THE STUDY QE MILITARY HISTORY. 
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openly, and many I have convinced believe it but are perhaps afraid to 
say so. Napoleon himself, however, did not forget to study the cam¬ 
paigns of Caesar and Hannibal, and no more for the matter of that did 
Yon Moltke. 
It is indeed a mere truism to assert that the great principles which 
make or mar a campaign are eternal, but coming down to something 
smaller than the great principles, it must be admitted that we need the 
experience of our grandfathers and fathers to guide us. 
To get examples to fit all the combinations of war, you must traverse 
a wide field. Wars are fortunately not of very frequent occurrence, 
and the modern ones have been of short duration and have been fought 
under abnormal conditions in the two greatest instances. 
We must go back a considerable way sometimes to find what we 
want, but in any case we could never dispense with the experiences of 
our grandfathers if we wished any basis of discussion left to us at all. 
Inventions are brought out and armaments alter almost every year; 
what was good enough in “ the eighties” is not good enough or new 
enough now, and the novelty of ten years ago is perhaps obsolete to-day. 
Where then are we to find a secure foothold, and on what but an 
ever shifting foundation of speculation and possibilities are we to build 
our faith ? On the other hand facts, discreetly digested, are always 
valuable ; they alone, whether they be culled from the experiences of 
our contemporaries or our ancestors, are beyond dispute, and when we 
find the same facts occurring again and again, it means that they are 
due to the operation of some essential characteristic of human nature, 
and we need not hesitate to apply to even the most modern situation 
the lessons indicated by them. 
It is therefore an abuse of military history to confine our range of 
vision artificially, and to study only the latest campaigns, because in 
them conditions existed most nearly approaching those of our own 
time. For one reason it certainly is so, namely, that those who will 
profit most by the study of military history are the higher leaders, and 
their influence is felt in the realm of strategy, that is to say, before 
rather than during a battle. 
The principles of strategy do not vary, and strategy or the science of 
making war on the map, is not affected by changes of armament, al¬ 
though it has been influenced by the introduction of railways and some 
other modern inventions, just as all considerations are modified by the 
circumstances of the moment. The precepts of all those who have 
excelled in war are in this respect the same. 
There is in Yon Moltke’s “ Tactical Problems ” a passage which puts 
the matter very well. “ Her Grosse Schweiger, a man who was a great 
student all his life, and in his old age showed himself great in the field, 
says Strategy is the application of common sense to the conduct of 
war. The difficulty lies in its execution, for we are dependent on an 
infinite number of factors like wind and weather, fogs, wrong reports, 
&c. 
If, therefore, theoretical science alone will never lead us to victory, 
we must nevertheless not entirely disregard it. General von 
