a rising ground, or a bridge, &c., then properly the occupation of any such locality is the real object, the destruction of the enemy’s armed force which takes place only the means or secondary matter.  If the enemy can be driven away merely by a demonstration, the object is attained all the same; but this hill or bridge is, in point of fact, only required as a means of increasing the gross amount of loss inflicted on the enemy’s armed force.  It is the case on the field of battle, much more must it be so on the whole theatre of war, where not only one Army is opposed to another, but one State, one Nation, one whole country to another.  Here the number of possible relations, and consequently possible combinations, is much greater, the diversity of measures increased, and by the gradation of objects, each subordinate to another the first means employed is further apart from the ultimate object.

It is therefore for many reasons possible that the object of a combat is not the destruction of the enemy’s force, that is, of the force immediately opposed to us, but that this only appears as a means.  But in all such cases it is no longer a question of complete destruction, for the combat is here nothing else but a measure of strength—­has in itself no value except only that of the present result, that is, of its decision.

But a measuring of strength may be effected in cases where the opposing sides are very unequal by a mere comparative estimate.  In such cases no fighting will take place, and the weaker will immediately give way.

If the object of a combat is not always the destruction of the enemy’s forces therein engaged—­and if its object can often be attained as well without the combat taking place at all, by merely making a resolve to fight, and by the circumstances to which this resolution gives rise—­then that explains how a whole campaign may be carried on with great activity without the actual combat playing any notable part in it.

That this may be so military history proves by a hundred examples.  How many of those cases can be justified, that is, without involving a contradiction and whether some of the celebrities who rose out of them would stand criticism, we shall leave undecided, for all we have to do with the matter is to show the possibility of such a course of events in War.

We have only one means in War—­the battle; but this means, by the infinite variety of paths in which it may be applied, leads us into all the different ways which the multiplicity of objects allows of, so that we seem to have gained nothing; but that is not the case, for from this unity of means proceeds a thread which assists the study of the subject, as it runs through the whole web of military activity and holds it together.

But we have considered the destruction of the enemy’s force as one of the objects which maybe pursued in War, and left undecided what relative importance should be given to it amongst other objects.  In certain cases it will depend on circumstances, and as a general question we have left its value undetermined.  We are once more brought back upon it, and we shall be able to get an insight into the value which must necessarily be accorded to it.