We think that these views will only appear paradoxical to those who have not studied military history long enough or with sufficient attention, who do not distinguish the important from the unimportant, nor make proper allowance for the influence of human weaknesses in general.
If even in tactics there is a difficulty, which all experienced soldiers admit there is, in succeeding in an attack in separate columns where it depends on the perfect connection of the several columns, how much more difficult, or rather how impossible, must this be in strategy, where the separation is so much wider. Therefore, if a constant connection of all parts was a necessary condition of success, a strategic plan of attack of that nature must be at once given up. But on the one hand, it is not left to our option to discard it completely, because circumstances, which we cannot control, may determine in favour of it; on the other hand, even in tactics, this constant close conjunction of all parts at every moment of the execution, is not at all necessary, and it is still less so in strategy. Therefore in strategy we should pay the less attention to this point, and insist the more upon a distinct piece of work being assigned to each part.
We have still to add one important observation: it relates to the proper allotment of parts.
In the year 1793 and 1794 the principal Austrian army was in the Netherlands, that of the Prussians, on the upper Rhine. The Austrians marched from Vienna to Condé and Valenciennes, crossing the line of march of the Prussians from Berlin to Landau. The Austrians had certainly to defend their Belgian provinces in that quarter, and any conquests made in French Flanders would have been acquisitions conveniently situated for them, but that interest was not strong enough. After the death of Prince Kaunitz, the Minister Thugut carried a measure for giving up the Netherlands entirely, for the better concentration of the Austrian forces. In fact, Austria is about twice as far from Flanders as from Alsace; and at a time when military resources were very limited, and everything had to be paid for in ready money, that was no trifling consideration. Still, the Minister Thugut had plainly something else in view; his object was, through the urgency of the danger to compel Holland, England, and Prussia, the powers interested in the defence of the Netherlands and Lower Rhine, to make greater efforts. He certainly deceived himself in his calculations, because nothing could be done with the Prussian cabinet at that time, but this occurrence always shows the influence of political interests on the course of a war.
Prussia had neither anything to conquer nor to defend in Alsace. In the year 1792 it had undertaken the march through Lorraine into Champagne in a sort of chivalrous spirit. But as that enterprise ended in nothing, through the unfavourable course of circumstances, it continued the war with a feeling of very little interest. If the Prussian troops had been in the Netherlands, they would have been in direct communication with Holland, which they might look upon almost as their own country, having conquered it in the year 1787; they would then have covered the Lower Rhine, and consequently that part of the Prussian monarchy which lay next to the theatre of war. Prussia on account of subsidies would also have had a closer alliance with England, which, under these circumstances, would not so easily have degenerated into the crooked policy of which the Prussian cabinet was guilty at that time.
A much better result, therefore, might have been expected if the Austrians had appeared with their principal force on the Upper Rhine, the Prussians with their whole force in the Netherlands, and the Austrians had left there only a corps of proportionate strength.
If, instead of the enterprising Blücher, General Barclay had been placed at the head of the Silesian army in 1814, and Blücher and Schwartzenberg had been kept with the grand army, the campaign would perhaps have turned out a complete failure.
If the enterprising Laudon, instead of having his theatre of war at the strongest point of the Prussian dominions, namely, in Silesia, had been in the position of the German States’ army, perhaps the whole Seven Years’ War would have had quite a different turn. In order to examine this subject more narrowly, we must look at the cases according to their chief distinctions.
The first is, if we carry on war in conjunction with other powers, who not only take part as our allies, but also have an independent interest as well.
The second is, if the army of the ally has come to our assistance.