CHAPTER III

. A. Interdependence of the Parts in War

According as we have in view the absolute form of war, or one of the real forms deviating more or less from it, so likewise different notions of its result will arise.

In the absolute form, where everything is the effect of its natural and necessary cause, one thing follows another in rapid succession; there is, if we may use the expression, no neutral space; there is on account of the manifold reactionary effects which war contains in itself,(*1) on account of the connection in which, strictly speaking, the whole series of combats,(*2) follow one after another, on account of the culminating point which every victory has, beyond which losses and defeats commence(*3) on account of all these natural relations of war there is, I say, only _one result_, to wit, the _final result_. Until it takes place nothing is decided, nothing won, nothing lost. Here we may say indeed: the end crowns the work. In this view, therefore, war is an indivisible whole, the parts of which (the subordinate results) have no value except in their relation to this whole. The conquest of Moscow, and of half Russia in 1812, was of no value to Buonaparte unless it obtained for him the peace which he desired. But it was only a part of his Plan of campaign; to complete that Plan, one part was still wanted, the destruction of the Russian army; if we suppose this, added to the other success, then the peace was as certain as it is possible for things of this kind to be. This second part Buonaparte missed at the right time, and he could never afterwards attain it, and so the whole of the first part was not only useless, but fatal to him.

(*1.) Book I., Chapter I .

(*2.) Book I.,