The Decisive Wars of History: A Study in Strategy |
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Common terms and phrases
advance advantage allies Amphissa Arras Athens attempt Austrian battle blockade blow Blücher Boeotia Bonaparte British Caesar calculation campaign Carthage Cassander cavalry command concentrated convergent Cromwell Cytinium Danube decisive defeat Deraa dislocation distraction divisions Dobruja east East Prussia eastwards economic effect enemy enemy's Epaminondas exploited Falkenhayn fall back flank Foch followed force fortresses France Frederick French army frontier gained German grand strategy guerrilla Hannibal Hannibal's indirect approach invasion Italy later left wing line of least line of retreat Ludendorff manoeuvre Mantua marched Marlborough Marne menace merely miles military mobility Moltke moral move Napoleon numbers object offensive operations opponent peace Peninsular War Persian Pompey position Prussia psychological rear reinforcements reserves resistance result Rhine route Russian Scipio Spain Spanish Sparta strategic barrage strategy of indirect strength success superior supply surprise tactical indirect approach theatre thereby troops Turkish turned victory Wellington Western Front westwards
Popular passages
Page 5 - You are old, Father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head — Do you think, at your age, it is right?" "In my youth," Father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.
Page 146 - Moltke reached a clearer, and wiser, definition in terming strategy 'the practical adaptation of the means placed at a general's disposal to the attainment of the object in view'.
Page 152 - Hence his true aim is not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its continuation by a battle is sure to achieve this.
Page 154 - ... consolidating it increases his resisting power. For in the case of an army it rolls the enemy back towards their reserves, supplies, and reinforcements, so that as the original front is driven back and worn thin, new layers are added to the back. At the most, it imposes a strain rather than producing a shock. Thus a move round the enemy's front against his rear has the aim not only of avoiding resistance on its way but in its issue. In the profoundest sense, it takes the line of least resistance....
Page 148 - While practically synonymous with the policy which guides the conduct of war, as distinct from the more fundamental policy which should govern its object, the term 'grand strategy' serves to bring out the sense of 'policy in execution'. For the role of grand strategy — higher strategy — is to coordinate and direct all the resources of a nation, or band of nations, towards the attainment of the political object of the war — the goal defined by fundamental policy.
Page 3 - More and more clearly has the fact emerged that a direct approach to one's mental object, or physical objective, along the " line of natural expectation " for the opponent, has ever tended to, and usually produced, negative results. The reason has been expressed graphically in Napoleon's dictum that " the moral is to the physical as three to one.
Page 196 - If the Straits between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea were not permanently closed to Entente traffic, all hopes of a successful course of the war would be very considerably diminished.
Page 151 - As regards the relation of strategy to tactics, while in execution the borderline is often shadowy, and it is difficult to decide exactly where a strategical movement ends and a tactical movement begins, yet in conception the two are distinct.
Page 206 - That navy was to win no Trafalgar, but it was to do more than any other factor towards winning the war for the Allies. For the navy was the instrument of the blockade, and as the fog of war disperses in the clearer light of these post-war years that blockade is seen to assume larger and larger proportions, to be more and more clearly the decisive agency in the struggle.
Page 155 - ... distract' in its literal sense of 'to draw asunder'. The purpose of this 'distraction' is to deprive the enemy of his freedom of action, and it should operate in both the physical and psychological spheres. In the physical, it should cause a distension of his forces or their diversion to unprofitable ends, so that they are too widely distributed, and too committed elsewhere, to have the power of interfering with one's own decisively intended move. In the psychological sphere, the same effect...