from the battle of Brienne to that of Paris, demonstrates fully the truth of these maxims.
The analysis of these two celebrated campaigns raises a strategic question which it would be difficult to answer by simple assertions founded upon theories. It is, whether the system of central lines loses its advantages when the masses are very large. Agreeing with Montesquieu, that the greatest enterprises fail from the magnitude of the arrangements necessary to consummate them, I am disposed to answer in the affirmative. It is very clear to me that an army of one hundred thousand men, occupying a central zone against three isolated armies of thirty or thirty-five thousand men, would be more sure of defeating them successively than if the central mass were four hundred thousand strong against three armies of one hundred and thirty-five thousand each; and for several good reasons:—
- Considering the difficulty of finding ground and time necessary to bring a very large force into action on the day of battle, an army of one hundred and thirty or one hundred and forty thousand men may easily resist a much larger force.