Three things may easily be distinguished here: the effect upon the
instrument itself, that is, upon the Generals and their Armies; the
effect upon the States interested in the War; and the particular result
of these effects as manifested in the subsequent course of the campaign.

If we only think of the trifling difference which there usually is
between victor and vanquished in killed, wounded, prisoners, and
artillery lost on the field of battle itself, the consequences which
are developed out of this insignificant point seem often quite
incomprehensible, and yet, usually, everything only happens quite
naturally.

We have already said in the seventh chapter that the magnitude of a
victory increases not merely in the same measure as the vanquished
forces increase in number, but in a higher ratio. The moral effects
resulting from the issue of a great battle are greater on the side of
the conquered than on that of the conqueror: they lead to greater losses
in physical force, which then in turn react on the moral element, and
so they go on mutually supporting and intensifying each other. On this
moral effect we must therefore lay special weight. It takes an opposite
direction on the one side from that on the other; as it undermines the
energies of the conquered so it elevates the powers and energy of the
conqueror. But its chief effect is upon the vanquished, because here it
is the direct cause of fresh losses, and besides it is homogeneous in
nature with danger, with the fatigues, the hardships, and generally
with all those embarrassing circumstances by which War is surrounded,
therefore enters into league with them and increases by their help,
whilst with the conqueror all these things are like weights which give a
higher swing to his courage. It is therefore found, that the vanquished
sinks much further below the original line of equilibrium than the
conqueror raises himself above it; on this account, if we speak of the
effects of victory we allude more particularly to those which manifest
themselves in the army. If this effect is more powerful in an important
combat than in a smaller one, so again it is much more powerful in a
great battle than in a minor one. The great battle takes place for the
sake of itself, for the sake of the victory which it is to give, and
which is sought for with the utmost effort. Here on this spot, in this
very hour, to conquer the enemy is the purpose in which the plan of the
War with all its threads converges, in which all distant hopes, all
dim glimmerings of the future meet, fate steps in before us to give an
answer to the bold question.--This is the state of mental tension
not only of the Commander but of his whole Army down to the lowest
waggon-driver, no doubt in decreasing strength but also in decreasing
importance.

According to the nature of the thing, a great battle has never at any
time been an unprepared, unexpected, blind routine service, but a grand
act, which, partly of itself and partly from the aim of the Commander,
stands out from amongst the mass of ordinary efforts, sufficiently to
raise the tension of all minds to a higher degree. But the higher this
tension with respect to the issue, the more powerful must be the effect
of that issue.

Again, the moral effect of victory in our battles is greater than it was
in the earlier ones of modern military history. If the former are as we
have depicted them, a real struggle of forces to the utmost, then the
sum total of all these forces, of the physical as well as the moral,
must decide more than certain special dispositions or mere chance.

A single fault committed may be repaired next time; from good fortune
and chance we can hope for more favour on another occasion; but the sum
total of moral and physical powers cannot be so quickly altered, and,
therefore, what the award of a victory has decided appears of much
greater importance for all futurity. Very probably, of all concerned in
battles, whether in or out of the Army, very few have given a thought
to this difference, but the course of the battle itself impresses on the
minds of all present in it such a conviction, and the relation of this
course in public documents, however much it may be coloured by twisting
particular circumstances, shows also, more or less, to the world at
large that the causes were more of a general than of a particular
nature.

He who has not been present at the loss of a great battle will have
difficulty in forming for himself a living or quite true idea of it, and
the abstract notions of this or that small untoward affair will never
come up to the perfect conception of a lost battle. Let us stop a moment
at the picture.

The first thing which overpowers the imagination--and we may indeed say,
also the understanding--is the diminution of the masses; then the loss
of ground, which takes place always, more or less, and, therefore, on
the side of the assailant also, if he is not fortunate; then the rupture
of the original formation, the jumbling together of troops, the risks
of retreat, which, with few exceptions may always be seen sometimes in
a less sometimes in a greater degree; next the retreat, the most part of
which commences at night, or, at least, goes on throughout the night.
On this first march we must at once leave behind, a number of men
completely worn out and scattered about, often just the bravest, who
have been foremost in the fight who held out the longest: the feeling
of being conquered, which only seized the superior officers on the
battlefield, now spreads through all ranks, even down to the common
soldiers, aggravated by the horrible idea of being obliged to leave in
the enemy's hands so many brave comrades, who but a moment since were of
such value to us in the battle, and aggravated by a rising distrust
of the chief, to whom, more or less, every subordinate attributes as
a fault the fruitless efforts he has made; and this feeling of being
conquered is no ideal picture over which one might become master; it is
an evident truth that the enemy is superior to us; a truth of which
the causes might have been so latent before that they were not to be
discovered, but which, in the issue, comes out clear and 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.

And now as to the effect of defeat beyond the Army, upon the Nation and
Government! It is the sudden collapse of hopes stretched to the utmost,
the downfall of all self-reliance. In place of these extinct forces,
fear, with its destructive properties of expansion, rushes into the
vacuum left, and completes the prostration. It is a real shock upon the
nerves, which one of the two athletes receives from the electric spark
of victory. And that effect, however different in its degrees, is never
completely wanting. Instead of every one hastening with a spirit of
determination to aid in repairing the disaster, every one fears that his
efforts will only be in vain, and stops, hesitating with himself, when
he should rush forward; or in despondency he lets his arm drop, leaving
everything to fate.

The consequence which this effect of victory brings forth in the course
of the War itself depend in part on the character and talent of the
victorious General, but more on the circumstances from which the victory
proceeds, and to which it leads. Without boldness and an enterprising
spirit on the part of the leader, the most brilliant victory will lead
to no great success, and its force exhausts itself all the sooner on
circumstances, if these offer a strong and stubborn opposition to it.
How very differently from Daun, Frederick the Great would have used the
victory at Kollin; and what different consequences France, in place of
Prussia, might have given a battle of Leuthen!

The conditions which allow us to expect great results from a great
victory we shall learn when we come to the subjects with which they are
connected; then it will be possible to explain the disproportion which
appears at first sight between the magnitude of a victory and its
results, and which is only too readily attributed to a want of energy
on the part of the conqueror. Here, where we have to do with the great
battle in itself, we shall merely say that the effects now depicted
never fail to attend a victory, that they mount up with the intensive
strength of the victory--mount up more the more the whole strength of
the Army has been concentrated in it, the more the whole military power
of the Nation is contained in that Army, and the State in that military
power.

But then the question may be asked, Can theory accept this effect of
victory as absolutely necessary?--must it not rather endeavour to find
out counteracting means capable of neutralising these effects? It seems
quite natural to answer this question in the affirmative; but heaven
defend us from taking that wrong course of most theories, out of which
is begotten a mutually devouring Pro et Contra.

Certainly that effect is perfectly necessary, for it has its foundation
in the nature of things, and it exists, even if we find means to
struggle against it; just as the motion of a cannon ball is always in
the direction of the terrestrial, although when fired from east to west
part of the general velocity is destroyed by this opposite motion.

All War supposes human weakness, and against that it is directed.

Therefore, if hereafter in another place we examine what is to be done
after the loss of a great battle, if we bring under review the resources
which still remain, even in the most desperate cases, if we should
express a belief in the possibility of retrieving all, even in such a
case; it must not be supposed we mean thereby that the effects of such a
defeat can by degrees be completely wiped out, for the forces and means
used to repair the disaster might have been applied to the realisation
of some positive object; and this applies both to the moral and physical
forces.

Another question is, whether, through the loss of a great battle, forces
are not perhaps roused into existence, which otherwise would never have
come to life. This case is certainly conceivable, and it is what has
actually occurred with many Nations. But to produce this intensified
reaction is beyond the province of military art, which can only take
account of it where it might be assumed as a possibility.

If there are cases in which the fruits of a victory appear rather of a
destructive nature in consequence of the reaction of the forces which it
had the effect of rousing into activity--cases which certainly are very
exceptional--then it must the more surely be granted, that there is a
difference in the effects which one and the same victory may produce
according to the character of the people or state, which has been
conquered.