Clausewitz, at any rate, as General Von Caemmerer has pointed out,[7] was far too practical a soldier to commit himself to so abstract a proposition in all its modern crudity.  If it were true, it would never be possible for a weaker Power to make successful war against a stronger one in any cause whatever—­a conclusion abundantly refuted by historical experience.  That the higher form like the offensive is the more drastic is certain, if conditions are suitable for its use, but Clausewitz, it must be remembered, distinctly lays it down that such conditions presuppose in the belligerent employing the higher form a great physical or moral superiority or a great spirit of enterprise—­an innate propensity for extreme hazards.  Jomini did not go even so far as this.  He certainly would have ruled out “an innate propensity to extreme hazards,” for in his judgment it was this innate propensity which led Napoleon to abuse the higher form to his own undoing.  So entirely indeed does history, no less than theory, fail to support the idea of the one answer, that it would seem that even in Germany a reaction to Clausewitz’s real teaching is beginning.  In expounding it Von Caemmerer says, “Since the majority of the most prominent military authors of our time uphold the principle that in war our efforts must always be directed to their utmost limits and that a deliberate employment of lower means betrays more or less weakness, I feel bound to declare that the wideness of Clausewitz’s views have inspired me with a high degree of admiration.”

  [7] Development of Strategical Science.

Now what Clausewitz held precisely was this—­that when the conditions are not favourable for the use of the higher form, the seizure of a small part of the enemy’s territory may be regarded as a correct alternative to destroying his armed forces.  But he clearly regards this form of war only as a make-shift.  His purely continental outlook prevented his considering that there might be cases where the object was actually so limited in character that the lower form of war would be at once the more effective and the more economical to use.  In continental warfare, as we have seen, such cases can hardly occur, but they tend to declare themselves strongly when the maritime factor is introduced to any serious extent.

The tendency of British warfare to take the lower or limited form has always been as clearly marked as is the opposite tendency on the Continent.  To attribute such a tendency, as is sometimes the fashion, to an inherent lack of warlike spirit is sufficiently contradicted by the results it has achieved.  There is no reason indeed to put it down to anything but a sagacious instinct for the kind of war that best accords with the conditions of our existence.  So strong has this instinct been that it has led us usually to apply the lower form not only where the object of the war was a well-defined territorial one, but to cases in which its correctness was less obvious.  As has been explained in the last chapter, we have applied it, and applied it on the whole with success, when we have been acting in concert with continental allies for an unlimited object—­where, that is, the common object has been the overthrow of the common enemy.