On the duration of the combat and the moment of its decision depend the distances from each other at which those masses should be placed which are intended to fight in conjunction with each other.  This disposition would be a tactical arrangement in so far as it relates to one and the same battle; it can, however, only be regarded as such, provided the position of the troops is so compact that two separate combats cannot be imagined, and consequently that the space which the whole occupies can be regarded strategically as a mere point.  But in War, cases frequently occur where even those forces intended to fight in Unison must be so far separated from each other that while their union for one common combat certainly remains the principal object, still the occurrence of separate combats remains possible.  Such a disposition is therefore strategic.

Dispositions of this kind are:  marches in separate masses and columns, the formation of advance guards, and flanking columns, also the grouping of reserves intended to serve as supports for more than one strategic point; the concentration of several Corps from widely extended cantonments, &c. &c.  We can see that the necessity for these arrangements may constantly arise, and may consider them something like the small change in the strategic economy, whilst the capital battles, and all that rank with them are the gold and silver pieces.

CHAPTER VIII.  MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING AS TO A BATTLE

No battle can take place unless by mutual consent; and in this idea, which constitutes the whole basis of a duel, is the root of a certain phraseology used by historical writers, which leads to many indefinite and false conceptions.

According to the view of the writers to whom we refer, it has frequently happened that one Commander has offered battle to the other, and the latter has not accepted it.

But the battle is a very modified duel, and its foundation is not merely in the mutual wish to fight, that is in consent, but in the objects which are bound up with the battle:  these belong always to a greater whole, and that so much the more, as even the whole war considered as a “combat-unit” has political objects and conditions which belong to a higher standpoint.  The mere desire to conquer each other therefore falls into quite a subordinate relation, or rather it ceases completely to be anything of itself, and only becomes the nerve which conveys the impulse of action from the higher will.

Amongst the ancients, and then again during the early period of standing Armies, the expression that we had offered battle to the enemy in vain, had more sense in it than it has now.  By the ancients everything was constituted with a view to measuring each other’s strength in the open field free from anything in the nature of a hindrance,(*) and the whole Art of War consisted in the organisation, and formation of the Army, that is in the order of battle.