August 22, 1914 
LAND AND WATEE 
euch stores in any one place is called a Depot or Magadne, and the 
place where the Magazines are accumulated is called a base. 
It is obvious that a Base of this kind is not easily or quickly 
moved. It is fixed ; or af least only to be transferred at a vast 
expense of time and men. But it is equally obvious that an 
Army is useful in proportion to the freedom of choice you have 
in moving it. 
An Army goes forward from its base towards the place in 
which it thinks it can beat meet the Army opposing it, and as it 
goes forward, it must be continually supplied with ammunition, 
repairs and food. If it were not so supplied, it could not fight 
more than a very short time, nor could its members even remain 
alive ; they would stan-e. This line, which it rolls out behind 
an Army in movement, connecting it with its base ; which grows 
longer and longer as it advances, and which is a prime necessity 
of its being is called its Lines of Communication, or, more shortly, 
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its Communications. The simplest elements of all Strategy 
then, may be represented in such a conventional plan as Plan I. 
Where A-B is the Army, C its commimicationa and D its 
base. 
It is the very first thing to remember, when we are considering 
the position of any Army, its chances of success or of defeat, 
or, in military history the causes of either, that an Army is 
thus necessarily tied by its Communications to some vitally 
important Base of Supply. An army must not be compared to a 
swimmer moving at will through the water. It is better compared 
to a diver who is supplied with air through a tube and will perish 
(][uickly if that line be cut. It is not an island, it is a peninsula ; 
it is not an isolated or detached thing, it is a fruit upon a stalk, 
w hich is gathered and consumed if the stalk be severed. 
In practice, of course, these simple elements are infinitely 
complicated and diversified. For instance, as an army advances 
and its direction is determined by circumstances, advanced bases 
are thrown out. Again, a line of Communication that has become 
too tortuous can be straightened by short cuts, after the army 
has advanced ; and again, Communications may be continually 
subject to interruption even by the enemy, and yet, if such 
interruptions are not too prolonged, may remain intact for the 
purpose they have to serve. But the general elements are 
what I have described and condition all warfare. 
Before we go further, it is as well to establish a certain 
number of consequences following upon this triple arrangement 
of fighting force, communications and base ; they are seven m 
number. 
(1). Communications are maintained more easily and at 
a less expense of energy and of men in inverse proportion to 
their length. The longer they are, the more difficult they are to 
keep intact and to keep working smoothly. After a certain 
extension, the difficulty increases very rapidly indeed. Wo 
all know in practice how true this is of any long sequence of 
human activity. In a procession, for instance, the (Ufficulties 
of keeping a time-table increase very greatly with the length 
of the column, 
(2). It is therefore important to have communications as 
direct as possible from the fighting body to the base — that is, 
perpendicular to the fighting front — and the advantage of this is 
mcreascd when we consider the vulnerability of Communications, 
for : — 
(3). Communications, even in friendly country, must be 
guarded against secret attack ; and in hostile country or in the 
neighbourhood of the enemy, from open attack. On which 
account : — 
(4) Communications take up a great number of men in the 
guarding of them, and, therefore, as an army advances it grows 
weaker and weaker in the field, not only from a natural wastage 
through disease and wounds, but also because it half to spare 
more and more men to guard its Conununications. Napoleon's 
Campaign in 1812 afiurds the chief example of this. 
(5) Communications are not only the channel by wliich &a 
army is fed with its necessaries for living and fighting, they are 
also, and the same, channel by which an army rids itself ol 
encumbrances, of its wounded, etc. They are largely the channel 
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up and down which orders and information are conveyed. There- 
fore, with this " backwards and forwards " business they are 
liable to clog; and if they clog the army is lost. Therefore, 
again : <■-> 
(G) It is urgent that a wide front should be served by many 
parallel lines of communication. If (as in Plan VI.) the broad 
front A — B must have all its Communications passing through 
the narrow issue at C, it is in peril. It is free if it has separate 
lines for each corps (Y, Y, Y, Y) leading but to separate bases 
A, A. A). 
(7) Though an Army cannot live or fight for more than a 
very short time detached from its Communications, it can 
drop one line of Communications and, as the phrase goes, 
" Pick up " another. Thus in Plan II., if a General in the 
position A — B wants to get to E and is afraid that in so doing 
he will unduly lengthen or will be in peril of being cut ofi from 
his line of Communications along C to D, he will not be afraid to 
march upon E so long as E is not too far oS, and so long as he 
knows that E is in touch by another line of Commimications F 
with another base at G. A force cut oC from its Communications 
is Siiid to be " in the air." Bliicher's march to Wavre after Ligny 
is an example of thus picking up an alternative line of 
Communications. 
So much for Communications and the way in which an Army 
is bound by them. 
The next element to consider in the conduct of an Army is 
the space which it occupies, and the efiect of space upon its 
progress. 
A great body of men depending upon instruments, many of 
them delicate, many of them cumbersome, all — food included — 
dependent upon wheeled trafiic 
or boats, must use some con- 
venient avenue of advance ; a 
railway, a hard road, or, in the 
case of heavier supplies, a river 
or canal. But such avenues of 
advance are invariably narrow 
compared with their length. 
They are mere lines or thin 
ribbons. A great body of men 
must, therefore, advance in 
columns. That is, in groups 
which are very long in propor- 
tion to their width. But these 
bodies must also, when they 
come to fight. Deploy, that is, 
spread out from column into 
line (Deploy is but the French 
for " unfold ") otherwise they 
could not meet the enemy with 
their full force. If the body 
A— B (Plan III.) desires to 
defend itself against or attack 
the enemy's body C — D, it must 
get its guns and its rifles to 
bear upon C — D, and it can 
only do that by getting them 
out of the long marching column 
formation A — B into the new 
formation E — F. 
Now, it is evident that this Deployment will take longer and 
be more cumbersome in proportion as the line A — B was extended. 
Therefore, the commander of an Army Corps, let us say, will try 
to advance in as many short, parallel columns as possible, subject 
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