cases should therefore be carefully studied, that we may not lose in the last the cause which we have gained in the former ones, and be condemned in costs.
In estimating the strength of forces, and that which may be effected by them, the idea very often suggests itself to look upon time by a dynamic analogy as a factor of forces, and to assume accordingly that half efforts, or half the number of forces would accomplish in two years what could only be effected in one year by the whole force united. This view which lies at the bottom of military schemes, sometimes clearly, sometimes less plainly, is completely wrong.
An operation in war, like everything else upon earth, requires its time; as a matter of course we cannot walk from Wilna to Moscow in eight days; but there is no trace to be found in war of any reciprocal action between time and force, such as takes place in dynamics.