LAND A:SD WATEP. 
August ~~, 
lOU 
»lwa73 to the difficultjr of keeping to manv sucli paralicl columns, 
ail abreast one of the other. It is obvious an army marching 
thus (Plan IV.) can deploy into the position E— F more rapidly 
and easily than one marching thus (Plan V.). A General will 
thcrefore'prefer, if he can get it, a country in which there are 
numerous more or less parallel roads, railways, and opportunities 
for water carriage leading more or less side by side towards the 
extended front where ho thinks he will have to deploy, and ia 
I^ PLAN V 
..^.x A 
7-1 
cm 
CD EH] C 
B 
j cm 
r"i 
I 
I 
I 
I 
eountiy, such as mountains and forests, where such roads are few, 
advance is hampered. On open and populated plains, where 
such roads are many, it can be swift. 
It is a further consequence of this state of things that a large 
body is, in proportion to its size, compelled to try to act over a 
wide stretch of coimtry. So long as it is confined to a narrow 
issue it is cramped and can only present a small part of its forces 
to the enemy, and unless an Army Corps, say, has half a county 
to work over it is at a heavy disadvantage. (We shall see later 
of what importance this principle is in the present campaign in 
connection with the narrow issue between Liege and the Dutch 
frontier.) 
A body compelled to move in one long column and unabla 
from natural obstacles of wood or marsh, or mountain, to deploy, 
PLAN VT 
is said to be parsing through a iefle. When it comes to more 
open country where it can spread out it is said to debouch. 
All this appUes to the moving and the keeping in existence 
of any army in the field ; even when it is not in touch with, aroused 
by, or in conflict against another army. And this part of 
sirategy which concerns the mere moving of a groat body of 
PLAN >ai 
c 
1} 
A 
I 
D- 1 
armed men is essential to final success because the health, 
numbers, and disposition of the force when it comes to fight will 
all depend upon how far such obvious conditions have been 
considered and observed. 
III.— THE TASK OF AN ARMY. 
The task of an Army is the task of reducing an opposing 
Army to mihtary impotence. That is, an Army must try to 
render the enemy opposed to it tinaUe or less able to continue Us 
activities as an Army. 
Their are two main ways in which this can be accomplished : 
(A) You can destroy the cohesion of the enemy's force and 
turn him from a united and organised whole into a broken mass 
incapable of combined action. 
(B) You can cut ofE the enemy's force from its sourcca 
of supply, and so compel it to the alternative of starving to death 
(with its weapons u.<ieles3 in its hands from lack of missiles), or 
of surrendering itself prisoner, and gi\ing up those weapons into 
your hands. 
I will take these two methods in their order. 
(A) When one Army defeats another by breaking its cohesion 
this ia accomplished (save in the case of partial envelopment, 
leading to panic), by piercing the 
line of that Army in one or more 
places. It is evident that when 
the enemy's line is pierced you 
have reduced hi^ force— origin- 
ally comparable in numbers to 
your own — to two armies each 
no more than half your own. 
You have further overwhelmed 
at one point a considerable 
number of his troops , killed 
many, scattered more, and dis- 
organised the rcEt in the neigh- 
bourhood of the point where your 
shock succeeded. You have, 
again, completely put an end to 
Lis unity of command ; so that 
even the remnants of his Army 
cannot co-operate against you. 
The enemy's line thus pierced is 
defeated more or less com- 
pletely according to the degree 
in which you have reduced 
his forces from an organised 
condition to chaos. 
An attack of this kind is 
called A direct Frontal Attack. 
An historical example of a battle 
attempted to be won in this . 
fashion (but mi?scd; is Napoleon's 
attack on Wellington's line at 
Waterloo, or again Napoleon's 
attack upon the Russian line at 
Borodino. 
It is evident that superiority 
in numbers is here as in every 
other case the deciding factor. 
It means that, while you A — B 
can oppose to your enemy C— D 
equal numbers at every point 
in his line, and so engage and 
" hold " him, you are free further 
to mass at some point K — of your 
own clioosing — larger numbers 
than those opposite at that point ; and these numbers can direct 
against the point opposed to them a superior volume of fire and 
a greater weight of men. (Plan VII.) This superior volume or 
weight should break his line. 'When this direct effort of one line 
against another takes place, the scheme is often called " a 
parallel battle." 
But superiority of numbers, where this is at all considcrabl?, 
is better and more commonly utilised in the second form of 
attempting victory, which shall be next described. 
(B) This second form consists in flanking movements, which 
Lave for their ultimate object Evvelopmcnt. 
Let A— B, C— D, (Plan VIII.), be two armies drawn up in 
liae opposed one to the other and approximately equal in 
numbers. Add to A — B some considerable body E— F, either 
connected with the original line thus (see Plan IX.) or coming 
up from elsewhere in aid of A — B, thus (see Plan X.). Th:'* 
extra body, whether belonging to the orignal line A — B (as in 
the first of these two sketches), or coming up from elsewhere in 
aid of that hne (as in the second sketch), threatens by its move- 
ment what is called the Flanl; that is, the side of C — D. It 
comes, fully deployed (that is, using its maximum offensive 
power) just on that part of C— D's arrangement which is least abb 
0- f 
D 
1 
B 
