"This is the way in which our view is to be understood; then, on the one hand, it will not come short of the reality, and on the other it will direct the attention of the leader of a combat (be it great or small, partial or general) to giving each of the two acts of activity its due share, so that there may be neither precipitation nor negligence.
"Precipitation there will be if space and time are not allowed for the destructive act. Negligence in general there will be if a complete decision does not take place, either from want of moral courage or from a wrong view of the situation."[64]
Duration of the Combat
"Even the resistance of an ordinary division of 8,000 or 10,000 men of all arms, even if opposed to an enemy considerably superior in numbers, will last several hours, if the advantages of country are not too preponderating. And if the enemy is only a little or not at all superior in numbers, the combat will last half a day. A corps of three or four divisions will prolong it to double that time; an army of 80,000 or 100,000 men to three or four times." "These calculations are the result of experience."[65]
As General von Caemmerer points out, if these calculations were adhered to in present-day German manœuvres, as they are now in all war games, tactical exercises, and staff rides, the dangerous dualism of their training, the difference between theory and manœuvre practice, would cease.
Attack and Defence
I have left to the last the consideration of three or four disputed points in Clausewitz. In considering these I shall quote a good deal from General von Caemmerer's "Development of Strategical Science," as in such matters it is best to quote the most recent authors of established reputation.
The most important of these, and the most disputed, is Clausewitz's famous dictum that "the defensive is the stronger form of making war." "The defence is the stronger form of war with a negative object; the attack is the weaker form with a positive object."[66]
General von Caemmerer says, "It is strange, we Germans look upon Clausewitz as indisputably the deepest and acutest thinker upon the subject of war; the beneficial effect of his intellectual labours is universally recognized and highly appreciated; but the more or less keen opposition against this sentence never ceases. And yet that sentence can as little be cut out of his work 'On War' as the heart out of a man. Our most distinguished and prominent military writers are here at variance with Clausewitz.
"Now, of course, I do not here propose to go into such a controversy. I only wish to point out that Clausewitz, in saying this, only meant the defensive-offensive, the form in which he always regards it, both strategically and technically, in oft-repeated explanations all through his works. For instance—