It sounds odd, but everyone who is familiar with this aspect of warfare will agree that it takes more strength of will to make an important decision in strategy than in tactics. In the latter, one is carried away by the pressures of the moment, caught up in a maelstrom where resistance would be fatal, and, suppressing incipient scruples, one presses boldly on. In strategy, the pace is much slower. There is ample room for apprehensions, one's own and those of others; for objections and remonstrations and, in consequence, for premature regrets. In a tactical situation one is able to see at least half the problem with the naked eye, whereas in strategy everything has to be guessed at and presumed. Conviction is therefore weaker. Consequently most generals, when they ought to act, are paralyzed by unnecessary doubts. 

As head of a small state resembling other states in most respects, and distinguished from them only by the efficiency of some branches of its administration, Frederick could not be an Alexander. Had he acted like Charles XII, he too would have ended in disaster. His whole conduct of war, therefore, shows an element of restrained strength, which was always in balance, never lacking in vigor, rising to remarkable heights in moments of crisis, but immediately afterward reverting to a state of calm oscillation, always ready to adjust to the smallest shift in the political situation. Neither vanity, ambition, nor vindictiveness could move him from this course; and it was this course alone that brought him success. 

How little these few words can do to appreciate that characteristic of the great general! One only has to examine carefully the causes and the miraculous outcome of this struggle to realize that it was only the King's acute intelligence that led him safely through all hazards. 

This is the characteristic we admire in all his campaigns, but especially in the campaign of 1760. At no other time was he able to hold off such a superior enemy at so little cost. 

The other aspect to be admired concerns the difficulties of execution. Maneuvers designed to turn a flank are easily planned. It is equally easy to conceive a plan for keeping a small force concentrated so that it can meet a scattered enemy on equal terms at any point, and to multiply its strength by rapid movement. There is nothing admirable about the ideas themselves. Faced with such simple concepts, we have to admit that they are simple. 

But let a general try to imitate Frederick! After many years eye-witnesses still wrote about the risk, indeed the imprudence, of the King's positions; and there can be no doubt that the danger appeared three times as threatening at the time as afterward. 

It was the same with the marches undertaken under the eyes, frequently under the very guns, of the enemy. Frederickchose these positions and made these marches, confident in the knowledge that Daun's methods, his 179 dispositions, his sense of responsibility and his character would make such maneuvers risky but not reckless. But it required the King's boldness, resolution, and strength of will to see things in this way, and not to be confused and intimidated by the danger that was still being talked and written about thirty years later. Few generals in such a situation would have believed such simple means of strategy to be feasible.

Another difficulty of execution lay in the fact that throughout this campaign the King's army was constantly on the move. Twice, in early July and early August, it followed Daun while itself pursued by Lacy, from the Elbe into Silesia over wretched country roads. The army had to be ready for battle at any time, and its marches had to be organized with a degree of ingenuity that required a proportionate amount of exertion. Though the army was accompanied, and delayed, by thousands of wagons, it was always short of supplies. For a week before the battle of Liegnitz in Silesia, the troops marched day and night, alternatively deploying and withdrawing along the enemy's front. This cost enormous exertions and great hardship. 

Could all this be done without subjecting the military machine to serious friction? Is a general, by sheer force of intellect, able to produce such mobility with the ease of a surveyor manipulating an astrolabe? Are the generals and the supreme commander not moved by the sight of the misery suffered by their pitiful, hungry, and thirsty comrades in arms? Are complaints and misgivings about such conditions not reported to the high command? Would an ordinary man dare to ask for such sacrifices, and would these not automatically lower the morale of the troops, corrupt their discipline, in short undermine their fighting spirit unless an overwhelming belief in the greatness and infallibility of their commander outweighed all other considerations? It is this which commands our respect; it is these miracles of execution that we have to admire. But to appreciate all this in full measure one has to have had a taste of it through actual experience. Those who know war only from books or the parade-ground cannot recognize the existence of these impediments to action, and so we must ask them to accept on faith what they lack in experience. 

We have used the example of Frederick to bring our train of thought into focus. In conclusion, we would point out that in our exposition of strategy we shall describe those material and intellectual factors that seem to us to be the most significant. We shall proceed from the simple to the complex, and conclude with the unifying structure of the entire military activity with the plan of campaign. 

In itself, the deployment of forces at a certain point merely makes an engagement possible; it does not necessarily take place. Should one treat is possibility as a reality, as an actual occurrence? Certainly. It becomes al because of its consequences, and consequences of some kind will always allow. 

If troops are sent to cut off a retreating enemy and he thereupon surrenders without further fight, his decision is caused solely by the threat of a fight posed by those troops. 

If part of our army occupies an undefended enemy province and thus denies the enemy substantial increments to his strength, the factor making it possible for our force to hold the province is the engagement that the enemy must expect to fight if he endeavors to retake it. 

In both cases results have been produced by the mere possibility of an engagement; the possibility has acquired reality. But let us suppose that in each case the enemy had brought superior forces against our troops, causing them to abandon their goal without fighting. This would mean that we had fallen short of our objective; but still the engagement that we offered the enemy was not without effect-it did draw off his forces. Even if the whole enterprise leaves us worse off than before, we cannot say that no effects resulted from using troops in this way, by producing the possibility of an I engagement; the effects were similar to those of a lost engagement. This shows that the destruction of the enemy's forces and the overthrow r of the enemy's power can be accomplished only as the result of an engagement, no matter whether it really took place or was merely offered but not accepted. 
 
 

These results, moreover, are of two kinds: direct and indirect. They are indirect if other things intrude and become the object of the engagement-things which cannot in themselves be considered to involve the destruction of the enemy's forces, but which lead up to it. They may do so by a circutaitous route, but are all the more powerful for that. The possession of provinces, cities, fortresses, roads, bridges, munitions dumps, etc., may be the immediate object of an engagement, but can never be the final one. Such acquisitions should always be regarded merely as means of gaining greater superiority, so that in the end we are able to offer an engagement to the enemy when he is in no position to accept it. These actions should be considered as intermediate links, as steps leading to the operative principle, never as the operative principle itself. 

 EXAMPLES: