Having treated of the most important defensive means, we might perhaps be contented to leave the manner in which these means attach themselves to the plan of defence as a whole to be discussed in the last Book, which will be devoted to the Plan of a War; for from this every secondary scheme, either of attack or defence, emanates and is determined in its leading features; and moreover in many cases the plan of the war itself is nothing more than the plan of the attack or defence of the principal theatre of war. But we have not been able to commence with war as a whole, although in war more than in any other phase of human activity, the parts are shaped by the whole, imbued with and essentially altered by its character; instead of that, we have been obliged to make ourselves thoroughly acquainted, in the first instance, with each single subject as a separate part. Without this progress from the simple to the complex, a number of undefined ideas would have overpowered us, and the manifold phases of reciprocal action in particular would have constantly confused our conceptions. We shall therefore still continue to advance towards the whole by one step at a time; that is, we shall consider the defence of a theatre in itself, and look for the thread by which the subjects already treated of connect themselves with it.
The defensive, according to our conception, is nothing but the stronger form of combat. The preservation of our own forces and the destruction of those of the enemy—in a word, the victory—is the aim of this contest, but at the same time not its ultimate object.
That object is the preservation of our own political state and the subjugation of that of the enemy; or again, in one word, the desired