"When the theater of war does not border upon the sea, it is always bounded by a powerful neutral state, which guards its frontiers and closes one side of the square. This may not be an obstacle insurmountable like the sea; but generally it may be considered as an obstacle upon which it would be dangerous to retreat after a defeat: hence it would be an advantage to force the enemy upon it. The soil of a power which can bring into the field one hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand troops cannot be violated with impunity; and if a defeated army made the attempt, it would be none the less cut off from its base. If the boundary of the theater of war should be the territory of a weak state, it would be absorbed in this theater, and the square would be enlarged till it reached the frontiers of a powerful state, or the sea. The outline of the frontiers may modify the shape of the quadrilateral so as to make it approach the figure of a parallelogram or trapezoid, as in Figure 2. In either case, the advantage of the army which has control of two faces of the figure, and possesses the power of establishing upon them a double base, will be still more decided, since it will be able more easily to cut the enemy off from the shortened side,—as was the case with the Prussian army in 1806, with the side B D J of the parallelogram formed by the lines of the Rhine, the Oder, the North Sea, and the mountainous frontier of Franconia."
The selection of Bohemia as a base in 1813 goes to prove the truth of my opinion; for it was the perpendicularity of this base to that of the French army which enabled the allies to neutralize the immense advantages which the line of the Elbe would otherwise have afforded Napoleon, and turned the advantages of the campaign in their favor. Likewise, in 1812, by establishing their base perpendicularly upon the Oka and Kalouga, the Russians were able to execute their flank march upon Wiazma and Krasnoi.
If any thing further be required to establish these truths, it will only be necessary to consider that, if the base be perpendicular to that of the