also be added the enemy's batteries to be carried, and the disorder which always prevails to a greater or less extent in a body of men exposed to a continued fire either of musketry or artillery. Viewing the matter in the light of these facts, all must agree that in tactical operations the advantages resulting from taking the initiative are balanced by the disadvantages.
However undoubted these truths may be, there is another, still more manifest, which has been demonstrated by the greatest events of history. Every army which maintains a strictly defensive attitude must, if attacked, be at last driven from its position; whilst by profiting by all the advantages of the defensive system, and holding itself ready to take the offensive when occasion offers, it may hope for the greatest success. A general who stands motionless to receive his enemy, keeping strictly on the defensive, may fight ever so bravely, but he must give way when properly attacked. It is not so, however, with a general who indeed waits to receive his enemy, but with the determination to fall upon him offensively at the proper moment, to wrest from him and transfer to his own troops the moral effect always produced by an onward movement when coupled with the certainty of throwing the main strength into the action at the most important point,—a thing altogether impossible when keeping strictly on the defensive. In fact, a general who occupies a well-chosen position, where his movements are free, has the advantage of observing the enemy's approach; his forces, previously arranged in a suitable manner upon the position, aided by batteries placed so as to produce the greatest effect, may make the enemy pay very dearly for his advance over the space separating the two armies; and when the assailant, after suffering severely, finds himself strongly assailed at the moment when the victory seemed to be in his hands, the advantage will, in all probability, be his no longer, for the moral effect of such a counter-attack upon the part of an adversary supposed to be beaten is certainly enough to stagger the boldest troops.