Military science, seeing in history an immense number of examples in nich the mass of an army does not correspond with its force, and in nich small numbers conquer large ones, vaguely recognise the existence ( this unknown factor, and try to find it sometimes in some geometrical isposition of the troops, sometimes in the superiority of weapons, and ost often in the genius of the leaders. But none of those factors yield suits that agree with the historical facts.
One has but to renounce the false view that glorifies the effect of the .•tivity of the heroes of history in warfare in order to discover this un- aown quantity, x.
X is the spirit of the army, the greater or less desire to fight and to face mgers on the part of all the men composing the army, which is quite oart from the question whether they are fighting under leaders of genius not, with cudgels or with guns that fire thirty times a minute. The men ho have the greater desire to fight always put themselves, too, in the ore advantageous position for fighting. The spirit of the army is the ctor which multiplied by the mass gives the product of the force. To ?fine and express the significance of this unknown factor, the spirit of le army, is the problem of science.
This problem can only be solved when we cease arbitrarily substitut- ig for that unknown factor x the conditions under which the force is anifested, such as the plans of the general, the arming of the men and so i, and recognise this unknown factor in its entirety as the greater or ss desire to fight and face danger. Then only by expressing known his- irical facts in equations can one hope from comparison of the relative ilue of this unknown factor to approach its definition. Ten men, or bat- ilions or divisions are victorious fighting with fifteen men or battalions • divisions, that is, they kill or take prisoner all of them while losing nir of their own side, so that the loss has been four on one side and fif- •en on the other. Consequently, four on one side have been equivalent to fteen on the other, and consequently 4X = i sy. Consequently -f = his equation does not give us the value of the unknown factors, but it oes give us the ratio between their values. And from the reduction to jch equations of various historical units (battles, campaigns, periods |f warfare) a series of numbers are obtained, in which there must be nd may be discovered historical laws.
The strategic principle, that armies should act in masses on the offen- ve, and should break up into smaller groups for retreat, unconsciously bnfirms the truth that the force of an army depends on its spirit. To ;ad men forward under fire needs more discipline (which can only be jttainecl by marching in masses) than is needed for self-defence when at- icked. But this rule, which leaves out of sight the spirit of the army, is ontinually proving unsound, and is strikingly untrue in practice in all
national wars, when there is a great rise or fall in the spirit of the armies The French, on their retreat in 1812, though they should, by the law of tactics, have defended themselves in detached groups, huddled togethe in a crowd, because the spirit of the men had sunk so low that it wa only their number that kept them up. The Russians should, on the con trary, by the laws of tactics, have attacked them in a mass, but in fac attacked in scattered companies, because the spirit of the men ran si high that individual men killed the French without orders, and needed m compulsion to face hardships and dangers.
Ill
The so-called ‘partisan’ warfare had begun with the enemy’s entranct into Smolensk. Before the irregular warfare was officially recognised In our government many thousands of the enemy’s soldiers—straggling marauding, or foraging parties—had been slain by Cossacks and peas ants, who killed these men as instinctively as dogs set upon a stray mac dog. Denis Davydov was the first to feel with his Russian instinct the value of this terrible cudgel which belaboured the French, and asked n; questions about the etiquette of the military art; and to him belongs the credit of the first step towards the recognition of this method of warfare The first detachment of irregulars—Davydov’s—was formed on the 24th of August, and others soon followed. In the latter stages of the cam paign these detachments became more and more numerous.
