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The tactical games resulting, which naval strategists now play, employ models of the various craft used in war, such as battleships, submarines, etc., and are governed by rules that regulate the movements of those craft on a sort of big chess-board, several feet square, that represents an area of water several miles square.
Just as in the war between Russia and Japan, the paper strategists found comfort in the thought that the Japanese successes on American soil were only temporary and that their victorious career would soon come to an end. The supposition that Japan had no money to carry on the war was soon seen to lack all real foundation.
It may be true that all great strategists are much alike; they look to victory always and to nothing else. Moltke himself, perhaps, was nothing more, but he had a Bismarck to maintain equilibrium.
So great indeed is the value of abstract strategical study from this point of view, that it is necessary to guard ourselves against over-valuation. So far from claiming for their so-called science more than the possibilities we have indicated, the classical strategists insist again and again on the danger of seeking from it what it cannot give. They even repudiate the very name of "Science."
Then some one clears his throat, and to save time reads the bulletin for the benefit of the assembled group. Here again the strategists are in evidence.
They march by night, or on cloudy days, like wise tropical strategists, and never expose themselves to the heat of the day in broad sunshine, as though they were no better than the mere numbered British Tommy Atkins at Coomassie or in the Soudan.
Of course, the quality of the private soldier has in all wars a good deal to do with making or marring the fortunes of commanders; but it is safe to say that no strategists have over owed so much to the quality of their men as the Prussian strategists.
"That's the famous Leah," said he; "she is a Jewess, and impregnable. She has resisted the attacks of the best strategists in Turin. Her father's a famous horse-dealer; you can go and see her easily enough, but there's nothing to be done there." The greater the difficulty the more I felt spurred on to attempt it. "Take me there," said I, to Desarmoises. "As soon as you please."
If some germs of the system of reserve and of the individualizing of the smaller subdivisions of the army are found to occur among the later Greek strategists, especially Xenophon, this only shows that they felt the defectiveness of the old system, but were not well able to obviate it.
It gave the first glimpse to the public of a group of operations which caused no little speculation in the minds of strategists. Thus far the Russian troops present in that region, including also the remnants of those which took part in the raid against Memel, have attempted no serious resistance anywhere. Fighting is now in progress near Shavli."
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