Positions and Defensive Battles.
When an army awaits an attack, it takes up a position and forms its line of battle. From the general definitions given at the beginning of this work, it will appear that I make a distinction between lines of battle and orders of battle,—things which have been constantly confounded. I will designate as a line of battle the position occupied by battalions, either deployed or in columns of attack, which an army will take up to hold a camp and a certain portion of ground where it will await attack, having no particular project in view for the future: it is the right name to give to a body of troops formed with proper tactical intervals and distances upon one or more lines, as will be more fully explained in Article XLIII. On the contrary, I will designate as an order ofbattle an arrangement of troops indicating an intention to execute a certain maneuver; as, for example, the parallel order, the oblique order, the perpendicular order.
This nomenclature, although new, seems necessary to keeping up a proper distinction between two things which should by no means be confounded.1 From the nature of the two things, it is evident that the line of battle belongs especially to defensive arrangements; because an army awaiting an attack without knowing what or where it will be must necessarily form a rather indefinite and objectless line of battle. Order of battle, on the contrary, indicating an arrangement of troops formed with an intention of fighting while executing some maneuver previously determined upon, belongs more particularly to offensive dispositions. However, it is by no means pretended that the line of battle is exclusively a defensive arrangement; for a body of troops may in this formation very well proceed to the attack of a position, while an army on the defensive may use the oblique order or any other. I refer above only to ordinary cases.