Tactician

“ But in spite of this difficulty, we must insist again that any really tangible and permanent success in conducting involves a combination of these attributes, and that the conductor of the future, even more than of the past, must possess not only those qualities of the artist needed by the solo performer, but must in addition be a good business manager, an organizer, a tactician, a diplomat, a taskmaster—in plain English, a good boss. It is primarily because of the lack of these last-mentioned qualities that most musicians fail as conductors. ”

“ Tactics consist of a knowlege of order, disposition, and formation, according to the exigency of circumstances in warlike operations. These dispositions are severally made, or one disposition follows another by means of manœuvres and evolutions. Hence the necessity of paying the greatest attention to the first principles of military art; and hence the absurdity and ignorance of some men, who would pass for great and able tacticians, without having grounded themselves in the elements of their professions. ”

“ While regarding the pretensions of these tacticians and strategists as about as respectable as those of barber-surgeons in pharmacy, inspired cobblers in religion, or gypsies in divination, we do not think that any amount of study or previous training renders a man’s opinions really valuable, unless he has personally visited the scene of war, and is acquainted with the topographical features of the theatre of operations. ”

“ The purely defensive attitude is condemned by tacticians except in cases where the only object desirable is to maintain a position of vital consequence, the weight of precedent being in favour of the dash and momentum of an attacking force even where opposed to superior forces. ”

“ How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy’s own tactics—that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.
27. All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
28. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.
29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. ”

“ Finally, since strategy suggests that we attack the weakest [Pg 46] places in the enemy's defense, we shall do well, unless the logic of the subject or the reader's prejudice demand otherwise, to make our strongest blows when the enemy, the reader, is least prepared, that is, at the beginning and the end. Success in writing depends so much upon the freshness of the reader's mind, that an attaque brusque at first to insert important things, and a strong reinforcement at the end, when the reader is pricking up his ears at the coming final period, form a wise strategy. ”

“ The skill of an uneducated person in the use of weapons, or of tools, is of a precisely similar nature. The savage who executes unerringly the exact throw which brings down his game, or his enemy, in the manner most suited to his purpose, under the operation of all the conditions necessarily involved, the weight and form of the weapon, the direction and distance of the object, the action of the wind, etc., owes this power to a long series of previous experiments, the results of which he certainly never framed into any verbal theorems or rules. ”

“ In war you use deceit and treachery, under the pleasanter names of tactics and strategy, to draw men to their death in traps, in order to increase the amount of your killing. It was strategy, tactics, man [oe] uvres—give it any fine word you please—that hideous and shameless part which I played. With fire I fought fire. I fought for civilization, for my home, with the only means I had against the wickedness of a victory of conquest—the precedent of it in this age—a victory which should glorify such trickery as you practised on your people. ”

“ Now, every convergent attack in strategy, as well as in tactics, holds out the prospect of great results; for if it succeeds, the consequence is not simply a defeat, but more or less the cutting off of the enemy. ”

“ All that I have said applies with equal force to good and bad fencers, to the expert as well as to the novice. Prudence and self-control are more than half the battle. To these must be added science, which enables you to deceive your opponent by deluding him as to your real object, while you compel him unwillingly to betray himself. ”

“ But discipline alone does not constitute superior tactics. Man in battle, I repeat, is a being in whom the instinct of self-preservation dominates, at certain moments, all other sentiments. Discipline has for its aim the domination of that instinct by a greater terror. ”

“ To bring a preponderating force to bear at a given point ahead of the enemy—to move the maximum of force with the maximum of celerity—has always been the aim of strategy: and probably it always will be, for the science of strategy rests on principles, and principles never change. ”

“ In devising strategies, the democrats must clearly define their objectives and determine how to measure the effectiveness of efforts to achieve them. This definition and analysis permits the strategist to identify the precise requirements for securing each selected objective. This need for clarity and definition applies equally to tactical planning.
Tactics and methods of action are used to implement the strategy.
Tactics relate to the skillful use of one's forces to the best advantage in a limited situation. A tactic is a limited action, employed to achieve a restricted objective. ”

“ All that one can say to the pupil, whose temper is such that he cannot play a waiting game, is something of this sort:—Trust your instinct, be guided by your natural impulse. You quite understand that by acting as you propose you run a greater risk; for your attack is delivered at random, you are embarking on a wild and hazardous speculation. Your only chance of success, as you yourself admit, is that you may, by suddenly and violently letting yourself go for all you are worth, take your opponent by surprise and put him off his parry. ”

“ Let your Guard, and your Play be always directly opposite to the Enemy. Practice is either a Good or an Evil; all consists in the Choice of it. When you think yourself skilful and dexterous, 'tis then you are not so. 'Tis not enough that your Parts agree, they must also answer the Enemy's Motions. The knowing a Good without practising it, turns to an Evil. Two skilful Men acting together, fight more with their Heads than with their Hands. If you are superiour to your Enemy, press him close, and if you are inferiour, break Measure to keep him moving. ”

“ One can never make the mistake of too much simplification in the complicated detail of modern tactics where the difficulty is always to see the forest for the trees. Strategy has not changed since prehistoric days. It must always remain the same: feint and surprise. The first primitive man who looked at the breast of his opponent and struck suddenly at his face was a strategist ”

“ But among intelligent, firmly rooted beings like ourselves, matters are, of course, on a less crude and direct plane. What among lesser creatures is a question of tactics belongs, for us, to the realm of strategy." Pater's tone grew confiding. ”

“ You are not an expert. What secret instinct will inform you that the opportune moment has come for executing this manoeuvre? For after you have executed it, you must recover, and recover smartly, if you are to regain your guard; no easy matter, I assure you. In attempting to perform a movement so complicated, you with your want of experience can hardly fail to be thrown into disorder, to the great advantage of your adversary, who will seize the opportunity to press you briskly and get command of your blade. ”

“ Never, however, did skill, strength, and presence of mind, do so much for one individual as they did for the man in grey. For a moment or two he applied himself solely to the defensive, wheeling his horse from the one to the other, as they attacked him with the most extraordinary rapidity and skill,--now parrying one blow, now parrying another, and still watching for an opportunity of resuming the offensive. ”

“ Paying a tribute to their fearlessness, he points out their want of discipline, the haphazard nature of their array and order of battle, their eagerness to attack before the word was given, their want of faculty for strategy or tactical combinations, their incapacity for operations on difficult ground, the ease with which they could be deceived by simple artifices, their carelessness in pitching camps, and their lack of a proper intelligence department. ”

“ The mechanical performance of movements, and loading and firing at the enemy, under the most disturbing conditions can be ensured by bringing the required self-control from the domain of reason into that of instinct. ”

“ That this illustration, drawn from gunnery, is applicable in general terms to strategy seems clear, for the reason that in every strategical situation, no matter how simple or how complex, there is, and can be only one best thing to do; so that the statement of any strategic situation, if followed by a question as to what is the best thing to do, becomes a problem, to which the answer is—the best thing to do. ”

“ If he is wise, he will adopt a subtler strategy. He will attack his subject in unexpected places; he will fall upon the flank, or the rear; he will shoot a sudden, revealing searchlight into obscure recesses, hitherto undivined. ”

“ Then there has been a skilful and successful attempt to distract the enemy's attention, to conceal from him the nature of the movement and the force to be employed, and last, but not least, there has been the suddenness and the rapidity of movement essential to surprise. ”

“ I have formerly told thee, that it is difficult for the ablest general to say what he will do, or what he can do, when he is obliged to regulate his motions by those of a watchful enemy.* If thou givest due weight to this consideration, thou wilt not wonder that I should make many marches and countermarches, some of which may appear, to a slight observer, unnecessary. ”

“ Tactics and strategy are two activities mutually permeating each other in time and space, at the same time essentially different activities, the inner laws and mutual relations of which cannot be intelligible at all to the mind until a clear conception of the nature of each activity is established. ”

“ Stratagems are resorted to in war; they are feints and evasions, performed under no disguise; are familiar to commanders; form a part of their plans, and, considered in a military view, lawful and advantageous. The tact with which they are executed exacts admiration from the enemy. ”

“ Not that we wish to lessen the importance of tactics. But tactics are only a means of obtaining an end; and whereas the end presents itself before us firm and immovable, we can argue about tactics. Questions of tactics are practical questions and should be absolutely distinguished from questions of principle. ”

“ In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains. ”

“ And as to tact, it is, after all, like skill in a game which, however available against a clever adversary, is of little value when opposed to those who neither recognize the rules, nor appreciate the nice points of the encounter. ”

“ To have tact, is much like being good at Halma, or whist, or tennis, or chess. You must be able to calculate the remote consequences of every move, and all the angles and side-walls from which the conversational hall may bound. It is needless to say that, at whist, I never know in the least what will happen in consequence of the card I play; and life is very much too short for the interminable calculations of chess. ”

“ For some again, who have committed themselves to the waves of experience, and become almost mechanics, yet in their very experience employ an unsteady investigation, and war not with it by fixed rules. ”

“ Technical and practical work, intermixed with lectures on motors, machine-guns and quickfirers, hints on strategy and tactics, map-reading and dynamics—all were drummed into the active brains of the probationers, regardless of the adage, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." ”

“ Tact enables you to pass sentinels, gates and bars, gain an entrance to the very sanctum sanctorum where the tactless man never enters. Tact gets a hearing where genius cannot; it is admitted when talent is denied; it is listened to when ability without it cannot get a hearing. ”

“ Only in this case the strategist knows that he is deceiving his soldiers, and deceiving the enemy; whereas the logician who dexterously assumes a new position while seeming to maintain his old one is the happy victim of his own fallacies. ”

“ Whilst concentrating all available powers of offence against the enemy, and allowing nothing to divert us from our main object, we took every step to bewilder the defence and to shift the weight of the difficulties upon the shoulders of our opponents. ”

“ If your lines of operations have been skillfully chosen and your movements well concealed, and if on the other hand your enemy makes false movements which permit you to fall on fractions of his army, you maybe successful in your campaign, without fighting general battles, by the simple use of your strategic advantages. ”

“ To begin with, you want to bear in mind that there is nothing difficult, complicated or mysterious about applied minor tactics—it is just simply the application of plain, every-day, common horse sense—the whole thing consists in familiarizing yourself with certain general principles based on common sense and then applying them with common sense. ”

“ A habit of mind is thus formed which is wholly wanting in initiative, and in war the initiative is everything. I agree with you absolutely:—“Make up your mind, and strike! and strike hard and without mercy.” ”