A base, to be perfect, should have two or three fortified points of sufficient capacity for the establishment of depots of supply. There should be a tête de pont upon each of its unfordable streams.
All are now agreed upon these principles; but upon other points opinions have varied. Some have asserted that a perfect base is one parallel to that of the enemy. My opinion is that bases perpendicular to those of the enemy are more advantageous, particularly such as have two sides almost perpendicular to each other and forming a re-entrant angle, thus affording a double base if required, and which, by giving the control of two sides of the strategic field, assure two lines of retreat widely apart, and facilitate any change of the line of operations which an unforeseen turn of affairs may necessitate.
The quotations which follow are from my treatise on Great Military Operations:—
"The general configuration of the theater of war may also have a great influence upon the direction of the lines of operations, and, consequently, upon the direction of the bases.
Fig. 1.
"If every theater of war forms a figure presenting four faces more or less regular, one of the armies, at the opening of the campaign, may hold one of these faces,—perhaps two,—while the enemy occupies the other, the fourth being closed by insurmountable obstacles. The different ways of occupying this theater will lead to widely different combinations. To illustrate, we will cite the theater of the French armies in Westphalia from 1757 to 1762, and that of Napoleon in 1806, both of which are represented in [Fig. 1], [p. 79]. In the first case, the side A B was the North Sea, B D the line of the Weser and the base of Duke Ferdinand, C D the line of the Main and the base of the French army, A C the line of the Rhine, also guarded by French troops. The French held two faces, the North Sea being the third; and hence it was only necessary for them, by maneuvers, to gain the side B D to be masters of the four faces, including the base and the communications of the enemy. The French army, starting from its base C D and gaining the front of operations F G H, could cut off the allied army I from its base B D; the latter would be thrown upon the angle A, formed by the lines of the Rhine, the Ems, and the sea, while the army E could communicate with its bases on the Main and Rhine.
"The movement of Napoleon in 1806 on the Saale was similar. He occupied at Jena and Naumburg the line F G H, then marched by Halle and Dessau to force the Prussian army I upon the sea, represented by the side A B. The result is well known.
"The art, then, of selecting lines of operations is to give them such directions as to seize the communications of the enemy without losing one's own. The line F G H, by its extended position, and the bend on the flank of the enemy, always protects the communications with the base C D; and this is exactly the maneuvers of Marengo, Ulm, and Jena.