A military dictionary

by William Duane

Offensive war must be long meditated on in private before it be openly entered upon; when the success will depend upon two essential points: that the plan be justly formed, and the enterprize conducted with order. It should be well and maturely considered and digested, and with the greatest secrecy, lest, however able the leaders or council may be, some of the precautions necessary to be taken, be discovered. These precautions are infinite both at home and abroad.

Abroad, they consist in alliances and security not to be disturbed in the meditated expedition, foreign levies, and the buying up of warlike ammunition, as well to increase our own stores as to prevent the enemy from getting them.

The precautions at home, consist in providing for the security of our distant frontiers, levying new troops, or augmenting the old ones, with as little noise as possible; furnishing your magazines with ammunition; constructing carriages for artillery and provisions; buying up horses, which should be done as much as possible among your neighbors; both to prevent their furnishing the enemy, and to preserve your own for the cavalry and the particular equipages of the officers.

Defensive war, may be divided into three kinds. It is either a war sustained by a nation, which is suddenly attacked by another who is superior in troops and in means; or a nation makes this sort of war by choice on one side of its frontiers, while it carries on offensive war elsewhere; or it is a war become defensive by the loss of a battle.

A defensive war which a nation attacked by a superior enemy sustains, depends entirely upon the capacity of the general. His particular application should be, to chuse advantageous camps to stop the enemy, without, however, being obliged to fight him; to multiply small advantages; to harass and perplex the enemy in his foraging parties, and to oblige them to do it with great escorts; to attack their convoys; to render the passages of rivers or defiles as difficult to them as possible; to force them to keep together: if they want to attack a town, to throw in succors before it is invested; in short, in the beginning his chief aim should be, to acquire the enemy’s respect by his vigilance and activity, and by forcing him to be circumspect in his marches and manner of encampment, to gain time himself, and make the enemy lose it. An able general, carefully pursuing these maxims, will give courage to his soldiers, and to the inhabitants of the country; he gives time to his government to take proper precautions to resist the enemy who attacks him; and thus changes the nature of this disagreeable and vexatious kind of warfare.

The management of a defensive war requires more military judgment than that of an offensive one.

A war between equal powers, is that in which the neighboring states take no part, so long as the belligerent parties obtain no great advantage, the one over the other. This sort of war never should last long if you want to reap any advantages from it. As to its rules, they are entirely conformable to those already given; but we may look on it as a certain maxim in this sort of war, that the general who is the most active and penetrating, will ever in the end prevail over him, who possesses these qualities in a lesser degree; because, by his activity and penetration, he will multiply small advantages, till at last they procure him a decisive superiority. A general who is continually attentive to procure himself small advantages, ever obtains his end, which is to ruin the enemy’s army; in which case he changes the nature of the war, and makes it offensive; which should ever be the chief object of his prince.

Auxiliary War, is that in which a nation succors its neighbors, either in consequence of alliances or engagements entered into with them; or sometimes to prevent their falling under the power of an ambitious prince.

If it is in virtue of treaties, he observes them religiously, in furnishing the number of troops prescribed, and even offering to augment his quota, if required; or in making a diversion by attacking the common enemy, or its allies.

If it is to prevent a neighboring prince from being crushed by a power, who after this conquest may become dangerous to yourself, there are several measures to be taken for your own particular interest. One of the chief is, to exact from those you succor, the possession of some place in security, lest they make their peace without your knowlege, or to your prejudice.