_“To become a good General one well may begin by playing at
Chess.”--Prince de Condé._
_Except the theatre of actual Warfare, no spot known to man furnishes
such facilities for the practice of combined strategy, tactics and
logistics as does the surface of the Chess-board._
To those familiar with the Science of Strategetics, it needs no proof
that ability to play a good game at Chess, indicates the possession of
faculties common to all great military commanders.
At a certain point, the talent of Morphy for Chess-play and the talent of
Napoleon for Warfare become merged; and beyond this point, their methods
of thought and of action are identical.
Opportunity to display, and in most spectacular fashion, their singular
and superlative genius, was not wanting to either.
But unlike the ferocious Corsican, whose “only desire is to find myself
on the battlefield,” the greatest of all Masters at Chess, found in the
slaughter of his fellow-creatures no incentive sufficient to call forth
those unsurpassed strategetical powers, which recorded Chess-play shows
he possessed.
From this sameness of talent, common to the great Chess-player and the
great military commander, arises the practical utility of the Royal Game.
For by means of Chess-play, one may learn and practice in their highest
interpretation, mental and physical processes of paramount importance to
the community in time of extreme peril.
From such considerations and for the further reason that in a true
Republic all avenues to greatness are open to merit, scientific
Chess-play should be intelligently and systematically taught in the
public schools. “A people desirous of liberty will entrust its defense to
none but themselves,” says the Roman maxim, and in crises, woe to that
land where the ruler is but a child in arms, and where the disinclination
of the people towards its exercise is equalled by their unfamiliarity
with the military habit.
Despite the ethics of civilization, the optimism of the “unco guid” and
the unction even of our own heart’s deep desire, there seems no doubt but
that each generation will have its wars.
“_Pax perpetua_,” writes Leibnitz, “exists only in God’s acre.” Here on
earth, if seems that men forever will continue to murder one another for
various reasons; all of which, in the future as in the past, will be good
and sufficient to the fellow who wins; and this by processes differing
only in neatness and despatch.
Whether this condition is commendable or not, depends upon the point
of view. Being irremediable, such phase of the subject hardly is worth
discussing. However, the following by a well-qualified observer, is
interesting and undeniably an intelligent opinion, viz.:
From the essay on “WAR,” read by Prof. John Ruskin at Woolwich, (Eng.)
Military Academy.
“All the pure and noble arts of Peace are founded on War; no great Art
ever rose on Earth, but among a nation of soldiers.
“As Peace is established or extended the Arts decline. They reach an
unparalleled pitch of costliness, but lose their life, enlist themselves
at last on the side of luxury and corruption and among wholly tranquil
nations, wither utterly away.
“So when I tell you that War is the foundation of all the Arts, I mean
also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of
men.
“It was very strange for me to discover this and very dreadful--but I saw
it to be quite an undeniable fact.
“We talk of Peace and Learning, of Peace and Plenty, of Peace and
Civilization; but I found that those were not the words which the Muse of
History coupled together; but that on her lips the words were--Peace and
Selfishness, Peace and Sensuality, Peace and Corruption, Peace and Death.
“I found in brief, that all great nations learned their truth of word and
strength of thought in War; that they were nourished in War and wasted in
Peace; taught by War and deceived by Peace; trained by War and betrayed
by Peace; that they were born in War and expired in Peace.
“Creative, or foundational War, is that in which the natural
restlessness and love of contest among men, is disciplined into modes of
beautiful--though it may be fatal--play; in which the natural ambition
and love of Power is chastened into aggressive conquest of surrounding
evil; and in which the natural instincts of self-defence are sanctified
by the nobleness of the institutions which they are appointed to defend.
“For such War as this all men are born; in such War as this any man may
happily die; and forth from such War as this have arisen throughout the
Ages, all the highest sanctities and virtues of Humanity.”
* * * * *
That our own country may escape the common lot of nations, is something
not even to be hoped.
Defended by four almost bottomless ditches, nevertheless it is a
certainty that coming generations of Americans must stand in arms, not
only to repel foreign aggression, but to uphold even the integrity of the
Great Republic; and with the hand-writing of coming events flaming on the
wall, posterity well may heed the solemn warning of by-gone centuries:
“_As man is superior to the brute, so is a trained and educated soldier
superior to the merely brave, numerous and enthusiastic._”
* * * * *
_“The evils to be apprehended from a standing army are remote and in
my judgment, not to be dreaded; but the consequence of lacking one is
inevitable ruin.”--Washington._