_“In Chess the soldiers are the men and the General is the mind
of the player.”--Emanuel Lasker._
* * * * *
_“It is neither riches nor armies that make a nation formidable;
but the courage and genius of the Commander-in-Chief.”--Frederic
the Great._
* * * * *
_“Ho! Ye Macedonians! Because together we have conquered the
World, think ye to give law to the blood of Achilles and to
withstand the dictates of the Son of Jupiter?_
_“Choose ye a new commander, draw yourselves up for battle; I
will lead against you those Persians whom ye so despise, and if
you are victorious, by Mehercule, I will do everything that you
desire.”--Alexander the Great._
* * * * *
_“It is I and I alone, who give you your glory and your
success.”--Napoleon._
* * * * *
_“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, My
ways, saith the Lord.”--Holy Bible._
_By authority indisputable, the ex-cathedra dictum of the greatest of the
Great Captains, we have been informed that the higher processes of the
military system, eternally will remain unchanged._
_As a necessary corollary, it follows that these processes always have
been and always will be comprehended and employed by every great Captain._
_Equally, it is self-evident, that capability to comprehend these higher
processes, united with ability properly to utilize them to win battles
and campaigns, constitutes genius for Warfare._
Moreover, we are further informed by the same unimpeachable authority,
that so irresistible is genius for warfare, that united to courage, it
is formidable beyond the united financial and military resources of the
State. In corroboration of this, we have the testimony of well-qualified
judges. Says the Count de Saxe:
“Unless a man is born with talent for war and this talent is brought
to perfection, it is impossible for him to be more than an indifferent
general.”
* * * * *
In these days, more or less degenerate from the soldierly standpoint, the
fantastic sophistries of Helvetius have vogue, and most people believe
book-learning to be all-in-all.
Many are so weak-minded, as really to believe, that because born in
the Twentieth Century, they necessarily are the repository of all
the virtues, and particularly of all the knowledge acquired by their
ancestors from remotest generations. Few seem to understand that the
child, even of ultra-modern conditions, is born just as ignorant and
often invincibly so, as were the sons of Ham, Shem and Japhet, and most
appear to be unaware, that:
_Only by intelligent reflection upon their own experience and upon the
experiences of others, can one acquire knowledge._
The triviality of crowding the memory with things that may or may not be
true, is the merest mimicry of education.
Real education is nothing more than the fruit of experience; and he who
acts in conformity to such knowledge, alone is wise. Thus to act, implies
ability to comprehend. But there are those in whom capability is limited;
hence, all may not be wise who wish to be so, and these necessarily
remain through life very much as they are born.
The use of knowledge would be infinitely more certain, if our
understanding of its accurate application were as extensive as our needs
require. We have only a few ideas of the attributes of matter and of the
laws of mechanics, out of an infinite number of secrets which mankind
never can hope to discover. This renders our feeble adaptations in
practice of the knowledge we possess, oftimes inadequate for the result
we desire; and it seems obvious that if Nature had intended man to attain
to the superlative, she would have endowed him with intelligence and have
communicated to him information, infinitely superior to that we possess.
The universal blunder of mankind arises from an hallucination that all
minds are created equal; and that by mere book-learning, _i.e._, simply
by memorizing what somebody says are facts it is possible for any man to
attain to superior and even to superlative ability.
* * * * *
Such profoundly, but utterly mis-educated people, not unnaturally may
inquire, by what right speaks the eminent warrior previously quoted.
These properly may be informed in the words of Frederic the Great:
“_The Count de Saxe is the hero of the bravest action ever done
by man._” viz.,
A great battle was raging.
Within a magnificent Pavilion in the centre of the French camp, the King,
the nobility and the high Ecclesiastics of the realm were grouped about a
plain iron cot.
Prone upon this cot, wasted by disease, lay the Count de Saxe, in that
stupor which often precedes and usually presages dissolution.
The last rites of the Church had been administered, and the assemblage in
silence and apprehension, awaited the approach of a victorious enemy and
the final gasp of a general who had never lost a battle.
The din of strife drawing nearer, penetrated the coma which enshrouded
the soul of the great Field-Marshal.
Saxe opened his eyes. His experienced ear told him that his army, routed
and disordered, was flying before an exultant enemy.
The giant whose pastime it was to tear horseshoes in twain with his bare
hands and to twist nails into corkscrews with his fingers, staggered to
his feet, hoarsely articulating fierce and mandatory ejaculations.
Hastily clothed, the Count de Saxe was placed in a litter and borne out
of his pavilion into that chaos of ruin and carnage which invariably
accompanies a lost battle. Around him, behind and in front, swarmed his
broken battalions and disorganized squadrons; while in pursuit advanced
majestically in solid column, the triumphant English.
Saxe demanded his horse and armor.
Clad in iron and supported in the saddle on either hand, this modern
Achilles galloped to the front of his army; then, at the head of the
Scotch Guards, the Irish Brigade, and French Household troops, Saxe in
person, led that series of terrific hand-to-hand onslaughts which drove
the English army from the field of battle, and gained the famous victory
of Fontenoy.
* * * * *
“Furthermore,” declares this illustrious Generalissimo of Louis XIV;
“_It is possible to make war without trusting anything to
accident; this is the highest point of skill and perfection
within the province of a general._”
“Most men,” writes Vergetius, “imagine that strength and courage are
sufficient to secure victory. Such are ignorant that when they exist,
stratagem vanquishes strength and skill overcomes courage.”
In his celebrated work, _Institutorum Rei Militaris_, that source from
whence all writers derive their best knowledge of the military methods
of the ancients; and by means of which, he strove to revive in his
degenerate countrymen that intelligent valor which distinguishes their
great ancestors--the famous Roman reiterates this solemn warning:
“Victory in war depends not on numbers, nor on courage; skill and
discipline only, can ensure it.”
The emphasis thus laid by these great warriors on genius for warfare is
still further accentuated by men whose dicta few will dispute, viz.,
“The understanding of the Commander,” says Frederic the Great,
“has more influence on the outcome of the battle or campaign,
than has the prowess of his troops.”
Says Napoleon:
“The general is the head, the whole of an army. It was not the
Roman army that subjugated Gaul, it was Caesar; nor was it the
Carthagenian army that made the Republic tremble to the gates
of Rome, it was Hannibal; it was not the Macedonian army which
reached the Indus, it was Alexander; it was not the French army
which carried war to the Weser and the Inn, it was Turenne; it
was not the Prussian army which for seven years defended Prussia
against the three strongest powers of Europe, it was Frederic the
Great.”
From such opinions by men whose careers evince superlative knowledge of
the subject, it is clear, that:
I. _There exists a system of Strategetics common to all great
commanders_;
II. _That understanding of this system is shown by the skillful
use of it_;