Second base

“ In case the enemy country has several home bases, and it is impossible to have our distant base so near to them as to prevent the junction of parts of a fleet issuing from them, the value of the base is less than it otherwise would be. ”

“ We have said in the preceding chapter, that, although according to the present system of subsistence, an army is chiefly fed from the district in which it is operating, it must still be looked upon as forming a whole with its base. ”

“ That every theory of supporting an advanced line, from reserves sent forward from the base, must so bend to facts, that it may be the best thing possible, to strengthen the right of a successful line, even to overlapping and turning the enemy ”

“ Alas! too many States refuse this friendly contact, and, consequently, cut each other, instead of blending in sweet accord. Their peace is at best an armed neutrality; and if they have contact of only the first or second order, we can prove mathematically that [49] they are sure to intersect in some other point or points; and divergence of policy and disturbed relations are the results. Contact of the third, or highest, order is the only safe position for two allied, or contiguous, States.
With your permission I will add a few words to those I have already uttered with regard to the directrix. ”

“ A wide base, with alternative lines of approach, is of the greatest value, and when there is undue risk of the Lines of Communication to a base being intercepted, an alternative base, with lines of withdrawal thereto from the unexposed flank, is an acceptable safeguard, as the defence can be protracted while the withdrawing force concentrates upon the changed base. ”

“ We have now entered upon a new phase of the struggle. Relieved from the necessity of guarding particular points, our army will be free to move from point to point, to strike the enemy in detail far from his base. ”

“ When a general enters a country offensively, he should form eventual or temporary bases,—which, of course, are neither so safe nor so strong as his own frontiers. A river with têtes de ponts, and one or two large towns secure from a coup de main to cover the depots of the army and to serve as points of assembling for the reserve troops, would be an excellent base of this kind. Of course, such a line could not be a temporary base if a hostile force were near the line of operations leading to the real base on the frontiers. ”

“ As we have seen, the base of an army is a triple formation in connection with the situation in which an army is placed: the resources of the country adjacent to the position of the army, the depôts of stores which have been made at particular points, and the province from which these stores are derived or collected. ”

“ The dividing is easily done with a pair of compasses, a ruler, and a sharp lead-pencil.
Now we will explain the indicator. It is made of three pieces—a base and two uprights. The base is fifteen inches long, three wide, and three-quarters of an inch thick. The uprights are of the same thickness, and about seven inches high. They are morticed into the base, and have the shape shown in the picture. ”

“ If your positions are interior and central, the enemy cannot concentrate except by passing by the mass of your divisions or by moving in a circle around them: he is then exactly in a condition not to be able to apply the fundamental principle, while it is your most obvious measure. ”

“ If, then, in operating against an enemy’s country we take the whole line of our own frontier, where it forms a boundary between the two countries as our base, we may do so in a general sense, in so far that we might make those preparations which constitute a base anywhere on that frontier ”

“ And half of this force will move all this body, in half of this space, in all this time, and a hundred times this body, in a hundredth of this space, in the same time. "Seventh: And if two separated forces move two separated moving bodies in so much time and so much space, the same united forces will move the same united bodies in all this space and all this time, because the first proportions stay always the same." ”

“ Therefore, the third division is necessary because of the second, and the second because of the first; while the most necessary of all, and the one in which we ought to rest, is the first. But we do the opposite; for we spend our time in the third division, and all our zeal is devoted to it, while we utterly neglect the first. ”

“ From the false maxim, that the second rank, if they are shorter men, cannot fire over the front, the lesser men are ranged in the first, and the taller in the second rank through the whole army of the United States, and this produces a great eye-sore. ”

“ What we call a division on a single basis is in reality the compressed result of a scheme of division and subdivision by dichotomy, in which a fresh principle has been introduced at every step. Thus when we divide men, on the basis of colour, into white, black, brown, red and yellow, we may be held to have first divided men into white and not-white, and then to have subdivided the men that are not-white into black and not-black, and so on. ”

“ The system of a triple division of specific powers, each one of which was vigorous in its own sphere while at the same time checked and balanced by the other branches of the government, has certain advantages and certain disadvantages. ”

“ The great law of division became clear to him—the separation for a time of the universal agent into two parts, by the separation and reuniting of which comes light and heat and the hidden force of life, and the prime rules of attractive action; all things that are accounted material. ”

“ The units used for different purposes are entirely distinct [23] from the base of any system, and though always referable to such base, are not practically so referred. It therefore seems useless to burden the people with long scientific names in the ordinary transactions of daily life. ”

“ A general of an army, desiring to get possession of a disputed region, does not plan to take and hold the lower land without the higher points, nor the higher points without the lower land. On the contrary, each vantage point with its approaches constitutes, in his mind, one division of the field, one strategic section, which is to be seized and held. ”

“ All eyes are turned upon him for president or speaker. The second division comprehends a third, or a quarter, or, if you will, a sixth or an eighth of the whole; and consists of those who have the most to boast of resembling their head. In the third class are all the rest, who are nearly on a level in understanding and in all things. ”

“ To facilitate description, and to bring something like system out of the disordered materials before us, the enclosures are, to as great a degree as practicable, divided into classes; that is to say, such as are esteemed to be works of defence are placed together, while those which are regarded as sacred, or of a doubtful character, come under another division. ”

“ Only as each separated division draws into its general mass those diffused peripheral portions which are at first imperfectly disunited from the peripheral portions of neighbouring divisions, can it acquire anything like a precise outline. ”

“ If the two resistances over which the points A and B move are mounted in the same position with respect to the cardinal points of the compass, then the points themselves will always be in the same position with respect to the cardinal points when a balance is obtained. ”

“ The radical axis becomes the tangent to the circle. Hence we may conclude that in a social system of monarchical government the radical axis is perpendicular to the line attaching the individual with the monarch. Therefore we may conclude that the radical axis indicates a tendency of particles, or individuals, to fly off at a tangent, at right angles to the connecting-link between the individual and the king. ”

“ Say, for instance, that the formation added ten to the fighting force of every member, then the man who outside the ranks was as two to one in power compared with his comrade would, when they both stood in the ranks, compare with him only as twelve to eleven--an inconsiderable difference. ”

“ These units of different orders have different properties of space; the platoon occupies more space in the field than the individual soldier; the company occupies more space than the platoon; the battalion more space than the company; and the same is true of the other units in the hierarchy. If we have two armies exactly alike in a hierarchy of units and spaces, then any two corresponding units and spaces in the hierarchy would be similar. In speaking of the bodies of the universe it is necessary sometimes to speak of the corresponding unit in the different bodies, and we call them substances. ”

“ Incident forces will tend ever to cause separation of the two orders of units from each other—will tend to integrate groups of the one order in one place and groups of the other order in another place. ”

“ Thus, for forces nearly equal, all central or interior positions would be preferable to exterior ones, since the front in the latter case would necessarily be more extended and would lead to a dangerous division of force. ”

“ The number of unlike parts of which an aggregate consists, as well as the degree of their unlikeness, is an important factor in the process. Every additional specialized division is an additional centre of specialized forces. If a uniform whole, in being itself made multiform by an incident force, makes the incident force multiform; if a whole consisting of two unlike sections, divides an incident force into two unlike groups of multiform forces ”

“ These subdivisions, it will at once be perceived, form the second branch of a regular analytical table, each of which has sprung from, and is intimately connected with, some one or other of the three great divisions forming the first branch, of which the "History of Joseph" is the comprehensive root. ”

“ We have seen that forces have two ways of acting: that of compelling rest and that of producing motion. In statics forces act so as to prevent any change of motion, or disturb the body’s original position. In kinetics, on the contrary, the power is recognised as acting so as to produce or change a body’s motion. Now, in polemical science we have these two ways of considering the action of [97] forces. There is the statical or conservative force, which compels rest, which seeks security, stability, and peace, and is not ardently devoted to change. It reduces the system to equilibrium. ”

“ If of the mixed units making up such aggregate, those of the same kind have like motions impressed on them by a uniform force, while units of another kind are moved by this uniform force in ways more or less unlike the ways in which those of the first kind are moved, the two kinds must separate and integrate. If the units are alike and the forces unlike, a division of the differently affected units is equally necessitated. ”

“ We say, then, that if the expression, key-position, is to represent an independent conception in strategy, it must only be that of a locality the possession of which is indispensable before daring to enter the enemy’s country. ”

“ In strategy we must never ask what is to be the strength of a division or a corps, but how many corps or division an army should have. There is nothing more unmanageable than an army divided into three parts, except it be one divided into only two, in which case the chief command must be almost neutralised. ”

“ Every new quality or circumstance which can belong to an object, subdivides each combination or class, so that the number of such combinations, when unrestricted by logical conditions, is represented by an infinitely high power of two. The extremely rapid increase in the number of subdivisions obliges us to confine our attention to a few qualities at a time. ”

“ Those in the middle will march straight against them, and the other two divisions will surround them on the right and on the left. When the middle detachment begins to walk toward them, they will think that we are all there, and so they will leap forward. ”

“ In cases like these, where the two bodies approach in only a limited number of places in their orbits the two periods of revolution are called commensurate, because their ratio is expressed by a simple fraction. The effect is greater as the number of such places in the orbit is less, and as the number of revolutions before they approach is less. ”

“ Federation for Defence.It is far more possible and of infinitely greater importance that we should be more closely united for the purposes of defence. Before we can come to any conclusion as to the part which each member of the British dominions ought to play in the defence of the whole, we must understand the general principles on which the defence of the Empire rests. ”

“ We'll give them a reason to move, then ambush them. Right now we've a lot of reorganizing to do, and I want you to get it started. We're splitting this Force into Groups One and Two. Here's what I want. ”

“ Law, which carries with it the idea of order, implies disorder, and takes measures against it. We become conscious of the truth of the doctrine here announced at every turn. In the astronomic order it is seen in the centripetal and centrifugal forces—the holding together and the flying apart forces. In chemistry it is manifest in the composing and decomposing forces ”

“ BASE DETAILS If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death. ”

“ With these advantages all wars, both ancient and modern, are full of instructive examples of the application of the simple principles of strategy under innumerable varying circumstances and situations; and this union of simple theory in ever-changing practical application is what constitutes the theoretic knowledge of the general as distinguished from the tactical and administrative duties of the subordinate. ”