The Bloody Solution Of The Crisis, The

A General Who Allows Himself To Be Decisively Defeated In An Extended Mountain Position Deserves To Be Court-martialled.

Of All The Passions That Inspire A Man In A Battle, None, We Have To Admit, Is So Powerful And So Constant As The Longing For Honor And Reknown.

This Tremendous Friction Which Cannot, As In Mechanics, Be Reduced To A Few Points, Is Everywhere In Contact With Chance, And Brings About Effects That Cannot Be Measured Just Because They Are Largely Due To Chance.

But The Main Point Is That Soldiers, After Fighting For Some Time, Are Apt To Be Like Burned-out Cinders. They Have Shot Off Their Ammunition, Their Numbers Have Been Diminished, Their Strength And Their Morale Are Drained, And Possibly Their Courage Has Vanished As Well. As An Organic Whole, Quite Apart From Their Loss In Numbers, They Are Far From Being What They Were Before The Action; And Thus The Amount Of Reserves Spent Is An Accurate Measure On The Loss Of Morale.

[the Cause Of Inaction In War] ... Is The Imperfection Of Human Perception And Judgment Which Is More Pronounced In War Than Anywhere Else. We Hardly Know Accurately Our Own Situation At Any Particular Moment While The Enemy's, Which Is Concealed From Us, Must Be Deduced From Very Little Evidence.