The double superiority of numbers at the decisive point is, therefore, the ideal of strategy. "The superiority of numbers is, therefore, to be regarded as the fundamental idea, always to be aimed at, before all, and as far as possible." If strategy has done this, then it has done its utmost duty. It is then for the tactician to make the most of this superiority thus provided by strategy, and win the victory. Strategy then repeats the operation with new combinations suited to the altered circumstances to win the next battle, and so on, till the hostile armed force is destroyed.
This superiority of numbers in battle as the first principle of strategy we require, on all occasions in season and out of season, to repeat and repeat. At present we have not the numbers we shall want. We must get them. Otherwise we are bound to be inferior in numbers, and "the best strategy" will be possible for our enemies and impossible for us. This rests with our statesmen.
The Decisive Point
If the double superiority, or as near the double as possible, at the decisive point is the ideal of strategy ... what is the decisive point?
Here we owe another debt to Clausewitz. Jomini, even after Napoleon, confuses us with three different sorts of decisive points in a theatre of war, but Clausewitz clears the air by asserting only one.
"But whatever may be the central point of the enemy's power against which we are to direct our ultimate operations, still the conquest and destruction of his army is the surest commencement and, in all cases, the most essential."[45]
Here we have it in a nutshell; wherever the enemy's main force is THERE is the decisive point, against which we must concentrate ALL our forces.
"There are," said Napoleon, "many good generals in Europe, but they see too many things at one time. As for me, I see only one thing, the enemy's chief army, and I concentrate all my efforts to destroy it."
The Simultaneous Use of all the Forces
"The rule," says Clausewitz, "which we have been endeavouring to set forth is, therefore, that all the forces which are available and destined for a strategic object should be simultaneously applied to it. And this application will be all the more complete the more everything is compressed into one act and one moment."[46] This he calls "the law of the simultaneous employment of the forces in strategy."[47] "In strategy we can never employ too many forces."[48] "What can be looked upon in tactics as an excess of force must be regarded in strategy as a means of giving expansion to success." "No troops should be kept back as a strategic reserve," but every available man hurried up to the first battlefield, fresh levies being meanwhile formed in rear. As an instance of what not to do, Prussia, in 1806, kept back 45,000 men in Brandenburg and East Prussia; they might, if present at Jena, have turned defeat into victory, but they were useless afterwards.[49] A fault so often made may be made again.