certain cases can use to assist the other means at his command, are to be supposed just as well on the side of the defensive as of the offensive; at least those which are more especially in favour of the attack, such as confusion and disorder in the enemy’s ranks—do not generally appear until after the decisive stroke is given, and consequently seldom contribute beforehand to produce that result.
We think we have now sufficiently established our proposition, that the defensive is a stronger form of war than the offensive; but there still remains to be mentioned one small factor hitherto unnoticed. It is the high spirit, the feeling of superiority in an army which springs from a consciousness of belonging to the attacking party. The thing is in itself a fact, but the feeling soon merges into the more general and more powerful one which is imparted by victory or defeat, by the talent or incapacity of the general.