The surprise is, therefore, not only the means to the attainment of
numerical superiority; but it is also to be regarded as a substantive
principle in itself, on account of its moral effect. When it is
successful in a high degree, confusion and broken courage in the enemy's
ranks are the consequences; and of the degree to which these multiply
a success, there are examples enough, great and small. We are not now
speaking of the particular surprise which belongs to the attack, but of
the endeavour by measures generally, and especially by the distribution
of forces, to surprise the enemy, which can be imagined just as well in
the defensive, and which in the tactical defence particularly is a chief
point.

We say, surprise lies at the foundation of all undertakings without
exception, only in very different degrees according to the nature of the
undertaking and other circumstances.

This difference, indeed, originates in the properties or peculiarities
of the Army and its Commander, in those even of the Government.

Secrecy and rapidity are the two factors in this product and these
suppose in the Government and the Commander-in-Chief great energy, and
on the part of the Army a high sense of military duty. With effeminacy
and loose principles it is in vain to calculate upon a surprise. But so
general, indeed so indispensable, as is this endeavour, and true as it
is that it is never wholly unproductive of effect, still it is not
the less true that it seldom succeeds to a REMARKABLE degree, and this
follows from the nature of the idea itself. We should form an erroneous
conception if we believed that by this means chiefly there is much to be
attained in War. In idea it promises a great deal; in the execution it
generally sticks fast by the friction of the whole machine.

In tactics the surprise is much more at home, for the very natural
reason that all times and spaces are on a smaller scale. It will,
therefore, in Strategy be the more feasible in proportion as the
measures lie nearer to the province of tactics, and more difficult the
higher up they lie towards the province of policy.

The preparations for a War usually occupy several months; the assembly
of an Army at its principal positions requires generally the formation
of depôts and magazines, and long marches, the object of which can be
guessed soon enough.

It therefore rarely happens that one State surprises another by a
War, or by the direction which it gives the mass of its forces. In the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when War turned very much upon
sieges, it was a frequent aim, and quite a peculiar and important
chapter in the Art of War, to invest a strong place unexpectedly, but
even that only rarely succeeded.(*)

(*) Railways, steamships, and telegraphs have, however,
enormously modified the relative importance and
practicability of surprise. (EDITOR.)

On the other hand, with things which can be done in a day or two, a
surprise is much more conceivable, and, therefore, also it is often not
difficult thus to gain a march upon the enemy, and thereby a position, a
point of country, a road, &c. But it is evident that what surprise gains
in this way in easy execution, it loses in the efficacy, as the greater
the efficacy the greater always the difficulty of execution. Whoever
thinks that with such surprises on a small scale, he may connect great
results--as, for example, the gain of a battle, the capture of an
important magazine--believes in something which it is certainly very
possible to imagine, but for which there is no warrant in history; for
there are upon the whole very few instances where anything great has
resulted from such surprises; from which we may justly conclude that
inherent difficulties lie in the way of their success.

Certainly, whoever would consult history on such points must not depend
on sundry battle steeds of historical critics, on their wise dicta and
self-complacent terminology, but look at facts with his own eyes. There
is, for instance, a certain day in the campaign in Silesia, 1761, which,
in this respect, has attained a kind of notoriety. It is the 22nd July,
on which Frederick the Great gained on Laudon the march to Nossen, near
Neisse, by which, as is said, the junction of the Austrian and Russian
armies in Upper Silesia became impossible, and, therefore, a period of
four weeks was gained by the King. Whoever reads over this occurrence
carefully in the principal histories,(*) and considers it impartially,
will, in the march of the 22nd July, never find this importance; and
generally in the whole of the fashionable logic on this subject, he will
see nothing but contradictions; but in the proceedings of Laudon, in
this renowned period of manoeuvres, much that is unaccountable. How
could one, with a thirst for truth, and clear conviction, accept such
historical evidence?

(*) Tempelhof, The Veteran, Frederick the Great. Compare
also (Clausewitz) "Hinterlassene Werke," vol. x., p. 158.

When we promise ourselves great effects in a campaign from the principle
of surprising, we think upon great activity, rapid resolutions, and
forced marches, as the means of producing them; but that these things,
even when forthcoming in a very high degree, will not always produce the
desired effect, we see in examples given by Generals, who may be allowed
to have had the greatest talent in the use of these means, Frederick the
Great and Buonaparte. The first when he left Dresden so suddenly in
July 1760, and falling upon Lascy, then turned against Dresden, gained
nothing by the whole of that intermezzo, but rather placed his affairs
in a condition notably worse, as the fortress Glatz fell in the
meantime.

In 1813, Buonaparte turned suddenly from Dresden twice against Bluecher,
to say nothing of his incursion into Bohemia from Upper Lusatia, and
both times without in the least attaining his object. They were blows in
the air which only cost him time and force, and might have placed him in
a dangerous position in Dresden.

Therefore, even in this field, a surprise does not necessarily meet with
great success through the mere activity, energy, and resolution of the
Commander; it must be favoured by other circumstances. But we by
no means deny that there can be success; we only connect with it a
necessity of favourable circumstances, which, certainly do not occur
very frequently, and which the Commander can seldom bring about himself.

Just those two Generals afford each a striking illustration of this. We
take first Buonaparte in his famous enterprise against Bluecher's
Army in February 1814, when it was separated from the Grand Army, and
descending the Marne. It would not be easy to find a two days' march to
surprise the enemy productive of greater results than this; Bluecher's
Army, extended over a distance of three days' march, was beaten in
detail, and suffered a loss nearly equal to that of defeat in a great
battle. This was completely the effect of a surprise, for if Bluecher
had thought of such a near possibility of an attack from Buonaparte(*)
he would have organised his march quite differently. To this mistake of
Bluecher's the result is to be attributed. Buonaparte did not know all
these circumstances, and so there was a piece of good fortune that mixed
itself up in his favour.

(*) Bluecher believed his march to be covered by Pahlen's
Cossacks, but these had been withdrawn without warning to
him by the Grand Army Headquarters under Schwartzenberg.

It is the same with the battle of Liegnitz, 1760. Frederick the Great
gained this fine victory through altering during the night a position
which he had just before taken up. Laudon was through this completely
surprised, and lost 70 pieces of artillery and 10,000 men. Although
Frederick the Great had at this time adopted the principle of moving
backwards and forwards in order to make a battle impossible, or at least
to disconcert the enemy's plans, still the alteration of position on the
night of the 14-15 was not made exactly with that intention, but as the
King himself says, because the position of the 14th did not please
him. Here, therefore, also chance was hard at work; without this happy
conjunction of the attack and the change of position in the night, and
the difficult nature of the country, the result would not have been the
same.

Also in the higher and highest province of Strategy there are some
instances of surprises fruitful in results. We shall only cite the
brilliant marches of the Great Elector against the Swedes from Franconia
to Pomerania and from the Mark (Brandenburg) to the Pregel in 1757, and
the celebrated passage of the Alps by Buonaparte, 1800. In the latter
case an Army gave up its whole theatre of war by a capitulation, and in
1757 another Army was very near giving up its theatre of war and itself
as well. Lastly, as an instance of a War wholly unexpected, we may
bring forward the invasion of Silesia by Frederick the Great. Great and
powerful are here the results everywhere, but such events are not common
in history if we do not confuse with them cases in which a State, for
want of activity and energy (Saxony 1756, and Russia, 1812), has not
completed its preparations in time.

Now there still remains an observation which concerns the essence of the
thing. A surprise can only be effected by that party which gives the law
to the other; and he who is in the right gives the law. If we surprise
the adversary by a wrong measure, then instead of reaping good results,
we may have to bear a sound blow in return; in any case the adversary
need not trouble himself much about our surprise, he has in our mistake
the means of turning off the evil. As the offensive includes in itself
much more positive action than the defensive, so the surprise is
certainly more in its place with the assailant, but by no means
invariably, as we shall hereafter see. Mutual surprises by the offensive
and defensive may therefore meet, and then that one will have the
advantage who has hit the nail on the head the best.

So should it be, but practical life does not keep to this line so
exactly, and that for a very simple reason. The moral effects which
attend a surprise often convert the worst case into a good one for
the side they favour, and do not allow the other to make any regular
determination. We have here in view more than anywhere else not only the
chief Commander, but each single one, because a surprise has the effect
in particular of greatly loosening unity, so that the individuality of
each separate leader easily comes to light.

Much depends here on the general relation in which the two parties stand
to each other. If the one side through a general moral superiority can
intimidate and outdo the other, then he can make use of the surprise
with more success, and even reap good fruit where properly he should
come to ruin.