Of the strategy and tactics of the war itself little can be said which has not been already said in previous chapters; still, it may be convenient to collect together the considerations on this question which are suggested by the history of the two years’ campaigning.
Before doing so it is perhaps necessary to define as clearly as is possible the distinction between strategy and tactics, and that not merely in respect to the application of the terms themselves, but also to a not unimportant difference which may exist between the ways in which they may be employed.
Strategy is a term usually applied to the larger operations of war prior to or intervening between such times as armies are in close contact with one another.
When close contact takes place, and battle is immediately imminent or in progress, the name tactics is applied to the operations which then ensue, and which are necessarily on a smaller scale than those to which the term strategy is applicable.
A further and important distinction is this:—the operations known as tactics are the outcome of full consciousness on the part of the commander or, it may be, of the trained soldiers who employ them,—that is to say, that he or they know not merely what to do, but why to do it. The knowledge acted upon is in a sense scientific, though the reasons for the act may be various:—either that the operation has proved effective in the past, or that the tactics of the enemy demand it, or that it is called for by the nature of the ground. It is in respect to the last reason that tactics and strategy are most nearly comparable; and it is manifest that it is more easy to draw conclusions as to the results of action on a small area of country, all of which may be comprehended in one view, than in a large area such as would form the theatre of strategical operations.
The operations of tactics are so much more mechanical than those of strategy that it is difficult to conceive of them as being unconsciously carried out.
With strategy that is not the case. It may be conscious or unconscious. The strategical conditions of a country such as Greece, or indeed of any country, must ever be fundamentally the same, though liable to modification by the introduction of some great novelty into the act of war, such as long-range missiles. An army operating in Greece or elsewhere may fulfil the strategical conditions of the country consciously or unconsciously. It fulfils them consciously if it appreciates them,—that is to say, if its movements are determined by them; but it may fulfil them unconsciously even if its movements are determined by considerations which cannot be said to rest on any strategical basis.
It is a very important question in the war of 480–479 whether either or both of the two sides operated with a conscious or unconscious strategy. Beyond question many of their operations were strategically correct. This every one who is acquainted with the story of the war must admit; but many of the greatest writers of Greek history have silently or expressly assumed that the agreement between the operations and the strategical conditions of the theatre of war was due to the circumstance that, in a country of such pronounced characteristics as those of Greece, the physical conditions were so marked that the strategical conditions might be fulfilled from motives wholly unconnected with them. This might undoubtedly be the case; but was it so?
Two great strategic designs are apparent in the main plan of the invaders:—
(1) To create a diversion in the Western Mediterranean by stirring up Carthage to attack the Sicilian Greeks, and so prevent aid from that quarter reaching the mother country;