Читать книгу The Art of War - baron de Antoine Henri Jomini - Страница 31

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We have already explained what we understand by this title. It embraces the moral combinations relating to the operations of armies. If the political considerations which we have just discussed be also moral, there are others which influence, in a certain degree, the conduct of a war, which belong neither to diplomacy, strategy, nor tactics. We include these under the head of Military Policy.

Military policy may be said to embrace all the combinations of any projected war, except those relating to the diplomatic art and strategy; and, as their number is considerable, a separate article cannot be assigned to each without enlarging too much the limits of this work, and without deviating from my intention—which is, not to give a treatise on theses subjects, but to point out their relations to military operations.

Indeed, in this class we may place the passions of the nation to be fought, their military system, their immediate means and their reserves, their financial resources, the attachment they bear to their government or their institutions, the character of the executive, the characters and military abilities of the commanders of their armies, the influence of cabinet councils or councils of war at the capital upon their operations, the system of war in favor with their staff, the established force of the state and its armament, the military geography and statistics of the state which is to be invaded, and, finally, the resources and obstacles of every kind likely to be met with, all of which are included neither in diplomacy nor in strategy.

There are no fixed rules on such subjects, except that the government should neglect nothing in obtaining a knowledge of these details, and that it is indispensable to take them into consideration in the arrangement of all plans. We propose to sketch the principal points which ought to guide in this sort of combinations.