LAND AND WATEH 
August 2^, 191 i 
alwavB to the difficulty of keeping to many such parallel columns, 
all 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 
therefore 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 
eitendod front where ho thinks he will have to deploy, and in 
E 
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PLAN V 
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tountry, 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 largo 
body is, in proportion to its size, compelled to try to act over a 
wide stretch of country. 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. (AV'e 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 unable 
from natural obstacles of wood or marsh, or mountain, to deploy, 
PLAN VI 
A 
13 said to be passing through a Aefh. When it comes to more 
open country where it can spread out it is said to debouch. 
All this applies to the mo\-ing 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 
•trategy which concerns the mere moving of a great body of 
PLAN 'vn 
D- fl 
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 obsers'ed. 
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 unable or less able to continue its 
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 ofiF the enemy's force from its sources 
of supply, and so compel it to the alternative of starving to death 
(with its weapons useless in its hands from lack of missiles), or 
of surrendering itself prisoner, and giving 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 is accomplished (save in the case of partial envelopment, 
leading to panic), by piercing tlie 
line of that Army in one or more 
places. It is evident that when 
the enemy's line is pierced you 
Vw >\ have reduced his force — origin- 
pi M ally comparable in numbers to 
I r *S your own — to two armies each 
U B no more than half your own. 
Y'ou have further o\erwhelmed 
at one point a considerable 
number of his troops, killed 
many, scattered more, and dis- 
organised the rest in the neigh- 
bourhood of the point where your 
shock succeeded. You have, 
again, completelv put an end ff> 
his unit}- 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 AtfacJ:. 
An historical example of a battle 
attempted to be won in this 
fashion (but missed) 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 choosing — 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 liis line. When this direct effort of one line 
against another takes place, the scheme is often called " a 
farallel battle." 
But superiority of numbers, where this is at all consideraLle, 
J3 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 
have for their ultimate object Envelofment. 
Let A— B, C— D, (Plan VIII.), be two armies drawn up in ' 
hue opposed one to the other and approximatelv 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.). This 
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 line (as in the second sketch), threatens bv its move- 
ment what is called the Flank, 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 ablo 
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B 
