War offensive and defensive.
--We are well aware of the danger which we incur in touching upon this subject.
There are persons who invariably put an end to all argument and even discourse thereon by saying, ‘"you know better than the
Generals;"’ ‘"you ought to other your services as commander-in-chief;"’ ‘"the
Generals know better than you,"’ &c. We protest against this arbitrary denial of all right to judge in cases where every mother's son of as is so deeply interested.--We deny that it is necessary to be a Raphap in order to enjoy the beauties of picture.
A man may admire the state of
Clay upon the
Square, or discover deficiencies in it, without having ever hand fed a chisel or minded a figure.
The cars of a man who never learnt a note of music may be ravished by the violin of Pagakist of the voice of
Jenny Lind.--It is not requisite that a man should be capable of commanding an army in order that he should form a just ception of military movements.
Soult was certainly a greater General than
Thiers, and yet there are few military men who will deny that the structures of
Thiers upon the actions of
Soult are just and discriminating.
Hannibal, the greatest of ancient, and
Napoleon, the greatest of modern
Generals, have been severely criticised by men who certainly could never have rivaled their achievements, and the military world are agreed that many of these criticisms are proper.
No profession is of a mature so recon e that none but the initialed can comprehend it; no science is so abstruse that even a man of very moderate intelligence may not obtain a good idea of it with proper exertion.
We have on more than one occasion expressed the opinion that our armies ought to act as much as possible on the offensive in this war. We do not claim that our opinion is infallible.
We do not set it up against the
Generals in command.
We do not deny that they ought to know better than we do. We state it, give our reasons for it, and let it go for what it is worth.
Those reasons are well known to the public.
We have, or at least we and two months ago, a force superior in the aggregate to the enemy.
The oralsuperiofity was greater than the numerical.
We proved this to be the fact at
Bethel, and at
Manassas.
Apart from military exigencies, of which we know nothing, offensive operation would have seemed to as to be dictated by policy of the soundest and most unimpeachable character.
The object certainly is to obtain peace by overwhelming the enemy.
How could this be so readily accomplished as by attacking him before he had become prepared, beating him out of the field, getting into the midst of his resources, and preventing the reorganization of his armies?
The most scrupulous defensive could have presented no means so certain of reducing the amount of bloodshed; and we understand those who would confine our operations to defence to be actuated by the desire to save the elusion of blood.
The most
cautious General is he who attacks when there is a certainly of securing advantage.
The rashest General is he who sits down in his camp, neglects every opportunity to secure an advantage and leaves his troops to mouldier away with typhoid fever, measles, low spirits, and the revulsion of feeling experienced by all generous youths who come to the field to measure bayonets with the enemy, and find themselves used for no purpose but to dig up dirt, scoop out graves, make coffins, slaughter cattle, sleep on the damp ground, grow sick with hope deferred, die like sheep of the rot, and be barred like dogs without even a sheer around them.
One month of campaigning, under a General of this description, will cost more lives than three or four pitched battles.
Generals of this description consider it wisdom, circumspection, sagacity, prudence, to slaughter a thousand of their men by inaction, in preference to losing an hundred by fighting.
We have been told that a war strictly and absolutely defensive, would be the best policy for us, because it saved
Rome against
Pyrrhus and
Hannibal, and was practiced by the
Duke of
Wellington in the
Peninsula.
We deny both the proposition and the inference, and if both were true, it has nothing to do with this question, which presents a case altogether different from any of these three.
The
Romans did not act purely on the defensive against
Pyrrhus. They fought him almost as soon as he landed at
Tarentum, and with so much obstinacy that, though he claimed the victory, he said another such would ruin him. They fought him a second time, and he withdrew from
Italy, assigning some other cause for his retreat.
Fabius Maximus is always quoted as the great authority in favor of defensive war. He was appointed Dictator immediately after the battle of Thrasymene, when, to use the strong language of Dr,
Arnold, ‘"
Rome was bleeding at every pore."’--He knew it was vain to contend with
Hannibal in the field.
He felt that he was not his equal, as indeed who except
Napoleon, ever was?
He knew that his militia could not contend with the heavy armed
African veterans of the great Carthaginian General, or the
Roman cavalry, with the Numidian horsemen.
But he saw that
Hannibal was two thousand miles from home; that the Romans had command of the sea; that no reinforcements could reach him that his Gallic auxiliaries would be conquered or desert him; and that his army left to it self., must gradually waste away and be destroyed.
This was wisdom — this was genuine prudence.
But if
Carthage had been conterminous with
Apulia — if it had possessed a population three times as large as all the dependencies of
Rome put together — if the
Carthaginian Senate had been pouring in troops to
Hannibal at the rate of thirty five thousand per week — would it have been wisdom still to have acted on the defensive?
to have waited until he had made
Capua so strong that it would have been madness to attack?
Men who reason in this way seem to as to overlook altogether the influence of circumstances in directing the conduct of leaders.
The
Duke of
Wellington's Spanish campaigns were anything else than
Fabian, as they have sometimes been called.
He commenced them by dislodging
Soult from
Oporto--one of the most daring offensive operations recorded in military history.
He followed it up by marching two hundred miles up the
valley of the Tagus, uniting with Cuesta, and fighting the desperate
battle of Talavera.
It is true, that when he learned the intention of the
French to invade
Portugal with an army two strong for him to resist, he constructed the lines of Torres Vedras.
Put as the host approached, he met them at the frontier fought the bloody battle of Bunaco — fell slowly back — collected the of the country as he retired — carried them within his --drilled them — and made them efficient soldiers.
As
Massena retired — after a loss of half his army — he followed him with terrible perseverance — gained a victory at Fuentez d'onoro, and drove him entirely out of
Portugal.
Had the Portuguese forces been all well disciplined, thus making
Wellington greatly superior to
Massena, does anybody suppose he would have acted on the defensive when the latter entered into
Portugal?
The man who thinks thus, must surely overlook the brilliant offensive campaigns of 1812-'13--must have for gotten
Badajoz, and
Salamanca and
Vittoria — must have ceased to remember the advance into
France, the battle of
Toulouse, and the close of the war. The fact is,
Wellingtonacted as any great General would have done.
He acted on the defensive when he was too weak to act in any other way. He acted on the offensive as soon as he became strong enough to take the initiative.
