"_War_," he says, "_is the province of uncertainty. Three-fourths of those things upon which action in war must be calculated are hidden more or less in the clouds of great uncertainty._ Here, then, above all other, a fine and penetrating mind is called for, to grope out the truth by the tact of its judgment." Mark this point, that three-fourths of the things that we as critics AFTER the event know, when all information of the situation has been collected and published, were unknown to the general who had to decide, or only dimly guessed at from a number of contradictory reports. "From this uncertainty of all intelligence and suppositions, _this continual interposition of chance_." "Now, if he is to get safely through _this perpetual conflict with the unexpected_, two qualities are indispensable; in the first place _an understanding which, even in the midst of this intense obscurity, is not without some traces of inner light_, which _lead to the truth_, and then _the courage to follow this faint light_. The first is expressed by the French phrase _coup d'oeil_; the second is resolution." "Resolution is an _act of courage in face of responsibility_." "The forerunner of resolution is an act of the mind making plain the necessity of venturing and thus influencing the will. This quite peculiar direction of the mind, which conquers every other fear in man by the fear of wavering or doubting, is what makes up resolution in strong minds." The vital importance of firmness and resolution, so strongly urged by Clausewitz, will be apparent to all if we reflect how even the strongest characters have been ruined by a temporary fit of vacillation in war. Compare, for instance, York _v._ Wartenburg's masterly exposition of Napoleon's ruinous, suicidal vacillation in 1813 at Dresden. Also there is required "_the power of listening to reason in the midst of the most intense excitement_, in the storm of the most violent passions." "But to keep to the result of by-gone reflections in opposition to the stream of opinions and phenomena which the present brings with it, is just THE difficulty." "Here nothing else can help us but an imperative maxim which, independent of reflection, at once controls it: that maxim is, _in all doubtful cases to adhere to the first opinion and not to give it up till a clear conviction forces us to do so_." "But as soon as difficulties arise, and that must always happen when great results are at stake, then the machine, the army itself, begins to offer a sort of passive resistance, and to overcome this the commander must have great force of will." Driving power, such as Napoleon's. And also "the heart-rending sight of the bloody sacrifice, which the commander has to contend with in himself." "These are the weights which the courage and intelligent faculties of the commander have to contend with and OVERCOME, if he is to make his name illustrious." If he is to prevent the downfall of his country. REFLECTIONS