The Art of War

by baron de Antoine Henri Jomini

8. Of accidental intermediate bases of operations between the objective point and the primary base.

9. Of points of refuge in case of reverse.

For illustration, let us suppose the case of France invading Austria with two or three armies, to be concentrated under one commander, and starting from Mayence, from the Upper Rhine, from Savoy or the Maritime Alps, respectively. The section of country which each of these armies traverses may be considered as a zone of the general field of operations. But if the army of Italy goes but to the Adige without concerted action with the army of the Rhine, then what was before but a zone becomes for that army a theater of operations.

In every case, each theater must have its own base, its own objective point, its zones and lines of operations connecting the objective point with the base, either in the offensive or the defensive.

It has been taught and published that rivers are lines of operations par excellence. Now, as such a line must possess two or three roads to move the army within the range of its operations, and at least one line of retreat, rivers have been called lines of retreat, and even lines of maneuver. It would be much more accurate to say that rivers are excellent lines of supply, and powerful auxiliaries in the establishment of a good line of operations, but never the line itself.

It has also been maintained that, could one create a country expressly to be a good theater of war, converging roads would be avoided, because they facilitate invasion. Every country has its capital, its rich cities for manufactures or trade; and, in the very nature of things, these points must be the centers of converging routes. Could Germany be made a desert, to be molded into a theater of war at the pleasure of an individual, commercial cities and centers of trade would spring up, and the roads would again necessarily converge to these points. Moreover, was not the Archduke Charles enabled to beat Jourdan in 1796 by the use of converging routes? Besides, these routes are more favorable for defense than attack, since two divisions retreating upon these radial lines can effect a junction more quickly than two armies which are pursuing, and they may thus united defeat each of the pursuing masses separately.

Some authors have affirmed that mountainous countries abound in strategic positions; others have maintained that, on the contrary, these points are more rare among the Alps than in the plains, but also that if more rare they are more important and more decisive.

Some authors have represented that high ranges of mountains are, in war, inaccessible barriers. Napoleon, on the contrary, in speaking of the Rhetian Alps, said that "an army could pass wherever a man could put his foot."

Generals no less experienced than himself in mountain-warfare have united with him in this opinion, in admitting the great difficulty of carrying on a defensive war in such localities unless the advantages of partisan and regular warfare can be combined, the first to guard the heights and to harass the enemy, the second to give battle at the decisive points,—the junctions of the large valleys.

These differences of opinion are here noticed merely to show the reader that, so far from the art having reached perfection, there are many points that admit of discussion.