most cases, rest satisfied that the offensive will do him the honour to seek him out.—If the offensive is obliged to advance with his forces divided, which is often unavoidable on account of subsistence, then plainly the defensive has the advantage on his side of being able to fall in force upon a fraction of the enemy.
Attacks in flank and rear, which in strategy mean on the sides and reverse of the theatre of war, are of a very different nature to attacks so called in tactics.
1st. There is no bringing the enemy under two fires, because we cannot fire from one end of a theatre of war to the other.
2nd. The apprehension of losing the line of retreat is very much less, for the spaces in strategy are so great that they cannot be barred as in tactics.
3rd. In strategy, on account of the extent of space embraced, the efficacy of interior, that is of shorter lines, is much greater, and this forms a great safeguard against attacks from several directions.
4th. A new principle makes its appearance in the sensibility, which is felt as to lines of communication, that is in the effect which is produced by merely interrupting them.
Now it confessedly lies in the nature of things, that on account of the greater spaces in strategy, the enveloping attack, or the attack from several sides, as a rule is only possible for the side which has the initiative, that is the offensive, and that the defensive is not in a condition, as he is in tactics, in the course of the action, to turn the tables on the enemy by surrounding him, because he has it not in his power either to draw up his forces with the necessary depth relatively, or to conceal them sufficiently: but then, of what use is the facility of enveloping to the offensive, if its advantages are not forthcoming? We could not therefore bring forward the enveloping attack in strategy as a principle of victory in general, if its