 1794), by means of convergence of 
 effort and singleness of goal. 
 
 The numerous divisions set up tended to 
 scatter, to isolate themselves, in order to 
 live, march, and enjoy their independence; 
 he showed them the importance of aiming all 
 at one same point. 
 
 To the block of the ancient armies, which 
 could no longer reappear, for it was utterly 
 incapable of manoeuvring on the new scale, 
 he tried to substitute concordance and 
 synchrony in many efforts starting from 
 various points. 
 
 To reunite, to induce troops apparently 
 scattered to co-operate, such was the first 
 result he aimed at and reached. 
 
 And likewise, in one particular battle, at 
 Wattignies, Carnot being present, the idea 
 of an attack by superior forces on a point of the 
 line first made its appearance. 
 
 All this is economy of forces. 
 
 Carnot did more than that, and indicated 
 how the result must be sought. Thus he 
 wrote : 
 
 "We prescribe to the Generals commanding- 
 in-chief the armies operating in Germany to
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 345 
 
 see that the numerous and brilliant combats 
 they have sustained shall be followed by more 
 serious actions the results of which should 
 be final. It is only by winning great battles 
 that they will succeed in completely dis- 
 solving the Austrian army, and however 
 skilful that army may be in retiring from one 
 position to another, we hope that by coming 
 into contact with it, they will enforce a general 
 engagement the consequence of which will be 
 to compel the enemy to fall far back. ..." 
 
 We have travelled a long way from Marshal 
 de Saxe ; from that good general who thought 
 he could wage war his whole life without 
 giving battle. We are very near Napoleon, 
 who said : " There is nothing I desire so 
 much as a great battle " ; who, according to 
 Clausewitz, always looked out for a chance of 
 fighting. 
 
 CLAUSEWITZ 
 
 See in the Precepts the heading, " Evolution 
 of War." 
 
 CONVENTION 
 
 [The Parliament of the French Revolution.] 
 
 When the Convention decreed the mass- 
 levy, they at first produced in the military 
 field nothing but chaos in all its forms, as 
 well as that impotence which I have just 
 mentioned in conducting operations of war.
 
 846 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Creating a new order of things does not 
 involve the ability to give to that order from 
 the outset the power of working, nor even 
 life. 
 
 DUMOURIEZ 
 
 Tactical results are the only things that 
 matter in war. Nothing but decision by 
 arms makes an award possible, for such a 
 decision alone makes a victor and a van- 
 quished ; alone does it modify the respective 
 situation of the opposing parties, of which 
 one becomes the master of his own acts, while 
 the other has to submit to the will of the 
 adversary. Where there is no battle, there 
 is no award, nothing is accomplished. Valmy 
 proves it. Dumouriez finds himself in Sainte- 
 Menehould. Is he outflanked? He is, for 
 he finds himself cut off from direct com- 
 munications with Paris ; he resorts to indirect 
 communications. But there has been no 
 decision by arms, no tactical result. He 
 decides that nothing is yet concluded : he 
 does not withdraw. When he is attacked, he 
 defends himself. As he is not beaten, it is 
 the enemy who are beaten, for they have 
 failed at the bar of battle. 
 
 DE FAILLY 
 General commanding the $th French Corps
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 847 
 
 in 1870. See also the Precepts, under the 
 heading " Discipline." 
 
 By a dispatch sent out from Metz, on the 
 morning of August 5th, the 5th Corps had 
 been placed under Marshal de MacMahon. 
 The Major-General, who transmitted this 
 decision, believed the three divisions of the 
 5th Corps had met at Bitche in the evening. 
 Marshal de MacMahon, for his part, tele- 
 graphed at 8 p.m. to General de Failly : 
 
 11 Come to Reichshoffen as soon as possible 
 with your whole army corps." He ended by 
 saying : "I expect you to join me in the 
 course of to-morrow." 
 
 Here was again a very clear order to be 
 carried out : to come as soon as possible. 
 
 General de Failly answered at 3 a.m. on 
 the 6th : " That he could only send the 
 Lespart Division on that day." 
 
 In any case the Lespart Division alone 
 received the order to start early on the 6th, 
 by the road to Niederbronn ; but the division, 
 owing to rumours brought by frightened 
 peasants, put off its departure; it did not 
 start till 7.30 a.m. 
 
 No intelligence service had been regularly 
 organized. Military decisions were dictated 
 by rumours, founded or unfounded, generally 
 magnified by fear ; how could such decisions 
 correspond to the reality of things ?
 
 348 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 General de Bernis, with the i2th Chasseurs, 
 preceded the division. He had neither an 
 advance guard nor a flank guard. Numerous 
 roads and paths debouch on the left of the 
 road followed ; General de Lespart, therefore, 
 feared lest he should be attacked in flank. 
 He advanced only step by step. The column 
 stopped at every cross-road. The country 
 was searched in front and on the side by 
 cavalry, often even by infantry detachments. 
 The whole division rolled itself up; the 
 column only resumed its advance after the 
 reconnaissances had come back and stated 
 that it could go ahead without danger. 
 
 A great number of halts resulted from this, 
 to the particular bewilderment of the rank 
 and file. Officers and men, excited by the 
 noise of gunfire which had been heard since 
 the morning, grew impatient of these delays 
 and found that the measures taken were to 
 say the least of it ill-timed. When they 
 came nearer to Niederbronn, returning 
 wounded were met, then fugitives; these 
 latter became more and more numerous : 
 they naturally said that things were going 
 badly ; they soon announced that the battle 
 had been lost. 
 
 When they arrived on the heights over- 
 looking Niederbronn, a retreating flood was 
 seen crossing the town ; it was five o'clock.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 349 
 
 The Guyot de Lespart Division had been 
 from 7.30 a.m. until 5 p.m. more than nine 
 hours on the march to cover the fourteen 
 miles distance from Bitche to Niederbronn. 
 
 The troops it was bringing up were 
 physically and morally exhausted. Above 
 all, these troops were useless. It was too 
 late ! 
 
 The whole of the $th Corps had failed to 
 keep its appointment. 
 
 It was its fault that the battle was lost. 
 
 Men who had not been made to march 
 twenty miles in order to be led to victory, 
 were now able and compelled to walk in a 
 state of demoralization for nearly sixty miles 
 (Abbatucci Brigade, from Niederbronn to 
 Saverne) within thirty-six hours. 
 
 Without having fired a single shot, the 
 5th Army Corps, composed of gallant troops, 
 of undeniable value, had withdrawn from the 
 struggle in a state of annihilation and of 
 depression; the men had been deprived oi 
 their moral strength ; they no longer trusted 
 their own chiefs; they stood ready to be 
 routed. In the army's judgment, and for a 
 long time to come, that corps was to be held 
 responsible for the defeat at Frceschwiller ; 
 rightly enough if the command and the rank 
 and file are made jointly responsible ; wrongly, 
 however, if one perceives the truth, which is,
 
 350 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 that battles are lost or won by Generals, not 
 by the rank and file. 
 
 PRINCE FREDERICK CHARLES 
 
 Commander of the German 2nd Army in 
 1870-71. See also in the Precepts the head- 
 ings, " Activity of Generals " and " Moral 
 Ascendancy." 
 
 Frederick Charles was a man of action in 
 the highest degree; the mere thought of a 
 great result being possible turned his head 
 to the point of depriving him of the ability 
 to perceive what should be his starting-point, 
 or to measure all the import and risks in- 
 volved. Von Moltke's 'hypothesis became a 
 certainty to him. 1 He rushed on impetu- 
 ously. Up to the end and unconsciously he 
 will remain blindfold. He claimed a kill 
 before finding his fox. 
 
 This is precisely what happens in general 
 when a man starts from a supposed certainty 
 which is founded on nothing. Just as 
 Frederick Charles had not felt the need of 
 getting hold of a well-founded truth, so he did 
 not find it necessary to verify his belief, and 
 the latter still held good to his mind. He 
 did not seek for information on the i6th, as 
 
 1 In the middle of August 1870, as Bazaine fell back 
 on Metz, Moltke erroneously believed him to be retreating 
 northwards.
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 351 
 
 we have seen; but more than this, on the 
 same i6th, at noon, he dictated an order 
 which settled the way in which the whole of 
 the 2nd Army should arrive on the I7th at the 
 Meuse (he was still banking on the alleged 
 victory of the I4th), an order which the 
 official Records of the Great General Staff has 
 carefully preserved for us (although it was 
 not carried out in the least) ; as though it did 
 not contain the most bitter and violent 
 criticism of the decision taken by that prince 
 during these days; as though it were not a 
 kind of ironical monument set up to him, the 
 interest of which, from an historical point of 
 view, can only consist in exonerating von 
 Moltke from the responsibilities incurred 
 during the acute crisis of August i6th and 
 
 GAMBETTA 
 
 The glory of Gambetta in history will 
 consist in having understood that the centre 
 of power in a country is not its capital, but 
 the nation itself, with its resources of every 
 kind. The capital has two million inhabi- 
 tants, soon suffering siege; but the nation 
 has thirty-five millions still free to manoeuvre 
 and to attack. On this basis Gambetta 
 organized the national war and a struggle 
 to the bitter end.
 
 352 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 Unfortunately, even the best brains have 
 difficulty in escaping from the ideas of their 
 time, and that is why Gambetta did not apply 
 his theory completely. 
 
 He had organized national armies, but did 
 not discover the art of waging a national war, 
 nor did he shake himself free from the super- 
 stition that the fate of a nation depends upon 
 that of its capital. Therefore did he give 
 to those armies which he created as though 
 by magic, the relief of Paris as their very 
 first task. He wore them out in an attack 
 upon numerous, well-instructed and victorious 
 troops, in an offensive which was beyond their 
 strength, and he bade them attempt an 
 immediate and complete decision of which 
 they were incapable. He directed them, for 
 this purpose, through ground (the district of 
 the Beance) most unfavourable to young and 
 raw troops. 
 
 Utterly different would have been the 
 programme of a national struggle thoroughly 
 thought out. It would, in the first place, 
 have aimed at defending foot by foot the 
 territory which furnished resources for both 
 armies, and only later would have attempted 
 the deliverance of the country. The execu- 
 tion of such a plan would have involved at 
 the outset a mere defensive. That is the only 
 form of war possible to raw troops at first,
 
 because it makes use of space, time and 
 ground, and allows one to refuse one's adver- 
 sary a decision, though that is what the 
 adversary immediately needs if he is to 
 break down the resistance and to conquer 
 the country. In the last stage this plan 
 would have involved an offensive, but an 
 offensive then delivered with armies trained 
 to war and confident against an enemy neces- 
 sarily dispersed, worn out by sterile effort, 
 and starved by the length of its communica- 
 tion. Such was the tactic demanded. The 
 great patriot and powerful organizer could 
 not accomplish this task because he had not 
 special knowledge. Military institutions and 
 ideas, like all others, only yield fruit when 
 they are strongly founded on reality, and such 
 strong foundation in this case meant com- 
 plete possession of the nature of war and of 
 an armed force. It was because he knew 
 both so well that Carnot was able to draw 
 victory from the principle of the mass-levy. 
 
 GARIBALDI (IN 1870) 
 Many tactical lessons might be drawn from 
 
 these fights around Dijon. 
 
 The result, as is well known, was the great 
 
 success of the Southern German Army. 
 As for Garibaldi, the repeated attacks of 
 
 January 2ist and 23rd induced him to believe 
 
 AA
 
 354 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 that he had before him important German 
 forces. He remained on a cautious defen- 
 sive : he praised his own successes in the 
 most eulogistic terms. 
 
 The result was the disastrous defeat of the 
 Eastern French Army. 
 
 Error is human, we may be told ; it is not 
 a crime. 
 
 The crime does not lie in that, but in the 
 fact that Garibaldi, after being ordered to 
 join the Eastern Army, had not done so. 
 He never thought of carrying out his orders. 
 His conduct was dictated by his own personal 
 views, by his craving for personal success. 
 
 GENERALS OF THE RESTORATION 
 
 The new mechanics were no more grasped 
 by Moreau and the early Generals of the 
 Revolution, than later on by the French 
 Generals of the Restoration who reorganized 
 the lineal order, or than by the authors of 
 our Field Service Book of 1883, which, until 
 1895, a few years ago, continued to affirm 
 that : " Armies are composed of a centre, 
 wings, and reserve; marching armies use 
 the greatest possible number of roads, etc." 
 
 GUYOT DE LESPART 
 General commanding a division of General de
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 355 
 
 Failly's $th French Corps in 1870. See " De 
 Failly." 
 
 KETTLER 
 
 German General commanding a brigade in 
 1871. See in the Precepts under the heading, 
 " Advance Guard/' 
 
 KIRCHBACH 
 
 German General commanding a- division in 
 1870. See in the Precepts, under the heading, 
 " Cavalry." 
 
 MOLTKE 
 
 Moltke, some have thought it possible to 
 characterize by stating that he had " the 
 merit of doing well all he did." It is an 
 appreciation which would make him a sort 
 of superior scholar; a sound appreciation 
 all the same, as it throws a keen light on a 
 man who served his country so well and 
 attained by hard work such high results 
 that he reached genius merely by being 
 methodical. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Moltke : a Chief of Staff constantly appeal- 
 ing to his own intelligence, leaning on reason, 
 an intellectual rather than a performer, meets 
 the unknown by building up an hypothesis ; 
 a logical hypothesis it is true, but one
 
 356 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 
 
 exclusively derived from his own imagination, 
 and one which, by the way, he does not 
 consider to be undisputable ; he thus ends 
 by framing a solution which he does not 
 impose. After discussing the various com- 
 binations the enemy may adopt, he selects 
 the most rational one, wherefrom his own 
 scheme of manoeuvre will be derived. His 
 supposition seems in every respect to be true ; 
 however, it is not true. For want of belief 
 in the accuracy of his own decision, he does 
 not dare to impose it; he advises, he does 
 not command, remaining a Chief of Staff 
 instead of being a commander of armies. 
 For that reason, the great results of the war 
 of 1870 were only partly due to him. He 
 behaved in the same way at Sedan, where he 
 again ceased commanding on August 3oth, 
 and where the enveloping movement resulted 
 from an understanding between two armies, 
 not from a decision taken at headquarters. 
 He behaved in the same way during the 
 operations on the Loire. 
 
 MOREAU 
 
 See in Precepts under heading, " Strategic 
 Reserve/' 
 
 NAPOLEON 
 See in Precepts under heading, " Object of
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 357 
 
 War," " Battle," " Manoeuvre/' " Work and 
 Genius." 
 
 SAKE (MARSHAL) 
 
 See in Precepts under heading, "Transforma- 
 tion of War." 
 
 SWARTZENBERG 
 
 Austrian General commanding army of 
 Bohemia in 1813-14. See the Precepts under 
 the heading, " Transformation of War." 
 
 STEINMETZ 
 
 General in command of the ist German Army 
 in 1870. 
 
 He was seventy-four years old in 1870. 
 He was a veteran of the War of German 
 Independence against Napoleon and active 
 and vigorous in spite of his great age. He had 
 already acquired fame in 1866 in difficult 
 circumstances, through his iridomitable energy 
 and his spirit of enterprise. From that 
 period the German Army had given him the 
 name of " The Lion of Nachod." He was 
 tireless, as hard for himself as he was for 
 others, but irritable and suspicious. His 
 manner of command was rough, and he was 
 also of an extreme touchiness which sprang 
 from pride and rendered his relations difficult 
 with superiors and inferiors alike.
 
 358 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 
 
 VON DER GOLTZ 
 
 General commanding a German brigade in 
 1870. See in the Judgments, under " The War 
 of 1870 : Battle of Borny." 
 
 WELLINGTON 
 (See " Bliicher : his dispositions in 1815. ") 
 
 In contrast with this view of the Prussian 
 staffs, another would seem to have prevailed 
 within the English Army. Being distributed 
 from Mons to the sea (80 miles), from Tournay 
 to Antwerp (60 miles), with headquarters at 
 Brussels (45 miles from the most advanced 
 body), it cannot assemble on any central 
 point within less than four or five days. How 
 can it hope to find those four or five days, 
 with its most advanced cantonments (Tour- 
 nay) within one day's march of the great 
 French fortified town of Lille ? It is, indeed, 
 obvious that any important French attack 
 starting from the neighbourhood of that 
 town could not be sufficiently held up during 
 the four or five days required for the con- 
 templated concentration. 
 
 Wellington had never personally confronted 
 Napoleon. As he did not know the violence 
 and quickness of the Emperor's attacks, he 
 very likely believed his dispositions to be 
 sufficiently good to give him the time to meet
 
 PRECEPTS AND JUDGMENTS 359 
 
 the adversary's undertakings, and more par- 
 ticularly to be able to join the Prussians. 
 
 ZlETHEN 
 
 Prussian General commanding an army 
 corps in 1815 (the ist Corps). 
 
 Ziethen's corps had suffered heavy losses, 
 but attained a considerable result : that of 
 delaying the battle 1 until the i6th ; of 
 making concentration possible. 
 
 As Clausewitz puts it : " One sees thereby 
 what caution and what delay circumstances, 
 however little complicated they may be, un- 
 avoidably impose even on the most resolute of 
 generals, on Napoleon." 
 
 Among the complications which Ziethen 
 skilfully utilized, must undeniably be placed 
 that double retreat by the roads to Gilly and 
 Gosselies, which prevented Ney from going 
 to Quatre-Bras, which made Napoleon's inter- 
 vention necessary on that side, and thereby 
 also delayed the action on the road to Namur. 
 
 It must be also pointed out that this 
 divergent retreat did not prevent the ist 
 Prussian Army Corps from having its four 
 divisions assembled on the following day. 
 1 Ligny : June 16, 1815.
 
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