- Reasons for marching against the enemy with a view to an offensive battle, may be as follows:—
(a) If we know that the enemy is advancing with his forces very much divided, and therefore we have reason to expect a victory, although we are, upon the whole, much weaker.
But such an advance on the part of the assailant is in itself very improbable, and consequently, unless we know of it upon certain information, the plan is not good; for to reckon upon it, and rest all our hopes on it through a mere supposition, and without sufficient motive, leads generally to a very dangerous situation. We do not, then, find things as we expected; we are obliged to give up the offensive battle, we are not prepared to fight on the defensive, we are obliged to commence with a retreat against our will, and leave almost everything to chance.
This is very much what occurred in the defence, conducted by the army under Dohna against the Russians, in the campaign of 1759, and which, under General Wedel, ended in the unfortunate battle of Züllichau.
This measure shortens matters so much that plan-makers are only too ready to propose it, without taking much trouble to inquire how far the hypothesis on which it rests is well founded.
(b) If we are generally in sufficient strength for battle, and—
(c) If a blundering, irresolute adversary specially invites an attack.
In this case the effect of surprise may be worth more than any assistance furnished by the ground through a good position. It is the real essence of good generalship thus to bring into play the power of the moral forces;—but theory can never say loud enough nor often enough there must be an objective foundation for these suppositions; without such foundation to be always talking of surprises and the superiority of novel or unusual