If, by such arrangements, a system of fortification had been properly united with tactics, and all the plans directed by a man of talents and energy, of which examples were certainly to be found in our ranks, with such troops to command, the reader will admit that the Russian forces could have been soon driven back to the frontiers. The succession of victories which we have described were not the results of any general system:--they were victories of detail, executed with energy and rapidity, and for which we were indebted to the generals of divisions and brigades, the colonels of regiments, &c. These successes were isolated, but, had they been made to bear upon each other, their advantages would have been much greater. For example, the battle of Dobre, which was so brilliantly gained by Skrzynecki, would have caused the total ruin of the corps opposed to him, if the 11th division of Krukowiecki, which was in the environs of Jadow, had come to the aid of Skrzynecki during that action. And indeed this was the expectation of Skrzynecki when he remained so long upon the position of Makowiec. But this division, instead of acting upon the rear of the enemy, as it might have done, having no orders to this effect, continued its retrograde march, although within the sound of the cannon of that action. On the 18th there was not enough of harmony in the operations of the several divisions. On that day, if those operations had been directed from one point as from a centre, the enemy, who had been guilty of extreme imprudence in the advance which he had made into the marshy and wooded region between Stanislawow (9), Okuniew (11), and the great road, could have been completely hedged in. [_See Plan_ VI.] The manoeuvres of general Zimirski, when the enemy made his rapid attack on the morning of the 19th, were executed at hazard, no general order having been given in anticipation of such an attack. These manoeuvres were well executed by general Zimirski: but if the case had been thus anticipated by the commander in chief, and, at the commencement of the action, our right wing had been withdrawn to Grochow, [_See_ (A) _Plan_ VIII,] an obstinate defence of the commanding position of Kawenzyn (B) being kept up, and the enemy had been thus allowed to follow our right wing with his left; by the same method of operation which was in fact executed by Skrzynecki and Zimirski, in concert, but with much larger forces; the enemy could have been attacked on his flank, and instead of the annihilation of his sixteen battalions, the same fate would have attended twice or thrice that number;--for, when a force is taken by surprise in flank and rear, numbers avail comparatively little in resistance;--indeed, the greater the number, the greater is the difficulty of changing position, and the greater the disorder and consternation which follows.