Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/375

Rh STRATEGY.] WAR 351 army to which it is opposed, if obliged by ill-success in action to retreat, falls securely back upon fresh supplies, and suffers only in proportion to the extent of its actual defeat on the battle-field. Thus the aims of strategy directed against the actual condition of the armies of our time are twofold, first, to break up the organic force of the opposing army by dealing in concentrated force with fractions of the enemy, and secondly, to threaten, and if possible to destroy, the enemy s connexion with the sources from which he draws his supplies. Failing either of these opportunities, a superior army may nevertheless endeavour to force on a decisive action in order to make its superiority tell. In other words, in that case the aim of strategy becomes that of securing a decided tactical advantage. It might be supposed, since these facts are known to all men who are at all likely to be placed in the command of armies in the field, that opportunities would rarely occur for delivering blows of the kind described. In fact, the difficulties in the arrangements for the movement of armies are so great, and the difficulties in obtaining information of what is going on in a theatre of war are so serious, that such chances are presented in almost every campaign. Thus in the 1870 campaign the Germans, after first breaking up compara tively small fractions of the French army at Weissenburg, Worth, and Spicheren, succeeded in separating one great mass of the French army under Bazaine from the other under MacMahon, and in separately crushing them. In the 1877-78 campaign the Russian army in Asia Minor advanced westwards past Kars against Erzeroum, driving Mouktar Pasha back before it ; but the arrival of a fresh hostile force from the neighbourhood of Van in the south, which, marching northwards upon Bayazid, struck directly upon the line of communications of the Ilussian army, produced an immediate collapse of the whole movement. The Russian army was obliged to fall back at once. Similarly, in Europe the Russian forces advancing from Tirnova had pushed their advance across the Balkans towards Adrianople, when the arrival of Osman Pasha s army, moving from Widdin upon Plevna at right angles to their line of communications, caused the whole movement to collapse, and obliged the Russians to turn their attention to the force which thus threatened them. This movement of Osman Pasha s illustrates very happily several points in the relation between strategy and tactics. In the first place, Osman s move was obviously in its general character, in what we call its strategical aspect, an offensive one directed against the most vital point of the Russian field of campaign, the bridge by which they had passed the Danube at Sistova. The threatening character of the position he took up obliged the Russians in some way to dispose of his force. Very unwisely they engaged in a series of ill-prepared and ill- directed attacks upon him. The result was so com pletely to shatter their forces that, had Osman advanced, after his final success, against Sistova, the small Russian remnant between him and the Danube must have been driven into the river, and in all probability all the Russian forces which had crossed it would have been destroyed. But, as he remained obstinately within his field fortress at Plevna, the Russians in their turn gradually succeeded in cutting off his communications, and in obliging him to surrender that which they could not take. Thus it is clear how a site for an army may be so chosen as, from its strategical character, to induce if not to compel an enemy to attack it. It is also clear that an army fighting in a well-chosen and well-fortified position, acting on the defensive, may inflict serious defeat upon forces superior to it in numbers. Finally, it is clear that such an army will, in the long run, lose all the advantages of its success, if it is not able to advance and to act offensively when the opportunity is presented to it. It has been convenient to illustrate these points from the most recent campaign in Europe, but they had been already deduced and were fully understood long before that campaign had been entered on. They illustrate the way in which the experience of the past indicates what will happen in future war. The arrival of Osman Pasha at Plevna was a complete surprise to the Russians. Its disastrous effect for them was largely due to this cause. Apparently the same thing is true of the arrival of the Van forces at Bayazid. Yet, at the time, the existence of the Turkish forces both at Van and Plevna was known in London. The want of information at the Russian headquarters appears therefore to suggest the most extraordinary negligence on the part of the Russian staff. In any case, the vital effect upon a campaign of being able to procure the best information in any way obtainable can hardly be exaggerated. Cavalry being the arm employed to spread round an army in all directions, to gain information and to conceal the movements of the army, is on this account often justly called the strategical arm. In whatever way strategy is employed surprise and Secrecy concealment are essential to its success. On this account of P era &quot; it will continually happen, in selecting a line of operations or a scheme of campaign, that the most important point of all is to carry out just what an enemy does not expect. Very often successful campaigns, the method of which has been subsequently much criticized, have owed their suc cess to the fact that, from a nice calculation of time and distance, the successful general has seen that he could carry through an operation dangerous in itself but sure not to be the one expected by his opponent. For the same reason, in all the most brilliant and successful efforts of strategic skill, steps have been taken beforehand to carry out the preliminary movements of an army in such a way as to leave an enemy up to the last moment uncertain in what direction the blow would be struck. Usually also some special effort has been made to induce the enemy to believe that he would be attacked in some very different direction from that intended. One of the means by which this has been most successfully accomplished is the selection of the point of concentration prior to the opening of a campaign. The motives and causes for this &quot; concentration &quot; require, how ever, some explanation. It is much more easy to feed and supply an army which is distributed over a considerable area than one which is closely concentrated for the purposes of action. Furthermore, armies when moving along roads occupy a very great length. The head of the column is more or less distant from the rear in proportion to the number of troops, waggons, and animals that march by the same road. Hence it follows that the more roads an army can employ in its march the more easy will it be for its several parts to reach a required point at the same moment. Therefore, for facility of supply and for facility of movement, as long as an army is out of reach of an enemy, a considerable dispersion is advisable. But it is vitally necessary to an army entering on a campaign to be able to get all its parts together before there is any possibility of an enemy s attacking it. Otherwise it would be in the position of exposing some of its fragments to the danger of being separately attacked by superior forces of the enemy, and having their efficiency destroyed before they could be supported. Hence a concentration out of reach of an enemy s concentrated army is the pre liminary necessity of every campaign. Though it is nearly always to the advantage of a body of troops which comes in contact with a hostile force inferior to it in fighting power to fight with it and