For instance, supposing five men are acting against three.  Five is more than three; and if the forces bear upon each other equally, the five will defeat the three.  But if the five are so badly handled that they get arranged in groups of two, two, and one, and if the three are so well handled that they strike swiftly at the first isolated two and defeat them, thus bringing up the next isolated two, who are in their turn defeated, the three will, at the end of the struggle, have only one to deal with, and the five will have been beaten by the three because, although five is larger than three, yet in the decisive time and place the three never have more than two against them.  It may be broadly laid down that the whole art of strategics consists for the man with superior numbers in bringing all his numbers to bear, and for the man with inferior numbers in attempting by his cunning to compel his larger opponent to fight in separated portions, and to be defeated in detail.

As in every art, the developments of these elementary first principles become, with variations of time and place, indefinitely numerous and various.  Upon their variety depends all the interest of military history.  And there is one method in particular whereby the lesser number may hope to pin and destroy the power of the greater upon which the French tradition relied, and the value of which modern German criticism refused.

Before going into that, however, we must appreciate the mental qualities which led to the acceptance of the theory upon the one side and its denial upon the other.

The fundamental contrast between the modern German military temper and the age-long traditions of the French service consists in this:  That the German theory is based upon a presumption of superiority, moral, material, and numerical.  The theory of the French—­as their national temperament and their Roman tradition compel them—­is based upon an envisagement of inferiority:  moral, material, and numerical.

There pervades the whole of the modern German strategic school this feeling:  “I shall win if I act and feel as though I was bound to win.”  There pervades the whole French school this sentiment:  “I have a better chance of winning if I am always chiefly considering how I should act if I found myself inferior in numbers, in material, and even in moral at any phase in the struggle, especially at its origins, but even also towards its close.”

This contrast appears in everything, from tactical details to the largest strategical conception, and from things so vague and general as the tone of military writings, to things so particular as the instruction of the conscript in his barrack-room.  The German soldier is taught—­or was—­that victory was inevitable, and would be as swift as it would be triumphant:  the French soldier was taught that he had before him a terrible and doubtful ordeal, one that would be long, one in which he ran a fearful