If we reflect upon the commencement of war philosophically, the conception of war properly does not originate with the _offensive_, as that form has for its absolute object, not so much _fighting_ as the _taking possession of something._ The idea of war arises first by the _defensive_, for that form has the battle for its direct object, as warding off and fighting plainly are one and the same. The warding off is directed entirely against the attack; therefore supposes it, necessarily; but the attack is not directed against the warding off; it is directed upon something else—the _taking possession;_ consequently does not presuppose the warding off. It lies, therefore, in the nature of things, that the party who first brings the element of war into action, the party from whose point of view two opposite parties are first conceived, also establishes the first laws of war, and that party is the _defender_. We are not speaking of any individual case; we are only dealing with a general, an abstract case, which theory imagines in order to determine the course it is to take. By this we now know where to look for this fixed point, outside and independent of the reciprocal effect of attack and defence, and that it is in the defensive. If this is a logical consequence, the defensive must have motives of action, even when as yet he knows nothing of the intentions of the offensive; and these motives of action must determine the organisation of the means of fighting. On the other hand, as long as the offensive knows nothing of the plans of his adversary, there are no motives of action for him, no grounds for the application of his military means. He can do nothing more than take these means along with him, that is, take possession by means of his army. And thus it is also in point of fact; for to carry about the apparatus of war is not to use it; and the offensive who takes such things with him, on the quite general supposition that he may require to use them, and who, instead of taking possession of a country by official functionaries and proclamations, does so with an army, has not as yet committed, properly speaking, any act of warfare; but the defensive who both collects his apparatus of war, and disposes of it with a view to fighting, is the first to exercise an act which really accords with the conception of war.