- There are large detachments made upon the front of operations, in face of the enemy, to act in concert with the main body in some combined operation.
- There are small detachments sent to a distance to try the effect of surprise upon isolated points, whose capture may have an important bearing upon the general operations of the campaign.
I understand by diversions those secondary operations carried out at a distance from the principal zone of operations, at the extremities of a theater of war, upon the success of which it is sometimes foolishly supposed the whole campaign depends. Such diversions are useful in but two cases, the first of which arises when the troops thus employed cannot conveniently act elsewhere on account of their distance from the real theater of operations, and the second is that where such a detachment would receive strong support from the population among which it was sent,—the latter case belonging rather to political than military combinations. A few illustrative examples may not be out of place here.
The unfortunate results for the allied powers of the Anglo-Russian expedition to Holland, and of that of the Archduke Charles toward the end of the last century, (which have been referred to in Article XIX.,) are well known.
In 1805, Napoleon was occupying Naples and Hanover. The allies intended an Anglo-Russian army to drive him out of Italy, while the combined forces of England, Russia, and Sweden should drive him from Hanover, nearly sixty thousand men being designed for these two widely-separated points. But, while their troops were collecting at the two extremities of Europe, Napoleon ordered the evacuation of Naples and Hanover, Saint-Cyr hastened to effect a junction with Massena in the Frioul, and Bernadotte, leaving Hanover, moved up to take part in the operations of Ulm and Austerlitz. After these astonishing successes,