The Art of War. baron de Antoine Henri Jomini
included in what has been said upon decisive points, and in what will be stated in Article XXI. in discussing the choice of lines of operations.
As to the choice of objective points, every thing will generally depend upon the aim of the war and the character which political or other circumstances may give it, and, finally, upon the military facilities of the two parties.
In cases where there are powerful reasons for avoiding all risk, it may be prudent to aim only at the acquisition of partial advantages—such as the capture of a few towns or the possession of adjacent territory. In other cases, where a party has the means of achieving a great success by incurring great dangers, he may attempt the destruction of the hostile army, as did Napoleon.
The maneuvers of Ulm and Jena cannot be recommended to an army whose only object is the siege of Antwerp. For very different reasons, they could not be recommended to the French army beyond the Niemen, five hundred leagues from its frontiers, because there would be much more to be lost by failure than a general could reasonably hope to gain by success.
There is another class of decisive points to be mentioned, which are determined more from political than from strategic considerations: they play a great part in most coalitions, and influence the operations and plans of cabinets. They may be called political objective points.
Indeed, besides the intimate connection between statesmanship and war in its preliminaries, in most campaigns some military enterprises are undertaken to carry out a political end, sometimes quite important, but often very irrational. They frequently lead to the commission of great errors in strategy. We cite two examples. First, the expedition of the Duke of York to Dunkirk, suggested by old commercial views, gave to the operations of the allies a divergent direction, which caused their failure: hence this objective point was bad in a military view. The expedition of the same prince to Holland in 1799—likewise due to the views of the English cabinet, sustained by the intentions of Austria on Belgium—was not less fatal; for it led to the march of the Archduke Charles from Zurich upon Manheim—a step quite contrary to the interests of the allied armies at the time it was undertaken. These illustrations prove that political objective points should be subordinate to strategy, at least until after a great success has been attained.
This subject is so extensive and so complicated that it would be absurd to attempt to reduce it to a few rules. The only one which can be given has just been alluded to, and is, that either the political objective points should be selected according to the principles of strategy, or their consideration should be postponed till after the decisive events of the campaign. Applying this rule to the examples just given, it will be seen that it was at Cambray or in the heart of France that Dunkirk should have been conquered in 1793 and Holland delivered in 1799; in other words, by uniting all the strength of the allies for great attempts on the decisive points of the frontiers. Expeditions of this kind are generally included in grand diversions—to be treated of in a separate article.
FOOTNOTES:
I may be reproached with inaccuracy of expression—since a line cannot be a point, and yet I apply to lines the name of decisive or objective points. It seems almost useless to remark that objective points are not geometric points, but that the name is a form of expression used to designate the object which an army desires to attain.
This only applies to continental armies, and not to the English, who, having their base on Antwerp or Ostend, would have nothing to fear from an occupation of the line of the Meuse.
ARTICLE XX.
Fronts of Operations, Strategic Fronts, Lines of Defense, and Strategic Positions.
There are some parts of the military science that so closely resemble each other, and are so intimately allied, that they are frequently confounded, although they are decidedly distinct. Such are fronts of operations, strategic fronts, lines of defense, and strategic positions. It is proposed in this article to show the distinction between them and to expose their relations to each other.
FRONTS OF OPERATIONS AND STRATEGIC FRONTS.
When the masses of an army are posted in a zone of operations, they generally occupy strategic positions. The extent of the front occupied toward the enemy is called the strategic front. The portion of the theater of war from which an enemy can probably reach this front in two or three marches is called the front of operations.
The resemblance between these two fronts has caused many military men to confound them, sometimes under one name and sometimes under the other.
Rigorously speaking, however, the strategic front designates that formed by the actual positions occupied by the masses of the army, while the other embraces the space separating the two armies, and extends one or two marches beyond each extremity of the strategic front, and includes the ground upon which the armies will probably come in collision.
When the operations of a campaign are on the eve of commencing, one of the armies will decide to await the attack of the other, and will undertake to prepare a line of defense, which may be either that of the strategic front or more to the rear. Hence the strategic front and line of defense may coincide, as was the case in 1795 and 1796 upon the Rhine, which was then a line of defense for both Austrians and French, and at the same time their strategic front and front of operations. This occasional coincidence of these lines doubtless leads persons to confound them, while they are really very different. An army has not necessarily a line of defense, as, for example, when it invades: when its masses are concentrated in a single position, it has no strategic front, but it is never without a front of operations.
The two following examples will illustrate the difference between the different terms.
At the resumption of hostilities in 1813, Napoleon's front of operations extended at first from Hamburg to Wittenberg; thence it ran along the line of the allies toward Glogau and Breslau, (his right being at Löwenberg,) and followed along the frontier of Bohemia to Dresden. His forces were stationed on this grand front in four masses, whose strategic positions were interior and central and presented three different faces. Subsequently, he retired behind the Elbe. His real line of defense then extended only from Wittenberg to Dresden, with a bend to the rear toward Marienberg, for Hamburg and Magdeburg were beyond the strategic field, and it would have been fatal for him to have extended his operations to these points.
The other example is his position about Mantua in 1796. His front of operations here really extended from the mountains of Bergamo to the Adriatic Sea, while his real line of defense was upon the Adige, between Lake Garda and Legnago: afterward it was upon the Mincio, between Peschiera and Mantua, while his strategic front varied according to his positions.
The front of operations being the space which separates the two armies, and upon which they may fight, is ordinarily parallel to the base of operations. The strategic front will have the same direction, and ought to be perpendicular to the principal line of operations, and to extend far enough on either flank to cover this line well. However, this direction may vary, either on account of projects that are formed, or on account of the attacks of the enemy; and it quite frequently happens that it is necessary to have a front perpendicular to the base and parallel to the original line of operations.