But this noble impulse, with which the human soul raises itself above
the most formidable dangers, is to be regarded as an active principle
peculiarly belonging to War. In fact, in what branch of human activity
should boldness have a right of citizenship if not in War?

From the transport-driver and the drummer up to the General, it is the
noblest of virtues, the true steel which gives the weapon its edge and
brilliancy.

Let us admit in fact it has in War even its own prerogatives. Over and
above the result of the calculation of space, time, and quantity, we
must allow a certain percentage which boldness derives from the weakness
of others, whenever it gains the mastery. It is therefore, virtually, a
creative power. This is not difficult to demonstrate philosophically. As
often as boldness encounters hesitation, the probability of the result
is of necessity in its favour, because the very state of hesitation
implies a loss of equilibrium already. It is only when it encounters
cautious foresight--which we may say is just as bold, at all events just
as strong and powerful as itself--that it is at a disadvantage; such
cases, however, rarely occur. Out of the whole multitude of prudent men
in the world, the great majority are so from timidity.

Amongst large masses, boldness is a force, the special cultivation of
which can never be to the detriment of other forces, because the great
mass is bound to a higher will by the frame-work and joints of the order
of battle and of the service, and therefore is guided by an intelligent
power which is extraneous. Boldness is therefore here only like a spring
held down until its action is required.

The higher the rank the more necessary it is that boldness should
be accompanied by a reflective mind, that it may not be a mere blind
outburst of passion to no purpose; for with increase of rank it
becomes always less a matter of self-sacrifice and more a matter of the
preservation of others, and the good of the whole. Where regulations
of the service, as a kind of second nature, prescribe for the masses,
reflection must be the guide of the General, and in his case individual
boldness in action may easily become a fault. Still, at the same time,
it is a fine failing, and must not be looked at in the same light as any
other. Happy the Army in which an untimely boldness frequently manifests
itself; it is an exuberant growth which shows a rich soil. Even
foolhardiness, that is boldness without an object, is not to be
despised; in point of fact it is the same energy of feeling, only
exercised as a kind of passion without any co-operation of the
intelligent faculties. It is only when it strikes at the root of
obedience, when it treats with contempt the orders of superior
authority, that it must be repressed as a dangerous evil, not on its own
account but on account of the act of disobedience, for there is nothing
in War which is of GREATER IMPORTANCE THAN OBEDIENCE.

The reader will readily agree with us that, supposing an equal degree of
discernment to be forthcoming in a certain number of cases, a thousand
times as many of them will end in disaster through over-anxiety as
through boldness.

One would suppose it natural that the interposition of a reasonable
object should stimulate boldness, and therefore lessen its intrinsic
merit, and yet the reverse is the case in reality.

The intervention of lucid thought or the general supremacy of mind
deprives the emotional forces of a great part of their power. On that
account BOLDNESS BECOMES OF RARER OCCURRENCE THE HIGHER WE ASCEND THE
SCALE OF RANK, for whether the discernment and the understanding do or
do not increase with these ranks still the Commanders, in their several
stations as they rise, are pressed upon more and more severely by
objective things, by relations and claims from without, so that they
become the more perplexed the lower the degree of their individual
intelligence. This so far as regards War is the chief foundation of the
truth of the French proverb:--

"Tel brille au second qui s' e'clipse an premier."

Almost all the Generals who are represented in history as merely having
attained to mediocrity, and as wanting in decision when in supreme
command, are men celebrated in their antecedent career for their
boldness and decision.(*)

(*) Beaulieu, Benedek, Bazaine, Buller, Melas, Mack. &c. &c.

In those motives to bold action which arise from the pressure of
necessity we must make a distinction. Necessity has its degrees of
intensity. If it lies near at hand, if the person acting is in the
pursuit of his object driven into great dangers in order to escape
others equally great, then we can only admire his resolution,
which still has also its value. If a young man to show his skill in
horsemanship leaps across a deep cleft, then he is bold; if he makes
the same leap pursued by a troop of head-chopping Janissaries he is only
resolute. But the farther off the necessity from the point of action,
the greater the number of relations intervening which the mind has to
traverse; in order to realise them, by so much the less does necessity
take from boldness in action. If Frederick the Great, in the year 1756,
saw that War was inevitable, and that he could only escape destruction
by being beforehand with his enemies, it became necessary for him to
commence the War himself, but at the same time it was certainly very
bold: for few men in his position would have made up their minds to do
so.

Although Strategy is only the province of Generals-in-Chief or
Commanders in the higher positions, still boldness in all the other
branches of an Army is as little a matter of indifference to it as their
other military virtues. With an Army belonging to a bold race, and in
which the spirit of boldness has been always nourished, very different
things may be undertaken than with one in which this virtue, is unknown;
for that reason we have considered it in connection with an Army. But
our subject is specially the boldness of the General, and yet we have
not much to say about it after having described this military virtue in
a general way to the best of our ability.

The higher we rise in a position of command, the more of the mind,
understanding, and penetration predominate in activity, the more
therefore is boldness, which is a property of the feelings, kept in
subjection, and for that reason we find it so rarely in the highest
positions, but then, so much the more should it be admired. Boldness,
directed by an overruling intelligence, is the stamp of the hero: this
boldness does not consist in venturing directly against the nature of
things, in a downright contempt of the laws of probability, but, if
a choice is once made, in the rigorous adherence to that higher
calculation which genius, the tact of judgment, has gone over with the
speed of lightning. The more boldness lends wings to the mind and the
discernment, so much the farther they will reach in their flight, so
much the more comprehensive will be the view, the more exact the result,
but certainly always only in the sense that with greater objects greater
dangers are connected. The ordinary man, not to speak of the weak
and irresolute, arrives at an exact result so far as such is possible
without ocular demonstration, at most after diligent reflection in his
chamber, at a distance from danger and responsibility. Let danger and
responsibility draw close round him in every direction, then he loses
the power of comprehensive vision, and if he retains this in any measure
by the influence of others, still he will lose his power of DECISION,
because in that point no one can help him.

We think then that it is impossible to imagine a distinguished General
without boldness, that is to say, that no man can become one who is not
born with this power of the soul, and we therefore look upon it as
the first requisite for such a career. How much of this inborn power,
developed and moderated through education and the circumstances of
life, is left when the man has attained a high position, is the second
question. The greater this power still is, the stronger will genius
be on the wing, the higher will be its flight. The risks become always
greater, but the purpose grows with them. Whether its lines proceed out
of and get their direction from a distant necessity, or whether they
converge to the keystone of a building which ambition has planned,
whether Frederick or Alexander acts, is much the same as regards the
critical view. If the one excites the imagination more because it is
bolder, the other pleases the understanding most, because it has in it
more absolute necessity.

We have still to advert to one very important circumstance.

The spirit of boldness can exist in an Army, either because it is in the
people, or because it has been generated in a successful War conducted
by able Generals. In the latter case it must of course be dispensed with
at the commencement.

Now in our days there is hardly any other means of educating the spirit
of a people in this respect, except by War, and that too under bold
Generals. By it alone can that effeminacy of feeling be counteracted,
that propensity to seek for the enjoyment of comfort, which cause
degeneracy in a people rising in prosperity and immersed in an extremely
busy commerce.

A Nation can hope to have a strong position in the political world only
if its character and practice in actual War mutually support each other
in constant reciprocal action.