Strategy

Is defined by military writers to be the science of manœuvring an army out of fire of the enemy, as tactics is the art of managing it in battle or under fire. Strategy is the greater science, as including all those vast combinations which lead to the subsequent available displays of tactics. A movement of the army is said to be strategical when by its means there are concentrated at a given point troops superior in numbers to those of the enemy; or, at this point, there is gained a position by which the enemy’s communications with his base are cut or threatened while those of the army are secure; or, a position is gained by which the forces of the enemy are separated, or are prevented from acting in concert. Strategical operations are directed to attain one or more of these objects; and the line followed by an army in an operation of this kind is called a strategical line . The area of country or territory in any part of which the hostile forces can come into collision is termed the theatre of war . There may be employed in a given theatre of war several armies or only one. If there are several armies, but each acting independently of the others, or if there is only one, the particular portion of the territory in which each act is termed the theatre of operations for that army. A theatre of operations of an army may be defined to be all the territory it may desire to invade, and all that it may have to defend. Where several armies are employed, acting in concert, the theatre of operations of each army depends upon the movements of the other armies, and the theatres of operations of each army in this case are usually designated as zones of operations ; although this term is also applied to those three divisions of a theatre of operations lying directly in advance of the centre and flanks of a front of operations. Whatever is true for a theatre of operations of an army acting alone is equally true for the theatre of operations of several armies acting separately, and is also applicable to the whole theatre of war. To make the above statements definite, suppose a single army acting in an independent theatre of operations. A general with such an army under his command proposing an advance towards the enemy will have three things to consider, viz.: (1) The place from which the army is to start; (2) The point to which the army is to go; (3) The roads or routes by which the army is to move in order to reach this point. The first, or place of starting, is termed the base of operations . The second, the point to be reached, is called the objective-point , or simply the objective . The third, the roads or routes used by the army in reaching the objective-point, is termed the line of operations . The portion of the theatre of operations occupied by the army as it advances is known as the front of operations .