WE have seen in the sixteenth chapter of this book, how, in most
campaigns, much more time used to be spent in standing still and
inaction than in activity.

Now, although, as observed in the preceding chapter we see quite a
different character in the present form of War, still it is certain that
real action will always be interrupted more or less by long pauses; and
this leads to the necessity of our examining more closely the nature of
these two phases of War.

If there is a suspension of action in War, that is, if neither party
wills something positive, there is rest, and consequently equilibrium,
but certainly an equilibrium in the largest signification, in which not
only the moral and physical war-forces, but all relations and interests,
come into calculation. As soon as ever one of the two parties proposes
to himself a new positive object, and commences active steps towards it,
even if it is only by preparations, and as soon as the adversary opposes
this, there is a tension of powers; this lasts until the decision takes
place--that is, until one party either gives up his object or the other
has conceded it to him.

This decision--the foundation of which lies always in the
combat--combinations which are made on each side--is followed by a
movement in one or other direction.

When this movement has exhausted itself, either in the difficulties
which had to be mastered, in overcoming its own internal friction, or
through new resistant forces prepared by the acts of the enemy, then
either a state of rest takes place or a new tension with a decision, and
then a new movement, in most cases in the opposite direction.

This speculative distinction between equilibrium, tension, and motion is
more essential for practical action than may at first sight appear.

In a state of rest and of equilibrium a varied kind of activity may
prevail on one side that results from opportunity, and does not aim at
a great alteration. Such an activity may contain important combats--even
pitched battles--but yet it is still of quite a different nature, and on
that account generally different in its effects.

If a state of tension exists, the effects of the decision are always
greater partly because a greater force of will and a greater pressure of
circumstances manifest themselves therein; partly because everything has
been prepared and arranged for a great movement. The decision in such
cases resembles the effect of a mine well closed and tamped, whilst an
event in itself perhaps just as great, in a state of rest, is more or
less like a mass of powder puffed away in the open air.

At the same time, as a matter of course, the state of tension must
be imagined in different degrees of intensity, and it may therefore
approach gradually by many steps towards the state of rest, so that at
the last there is a very slight difference between them.

Now the real use which we derive from these reflections is the
conclusion that every measure which is taken during a state of tension
is more important and more prolific in results than the same measure
could be in a state of equilibrium, and that this importance increases
immensely in the highest degrees of tension.

The cannonade of Valmy, September 20, 1792, decided more than the battle
of Hochkirch, October 14, 1758.

In a tract of country which the enemy abandons to us because he cannot
defend it, we can settle ourselves differently from what we should do if
the retreat of the enemy was only made with the view to a decision under
more favourable circumstances. Again, a strategic attack in course of
execution, a faulty position, a single false march, may be decisive in
its consequence; whilst in a state of equilibrium such errors must be
of a very glaring kind, even to excite the activity of the enemy in a
general way.

Most bygone Wars, as we have already said, consisted, so far as regards
the greater part of the time, in this state of equilibrium, or at least
in such short tensions with long intervals between them, and weak in
their effects, that the events to which they gave rise were seldom great
successes, often they were theatrical exhibitions, got up in honour of a
royal birthday (Hochkirch), often a mere satisfying of the honour of the
arms (Kunersdorf), or the personal vanity of the commander (Freiberg).

That a Commander should thoroughly understand these states, that he
should have the tact to act in the spirit of them, we hold to be a great
requisite, and we have had experience in the campaign of 1806 how far
it is sometimes wanting. In that tremendous tension, when everything
pressed on towards a supreme decision, and that alone with all its
consequences should have occupied the whole soul of the Commander,
measures were proposed and even partly carried out (such as the
reconnaissance towards Franconia), which at the most might have given a
kind of gentle play of oscillation within a state of equilibrium. Over
these blundering schemes and views, absorbing the activity of the Army,
the really necessary means, which could alone save, were lost sight of.

But this speculative distinction which we have made is also necessary
for our further progress in the construction of our theory, because all
that we have to say on the relation of attack and defence, and on the
completion of this double-sided act, concerns the state of the crisis in
which the forces are placed during the tension and motion, and
because all the activity which can take place during the condition of
equilibrium can only be regarded and treated as a corollary; for
that crisis is the real War and this state of equilibrium only its
reflection.