- Perfect reliance should be placed on none of these means.
- As it is impossible to obtain exact information by the methods mentioned, a general should never move without arranging several courses of action for himself, based upon probable hypotheses that the relative situation of the armies enables him to make, and never losing sight of the principles of the art.
I can assure a general that, with such precautions, nothing very unexpected can befall him and cause his ruin,—as has so often happened to others; for, unless he is totally unfit to command an army, he should at least be able to form reasonable suppositions as to what the enemy is going to do, and fix for himself a certain line of conduct to suit each of these hypotheses.1 It cannot be too much insisted upon that the real secret of military genius consists in the ability to make these reasonable suppositions in any case; and, although their number is always small, it is wonderful how much this highly-useful means of regulating one's conduct is neglected.
In order to make this article complete, I must state what is to be gained by using a system of signals. Of these there are several kinds. Telegraphic signals may be mentioned as the most important of all. Napoleon owes his astonishing success at Ratisbon, in 1809, to the fact of his having established a telegraphic communication between the head-quarters of the army and France. He was still at Paris when the Austrian army crossed the Inn at Braunau with the intention of invading Bavaria and breaking through his line of cantonments. Informed, in twenty-four hours, of what was passing at a distance of seven hundred miles, he threw himself into his traveling-carriage, and a week later he had gained two victories under the walls of Ratisbon. Without the telegraph, the campaign would have been lost. This single fact is sufficient to impress us with an idea of its value.