Offensive war

“ In a moral and political view, the offensive is nearly always advantageous: it carries the war upon foreign soil, saves the assailant's country from devastation, increases his resources and diminishes those of his enemy, elevates the morale of his army, and generally depresses the adversary. It sometimes happens that invasion excites the ardor and energy of the adversary,—particularly when he feels that the independence of his country is threatened. ”

“ For, according to modern militarism, war aims at annihilation of the enemy, and the enemy includes not only the combatants—these are the least offensive element—but the non-combatants, the men who represent the rival commerce, the women who represent the rival culture, and the men and women who represent codes of honour and humanity which are the beacons of the rival civilisation—at one and all of these, is aimed the blow which is delivered through the medium of the proxies in the field. ”

“ This power to repel invasion, and, upon just cause, to invade and destroy the natives, authorizes offensive as well as defensive war, but only "on just cause." The very terms imply the existence of a country to be invaded, and of an enemy who has given just cause of war. ”

“ It seemed to me that the infantry at certain points was confining its action to a mere defensive.... I cannot protest too strongly against such an idea, which necessarily results in destroying the spirit of offensive in our own troops and in arousing and strengthening in the mind of the enemy a feeling of his superiority. The enemy is left full liberty of action and our action is subjected to the will of the enemy. ”

“ In the future war every body of troops holding itself on the defensive or found taking the offensive, when it is not the question of sudden assault, will have to fortify itself in a chosen position and the war will be confined principally to the form of a series of combats in which the possession of fortified positions will be disputed, and in which the assailant will have to meet the accessory defensives in the neighbourhood of the fortifications such as barricades, barbed wire, etc., the destruction of these objects costing many victims.... ”

“ With impassive gaze, Michael, prince of warriors, measured the extent of the disaster, and his keen intelligence penetrated its causes. The armies of the living God had taken the offensive, but by one of those fatalities in war which disconcert the plans of the greatest captains, the enemy had also taken the offensive, and the effect was evident. ”

“ But in that case we shall want an army for foreign service as well as for home defence.
The other point needs rather more explanation because it is constantly misunderstood by people who will not try to comprehend the nature of war. Such persons are always confusing aggression in the political sense as the cause of war with aggression in the strategic sense as a method of conducting it. A war may be waged solely for defensive [Pg 81] purposes, yet it may be the right course from a military point of view to take the offensive. ”

“ In the ordinary course of affairs the invasion of the territory of one Empire by the troops of another is, and can be nothing else than, an act of war, necessitating hostilities as a measure of defence on the part of the Power invaded. ”

“ Whether we shall drive the enemy from their posts with a strong body of regular troops, or whether we shall permit them to extend their devastations, while, with our battalions and fluctuating corps of militia, we protract a weak defensive war, till our allies are discouraged, and some unfavorable change takes place in the system of Europe. ”

“ The defensive, in general, may count more on foreign aid than the offensive; he may reckon the more certainly on it in proportion as his existence is of importance to others, that is to say, the sounder and more vigorous his political and military condition.' [91] Influence of the political object on the military:
'Even in wars carried on without allies, the political cause of a war has a great influence upon the method in which it is conducted. ... The reciprocal action, the rivalry, the violence and impetuosity of war lose themselves in the stagnation of weak motives, and ... ”

“ Every suspension of offensive action, either from erroneous views, from fear or from indolence, is in favour of the side acting defensively. ”

“ The defensive army, on the contrary, should endeavor, by all means, to neutralize the first forward movement of its adversary, protracting operations as long as possible while not compromising the fate of the war, and deferring a decisive battle until the time when a portion of the enemy's forces are either exhausted by labors, or scattered for the purpose of occupying invaded provinces, masking fortified places, covering sieges, protecting the line of operations, depots, &c. ”

“ Because we are fighting a murderous ideology with a clear strategy, we're staying on the offensive in Iraq, Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terror, fighting terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home. ”

“ Every nation is fighting in self-defence, every nation is fighting to destroy the tyranny of armaments, every nation is fighting to show that unprovoked aggression cannot be practised with impunity. Every nation pays homage to peace by maintaining that its enemies began the war. ”

“ This war cry had the effect not only to stop the enemy's firing but its advance, thinking probably it was a counter-assault to meet theirs, and it saved many a poor fellow from being captured, as the enemy ceased its aggressive tactics in order to reform and be prepared to meet our anticipated assault. ”

“ Then will come the catastrophe. All Europe will be called to arms, and sixteen to eighteen million men, the flower of the nations, armed with the best instruments of murder will make war upon each other. ”

“ They could cut their way through all opposition that we could offer. We have neither the infantry, nor the ar [108] tillery, nor the cavalry, to oppose them, and the artillery we have is of so much shorter range that at no time could we get near enough to the enemy to reach him with our guns.
If war comes between us and any of the Great Powers, the splendid young men of the country—husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, lovers—will have to go to the front and meet the invaders. ”

“ Or again, if we were to see some city surrounded by a severe blockade of the enemy, in which threatening engines were brought against the walls, and the place hard pressed by a vallum, and weapons, and fire, and all the instruments of war, by which destruction is prepared, would we not rightly and deservedly say, if the enemy were repelled and put to flight, that the deliverance had been wrought for the liberated city by God? ”

“ Indeed every nation, of a military disposition, and addicted to warlike pursuits, considers war not merely as a means of repelling the attacks of [pg 262] enemies, or of gaining plunder or territory by being itself the invader. ”

“ To watchers of the present conflict it seems an intolerable thought that, after the fighting is done, we should once more return to a condition of “armed peace,” with jealous, distrustful, and revengeful Powers piling up armaments and plotting singly or in groups against their neighbors until Europe is plunged into another war more terrible, more bloody, and more costly than this. ”

“ And even in the field—for they will have recourse to arms in their own defence—and what nation would not?-ye are still bound by the usages of war, by every principle of honor and humanity, to spare their lives when they surrender and call for mercy. In short, whether ye reckon them enemies or British subjects, ye have no right to hunt them down and kill them, as if they were so many wild beasts. ”

“ If the people of that portion of an invaded coun­try which is not yet occupied by the enemy, or of the whole country, at the approach of a hostile army, rise, under a duly authorized levy, en masse to resist the invader, they are now treated as public enemies, and, if captured, are prisoners of war. ”

“ If we may shoot rebel enemies in battle, if we may shut them up in fortresses or prisons, if we may bombard their forts, if we may occupy their fields, if we may appropriate their crops, if we may blockade their ports, if we may seize their vessels, if we may capture their cities, it is vain to say that we may not exercise against them the other associate prerogatives of war. ”

“ They must go through, slaying as they go such as oppose them (the Germans have a monopoly of the finishing-off of wounded men) , otherwise the enemy’s resistance would not be broken, and the assailants would be sniped and enfiladed from hastily prepared strongholds at half a dozen different points. ”

“ Modern wars are not internecine wars, in which the killing of the enemy is the object. The destruction of the enemy in modern war, and, indeed, modern war itself, are means to obtain that object of the belligerent which lies beyond the war. ”

“ To smooth the scarred and broken earth, and plant
The fields again. But—if we must—
We'll deal first with those war-lords, break
Their knees and bring them to the dust.
For France's sake
We'll fight until we drop. ”

“ The purpose of war, namely, the overpowering of the enemy, is served in land warfare through two aims [230] —firstly, defeat of the enemy armed forces on land, and, secondly, occupation and administration of the enemy territory. The chief means by which belligerents try to realise those aims, and which are always conclusively decisive, are the different sorts of force applied against enemy persons. But besides such violence against enemy persons there are other means which are not at all unimportant, although they play a secondary part only. ”

“ Let us see, finally, what a prominent military theoretician, General Bernhardi, says, in his great work "Vom Heutigen Kriege." "Thus modern mass armies make war difficult for a variety of reasons. Moreover they constitute, in and of themselves, a danger that must never be underestimated. ”

“ Who serve the British Army or the Government as spies, or receive British spies, or give them assistance or asylum.
(b) Who serve as guides to British troops, or mislead the German troops when charged to act as guides.
(c) Who shoot, injure, or assault any German soldier or officer.
(d) Who destroy bridges or canals, interrupt railways or telegraph lines, render roads impassable, burn munitions of war, provisions, or quarters of the troops.
(e) Who take arms against the German troops. ”

“ For the invasion of the enemy’s territory, with a constantly lengthening line of supply and a consequent dwindling of the main force through detachments necessary to protect this line, an army twice as great as the enemy’s was required for accomplishing the object of the campaign, which was the destruction or the surrender of the opposing host. ”

“ Instead of improving, however, many nations renowned for their knowledge in the art of war, have totally neglected their military institutions in time of peace, and as a very natural consequence, frequently drawn upon themselves invasion, defeat, and ruin. ”

“ Damage in respect of all property, wherever situated, belonging to any of the Allied or Associated States or their nationals, with the exception of naval and military works or materials, which have been carried off, seized, injured, or destroyed by the acts of Germany or her allies on land, on sea, or from the air, or damage directly in consequence of hostilities or of any operations of war. ”

“ In fact, if the operation is arranged in a systematic manner, and all the precautions and rules observed as are usual in cases of attacks premeditated against European and civilized establishments, there is no reason to expect any other than a flattering and decisive result, since, in reality, the whole would be directed against an enemy contemptible on account of his barbarism and his comparative ignorance of the art of war. ”

“ Once restrict legitimate warfare to the limits of national defence, and it is evident that the refusal of men to take part in a war of aggression would equally put an end to the necessity of defensive exertion. ”

“ They did not know, many of them, whether they were attacking French, British or Turk, but unquestioning, unthinking, they came on with a fearlessness of life deserving of a better cause, leaping into our trenches and falling back dead with a bullet in the throat or a bayonet wound in the breast or with head blown off by one of our shells.
But it was, "for all our grim resistance," a hopeless kind of struggle. Sooner or later that unceasing stream of men issuing out of the narrow defile must sweep us back. ”

“ These gentlemen are authorities which show that, when two belligerents are carrying on a war, a neutral power may supply, without any breach of international law and without a breach of the Foreign Enlistment Act, munitions of war—gunpowder, every description of arms, in fact, that can be used for the destruction of human beings. ”

“ Another extraordinary moral consequence flows from this insufficiency of defence: “If the enemy fails to defend his country, we may rightfully appropriate what we want.” Here, now, is a nice question of martial law or casuistry, solved with the simplicity of an ancient Roman. In other words, when in the enemy’s country, the army shall be strictly careful not to seize, capture or appropriate to military or private uses, any property—that it cannot get.
“They (the Southern people) have lost all title to property, and can lose nothing not already forfeited.” ”

“ The surging masses of human beings intent on each others destruction with the death dealing artillery with its terrific roar and the more destructive missiles of small armies with their hateful hissing sounds, together with the deafening cheers of the moving armies, and the heartrending screams and moans of the wounded and dying make the scene agonizing to the extreme. ”