Nothing can be more repugnant to high art in Strategetics than those crudities termed in the specious mouthings of pretentious mediocrity “waiting moves,” “delayed strokes,” “defensive-offensives,” “masterly inactivities,” and the like.
“Time past is gone and cannot be regained; time future is not and may never be; time present is” and with it Opportunity, which an instant later may be gone.
The gain of but “a foot of ground and a minute of time” would have saved the French army at Rosbach and have cost Frederic the Great one of his most lustrous victories and perhaps his army and his crown.
PRINCIPLE
In Strategetics there is but a single method whereby Opportunity may be availed of, and that is by so augmenting kindred advantages and so depreciating adverse advantages as to acquire for the kindred army that particular advantage of Strategetic means which in the given situation is the proper basis of the Strategetic movement next in sequence.
At Distance.
The chief requisite for success when acting against an adverse army at Distance, is the advantage in MOBILITY.
The primary process is that of a Grand Manoeuvre against an adverse army acting in the formation by Grand Columns, and the object of such Grand Manoeuvre always is, by superior celerity of movement, to occupy: