Operations

de guerre, Fr. See Military Operations. Military OPERATION . Military operations consist in the resolute application of preconcerted measures, in secrecy, dispatch, regular movements, occasional encampments, and desultory combats, or pitched battles. Line of Operation . All the forward movements of an army for the purpose of attacking an enemy, penetrating into a country, . may be properly called a line of operation. There is so intimate and so nece ary a connection between this line and the line of communication, that no army can be in security, let its temporary succe es be what they may, without a strict and unremitting attention being given to their relative points of continuity and correspondence. The line of operation in a siege is partial and extremely limited, so is that of communication; but upon the large scale of war these two lines are of considerable extent and importance. No man, in fact, can be called a good general, or even an officer, who carries his views so far forward as to venture upon a long line of operation, without having previously secured his line of communication, by a perfect knowlege of the countries through which he moves, and having his flanks so thoroughly covered, that he may fall back or retreat according to circumstances. See Amer. Mil. Lib.