That relative advantage in Numbers expressed by the larger aggregate of Chess-pieces is materially manifested upon the Chess-board by additional geometric and sub-geometric symbols.
Excess or deficiency in Numbers determines the policy of Campaign. The policy of the inferior force is:
- 1. To preserve intact its Corps d’armee, and
- 2. To engage in battle only when victory can be assured by other advantages in Strategetic means, which nullify the adverse advantage in Numbers; and even then only when such victory is decisive of the Campaign.
Hence, the policy of Campaign of that army superior in Numbers, is:
Incessantly to proffer battles which:
- (a) Accepted, constantly reduces the inferior army and increases its disproportion in numbers, or,
- (b) Evaded, compels the inferior army to abandon important posts, for whose defence it cannot afford the resulting loss of troops; thus permitting to the numerically superior army a continually increasing advantage in Position.
PRINCIPLE
All else being equal the advantage of Numbers is decisive of victory in battle and Campaign.
Things being unequal, the advantage in Numbers may be nullified by adverse advantages in Organization, Topography, Mobility, Time and Position.