5. Lastly, the greater efforts of the adversary, in consequence of the increased danger, on the other hand, a relaxation of effort on the side of the victorious state.
All these advantages and disadvantages can exist together, meet each other in a certain measure, and pursue their way in opposite directions, except that the last meet as real opposites, cannot pass, therefore mutually exclude each other. This alone shows how infinitely different may be the effect of a victory according as it stuns the vanquished or stimulates him to greater exertions.
We shall now try to characterise, in a few words, each of these points singly.
1. The loss of the enemy when defeated, may be at the greatest in the first moment of defeat, and then daily diminish in amount until it arrives at a point where the balance is restored as regards our force; but it may go on increasing every day in an ascending ratio. The difference of situation and relations determines this. We can only say that, in general, with a good army the first will be the case, with an indifferent army the second; next to the spirit of the army, the spirit of the Government is here the most important thing. It is of great consequence in war to distinguish between the two cases in practice, in order not to stop just at the point where we ought to begin in good earnest, and vice versâ.
2. The loss which the enemy sustains in that part of the apparatus of war which is inert, may ebb and flow just in the same manner, and this will depend on the accidental position and nature of the depôts from which supplies are drawn. This subject, however, in the present day, cannot be compared with the others in point of importance.
3. The third advantage must necessarily increase as the army advances; indeed, it may be said that it does not come into consideration until an army has penetrated far into the enemy’s country; that is to say, until a third or a fourth of the country has been left in rear. In addition, the intrinsic value which a province has in connection with the war comes also into consideration.
In the same way the fourth advantage should increase with the advance.
But with respect to these two last, it is also to be observed that their influence on the combatant powers actually engaged in the struggle, is seldom felt so immediately; they only work slowly and by a circuitous course; therefore we should not bend the bow too much on their account, that is to say, not place ourselves in any dangerous position.
The fifth advantage, again, only comes into consideration if we have made a considerable advance, and if by the form of the enemy’s country some provinces can be detached from the principal mass, as these, like limbs compressed by ligatures, usually soon die off.
As to six and seven, it is at least probable that they increase with the advance; furthermore, we shall return to them hereafter. Let us now pass on to the causes of weakness.