The Simultaneous Use of all the Forces
"The rule," says Clausewitz, "which we have been endeavouring to set forth is, therefore, that all the forces which are available and destined for a strategic object should be simultaneously applied to it. And this application will be all the more complete the more everything is compressed into one act and one moment."[46] This he calls "the law of the simultaneous employment of the forces in strategy."[47] "In strategy we can never employ too many forces."[48] "What can be looked upon in tactics as an excess of force must be regarded in strategy as a means of giving expansion to success." "No troops should be kept back as a strategic reserve," but every available man hurried up to the first battlefield, fresh levies being meanwhile formed in rear. As an instance of what not to do, Prussia, in 1806, kept back 45,000 men in Brandenburg and East Prussia; they might, if present at Jena, have turned defeat into victory, but they were useless afterwards.[49] A fault so often made may be made again.