Читать книгу Maxims of War - The Officer's Manual - Страница 6

MAXIM III.

Table of Contents

An army which undertakes the conquest of a country, has its two wings resting either upon neutral territories, or upon great natural obstacles, such as rivers or chains of mountains. It happens in some cases that only one wing is so supported; and in others that both are exposed.

In the first instance cited, viz., where both wings are protected, a general has only to protect his front from being penetrated. In the second, where one wing only is supported, he should rest upon the supported wing. In the third, where both wings are exposed, he should depend upon a central formation, and never allow the different corps under his command to depart from this: for if it be difficult to contend with the disadvantage of having two flanks exposed, the inconvenience is doubled by having four, trebled if there be six—that is to say, if the army is divided into two or three different corps. In the first instance, then, as above quoted, the line of operation may rest indifferently on the right or on the left. In the second, it should be directed toward the wing in support. In the third, it should be perpendicular to the centre of the army’s line of march. But in all these cases it is necessary, at a distance of every five or six days march, to have a strong post or an entrenched position upon the line of operation, in order to collect military stores and provisions, to organize convoys, to form of it a centre of movement, and establish a point of defence to shorten the line of operation of the army.

NOTE.

These general principles in the art of war were entirely unknown, or lost sight of, in the middle ages. The crusaders in their incursions into Palestine appear to have had no object but to fight and to conquer, so little pains did they take to profit by their victories. Hence, innumerable armies perished in Syria, without any other advantage than that derived from the momentary success obtained by superior numbers.

It was by the neglect of these principles, also, that Charles XII, abandoning his line of operation and all communication with Sweden, threw himself into the Ukraine, and lost the greater part of his army by the fatigue of a winter campaign in a barren country destitute of resources.

Defeated at Pultawa, he was obliged to seek refuge in Turkey, after crossing the Nieper with the remains of his army, diminished to little more than one thousand men.

Gustavus Adolphus was the first who brought back the art of war to its true principles. His operations in Germany were bold, rapid, and well executed. He made success at all times conducive to future security, and established his line of operation so as to prevent the possibility of any interruption in his communications with Sweden. His campaigns form a new era in the art of war.