GRAND RECONNAISSANCE
“In every situation the principal strategical requirements must clearly be defined and all other things must be subordinated to these considerations.”—Frederic the Great.
“One should seek to obtain a knowledge of causes, rather than of effects; and should endeavor to reason from the known, to the unknown.”—Euclid.
The province of Grand Reconnaissance is exactly to determine the relative advantages and disadvantages in time, numbers, organization, topography, mobility and position, which appertain to hostile armies contained in the same strategetic plane; and to designate those Corps d’armee by which such advantages are materially expressed.
Those processes which appertain to the making of Grand Reconnaissance, necessarily are argumentative; inasmuch as all the facts never are determinate.
Consequently, talent of the highest order is required for the deducing of conclusions which never can be based upon exact knowledge, and which always must contemplate the presence of numerous unknown quantities.
The responsibilities inherent to Grand Reconnaissance never are to be delegated to, nor thrust upon subordinates. Scouts, spies, and informers of every kind, have their manifold and proper uses, but such uses never rise above furnishing necessary information in regard to topographical, tactical, and logistic details.
The Commander-in-chief alone is presumed to possess knowledge and skill requisite to discern what strategetically is fact and what is not fact; and to ascribe to each fact its proper place and sequence.