palpable, or which was also, perhaps, before suspected, but which in
the want of any certainty, we had to oppose by the hope of chance,
reliance on good fortune, Providence or a bold attitude. Now, all this
has proved insufficient, and the bitter truth meets us harsh and
imperious.
All these feelings are widely different from a panic, which in an army
fortified by military virtue never, and in any other, only
exceptionally, follows the loss of a battle. They must arise even in
the best of Armies, and although long habituation to War and victory
together with great confidence in a Commander may modify them a little
here and there, they are never entirely wanting in the first moment.
They are not the pure consequences of lost trophies; these are usually
lost at a later period, and the loss of them does not become generally
known so quickly; they will therefore not fail to appear even when the
scale turns in the slowest and most gradual manner, and they constitute
that effect of a victory upon which we can always count in every case.
We have already said that the number of trophies intensifies this
effect.
It is evident that an Army in this condition, looked at as an
instrument, is weakened! How can we expect that when reduced to such a
degree that, as we said before, it finds new enemies in all the
ordinary difficulties of making War, it will be able to recover by
fresh efforts what has been lost! Before the battle there was a real or
assumed equilibrium between the two sides; this is lost, and,
therefore, some external assistance is requisite to restore it; every
new effort without such external support can only lead to fresh losses.
Thus, therefore, the most moderate victory of the chief Army must tend
to cause a constant sinking of the scale on the opponent’s side, until
new external circumstances bring about a change. If these are not near,
if the conqueror is an eager opponent, who, thirsting for glory,
pursues great aims, then a first-rate Commander, and in the beaten Army
a true military spirit, hardened by many campaigns are required, in
order to stop the swollen stream of prosperity from bursting all
bounds, and to moderate its course by small but reiterated acts of
resistance, until the force of victory has spent itself at the goal of
its career.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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