Will he excel Gustavus Adolphus, who dominated Europe for twenty years, and Turenne, the military Atlas who upheld that magnificent civilization which embellishes the reign of Louis XIV?
Will he do better than Prince Eugene, who victoriously concluded eighteen campaigns and drove the Turks out of Christendom?
Will he discover processes superior to those whereby Frederic the Great with 22,000 troops destroyed at Rosbach a French army of 60,000 regulars in an hour and a half, at the cost of three hundred men; and at Leuthern with 33,000 troops, killed, wounded or captured 54,000 out of 93,000 Austrians, at a cost of 3,900 men?
Will he improve on those processes whereby Napoleon with 40,000 men, destroyed in a single year five Austrian armies and captured 150,000 prisoners? Will he improve on Rivoli, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, Dresden, and Ligny?
Will the general of the future renounce as obsolete and worthless that system of Grand Tactics, by means of which the mighty ones of Earth have swept before them all created things?
Will his system surpass in grandeur of conception and exactness of execution the march of Alexander to the Indus? Will he reply to his rival’s prayers for peace and amity as did the great Macedonian; “There can be but one Master of the World”; and to the dissuasions of his friend; “So would I do, were I Parmenio”?
Will he do things more gigantic than Hannibal’s march across the Alps?
Than the operation of Alesia by Caesar; where the Romans besieging one Gallic army in a fortified city, and themselves surrounded by a second Gallic army, single handed destroyed both? Than the circuit of the Caspian Sea by the 200,000 light cavalry of Tamerlane, a feat of mountain climbing which never has been duplicated? Than that marvelous combination of the principles of tactics and of field fortification, whereby in the position of Bunzelwitz, Frederic the Great, with 55,000 men, successfully upheld the last remaining prop of the Prussian nation, against 250,000 Russian and Austrian regular troops, commanded by the best generals of the age?
Will he conceive anything more scientific and artistic than the manoeuvre of Trenton and Princeton by Washington? Than the capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga and Cornwallis at Yorktown? Than the manoeuvres of Ulm, of Jena, of Landshut? Than the manoeuvres of Napoleon in 1814? Than the manoeuvre of Charleroi in 1815, declared by Jomini to be Napoleon’s masterpiece? Will he excel the manoeuvres of Kutosof and Wittsengen in 1812-13 and of Blucher on Paris in 1814 and on Waterloo in 1815; each of which annihilated for the time being the military power of France?
Will he devise military conceptions superior to those whereby Von Moltke overthrew Denmark in six hours, Austria in six days, and France in six weeks?