- The strategic fronts, lines of defense, and fronts of operations.
- The choice of lines of operations leading to the objective point or strategic front.
- For a given operation, the best strategic line, and the different maneuvers necessary to embrace all possible cases.
- The eventual bases of operations and the strategic reserves.
- The marches of armies, considered as maneuvers.
- The relation between the position of depots and the marches of the army.
- Fortresses regarded as strategical means, as a refuge for an army, as an obstacle to its progress: the sieges to be made and to be covered.
- Points for intrenched camps, tétes de pont, &c.
- The diversions to be made, and the large detachments necessary.
These points are principally of importance in the determination of the first steps of a campaign; but there are other operations of a mixed nature, such as passages of streams, retreats, surprises, disembarkations, convoys, winter quarters, the execution of which belongs to tactics, the conception and arrangement to strategy.
The maneuvering of an army upon the battle-field, and the different formations of troops for attack, constitute Grand Tactics. Logistics is the art of moving armies. It comprises the order and details of marches and camps, and of quartering and supplying troops; in a word, it is the execution of strategical and tactical enterprises.