b. Points belonging to the defender which are of vital importance to him and can be threatened by a diversion.
c. Discontented subjects of the same.
d. A rich province which can supply a considerable quantity of munitions of war.
If only these diversions are undertaken, which, when tested by these different considerations, promise results, it will be found that an opportunity of making a diversion does not offer frequently.
But now comes another important point. Every diversion brings war into a district into which the war would not otherwise have penetrated: for that reason it will always be the means, more or less, of calling forth military forces which would otherwise have continued in abeyance, this will be done in a way which will be very sensibly felt if the enemy has any organised militia, and means of arming the nation at large. It is quite in the natural order of things, and amply shown by experience, that if a district is suddenly threatened by an enemy’s force, and nothing has been prepared beforehand for its defence, all the most efficient official functionaries immediately lay hold of and set in motion every extraordinary means that can be imagined, in order to ward off the impending danger. Thus, new powers of resistance spring up, such as are next to a people’s war, and may easily excite one.
This is a point which should be kept well in view in every diversion, in order that we may not dig our own graves.
The expeditions to North Holland in 1799, and to Walcheren in 1809, regarded as diversions, are only to be justified in so far that there was no other way of employing the English troops; but there is no doubt that the sum total of the means of resistance of the French was thereby increased, and every landing in France, would have just the same effect.