In the last decennary of the past century, when that remarkable change in the art of war in Europe took place by which the best armies found that a part of their method of war had become utterly unserviceable, and events were brought about of a magnitude far beyond what any one had any previous conception of, it certainly appeared that a false calculation of everything was to be laid to the charge of the art of war. It was plain that while confined by habit within a narrow circle of conceptions, she had been surprised by the force of a new state of relations, lying, no doubt, outside that circle, but still not outside the nature of things.
Those observers who took the most comprehensive view, ascribed the circumstance to the general influence which policy had exercised for centuries on the art of war, and undoubtedly to its very great disadvantage, and by which it had sunk into a half-measure, often into mere sham fighting. They were right as to fact, but they were wrong in attributing it to something