- On the situation of the theatre of war upon which the different hostile armies make their appearance.
If the enemy’s forces are collected in one army upon one theatre of war, they constitute in reality a unity, and we need not inquire further; if they are upon one theatre of war, but in separate armies, which belong to different Powers, there is no longer absolute unity; there is, however, a sufficient interdependence of parts for a decisive blow upon one part to throw down the other in the concussion. If the armies are posted in theatres of war adjoining each other, and not separated by any great natural obstacles, then there is in such case also a decided influence of the one upon the other; but if the theatres of war are wide apart, if there is neutral territory, great mountains, etc., intervening between them, then the influence is very doubtful and improbable as well; if they are on quite opposite sides of the State against which the war is made, so that operations directed against them must diverge on eccentric lines, then almost every trace of connection is at an end.
If Prussia was attacked by France and Russia at the same time, it would be as respects the conduct of the war much the same as if there were two separate wars; at the same time the unity would appear in the negotiations.
Saxony and Austria, on the contrary, as military powers in the Seven Years’ War, were to be regarded as one; what the one suffered the other felt also, partly because the theatres of war lay in the same direction for Frederick the Great, partly because Saxony had no political independence.
Numerous as were the enemies of Buonaparte in Germany in 1813, still they all stood very much in one direction in respect to him, and the theatres of war for their armies were in close connection, and reciprocally influenced each other very powerfully. If by a concentration of all his