NOTE.
The officer who obeys, whatever may be the nature or extent of his command, will always stand excused for executing implicitly the orders which have been given to him. This is not the case with the general-in-chief, on whom the safety of the army and the success of the campaign depend. Occupied, without intermission, in the whole process of observation and reflection, it is easy to conceive that he will acquire by degrees a solidity of judgment which will enable him to see things in a clearer and more enlarged point of view than his inferior generals.
Marshal Villars, in his campaigns, acted almost always in opposition to the advice of his generals, and he was almost always fortunate. So true it is, that a general, who feels confident in his talent for command, must follow the dictates of his own genius if he wishes to achieve success.
MAXIM LXVII.
To authorize generals or other officers to lay down their arms in virtue of a particular capitulation, under any other circumstances than when they are composing the garrison of a fortress, affords a dangerous latitude. It is destructive of all military character in a nation to open such a door to the cowardly, the weak, or even to the misdirected brave. Great extremities require extraordinary resolution. The more obstinate the resistance of an army, the greater the chances of assistance or of success.
How many seeming impossibilities have been accomplished by men whose only resource was death!
NOTE.
In the campaign of 1759, Frederick directed General Fink, with eighteen thousand men, upon Maxen, for the purpose of cutting off the Austrian army from the defiles of Bohemia. Surrounded by twice his numbers, Fink capitulated after a sharp action, and fourteen thousand men laid down their arms. This conduct was the more disgraceful, because General Winch, who commanded the cavalry, cut his way through the enemy. The whole blame of the surrender fell, therefore, upon Fink, who was tried afterward by a court-martial, and sentenced to be cashiered and imprisoned for two years.