If from these different examples we seek for a conclusion as to the efficacy of this kind of attack, then only the two first can be put in comparison with a battle gained. But the corps were only small, and the want of outposts in the system of war in those days was a circumstance greatly in favour of these enterprises. Although the four other cases must be reckoned completely successful enterprises, it is plain that not one of them is to be compared with a battle gained as respects its result. The general result could not have taken place in any of them except with an adversary weak in will and character, and therefore it did not take place at all in the case of 1741.
In 1806 the Prussian army contemplated surprising the French in this manner in Franconia. The case promised well for a satisfactory result. Buonaparte was not present, the French corps were in widely extended cantonments; under these circumstances, the Prussian army, acting with great resolution and activity, might very well reckon on driving the French back across the Rhine, with more or less loss. But this was also all; if they reckoned upon more, for instance, on following up their advantages beyond the Rhine, or on gaining such a moral ascendancy, that the French would not again venture to appear on the right bank of the river in the same campaign, such an expectation had no sufficient grounds whatever.
In the beginning of August, 1812, the Russians from Smolensk meditated falling upon the cantonments of the French when Napoleon halted his army in the neighbourhood of Witepsk. But they wanted courage to carry out the enterprise; and it was fortunate for them they did; for as the French commander with his centre was not only more than twice the strength of their centre, but also in himself the most resolute commander that ever lived, as further, the loss of a few miles of ground would have decided nothing, and there was no natural obstacle in any feature of the country near enough up to which they might pursue their success, and by that means, in some measure make it certain,