In the art of war, to achieve the primary goal of defeating the enemy, many means are needed, each of them fundamental: without weapons there is no possible war, without means of survival the troops cannot subsist, multiplying the number of things necessary to achieve victory, being no less true that from the exclusive point of view of military art, to obtain victory it is necessary to combine and execute a successful war plan of military strategy, and as a consequence of this plan to collide in favorable conditions with the adversary and destroy its resistance forces.

The notion of the aforementioned purpose, the art of guiding the troops until leading them in profitable situations to the battlefield is the object of military strategy, and that of using them meritorious against the adversary, whether offensive or defensive, is the object of military tactics, even though there are military writers who admit to defining the limits of the fields of action of strategy and tactics, confusing both concepts, tactics being the one who executes the plans projected by strategy, and if the fight is absolutely transcendental in war, All the sublimities of strategy will perpetually be superimposed by the disparate reality of tactics that changes with weapons and with the various elements of war, the most complex being the tactics applied, because the circumstances of the fight are so variable, and tactics should not be intended dogmatically to fall into the pitfall of foreseeing all cases, and although it must discuss, analyze, present the entire set of means of war, it must stop at the brief precept.

Antique

In ancient times, people were warriors and even those with peaceful customs were forced to take up arms to defend themselves from others who were more warlike, guided by the desire for loot or domination. They invaded and subjugated them: the aggressor, who was naturally the strongest, tried to surprise with rapid marches and movements the one who was less strong, or who was more confident, the latter being unnoticed for the combat.

Military art passed from Asia to Europe through Greece, it continued its natural progress in this country, transferring to Italy, perfecting itself in Rome along with the arts and sciences, to later decline with them under the rule of the barbarian peoples of the north and to be reborn again in the centuries following the restoration of the arts.

In the republican governments of Europe, Athens, Sparta and Rome is where military art developed, and although they were far from being perfect republics, they nevertheless acquired a superiority, owing to art and ingenuity the merit of resisting enormous forces with fewer troops or of subduing many kingdoms through the slow progress of a continuous war.

In remote antiquity, the infantry was already the main body, the nerve and the essence of the armies, and through it the conquering nations won: the Macedonian phalanx ruined the Persian empire, the Roman legion destroyed the Greek phalanx and conquered a large part of the world, and later, however, with the decline of the Roman militia the Empire collapsed.

The first war of the heroic times in which somewhat regular military operations appeared and endowed with a certain order is the Expedition against Thebes "Thebes (Greece)"), an established thought to which the operations had to be standardized, a constancy superior to impetus and a courage that knows how to wait and suffer the reverses of fortune.

Thus they will also manifest themselves in Troy, where nothing can be seen other than the infancy of art—the walled city, Troy, and the entrenched offensive field of the Greeks—still discovering certain elements of order.

The strength and division of the phalanx, organization and tactical order of the Greeks, was in each state of Greece adapted to the number of troops and the nature of the political organization. What was common to all the Greek phalanxes was the application of geometry to the art of combat and the attack and fight in indivisible masses, tactics, calculated and simultaneous evolutions appearing, and the art of war was modified and particular strategy and tactics began.

The second and greatest experience that the Greeks had to make of their forces and that contributed most to the feeling of a common nation was the Persian Wars, which allowed them to learn about the combat techniques of the Asians.

Cyrus of Persia regarded the good order of an army as that of a family and ordered the war tribes well. To his training orders when he marched towards the enemy he owed much of the fortune that accompanied him on his expeditions, and the battle he had against the powerful Croesus, Timbria, Phrygia, which decided the Empire of Asia, is considered a valuable monument of the most remote military art.

Thucydides participated in the Peloponnesian Wars, writing the history of the aforementioned wars associating the rules and applications of tactics and politics.

Xenophon directed and described the retreat of the Ten Thousand, and we owe him some special treatises on tactics and much news that he spread in his historical novel Cyropedia.

In the confrontation between Thebes "Thebes (Greece)") and Sparta in the century BC. C. an instructive example was given in the battle of Leuctra by the intelligent dispositions put into practice by Epaminondas, creator of the oblique order, which had earned him a memorable victory "Victory (triumph)"), using the aforementioned order for the second time in the battle of Mantinea "Battle of Mantinea (362 BC)").

These wars improved the military art of the Greeks, but its perfection must be sought in the times of Philip and Alexander the Great, mainly in the Macedonian army.

Military art already made great progress in this era since clashing and fighting throughout the line of battle and individual courage, it is even possible to choose the most suitable terrain for the type of combat and species of troops and dispositions are made, and victory becomes more dependent on timely and wise strategic dispositions than on individual and collective courage.

The countries through which Alexander the Great led his army were not a mere transit of his troops defeating the enemies that presented themselves to him, but in his expeditions he took and built fortresses, left garrisons "Guarrison (militia)") and appointed satraps who governed each region, his domination being affirmed, and his conquests and commercial relations that some of his successors, especially the Ptolemies of Egypt, maintained with India, gave to see the Ganges, the remote city of Tina and the island of Thapobana (Ceylon).

With the death of Alexander the Great, his vast Empire was divided and subdivided among many of his generals and Macedonia remained an independent state until in the time of King Perseus the famous Greek phalanx was broken by the Roman legions of Paulus Aemilius, who for this fact was given the nickname The Macedonian.

Among the Greeks, it was the phalanx that constituted the infantry order and this great tactical unit formed a compact, deep and closed mass in which the "syntagma" was the most manageable and consistent element, a battalion formed of 16 men deep by 16 in front, and this full and closed unit could both be doubled or reduced to four men deep, a maneuver that was used to extend the line.

When the aforementioned Alexander had reached the height of his glory, the formidable Roman Republic already existed, which had become powerful since the battle of Zama given by two great strategists, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, who received this nickname for his victory.

In the battle of Cannae, described by Polybius, the great talents of Hannibal are evident, and the representation of the battle is explained by Quintus Icillius in his work Military Memoirs on the Greeks and the Romans, and although the Carthaginians had adopted the deep order "Order (army)") of the Greeks, their battles are not at all similar to those of Epaminondas and Alexander the Great, Hannibal owing almost all of his victories by using two maneuvers: one using his superior cavalry to surround or cut the wings "Ala (battle)") of his enemy, and the other consisting of taking advantage of accidents to hide a part of his forces, which during the action would fall on the rear of the enemy that he was fighting head-on.

In the aforementioned battle of Zama, the Roman general Scipio Africanus, instead of ordering his legions as usual, placed the companies "Company (militia)") preferably in a square to the rear of the asteros and deployed the ranks of the triarians to give them an equal front and separated the lines three or four paces apart from each other, and the order of battle was formed by a series of columns by maniples "Manipule (formation)"). equidistant; variation made by the need to leave straight and capable steps for the Carthaginian elephants that were to be launched against the line. The aforementioned order that Scipio adopted in the column was not only appropriate to confront the elephants but also the best disposition to attack after having dislodged those animals, a new way of presenting himself to his enemies, which could not fail to surprise them.

The Roman legion was a spaced, mobile and maneuverable body, its intervals offering the advantage of the continuation of the efforts through the lines and formed in three lines of asteros, princes and triarii, thirty toises apart from each other, and through the intervals the continuous attack and reciprocal aid were provided.

The legion was divided or decomposed under the tactical and organic aspect into small troops or pieces with the names of centuries, maniples "Manipule (formation)"), etc. and the main merit of the legionary maneuver was its ability to reestablish the combat three times, the Hastarians coming to reestablish themselves at the intervals of the princes and in these, in turn, at those of the triarians, or vice versa, advancing and boxing each other between the maniples forming a full line, a flexible, extensive and staggered order, which in itself offered three attempts at success.

The art of siege, improved first by the Rhodians and the Carthaginians, was brought to its splendor by Dionysius, Philip and Alexander and later by Demetrius Poliocertes and the Ptolemies; and Poliorcetes introduced great innovations in military art by applying the science of his time to war machines and established warehouses and arsenals "Arsenal (armament)").

Prior to the Punic Wars, the examination of the three battles that Rome fought in the Pyrrhic Wars proves that Polybius was right when he said that when the irruption of Pyrrhus of Epirus, the Romans, through their wars against the Gauls and Samnites, had come to greatly perfect the military art, and the victors learned from Pyrrhus's fields to line up their tents and separate them by small streets and to observe a military order that only the Greeks knew until then[8]​ and at this time we see well-reasoned battle orders, well-combined diversions and the use of reserves.

Illyria, a large country on the coasts of the Adriatic Sea, had various rulers, but the most powerful was Queen Teuta, widow of Argon, who as regent governor became owner of the Peloponnese, also of Phoenicia, and ordered her pirates to seize all Roman ships. The Roman Republic resolved a strategic plan consisting of its consuls Lucius Postumius Albinus "Lucius Postumius Albinus (consul 234 BC)") and Gnaeus Fulvius Centumalus embarking for Illyria and attacking in combination, by sea with his fleet Fulvius, made up of 200 galleys, and by land Postumius's army. After being defeated, Queen Teuta retired to Rhizon, a strong town located in a small gulf of the Adriatic Sea.

Although the Roman war is characteristic of invasion, initiative, activity, surprise and wisdom, there are examples of delayed calculation and victorious slowness such as Fabius with his skillful and prudent strategy, ardent and systematic defense of avoiding battles and overwhelming Hannibal's army with maneuvers and stratagems to buy time.[9]​.

The order of the Romans was adjusted to their particular goals and their political constitution, and sometimes they adopted the weapons and practices of the same nations that conquered if they improved their political-military organization, acquiring a preponderance for a long time over other peoples in all kinds of sciences and arts and consequently in war.[10]

Roman military art has a vocation for universality and permanence that is lacking in the Greek, more circumscribed, always special, local, and the audacity and ambitious speed of the Romans' enterprises were favored by the smallness of their consular army, its severe discipline and its easy management.

The Romans made patriotism the basis of their severe discipline and sustained it with punishment and rigor on the one hand, and with honor and lucrative reward on the other. United in his mind the two ideas of country and God, the Roman military oath was not a vain formula of discipline, but the absolute consecration to the gods who watched over the country, and with such an elevation of thoughts the codes and regulations were useless since the hierarchical distance was established by itself, insubordination could be seen as very unlikely, the fulfillment of duty became a habit and the leader, freed and feared, could easily impress upon his whim the movement of the legionary machinery, sure of the perfect play of all its gears.

Sallust describes the Jugurtha war militarily and clearly exposes the oblique order used in the battle on the banks of the Mutul between that Numidian and Metellus.

The war of Jugurtha is the last period in which legions formed by classes are found, since later they are seen formed by cohorts, and at first they were only formed in two lines as seen in the order of battle of Catiline against Petreius, and later Caesar, Pompey the Great and all the good generals soon returned to the use of forming in three lines.

With the reforms of Marius, the three maniples of hastarians, princes and triarians were brought together in one, the distinction of all classes was extinguished and the true cohort was formed, which finally became the sole subdivision, the true tactical and organic unit of the legion, a battalion of 500 to 600 individuals divided into six centuries, with enough strength to not need to gather other elements similar to it.

In Hispania, the outlawed Sertorius stands out as military leaders, who tired the Roman soldiers with quick and improvised marches, cutting off their supplies, camping with skill and advantage, not venturing into fighting any battle without being very sure of winning it, or the famous leader of the Lusitanians Viriatus, organizing an army, which, with its raids, partial actions and skilful retreats, baffled the Romans, to finally take refuge in the mountains and with the The war of parties managed to become so fearsome that Quintus Servilius Caepio "Fifth Servilius Caepio (consul 140 BC)") resorted to artifice and betrayal to end his life.

The Romans learned strategy in the Punic wars and Marius showed great strategic mastery against the Cimbri and Teutons, Sulla in Asia and especially Gaius Julius Caesar in Gaul, where, always camped among enemies, he trained to triumph in the Roman civil war and subdue the aristocracy, and his Commentaries are the most important of ancient military works, however, for their understanding it is required to know the military and political institutions of the Romans.

According to an officer "Officer (armed forces)") and Prussian military writer of the 19th century, Ciriacy, Caesar's constant initiative, his unforeseen appearance, his eagle eye to use the enemy's faults defensively, contributed to bringing victory to disaster.

With the help of the ships originating from Liburnia, Dalmatia, Liburnians, Octavian defeated Mark Antony in the battle of Actium and from then on they were given preference in the Armies of Rome, built with the wood of cypress and black pine and fir and with copper nailing in preference to iron, and the largest ones carried a forty-oared felucca in advance to make the discovery, surprise the enemy ships, warn of their defeat and their intentions.

Titus Livy is the most poetic among historians and Flavius ​​Josephus wrote about the war in Judea, referring to the tactics and polyorcetics of the Romans in the time of the emperors.

The Platonist Onosandro treats military art from a philosophical point of view, learning from his work the moral part and the observation of human behavior applied to war.

Frontinus left written down a collection of battle plans and war schemes, and so did Polyenus.

Amage "Amage (queen)"), queen of the ancient Sarmatians who inhabited the coasts of the Euxine Pontus, established garrisons of troops on the borders of her kingdom, defeated and repelled the enemies who invaded her and did not deny help to the neighboring princes when they requested her help.

Tacitus studied human behavior rather than external vicissitudes, although the accounts of the campaigns of Germanicus, Corbulo, Vespasian, Titus, etc. are very fruitful in instruction.

Boadicea, wife of Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, after defeating the Romans successively, the army of Suetonius came to meet her, who risked a battle despite the inequality in the number of combatants and trusting in the tactics and discipline of the legions.[11]​.

Arrian wrote some of the most important treatises among the ancients on the science of war and revealed to us in the expedition of Alexander the Great the particularities of strategic operations.

Aelian, as in the time of Alexander Severus who armed his soldiers with Greek-style breastplates and helmets and long spears forming a large phalanx of six legions, once again gave preference to Greek art, wrote a treatise on the Tactics of the Greeks.

During the Lower Roman Empire, when Vegetius wrote about military art, it lay almost forgotten, and in vain Trajan, conqueror of the Dacians and Parthians, in vain Hadrian, restorer of discipline, in vain Septimius Severus, dominator of the Bretons, tried to preserve the ancient traditions, these were lost under Caracalla and his successors, the soldiers despising the exercise of the body and even abandoned defensive weapons, the weight of which was already unbearable for them.

At the command of Valentinian II, Vegetius composed a treatise on military art, the most complete work on the subject and of the ancients that has come down to us: without being a warrior, he showed himself to be a skilled writer, taking what he lacked in terms of experience from works by Cato, Cornelius and some others, which have not survived to our days; When Vegetius wrote, the Roman legion consisted of 6,100 infantry and 726 horses, whose number was never less and sometimes increased, but its composition was already different from that of the time of the Republic, since the maniples had been suppressed, and other variations had been made, as can be read in chapter 6 of his "Military Institutions", of book 2.

Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, after being defeated twice by Aurelian, retired to Palmyra, which was besieged by the Romans. This queen, who had herself captained her armies, gave encouragement to the besieged and defended herself as a great captain.

The emperors were seduced by the comfort of always finding among the Germans individuals willing to serve with a salary, and the Roman armies were already composed of mercenary troops, enervated with vices, demoralization and reductions, worthy instruments of the whims of the Head of the Empire, who was frequently a victim of the fury of his soldiers (Anarchy of the 3rd century), the barbarian nations that the Romans had previously defeated, defeated them in turn after several attempts at invasion, and overthrowing an Empire that was no longer great except in name.

The idea of ​​a centralized power was left as a legacy by Rome and the barbarian peoples could never match it, and the rebirth of a Christian empire in the time of Charlemagne was due to the aforementioned inheritance.

Athens: strategists

The Greeks excelled in tactics and the Romans in strategy, and Athens appointed its ten strategos or chief generals every year by election, one for each tribe, and they were characterized by the following:

• - Be equal in category.

• - They took turns in command daily.

• - Sometimes a battle was brought forward or delayed due to the intrigues of the strategist who wanted to take the glory. To avoid this, it was decided to leave 9 strategos in the capital, when only one army was standing.

Sparta

In Sparta, the polemarch, generally in Greece, head of an army corps, was head of a Moorish town, and the Lacedaemonians had little navy, they did not have walled cities, they slept in the field armed and the soldiers, to the beat of Castor's hymn, attacked the enemy boldly, and did not pursue the enemy until they saw victory assured.

Rome

In ancient Rome stratiotes or stratioticus meant soldier and stratiotica pecunia, military treasury or treasury, and in Rome the militia was not an independent institution but with everything else it was the Administration, it was the State, it was Rome and the result of that militia was its active army and the instrument of Rome was the legion, a body of troops with very variable strength over time, and a predisposition to methodical war was incubating from the earliest times in Rome.

The Roman legion, which was more mobile than the Greek phalanx, facilitated the conclusion of large military enterprises that required long-distance maneuvers and on uneven terrain, and the Roman camps on the borders or within the conquered provinces testify that they knew how to choose the strategic points: To emerge victorious from battles, one must meditate beforehand on the precepts of art, to fight according to them and not rely on chance (Vegecio).[12]​.

The Roman militia has three historical periods, which includes from the founding of the Monarchy to the reforms of Marius, that of the emperors and the Byzantine period, and within each of them with a multitude of administrative, organic and tactical reforms that prevent the grades and their functions from being satisfactorily characterized, and some of those grades in the legion were the following:

• - Praetor.

• - Consul.

• - Tribune.

• - Centurion.

• - Decurion.

• - Quincurion.

If among the Greeks the supreme leader of the troops was called strategos, among the Romans the following: consul, master of the militia, dictator, imperator, and later count and duke.

Goths

The legions of the Romans were succeeded by a militia composed of property owners, of Goths who had become so, which formed the link between the Roman and the feudal, soldiers who lived off the product of their lands, but paid tribute like the Romans and the feudals on the contrary had no burden but had to go without pay, the Goths founding their military organization on the nobility hierarchy and the decimal system and the nobility was divided into several hierarchies (dukes, counts, gardingos,..).

The Goths armed themselves at their own expense, and those who could not do so were equipped by the State and the prefect of the praetorium was in charge of providing for the army, and they knew how to fortify places and knew the machines to beat them.

Theodoric defended the borders by building fortresses and presidios and created a navy of warships called dromons, small galleys, and later Totila created another.

Byzantium

In the Byzantine Empire strategium referred to the imperial troop barracks in Constantinople, and some outstanding general who shone with Belisarius' own light, although hindered in his undertakings by the scarcity of the means provided to him and by the whims of an scheming Court.

The Byzantine infantry only had a mixed order, taken from the phalanx and the legion, which did not produce any of the great effects of the two methods, one based on its weight and the other on its flexibility, and its cavalry was inferior to that of the Persians and barbarians, and the Greek fire was used against the valor of the Saracens and Franks:.

• - The greatest power of the Saracens was in their physical courage, in their individual agility to handle weapons by throwing them and in the ease with which they guided their horses, which were inferior in war machines.

• - The Franks formed an entire warrior society and from this it turns out that the combatants had great fearlessness.

• - The Goths, among the barbarians, were the most advanced in the disposition of the troops, the Vandals excelled in the use of the sword, the Huns were fearsome archers, the Suebi were good infantry, the Alans excelled in heavy soldiers and in the Heruli the light soldiers.

The war between the Goths and the Byzantine generals Belisarius and Narses "Narses (Byzantine general)") presented great strategic skill and tactics on both sides, and according to Procopius,[13] Belisarius obtained a large part of his victories because the Goth cavalry always fought closely by fighting with a short sword and spear.

Parallel between the phalanx and the legion

• - The Macedonian phalanx, a thick square battalion, could not move except at once, and the Roman army was more willing and more alert to all kinds of movements.

• - The Romans learned well the art of dividing armies into many battalions and squadrons and of forming the reserve corps to help in the advance or to support the defense when part of the army faltered.

• - The Macedonian phalanx was terrible when it went to clash, although it needed its own places for its solidity and consistency, and not having them it broke due to its own movement and once divided it had no way of reuniting.

• - The legion was divided as has already been said into various bodies and used all places and was separated as it wanted, suitable for detachments, for all types of conversions and evolutions, and therefore had more diversity of movements and therefore more action than the phalanx.

• - The Romans considered discipline the foundation of their Empire and did not seek unnecessary risky battles, nor victories in which they lost many soldiers, and in their history, reference is sometimes made, to very considerable cohorts undoubtedly made up of chosen troops, heading for certain expeditions.

Charlemagne legitimized the dominion of the Barbarians by adhering them to the territory and when there was an emperor of the West, Charlemagne, Christendom became a vast monarchy, venerating the princes as superior to him and treated by those of other faiths as the head of believers, they ceased to be considered as usurpers of the rights of the emperor of the East, and with only a king of the Barbarians sitting on the throne of the Caesars "Caesar (title)"), those associated with the Roman nation remained, since the victors and vanquished had only one leader, and from then on it can be said that the feudal organization received its organization, that scale of powers superior to each other, with the only source of authority God and the Pontiff his representative, failing as an arbiter in the discussions of the Princes among themselves and with their people, and that could add to the disasters of war the remedy later used in Europe of the protocols "Protocol (International Law)") of diplomacy.[14]​.

In the feudal Middle Ages, as there were no organized armies, there were no forts and the castle had for a long time great military importance, since to repel the Normans, Saracens, Hungarians, etc., the attacked towns built walls and towers and very soon the feudal lords learned that those fortresses could serve their plans and they multiplied them and churches "Church (building)") and convents were also fortified and clashes could occur. fortuitous or calculated from neighbor to neighbor, war of siege and attrition, and in common dangers the neighboring lords gathered to agree on what each would execute in their domains and the king was one of the contracting parties, but without coercive authority, only owner of the fiefs conferred by him, not a supreme magistrate executor of the will of a sovereign assembly. Only the synods remained, from which, as mixed as they were, civil laws usually emanated.

Generally the feudatory chose a height in the middle of his domain for his residence and there he built a castle, a symbol of solitary and independent power, buildings of solid stone, with round towers or polygons crowned with battlements, and the art of war was combined with nature to make access to the castles impracticable, and the moats, ramparts, palisades, buttresses scattered in the surroundings, portcullises (architecture)"), narrow drawbridges without petrils, gates suspended from chains "Chain (object)"), underground doors, traps, in short, the entire system of defense and ambushes, sought to frighten those who tried to attack or surprise them, and when the sound of the watchtower bell was heard "Watchtower (construction)") the warning was immediately spread and they ran to the embrasures, to the battlements, to the barbicans, the bridges were raised, the portcullises were lowered and the fight began.[15]​.

Feudalism, dividing the armies into small groups, divided according to the importance of the fief and dressed, armed and instructed in different ways, removed the possibility of combined efforts with a common object, and the cavalry constituted the main force of the battles and the nobles dedicated themselves to it, protected by their armor "Armor (combat)"), "impenetrable shell", defying the shots of the archers "Archer (army)") and the pikes "Pica (weapon)") of the infantry.

In the Middle Ages, lordly war appears, since there was no lord without land and land without lord, and once this form of property was accepted, it spread and became generalized and everything became feudal and personal, real and jurisdictional lordship was called a fief and the one who granted it was called senior or lord, the one who received it junior or thousands, as obliged to military service, the one who received it directly as a vassal and the sub-beneficiaries. valbasores, and each individual was at the same time lord and lygio or vassal, and could be a vassal in one land and sovereign in the others, and when all property became a fief or subfief, each duke, count, etc., was considered lord of his land and could take revenge for the offenses received, whether he was the king, whether he was a noble, a right called of the fist that caused numerous partial wars between one or several nobles and the king or lord to lord, and since the vulgo depended on the whim of the lords, wars devastated the countryside and the slums of the villain.[16]​.

Private wars had great importance and general use, their regulations occupying a distinguished place in the legislation of that time, and only the nobles and knights were competent, since the brawl between the serfs, villains and free men of an order lower than the nobles were subject to the courts of justice, requiring private war equality of nobility or condition, and the clergy claimed for their part and exercised the right of personal war and the clerics were replaced by the vidames or advocati chosen by the various monasteries or bishoprics, men distinguished by their birth and reputation, who defended them and fought in their place, although on occasions ecclesiastics of noble family full of the bellicose ideas of their time forgot their mission of peace and fought hand to hand on the battlefield at the head of their vassals.

Next to the life of the castle, where the lords were among their warriors, the communal militias appeared, a reaction of the pawns against the knights, of the free man against the tyrant, and at the moment of danger the bell "Bell (instrument)") of the Common was rung, the meeting for that day was announced, each one carrying his weapons and thus they marched against the enemy, concluding the year's campaign in one or two battles.[17]

The commoners and villains who saw it necessary to defend their freedom against the cavalry or militia that served on horseback, contemptuous of the infantry, must have understood the need to act the opposite of feudalism, to give preference to the multitude over individual strength and driven by this need, the Swiss, one of the least chivalrous peoples where the infantry was considered honorable, adopted the use of lances by means of which, formed in thick bodies, they did not allow the disorder the enemy cavalry, at the same time that they were destroying the army of their adversaries, winning the battles on which their independence depended and then Charles the Bold, returning those triumphs their importance to the combatant on foot and the lance, a weapon feared by the feudal militia and horses, marching in columns "Column (military)") packed together like an impenetrable wall, later perfecting the Swiss discipline by the Spanish, forming a infantry that was the terror of Europe, the thirds.

With the passage of time, as the fiefdoms and that political separation began to come together and form larger bodies, counts, dukes, princes, republics and kingdoms, private wars ceased and State-to-State ones began, and as occupations were cultivated again in times of peace, the custom was introduced of hiring people who from a young age had dedicated themselves to the exercise of arms and mercenaries began, and in the germ of permanent armies and the progress of the art is the establishment of the aforementioned mercenary troops, such as the Great Catalan Company of Roger de Flor, their events related in the Chronicle of Ramón Muntaner or the companies of Sforza, Gattamelata, Braccio, Piccino, Del Verne and others, which show strategy in their movements, being very notable the war of Gattamelata and Piccino on the shores of Lake Garda between the Visconti and Venice.

The sons of the renowned Numidians and Mauritanians, and of the impetuous Getulians, penetrated and occupied the Iberian Peninsula under an expert strategic plan to begin a campaign devised by their general Táriq: the Arab cavalry was the main element of the armies of Africa, served almost entirely by the nobles and accredited, who guided or drove their invaluable horses with fabulous skill or aptitude, and the Emir Musa reviewed them. ibn Nusair to the first troops on peninsular soil, with twenty or so flags, with two of said emir, the third insignia of Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa, and the rest were from the Koraixites), of the wardens of the Arabs, of the captains and other governors, most of them coming from the Berbers and other tribes of nomadic Arabs without a flag, composing an army of 18,000 combatants, which It increased every day with people pouring in from Africa.

Regarding the tremendous irruption of Europe into Asia with the Crusades, it is worth saying that enthusiasm prevailed over political calculations in a Europe that had as many lords as powers, and this mass uprising of a people of property owners, this abandonment of comforts and goods to go in search of adventures, without an absolute need, were things less strange in times when customs provided for it, and the first were tumultuous enterprises of devotees guided by men whose sole provision was their trust in miracles. or partial efforts of a multitude of lords who commanded their dependents in the best possible way, without a grandiose design, but from one company to another, until in the successive expeditions led by the kings strategic plans were established such as the occupation of Egypt.

In the Crusades, Saladin shines for the great and decisive events to which he is involved and for having in front of him one of the most chivalrous kings of that time, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, human and magnanimous whenever it came to defeated enemies, inexorable and harsh when he contemplated the Christians as a nation, the most perfect hero of Islam, the most chivalrous prince of his time.

In the battle of Bouvines, on July 27, 1214, the crusader army was divided into the center, right wing and left wing, distributed in several lines, with cavalry that sustained the rigor of the clash and the count of Boulogne, Renaud de Dammartín, formed an empty battalion of soldiers placed in a round and armed with pikes "Pica (weapon)") (it is believed that the square was used for the first time), whose fronts presented a terrible obstacle to the enemy cavalry, and an opening through which Renaud came out to charge and entered to catch his breath.

Marino Sanuto the Elder spent much of his life in Romania to be able to scientifically carry out the book on the recovery and conservation of the Holy Land, presenting the work with four maps to John XXII on September 29, 1321 in Avignon, and Guido da Vigevano, physician to Joan of Burgundy, contributed to the Holy Land expedition of 1335 with the advice gathered in Thesauris regis Franciae acquisitionis Terrae Sanctae.

The Church, which in those very Catholic years, responded to every need of humanity with the miracle of an institution, conceived in its fertile womb a body, military religious orders, standing armies, true barracks "Barracks (militia)") in the Temples.

The military expedition, generally in the Middle Ages, is called cavalcade and always presupposed loot as a pledge of victory, and in a curious codex Fuero sobre el fecho de las cavalgadas written on parchment in two columns and which was inserted in the Spanish Historical Memorial, Tom. II, the spirit of order and legality that must preside over any military expedition is noted, in which the powers of leaders, allocation of loot, regularization of pillage, the sole purpose and object of the ride, etc. are regulated.

The equivalent of the Roman magister militum in the Middle Ages was the major adalid and the adalid was the leader of men of war, the one who directed or guided the hosts, that is, the meeting and temporary grouping of troops or contingents, both of the rich-men, barons or feudal lords and of councils "Council (history)") or towns "Villa (population)"), the host usually having as its object the taking or siege of a fortress rather than a pitched or decisive battle.

In Spain, the Reconquista was characterized by being a set of expeditions, commotions and rebates submitted more or less to a preconceived plan and with diplomatic combinations, and an attentive military study makes us discover everything that was strategic, systematic, paced in those long and dramatic wars, with their successive theaters in the transversal basins, with their mountain range passes, with their conquests of objectives, such as Toledo and Seville. In the century the double military expeditions of the fearsome Almanzor constituted, for 25 years, the war of expansion, whose core was in Muslim Córdoba "Córdoba (Spain)," and from 1492 the Spanish army began to adapt to the radical military revolution that was taking place throughout Europe.

The feudal lords and the advance guards of the borders, the walis and Arab knights, made mutual raids on their respective coastlines, and to that they called "make a commotion", "go on a skirmish", because according to the laws of war established they could attack any castle and make raids or rides by one or the other suddenly and with a stratagem that did not last more than three days.

Juan I of Castile created the following dignities or positions according to Pedro de Salazar y Mendoza: the constable of Castile, the first being Alfonso of Aragón the Elder, whose functions according to Clonard[18]​ were equivalent to a Minister of War, and two new offices of marshal to Fernando Álvarez de Toledo and Pedro Ruiz Sarmiento. According to Bardin, it was the position of marshal in principle palatine as Assistant to the constable until this equerry (constable comes from comes stabuli, count of the stable or chief equerry) became a general or commander of troops in war, the marshals who were subordinate to him in the hierarchy or palace servitude, continued to take him the name of field marshal "Field Marshal (military rank)"), and in France at the time of the first Marshal of Byron it was a true Chief of Staff, with great authority and multiple powers.

The Norman conquest of England by William the Conqueror established feudalism, since the conquerors divided their lands, preserved the military hierarchy and exercised dominion as lords over the dispossessed indigenous people, and the laws were nothing more than pacts between the foreign victors. William's troops were vehement in the attack, but when force was not enough they used cunning, and after winning the battle of Hastings, the resistance did not cease and they had to take all the lands and cities one after another, either by force, by using business or by subduing the enemy, intimidating them, convincing them of the futility of their effort.

The primary origin, the efficient cause of artillery in general, of firearms, is the invention and propagation of gunpowder, which at the same time caused radical transformations in the art of war and in the way of being of armies and the first fire mouth was called bombarda ("bombus-ardia"), and the true starting point for several scholars of artillery in Spain is in the description of the Moors besieged in Algeciras "Siege of Algeciras (1342-1344)") by Alfonso XI of Castile in 1342 chronicled this king*.*.

In Spain, in the 15th century, artillery was no longer defending walls, as in Algeciras in 1342, but fighting them, attacking them, a new, modern and transcendental use, and the capital perfection of artillery took place in Germany, and therefore the development of artillery must be sought in central Europe, in the 15th century, as a siege weapon and combat weapon.

In the aforementioned century, the canister of shrapnel was devised, a tube or cylinder made of tin, sheet metal or iron, a load with a mouth of fire that was made up of small bullets "Bullet (ammunition)") that were thrown at the enemy instead of a large projectile, and the canister came out propelled by the artillery piece in the shape of a cone or funnel, shot at a short distance with the strategic conception of causing considerable and terrible havoc to the flanks of the opponent, the closed formations that presented more bulk, in the defense of gaps, etc.

Jan Žižka and the Hussites in Germany, masters according to Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini in the art of fortifying and taking places[19]​ (in the campaign of 1430 they burned a hundred castles and cities and nearly 1,400 villages), already announce the eminent preponderance of infantry in European armies (in the campaign of 1431, the Hussite army was made up of 50,000 infantry soldiers, 7,000 cavalry and 3,700 chariots), and yet, due to a routine or a tenacity that is difficult to understand, not only the century but also the century is when cavalry and armor "Armor (combat)") reach their peak in the European Middle Ages.

The Hussites, after the death of their leader Jan, gave Procopius the nickname Raso as their successor because he was a clergyman and had his hair cut short, the only sign of his primitive profession, since he was a worthy disciple of Jan and had courage and skill like that as a captain. Procopius had already distinguished himself in 1421 by defending the square of Justemberg against all the forces of Albert, Duke of Austria and forcing him to lift the siege, subsequently defeating the imperials and invading and plundering Austria, Silesia, Lusatia, Brandenburg and eastern Franconia and making his name formidable throughout Germany.

It is difficult to determine the time when bastions or bastions were invented; but it is true that its use was established around the year 1500, and some authors make the aforementioned Žižka, leader of the Hussites in Bohemia, the author of this invention, claiming that he used them in the fortification of Tabor.

Maximilian I of Habsburg, born in 1459, perfected the art of casting artillery, the manufacture of firearms and the tempering of defensive weapons, and was the first to establish a standing army in Austria.

In the town of Jargeau, a strategic place in the Hundred Years' War, the Duke of Sufflok, warned of the surprise of the French army in the outskirts of the aforementioned town, left it and formed a garrison "Garrison (militia)") in battle, but the English, unable to resist the shock despite being experienced warriors who learned the art of war in the school of Henry V of England, took refuge. again inside Jorgeau. The next day the French cannons and Lombards began to fire on Jargeau (1429), the besieged having artillery as numerous as the besiegers, and yet the fire directed by Joan of Arc, in whom all the generals recognized an extraordinary talent for arranging artillery, produced great destruction in the besieged square in a few hours.

Joan of Flanders, wife of John IV of Brittany, Count of Montfort, after the captivity of her husband, taken prisoner in Nantes, who could not take advantage of the aid that Robert of Artois brought him from England, who was disputing the county of Brittany with Charles, Count of Blois, bravely continued the war with the support of the English, holding two sieges in Hennebon (1342 and 1345), having Joan of Penthiere, countess of Blois, wife of Charles, who supported the king of France, and this war was known as the War of the Two Joans, with the entire weight of the war falling on the two Joans (1345-1365).

Regarding maritime warfare, a treatise, "On Military Institutions" by Leo the Philosopher, gives an idea of the order of the navy and chapter CXIX, which deals with naval combat, reveals the state of the navy of the Byzantine Empire, the constructions, the uses and the strategy, news that completed his son's treatise regarding the dromon or the imperial galley that had a leather cannon "Cannon (artillery)" placed on the bow from the which Greek fire, made with wax, pitch, sulfur and other combustible materials, was launched at a great distance against the enemy ships, modifying the way of fighting, because it was necessary to try to burn the enemy ships, with better combined movements of approaching and retreating, defeating the Saracens for a long time and later the Normans until the Crusades (the Greek fire was also launched in grenade-like vessels or with balutes and catapults in the countryside and cities besieged).

Cristina de Piezano, in her work Book of the Facts of Arms and Chivalry, deals with active warfare and military jurisprudence and took the most selected precepts of Vegetius and Frontinus without copying them, on the contrary, she speaks of the essential changes to the new uses of warfare and artillery and proposes the best maxims of offense and defense that were used in the French wars of that time.

Leon Battista Alberti, in his work De re aedificatoria, talks about the fortifications of cities according to Vitruvius, Vegetius and other Greek and Roman authors.

Roberto Valturio in his treatise "Opus de re militare" illustrated constructions of military architecture, such as those of the aforementioned Alberti, the civil ones: it has sufficient historical significance to show the transition from ancient to modern shooting weapons, also indicating the time of its invention.

Egidio Colonna, scholastic writer and archbishop of Bourges, wrote a treatise towards the end of the century entitled De regimine principum that can be considered the military link that unites Vegetius with Machiavelli, Roman time with the Renaissance.[20]​.

• - Strategy also derives from the Greek Stratos Agein, The army that moves forward. From the words Stratos Camping army and Agein Push forward, advance. The above suggests that strategy is not static, but is intrinsically linked to movement.

• - Strategical.- Adjective used by Jean Maximilien Lamarque to express the movements that took place in a larger circle than those that the eye could see. Also strategematic according to Carrion-Nisas and attributes this word to Sextus Julius Frontinus who titled the three books that referred to great movements before, during and after the battle Sttragematicon and Estrategicon to the 4th book dedicated to what happens near the general and is the result of his character and personal influence.[21]​.

• - Stratitates.- In the lowest Latinity, this term had a similar meaning to stratego of Greece.

• - Estratarithmétria.- In the 17th century, the art of squadroning, of forming troops in a given figure, of finding the number of soldiers that could fit in it.

• - Stratology.- Greek name that some authors such as Myler and Walter gave to the science that dealt with the right to war (others stratology).

Contenido

En China, hubo dos grandes fases en la historia de la estrategia militar.

Military strategy in the era of the warring kingdoms

During the warring kingdoms, the war was fought by nobles in battle tanks. These commanded small armies of peasants armed with the sword. Combat between nobles was in a more courteous manner. In fact, in the Zhou kingdom there was the li, a code of conduct that demanded maximum respect from the enemy, as long as he was noble and both opponents were of the same lineage, since barbarian tribes, other Chinese kingdoms or nobles who were not of the same rank were subjected to an all-out war.

During this time, the brilliant General Sun Tzu stands out, who revolutionized military tactics with his book "The Art of War", an essential book for any general.

Strategy in times after Qin Shi Huang

With Qin Shi Huang the dimensions of the war reached enormous dimensions. Gigantic armies of thousands of soldiers were assembled. Spears were the Chinese infantry's favorite primary weapon at close range. The infantry was supported by cavalry and later, by the first artillery pieces.

The crossbow and repeating crossbow were the best long-range weapon of the time, as it was very easy and quick to use and manufacture. The cho-ko-nus Chinese soldiers who masterfully handled repeating crossbows stand out. The enormous demand for weapons by the emperors made the metal industry flourish, which became a massive industry, the most sophisticated in years.

El siglo XVI, tras la Edad Media, es el del renacimiento militar de Europa, que tuvo lenta preparación en los siglo XIV y XV, por los siguientes hechos:.

• - Primeramente decir que el mismo Maquiavelo, viendo el desorden que se había introducido en la milicia por culpa de los jefes de los bandos asalariados y disgustado de los soldados aventureros, quiso demostrar la necesidad de tener ejércitos nacionales y disciplinados, tratando de que se aprenda de los griegos y romanos la importancia de la infantería, base de los ejércitos y de la nación, y se le valora más como filósofo político que tratadista militar porque aspiraba a ordenar los ejércitos nacionales y en vez de formular métodos puramente militares, quería oponer la fuerza moral de los ejércitos al triste espectáculo de los capitanes aventureros[22]​.

• - Invención de la pólvora y su uso.- Con la invención y uso de la pólvora nació un arte militar enteramente diverso: las picas "Pica (arma)"), alabardas y partesanas fueron sustituyéndose con los arcabuces, mosquetes y fusiles, y en 1503, el célebre ingeniero español Pedro Navarro aplicó con éxito la pólvora en la mina que hizo contra Castel dell'Ovo en Nápoles, aplicada desde entonces como ingenio principal de la guerra de minas, contraminas y la guerra subterránea.

• - Presencia de arqueros "Arquero (ejército)") ingleses en Crecy, Poitiers "Batalla de Poitiers (1356)") y Aljubarrota.

• - La aparición victoriosa de la citada infantería suiza en el siglo XV.

• - La composición del lúcido ejército[23]​ que llevó Carlos VIII de Francia a la conquista de Nápoles: La invasión de Carlos VIII en Italia, la liga que se formó en contra suya para encerrarlo dentro de ella, su retirada que cortó estratégicamente Albiano, general de Venecia, la defensa de Calabria de Aubigny, el éxito de la batalla de Fornovo se parecen mucho a las operaciones que precedieron a la batalla del Trebia en 1799, al paso de Beresina en 1812, a la batalla de Hanau en 1813, prueba que los capitanes de aquel tiempo tenían el instinto de las grandes operaciones militares (Luis Blanch)[24]​.

Posteriormente, el mérito militar de Próspero Colonna que agrandó las combinaciones estratégicas, la campaña del Gran Capitán Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba en el Garellano, las de toda la escuela de grandes capitanes en el reinado de Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, sus expediciones a África con la indispensable cooperación de la marina militar de Andrea Doria, las guerras de Solimán y las de los capitanes franceses de la época, todo prueba el progreso de las combinaciones militares, y todos los Estados beligerantes tenían el vigoroso instinto de la guerra, porque los combates habían tomado mayores proporciones, las guerras civiles del feudalismo se habían concluido, las naciones peleaban por medio de ejércitos permanentes con vastos espacios que recorrer, que defender, que conquistar") y obligó al ingenio humano a desarrollarse en la dirección de su necesidad, por lo cual la estrategia fue presentida y practicada.

En el siglo XVI, aparecen las tropas imperiales españolas, con sus temibles Tercios, ya que después de la expulsión de los moros, surgió para España una serie de guerras exteriores, que la alzaran a un alto grado de pujanza, y como ya no podían actuar las compañías con independencia unas de otras, ni era posible la organización feudal de grupos disgregados e irregulares, hubieron de crearse subdivisiones del ejército con la agrupación de varias compañías, que constituyendo una especie de brigada recibieron el nombre de Tercio:.

• - En 1536, cada Tercio en 3 coronelías, con 10 compañías de piqueros, 2 de arcabuceros de la fuerza de 250 hombres cada una.

• - En 1560, Felipe II de España suprimió las coronelías y formó los Tercios de 8 compañías de coseletes armadas con picas "Pica (arma)") y 2 de arcabuceros de 300 individuos todas.

España hizo dar al arte de la guerra pasos gigantescos, basta indicar la operaciones del duque de Parma "Alejandro Farnesio (duque de Parma)") para socorrer a París y a Ruan sitiadas por Enrique IV de Francia, o la campaña del duque de Alba para apoderarse de Portugal que terminó con la Batalla de Alcantara o la guerra de Flandes con el citado duque de Alba, Luis de Requesens, Don Juan de Austria, el citado Farnesio "Alejandro Farnesio (duque de Parma)"), etc: donde se habían reunido cuantos soldados valientes y experimentados capitanes tenía Europa; las numerosas fortalezas detenían al ejército con largos y trabajosos sitios, las vastas llanuras requerían en las batallas que se desplegase todo el valor y toda la ciencia, y las mismas llanuras atravesadas por anchos y profundos ríos presentaban con frecuencia aun después de las victorias, inconvenientes graves y temibles a los progresos de los vencedores (Cita de Agostino Paradisi")[25]​).

En la batalla de Pavía, en 1525, los españoles, desplegaron en ella todas las ventajas del talento militar y todas las maniobras hijas del estudio más reflexivo del arte de la guerra, dando a la Historia Militar la primera página en que se estudia la táctica y el orden de las batallas modernas e igual pericia mostraron y victoria obtuvieron los tercios españoles mandados por Manuel Filiberto de Saboya en la batalla de San Quintín.

Mauricio de Nassau reuniendo la experiencia de los precedentes, regeneró el arte militar e introdujo muchas novedades en el ataque y en la defensa, indagó todos los medios de acelerar y asegurar más el buen éxito de la guerra, atribuyéndole algunos autores la creación de la fortificación de campaña y Gaspar de Coligny fue el primero que mostró la importancia de la rapidez, recorrió hasta 18 leguas en 24 horas, ya que anteriormente se creía una gran marcha 7 leguas por día.

Si entre los antiguos el cuadrado táctico se denominó sintagma, tortuga, en la Edad Media muro, cerca, corral, vino a constituir en los siglos XVI y XVII el escuadrón al que los tácticos geometras sometieron a múltiples sutilezas.

Mauricio de Sajonia poseía grandes cualidades: tan circunspecto y reservado en el plan, como osado y pronto en la ejecución, tan previsor en la preparación, como acabado en la obra.

En las Guerras de Religión en Francia (1562-1598), los fines de los pueblos calvinistas era no solo empuñar las armas por el libre ejercicio de su religión, sino también para desterrar el ejercicio de la religión católica que se la perfilaba como una idolatría cuyo abatimiento era un deber de conciencia para el buen cristiano, temiendo por su parte el pueblo católico por su religión que los hugonotes habían jurado deshacer, sosteniendo en el cometido de preservar aquella, temiendo también el soberano y los Grandes por su autoridad que el partido hugonote había resuelto usurpar; en los principios de la reforma protestante los predicantes hacían profesión de doblegarse a la obediencia del gobierno, como las protestas de fidelidad que trasladó Juan Calvino a Francisco I de Francia al principio de su Instrucción, cristiana, posiblemente por la debilidad de su partido, mas con el aumento de fuerzas fue trocando su lenguaje, proyectando sus doctores que era legítimo a los calvinistas el defenderse, con la estrategia de requerir y conseguir por medio de la rebelión y de la violencia la libertad de continuar y practicar públicamente su religión, declarado en muchos sínodos de los calvinistas con la mayor solemnidad.

En el siglo XVII abundan capitanes de alta inteligencia y que emplearon a menudo los métodos de la estrategia como Espinola, Albrecht von Wallestein, Turena, Bernardo de Sajonia-Weimar, Piccolomini, Montecuccoli, Gustavo de Suecia, El Gran Condé, Conde de Tilly y algún otro.

La verdadera guerra en grande esclarece principios en tiempos de Luis XIV de Francia, con gran protagonismo de las armas de fuego y la estrategia se une a la política, el gabinete con el pabellón, y las guerras no se principiaban sin haber determinado el plan y se procuraba prever sus efectos después de una serie de operaciones hipotéticas fundadas en datos desconocidos, y se vieron notables operaciones estratégicas: invasión de Holanda,; Marlborough alcanzó a orillas del Danubio al príncipe Eugenio; Villars se unió con el elector de Baviera; Luis José de Vendome y Berwick dirigieron las famosas marchas de España que concluyeron con la batalla de Almansa.

El tipo de la guerra de sitios es relevante en el siglo XVII, la toma de una plaza fuerte era en ocasiones el objeto de una campaña, y alguna tentativa de un ejército de socorro para descercar la plaza o librarla del ataque enemigo, solía producir un choque o batalla campal, y el asunto quedaba resuelto con la toma de la plaza o la retirada del sitiador. El ejército de socorro era adversario natural de un ejército de observación y el lento progreso de la táctica en el siglo XVII debe atribuirse en gran parte al índole acompasado de aquellas guerras de sitios y posiciones, por oposición a la campal, de marchas, maniobras y batallas.

Habiendo llegado muy lejos el arte de fortificar con Errard de Bardeluc"), ingeniero de Enrique IV de Francia, el caballero Ville con Luis XIII de Francia y el conde de Pagan, se debe el mérito de las aplicaciones sistemáticas en sitiar y tomar plazas a Vauban y en su defensa mejoras adaptadas a las nuevas armas, aplicando los sistemas ya conocidos, sobresaliendo en la sagacidad con que supo asociar la fortificación con las estrategias: Fue el primero que vio las cosas en gran escala; buscó las relaciones de las plazas de guerra entre sí y de la fortificación con las otras partes del arte militar y hasta con la administración política, y puso las fortificaciones en la mejor relación con la estrategia de su tiempo y merece el elogio de que la conservación de los hombres y de los establecimientos fue uno de sus principales fines (Cita Carnot).

Por los años de la Guerra de los Treinta Años, el elemento feudal casi desapareció, porque su composición no se fundaba ya en el servicio feudal sino que era una tropa permanente tomada de la plebe y mandada por señores o nobles sujetos sin embargo a la jerarquía de los grados en razón de sus capacidades y sus servicios y no del grado social, lo que destruía los contingentes feudales, y en la citada guerra, Waldstein y Gustavo de Suecia vivían a expensas de los países que ocupaban con sus soldados, guerra devastadora, pero el primero era considerado como una adversidad y Gustavo como un protector, porque el uno dilapidaba y el segundo regularizaba las exacciones, y ambos demostraron que en los ejércitos más móviles y en los terrenos menos montuosos sabían hacer servir las fortificaciones de campaña, y empezó también la división del trabajo en los ejércitos.[26]​.

Wallestein") ganó fama militar en la guerra contra los bohemos") y los turcos, y su fama y las promesas tentadoras de gloria y de botín trajeron a su bandera muchos soldados y jefes aventureros, guerra en la que se permitía el pillaje y la contribución militar, hallando donde quisiera el soldado paga y ganancias.

Gustavo Adolfo y Mauricio de Orange restauraron el arte militar, mejoraron las ordenanzas y combinaron en las masas de infantería las ventajas de la legíon con las de la falange, y fue Gustavo tan hábil en sus planes como rápido en su ejecución, la llamada por Napoleón guerra de pies e ideó fabricar cañones de cuero contra la artillería de los alemanes para hacerla más maniobrable.

Se considera a Enrique, duque de Rohan") (siglo XVII), como el primer escritor y general moderno que dio y aplicó algunos preceptos útiles en la guerra de montaña, exigiendo un principio general"): "la posición en las cumbres".

Conde y Turena aparecieron poco después, y el primero había nacido general y se condujo por sus inspiraciones propias, y el segundo aprendió a serlo en el libro de la experiencia, el cual, por un nuevo orden de formación de tropas, por el uso más razonado de la infantería, por sus admirables marchas y planes de campaña, encauzó el arte militar a un alto grado de perfección: Conde nació general, Turena se hizo; el primero se dirigía por sus propias inspiraciones, el segundo por la reflexión y la experiencia y sus batallas presentan disposiciones variadas y siempre hábilmente aplicadas al terreno (Cita de Lamarque).[27]​.

Turena instituyó la brigada en 1667, subdivisión táctica de un cuerpo de ejército, formando parte de una división, con el nombramiento del primer brigadier de caballería y la de 1668 para el de infantería, buscando unidad y cohesión, y agrupar sus tropas con más libertad, aunque para otros fue Gustavo Adolfo, y si bien su columna o unidad táctica se dividía en trozos y fracciones que le daban flexibilidad y movilidad (dos regimientos con 1000 mosqueteros y 900 piqueros), la caballería sueca todavía se interpolaba su turma como en los tiempos del duque de Alba y Alejandro Farnesio.

Cromwell formó tropas regulares y devotas, organizando a los indisciplinados y que ejercitó infundando una poderosa confianza en sí mismos, y mira hacer la revolución, la secunda, sigue y reduce a la unidad de su poder.

Raimondo Montecuccoli dejó tres libros en sus memorias, trata el primero del arte militar, el segundo de la guerra contra los turcos y el tercero de la campaña de 1664, conteniendo preceptos tanto para la guerra ofensiva como la defensiva, y la guerra entre él y el citado Turena, fue indudablemente un ejercicio del arte de la guerra, una rivalidad de sutilezas, de serenidad, de temple, de presteza y de diligencia, no pudiendo contar el uno con que el otro incurriría en más deslices o desaciertos, con las que el mismo hubiera cometido hallándose en su lugar, y Montecuccoli prosiguió con victorias hasta que fue hecho prisionero por el Príncipe de Conde.

Holanda, al haberse combinado con Francia, pudo disputarle el imperio de la mar a Inglaterra, con una marina diestra y ejercitada, capitaneada por hábiles almirantes como Engel de Ruyter, Martin y Cornelio Tromp.

A comienzos del siglo XVIII, en la Gran Guerra del Norte destaca como ilustre militar Carlos XII de Suecia, siendo dignas de atención y estudio el paso de Dwina, el de Bug en 1703, a nado con su caballería, las activas campañas de 1704 y 1705, y en 1708 penetra en Rusia hasta Berezina, donde le espera Pedro el Grande, fundador de la grandeza moscovita, soñando con herir al ruso en el corazón llegando hasta Moscú y para ello pone sitio en Poltava, plaza de importantes recursos y gran importancia estratégica.

En el siglo XVIII, tanto Federico II el Grande en la Guerra de los Siete Años como la guerra con España del inglés Pitt, fundaban su resolución en motivos estratégicos, en las ventajas que resultarían de descargar un golpe inmediato y bien dirigido contra el enemigo, sin darle lugar a prepararse.

Navío es el nombre propio o peculiar que ha permanecido a las embarcaciones grandes o que llegan a pasar de cierto porte, y más particularmente a las de guerra que tenían a los menos dos puentes o dos baterías "Batería (instrumento musical)") corridas por cada banda, navíos de dos andanadas, así como de tres puentes en el de constar de otros tantos o de tres baterías. También se decía navío de línea a cualquiera de los primeros o que por aquellas circunstancias se consideraba propio para entrar en la formación de la línea de combate, con un número elevado de cañones gruesos "Cañón (artillería)"), es decir, el que por su porte y armamento estaba destinado a combatir en batalla ordenada o en formaciones navales en unión de otros buques de la marina de guerra.

Federico sujetó la guerra a las especulaciones del talento "Talento (aptitud)"), redujo a cálculo todos sus elementos y formando un conjunto de la estrategia con la táctica, la redujo a una ciencia mixta que comprendía ambas cosas e hizo de modo que el soldado adquiriese una especie de instinto por la estrategia acelerada, y conociendo la importancia de la prontitud creó la táctica moderna, y en vez de romper el centro dio vueltas a las alas y a llevar el mayor esfuerzo al punto débil del enemigo, multiplicando las piezas de artillería, consiguiendo que se cruzasen con el fuego de los mosquetes, de manera que si el enemigo avanzaba se encontraba débil antes de llegar a las bayonetas.[28]​.

Estas perfecciones o creaciones originaron otra manera de combatir ya que en lugar de las batallas de choque del Gran Capitán y del gran Conde, de las batallas de posición del duque de Alba y Feuillade, de las batallas de puestos de Mauricio de Sajonia, Federico usó las batallas de maniobras: Es preciso remitir al éxito de las batallas el término de las querellas. Es preciso meditarlas, porque las que se encomiendan a la casualidad nunca tienen grandes resultados. Son las mejores batallas aquellas en que se obliga a recibirlas al enemigo (Cita del mismo Federico)[29]​.

Otros generales dignos de mención del siglo XVIII son Mauricio de Sajonia "Mauricio de Sajonia (1696-1750)"), Tollendal, Eugenio de Saboya; realizaron con sumo acierto grandes operaciones militares Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin, Keit, Ziethen y Seidlitz; en las campañas de 1758 y siguientes Fernando de Brunswick fue superior o al menos igual a los franceses teniendo un ejército heterogéneo e inferior; el príncipe Enrique de Prusia "Enrique de Prusia (1726–1802)") en Sajonia se mostró profundo en la defensa modelo respecto a la elección de posiciones y movimientos.

En la Guerra de independencia de los Estados Unidos, el ejército británico no aplicó correctamente las máximas estratégicas para la conducción de una guerra ofensiva, y en vez de concentrar sus fuerzas en algún punto decisivo y la destrucción del principal cuerpo del ejército revolucionario por repetidos y bien dirigidos golpes, dispersaron sus fuerzas en una inmensa extensión de territorio y llegaron a ser demasiado débiles de poder actuar con decisión y efectividad en ningún punto.

El Almirantazgo de Gran Bretaña mandó poner "entre-puentes de carronadas" en ciertas fragatas para experimentar el efecto que tenían, y después de haber reconocido los grandes estragos que causaba esta arma en la jarcia, arboladura y aparejo de los navíos de guerra francéses, contra los cuales dirigieron su fuego las fragatas inglesas en los combates particulares, mandó por orden general ponerlo entre los "entre-puentes" de todos los navíos de línea ingleses[30]​.

Como no eran bastantes los medios ordinarios para rendir una plaza como Gibraltar tan defendida por la naturaleza como por el arte militar, la Corte de Madrid adoptó el plan estratégico de acometer por mar y por tierra a un mismo tiempo, valiéndose de máquinas de nueva invención llamadas baterías flotantes con objeto de batir los dos muelles "Muelle (construcción)") y las fortificaciones que defendían la ciudad en lugar de los navíos de línea, pues como el aparejo y velamen de éstos estaba expuesto a ser quemado con las balas rojas de la plaza, se evitaba este inconveniente por la naturaleza de su construcción.

Del mismo modo que cambió la sociedad, se cambió en Francia el ejército en la Revolución, con grandes cambios en la legislación y en la administración y en las relaciones de la sociedad civil con el ejército y de éste con la sociedad, y la ciencia de las grandes operaciones cambió de faz y se aprendió a hacer útiles y movibles a las masas, creciendo extraordinariamente el ejército cuando se incorporaron a él los guardias nacionales y se hicieron las levas parciales y en masa, formando parte de los 18 ejércitos de la República, y de este modo un millón doscientos mil ciudadanos se armaron, se suprimieron los nombres de los antiguos cuerpos, el ejército tomó la divisa azul de la milicia ciudadana, cambiando de aspecto el arte de la guerra no solo con la sustitución de los ataques de los cazadores y a la bayoneta, sino con la guerra en grande que se había hecho necesaria desde el momento en que se conoció el poder de las masas.

Mal armados los soldados franceses, bisoños en las maniobras, se precipitaban sobre la artillería y líneas enemigas, protegidos por las baterías "Batería (artillería)") y unos cuantos escuadrones adiestrados, después de todo debían introducir una estrategia nueva, ya que no teniendo tiendas o bagajes se cuidaban poco de cubrir las líneas y con extraordinaria movilidad caían de improviso sobre enemigos acostumbrados a marchas metódicas, aprendiendo a rehacerse, a replegarse contra la caballería y a aprovecharse de los obstáculos del terreno para acercarse al enemigo.

Los numerosos ejércitos que cubrían sus fronteras obligó a sus generales a crear cuerpos francos y a emplearlos todos en las guerrillas para suplir la falta de experiencia militar de aquella época, contrarrestando a los diestros tiroleses y a los cazadores de lobo austriacos, y en la famosa jornada de Jemappes el general Dumouriez hizo un excelente empleo de estas tropas, cuyos batallones envolvieron los reductos austriacos y obligaron a los artilleros a abandonar sus piezas.

Carnot, ministro de guerra, se dedicó a regularizar aquel ímpetu y ordenó que se dieran golpes decisivos en los puntos estratégicos más importantes, que se rompiesen las comunicaciones, que se pusiera fuera de combate al ejército enemigo antes de tomar una sola fortaleza o de apoderarse de un palmo terreno, y a las teorías de Vauban para el ataque y reparación de plazas, sustituyó un nuevo sistema de fortificación y defensa, que consistía en usar de los fuegos verticales en casamatas, para destruir al enemigo cuando venía en grandes masas y de los golpes de mano atrevidos cuando el enemigo no tenía bastante fuerza.

International law

The first era of international law can be established after the Treaty of Westphalia, representing in its writings the bases of a system that sought to establish balance between the great powers, and the second era of the same law has its origin in the Treaty of Utrecht, when Hugo Grotius based the law of nations on ancient law, which became rational, philosophical and interpenetrated with natural law.

The word strategy in Europe in the 18th-19th centuries

The Greek word strategy was introduced in the second half of the 18th century and the Greek word remained for many years like others in mysterious incubation in the exclusive heat of scholars and even at the end of the 18th century it was unknown to generals of the time of the French Revolution and the Empire such as Ney, Masséna, Murat and until the last third of the 18th century the art of war was considered as an indivisible whole.

The victories of Frederick II of Prussia awakened military Europe from a certain apathy and numbness and there were long and noisy debates on everything concerning art, especially on improvements in tactics to which the triumphs of Frederick II, philosopher and warrior, were attributed. This discussion produced a return to centuries-forgotten studies and documents on the Greek phalanxes and Roman legions. New ideas about the art of war emerged, the most notable being those of Count de Guibert. Subsequently, all these opinions generated advances in military tactics.

The first to use the word strategy at this time was Archduke Charles, rival of the terrible strategist of modern times, Napoleon I. In competition with the archduke, two of the first writers on strategy were von Bülow") and Baron de Jomini. We must not forget Joly de Maizeroy[31]​ to whom Bardin")[32]​ attributes the invention of the word in 1771, nor Georg Heinrich von Berenhorst"), Jean-Martin Jabro")[33]​ Silva, Henry Lloyd")[34]​ and other authors who did not say "stratégie" but "strategic" and who did not form a body of doctrine as such.

Therefore, the first expositors and definers of the word military strategy were Archduke Charles in geometric form, von Bülow in scholastic form and Baron de Jomini in experimental form.

Despite this, military strategy existed in all ages of history and even though its principles were not established until the 19th century, it cannot be denied that military strategy was applied:

• - Where there were war operations of some extent.

• - Leaders of select understanding who knew how to skillfully move the troops they led to gain primacy over the enemy.

• - It is found everywhere since the first war between men, sometimes masked under different names such as general provisions or Theoretical and practical war. Therefore, since there existed in the world the first general who had the expertise and ability to lead the troops and so that his principles were observed and fulfilled.

• - Some keys to military strategy are found in popular sayings such as:

Definitors and primitive expositors of the word military strategy

• - Henry, Baron of Bulow, a Prussian officer who served in the infantry and then in the cavalry, was in the words of Napoleon I an "ideologist" (as Napoleon called everyone who thought) and adventurer, somewhat quirky, a caustic and daring writer. Beginning by getting involved in the insurrection in the Netherlands in 1789, he traveled on a long pilgrimage to the United States, England and France and his works Geist des neven Kriega-Sistems are famous, translated into French under the name Esprit du systeme de guerre moderne by T.Lave. which was published in Hamburg in 1799 and the other Lehsätze des newen Krieges... in Berlin in 1805. The acceptance was immense and the attention was greatly captivated by the happy application of geometry to war, the reference to the triangle, the eccentric retreats, the great lines, in a word, the great ideas and Prussia became conceited by calling it the Prussian Folard.

• - Baron de Jomini is the strategic successor of Bulow, a Swiss battalion commander at the beginning of the 19th century, an officer later in the service of France and then Russia, where he reached the last hierarchy of aide-de-camp to the emperor. This author since 1803 when he confesses that he threw the first manuscript into the fire for having read Lloyd. This inexhaustible writer made the printing presses sweat with voluminous works of critical history on the wars of Frederick II, the Republic of France, and Napoleon I and he alternated pamphlets with newspaper articles with extensive works such as Treatise on Great Military Operations in 3 volumes of 1819, his translation into French of the work of Archduke Charles Principles of Strategy, his Introduction to the Study of Great Combinations, etc. and finally in 1829 he wrote an Analytical Table to serve as a key and complement to that last work and in its 2nd edition of 1837 it took the title of Compendium of the Art of War which was translated in 1840 into Spanish.

• - Archduke Charles, son of Emperor Leopold II, was a first-class tactician and one of the best generals of his time, but tired of seeing his best combinations compromised by incapable generals, he resigned his command and lived apart from the army and politics. His two famous works are the following: Principles of strategy explained by the operations of the German campaign in 1796, Vienna, 1814 and History of the German and Swiss campaign in 1799, Vienna, 1819.[36]​.

19th century

Napoleon Bonaparte invented that military order with which he terrified all of Europe, with the difficult art of directing the masses to decisive points and replacing the number with the speed of movement, with the incomparable ability to gather, create and arrange the means proportioned to the enterprise, the activity that always gave him the initiative, the speed of vision and military action that did not allow the enemy to reflect or oppose his projects, ascendancy over his soldiers and over the enemies, the ability to know how to take advantage And, no one has better possessed at the same time all the elements of strategy and tactics, which is why he could successfully apply them from the most general ideas to the smallest particularities and knew how to take advantage of small armies and easily move large ones, things that hardly go together.

Just as a new tactic had resulted from the wars of the aforementioned Frederick II of Prussia, from those of Napoleon came the grand strategy, in which the writers meditating on the execution of their vast plans, laid the foundations of this military science, and far from introducing essential changes in the tactics established by Frederick, Napoleon extended its application to the new circumstances: with his infantry he defeated the Austrian, German and Prussian infantry, with his cavalry he made the cavalry of the Russian imperial guard and the famous of the Mamluks, with his artillery he charged to escape and destroyed paintings, he breached the most famous walls, with his engineers he mined, fortified and destroyed in a notable way, and the wars in which the fate of a great nation was discussed were resolved by him in only two battles at most and attacking a territory, he defeated the first army that presented itself, destroying it, annihilating it and before If he had recovered, he would go to give laws to the capital and if it resisted, he would enter by force.

In the study of maps is where Napoleon tried all the combinations, with skillfully thought-out march systems, to gain ground on the enemy and in this way he prepared infallible blows, he led the armies as if by hand, gathering them, dividing them and maneuvering from one end of Europe to the other with the same precision and security as on the battlefield, and in this way he decided strategically campaigns planned and even written in advance in his thoughts, and according to Jomini, Napoleon He excelled in the success of using tactical reserves and seeing at the first glance the key and decisive point of a battle.

Napoleon was as fortunate in his campaigns as he was unfortunate in his naval combats, since the French admirals rigorously observed ancient tactics, while Nelson concentrated all his efforts according to the rules of modern tactics, and the English navy, placed face to face with the French, played the same role as Napoleon and his armies with respect to the Austrians.

Napoleon's imperial ideas led him to unfortunate undertakings to give free rein to his ambition for war, attacking after the Treaty of Tilsit as an aggressor people animated by a great spirit of patriotism: His mission was not only to govern France but to subdue the entire world so that it would not annihilate him. Starting from such a gratuitous hypothesis, he organized the Empire for an eternal war. It was not in order to acquire the right to be an absolute monarch, so he fought at all latitudes. On the contrary, he founded despotism to create, vivify and continually renew the elements of battles.[37]​.

In the Spanish War of Independence, the immense losses suffered by the French in Spain are due more to the guerrillas than to the battles, and it is not possible to look at the tumultuously armed shapeless masses that surrendered to General Dupont in the battle of Bailén, those that defeated Moncey in Valencia, those that defeated Charles Lefebvre in Aragon, as well as those that defeated Charles Lefebvre in Aragon, as well as the sieges that perpetuated Zaragoza in the Memory, as nothing more than irregular troops. Burgos, Gerona and Tarragona.

In the siege of Zaragoza, July 1808, Agustina de Aragón, watching the French advance to the battery "Battery (musical instrument)") located at the Portillo gate, took the fuse of a wounded soldier and fired a 24-pound "Cannon (artillery)") cannon, loaded with shrapnel, which, heading towards the enemy columns, caused great destruction, and this unexpected blow caused disruption in the besieging troops. French forces and time for the besieged, who once again defended the Plaza del Portillo and rejected the French.

The Duke of Wellington distinguished himself more for his calm, energy and tenacity than for his courage, daring strategy and great sudden creations, and his march of concentration on the Duero River and his decisive movement on the banks of the Ebro River are a model for the correct application of the principles of strategy..

In the Spanish American wars of independence, the royalists of Spain, after having regained command, sent as a strategic resource an expeditionary force of 10,000 veteran soldiers in the fighting on Spanish soil under the command of Pablo Morillo, with a plan that covered the entire continent.

During the years 1838 and 1839, the English waged a war in Afghanistan, after which they took over the islands of Bahrain and Hormuz, with the strategic plan of securing the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and Socotra and Aden, which gave them the key to the Red Sea, and between 1845 and 1848 they conquered the Punjab or region of the five rivers, to which they later added Kashmir.

From 1856 to 1878 the European continent was the theater of five great wars: the Franco-Austrian war of 1859, the Danish war of 1864, the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and the Russian-Turkish war (1877-1878), all of which had their origin in the Crimean War.

In the Crimean War, the allies believed it was right to lead an imposing expedition to the Crimea to ruin Sevastopol, the very base of Russian strength in the Black Sea, forcing Russia to reduce its naval forces, and the reasons that led them to expect a successful result from their strategy consisted of one in the incontestable superiority of their fleets, which put them in a position to attack Sevastopol with advantage from the sea and the second in the sympathies of the Muslim Tatars, which assured them the probability of isolating the Russian army that wanted to rescue that place, the possession of Sevastopol meaning the creation for the allies of a solid base for their future military operations to penetrate southern Russia and destroy all the establishments it had on the shores of the Black Sea, Crimea being for the Russians the center of international transactions in Europe and Asia.

The famous engineer of the Russian defenses in the siege of Sevastopol was the Count of Todleben and of the surrender of Osman-Pasha's army in Plevna, combining his engineering knowledge with that of the artilleryman and the tactician, and in his strategic plan Vauban's ideas on the importance of moral strength and the quality of the troops in the defense of the square and those of Montalembert on the need to assign artillery are recognized. a predominant role.

In the second war of Italian independence (1859-1861), Turin was the primary strategic objective, with the Austro-Hungarian general Ferencz Giulay passing through Ticino with a late offensive and Napoleon III planning to accumulate imposing forces on the left, defeating the Sardinian-French in the Battle of Magenta, with an Austrian corps under the command of Ludwig von Benedek finally being expelled to the other side of the Adda, which remained somewhat Lagging behind when covering the Austrian retreat. Later, the Sardinian-Franks crossed the Adda after the Tudescans, concentrated in turn in Brescia, previously occupied by Garibaldi with his hunters from the Alps as the vanguard, the war ended with the Sardinian-French triumph in the battle of Solferino.

The siege and reduction of Fort Pulaski, which was located on Cokspur Island (Georgia (United States) "Georgia (United States)"), in a very strategic position, was one of the first events, among the military operations carried out in the Civil War, and fully demonstrated the power and effectiveness of the rifled cannons "Cannon (artillery)") to make breaches at great distances, distances not known until then and fully considered impracticable.

At the siege of Charleston, 1863, the naval authorities in Washington considered Fort Sumter, a brick casemate with five houses, with two floors of covered fires and another above Garbela, a strategic place, and once this fortress was demolished, its offensive power was destroyed, it was stated that the monitors and other armored ships could remove the obstructions of the canal, take over the entire bay and reach the city.

In the Austro-Prussian War, Austria had to constitute a double war and Prussia was forced to divide its attention into two different theaters of war, one to the east and the other to the west, and in this there were skillful operations, which reveal skills of combination and strategic-political success of the Prussian General Staff.

In 1866, in the battle of Sadowa, large batteries "Battery (artillery)"), skillfully arranged by the engineer Pidonell, trenches-shelters and other obstacles strengthened the positions of Lipa and Chlum, and at 9 in the morning of July 3, fourteen battalions of Franseky's division suffered the entire Austrian effort, fighting in the forest of Benatek or Maslowed, which was the strategic position as a key point of the conflict, since the two Prussian armies were to be linked through the aforementioned forest.

The Civil War of the United States and the Bohemian War already pointed out in 1867 the decisive influence that industry, public wealth and money take to frequently renew an expensive material that quickly becomes obsolete, and together with strategic skill and tactical opportunity it is necessary to use and perfect the latest advances.

During the Second Mexican Empire, Maximilian I of Mexico decided to put up energetic resistance in defense of his throne, but recognizing the impossibility of effectively occupying and dominating the vast territories of Mexico, he adopted a restricted strategic plan of occupation that should be limited to effectively protecting Mexico and the regions that extended between this capital "Capital (political)") and Veracruz, and also concentrating the action in the eleven central states and abandoning the maritime provinces, which were shortly evacuated.

The nationalist movement led by El Mahdi resulted in the decisive event of the formation of another state in ancient Nubia and Eastern Sudan, and against this state the British warred in 1898 under Lord Kitchener, who seized Dongola and won the Battle of Omdurman due to his military technological advantage, after which his troops are said to have finished off 3,000 wounded dervishes.

The Boers led by their elderly president Paul Kruger, and well equipped with modern weapons, initially obtained important victories over the British, and with their strategy they invaded the colonies of Natal, Rhodesia "Rhodesia (region)") and Cape Town, and then Lord Roberts was sent from England with the strategy of reinforcing the British with new troops, while Paul Kruger undertook his trip to Europe with the strategy of interesting the towns and governments in favor of the Boers. who did not move to help him, and the advantages of the Boers forced Roberts to be replaced by Kitchener, while the Boer armies were wasting away despite their victories.

20th century

Edward VII ended the Transvaal War and made a strategy of alliances with Japan to contain the advance of the Russians through Asia, in 1902, and for the same purpose he sent a mission to Tibet in 1904 and tried very hard to increase the fleet, believing that its superiority was an undeniable guarantee of the power of England, owner of a network of submarine cables so that its colonial empire around the world would not be endangered.

The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) was caused by Russia's strategy of establishing itself firmly in East Asia by fortifying the port of Wladivostock and securing Port Arthur, which dominates the Gulf of Petschill and maritime access to Peking (1898); but the intention to subjugate Manchuria and Korea put it in conflict with the Empire of Japan:.

• - The Japanese Emperor Mutsuhito (1867-1912), had inaugurated a new regime with an openness strategy, introducing European institutions in Japan, opened its ports to foreigners, removed power from the Palace Stewards (Shogun), sovereignty from the feudal nobility (Daimios) and with compulsory military service, deprived the turbulent warrior caste (Samurai) of their importance, giving a Constitution in 1890. parliamentary with two chambers.

• - The rapid growth of the population inspired a policy of expansionism, acquiring the Kuril Islands and Siu-Kiu, and later directed its ambitions on Korea, for whose possession Japan waged a victorious war with China (1894-1895), but the interference of the European powers forced it to settle with Formosa.

• - The Anglo-Japanese alliance (1902) and military progress enabled him to wage war against Russia, which, not satisfied with the lease of Port Arthur, desired to dominate all of Manchuria and influence Korea:

• The Japanese, without a declaration of war, with an offensive strategy, attacked the Russian squadron in Port Arthur and Chemulpo, laid siege to it, and rejected the bulk of the Russian army until Mukden, winning several stubborn battles.

• The Russians, with a purely defensive strategy, limited to the reinforcements they received through the Trans-Siberian railway, could not overcome their enemies, and they surrendered Port Arthur and, destroying their second Baltic squadron, achieved through the mediation of the United States of America the Peace of Portsmouth "Treaty of Portsmouth (1905)"), by which they ceded to Japan pre-eminence over Korea and the southern Manchurian railway, essentially

• Russia dissipates the prospects of its strategy of domination in the Pacific and in China's maritime region, and Japan strengthens its coalition strategy with England.

• - The Russo-Japanese War produced a long delay in the Balkan question, and then Bulgaria declared itself completely independent, shaking the nominal sovereignty of the sultan and annexed Eastern Rumelia, paying compensation to Turkey in 1909.

• - Xenophon, crowned with brilliant success the conduction of the 10,000 Greek warriors to their homeland after the Cunaxa raid, performing in that memorable retreat acts of excellent tactical and strategic skill that throughout the centuries excite the admiration of those who study them today. He wrote in his masterpiece Anabasis in which apart from the retreat of the ten thousand, there is the story of Cyrus the Younger's expedition to Upper Asia. Xenophon was with them almost by chance as he himself says, but after the death of the leaders of the Greek army he was one of the five new leaders who were elected and who led the immortal retreat. He described in detail the countries he had crossed and drew complete pictures of the customs and character of their inhabitants. What most enchants is the modesty of the narrator and the man was great in terrible situations and the historian did not show himself unworthy of the man and also brought with his writings and military deeds the path of Great Asia, later followed by the exalted Macedonian leader, Alexander the Great. He also contributed the idea of ​​the possible success of large marches and concentric expeditions.

• - Alexander the Great, to whom no one can deny the quality of strategic movements conceived by him and executed by the troops led by the famous captain of Antiquity from the banks of Asia Minor to the banks of the Indus. He realized the supreme aspiration of the Greeks in their foreign policy, which was to subjugate Persia and prepared the world for Roman domination. It united two civilizations, that of the East and the West, and established a fruitful exchange of ideas between them.

• - Hannibal, with that almost insurmountable and brilliant example, worthy of the greatest praise, conceiving and executing the strategic idea of ​​mortally wounding Rome, a Rome that focused all its attention on a possible Carthaginian attack in the southern part of Italy. Hannibal passed from the Ebro to the Pyrenees, then heading to the Rhone, ascending the basin of this mighty river, crossing the very high peaks of the Alps and then descending to the fertile plains of the Po River to enter Italy and deal terrible and fortunate blows to the very powerful and almost invincible Republic of Rome on Italian soil. It is seen with this example that strategic movements must always have the objective of taking an army to the point or points where the enemy army least suspects that it can be attacked. Hannibal's strategy stands out for its speed and he carried it out or executed it despite the obstacles of all kinds that he had to overcome and the Romans never suspected that Hannibal intended to go and conquer Italy by taking such a detour, not taking sufficient precautions nor did they worry about gathering some troops on Trebia and they only gathered these troops after having learned that Hannibal had crossed the Alps.

• - Another terrible enemy of Rome was Mithridates, who resisted the most illustrious generals of the Republic for 40 years and who meditated an extensive war plan, which consisted of advancing from the banks of the Bosphorus, dragging the barbarian and semi-barbarian nations in his march against that enemy.

• - Julius Caesar, His strategic conceptions and the way of executing them by this famous Roman leader are admirable, to defeat and subjugate Gaul (on which, among other things, he fixed his penetrating gaze because it could be the entrance again of more Barbarian Tribes as happened previously in the time of Gaius Marius in which Rome suffered the unspeakable to put an end to them (Teutons, Cimbri, Ambrones...)), leading his troops as a skilled general. in the Rhône, Rhine and Seine valleys.

• - Barbarian Tribes or Barbarians who ruled Rome, in which according to Du Roure in his work Histoire de Théoderic le Grand we must highlight, even though many doubt it, the strategic ability of those Tribes, whose war operations and daring invasions were guided and carried out following the rules of military science.

• - Attila, king of the Huns who conceived the project of subjugating the Roman Empire and became the faithful representative of the instincts of his nation who irresistibly supported his ambitious goals. According to some historians such as Jornandes and Priscus, Attila's Empire included all of Scythia, from the Black Sea to the shores of the Baltic, the Sarmatians, Scythians, Gepids, Heruli, Ostrogoths and other subject peoples. A multitude of kings surrendered before him and 700,000 warriors eagerly awaited the moment to launch into the fight. When he died in the year 453, his body was exposed in the field between two long rows of silk tents and the Huns around him sang with somber ferocity the following: annual tribute. He successfully completed his undertakings, and died, not from an enemy wound, nor from betrayal by his own, but in the midst of pleasure and without feeling pain.*.

• - The strategic ability of Tariq, Muza and their lieutenants after the Battle of Guadalete to subjugate the entire Iberian Peninsula in two years following the same lines indicated by the Romans as most conducive to the domination of the country.

• - Genghis Khan who, after defeating Ung-Jan, took possession of the Tartar States (he was still called Temugin and had himself crowned with the name of Genghis Khan or King of Kings). He highlighted the first moments of his reign for great military triumphs and declared war on Prince Juarezmite Mohammed after having subjugated the princes of Carakathai and becoming owner of all the provinces inhabited by Mughals and Tatars and the towns of Khatai. Later he took his winning weapons elsewhere and in 1214 he had taken over Peking, the capital of China. His States were immense and four years after having defeated Gelaleddin he died, leaving a posterity worthy of his name since his States made up one of the vastest Empires that have ever existed, having subjects from the Black Sea to China and specifically in Europe he subjugated the southern part of Muscovy, banks of the Dnieper, coasts of the Azof Sea), Crimea and the Bulgarian country.

• - In the 16th and 17th centuries, the great period of the Spanish military in its immortal campaigns in Italy, Flanders, France, the Holy Roman Empire and Portugal, strategic conceptions worthy of admiration were discovered by the Great Captain, Pedro Navarro, the Grand Duke of Alba, Alejandro Farnesio "Alejandro Farnesio (Duke of Parma)"), Fuentes, Ambrosio Espínola, and the Cardinal Infante "Fernando of Austria (cardinal-infant)") etc.

• - Pachacutec managed with intelligence, war acumen, sagacity and a little diplomacy to save an almost lost kingdom, Cusco, from its natural enemies, the Chancas, in the decisive battle of Yawarpampa"), in order to configure the largest southern empire, Tawantinsuyo.

• - Toyotomi Hideyoshi, of great cunning, prudence and militarily ingenious, completed the national reunification of Japan and planned to conquer Korea and subjugate China but without achieving it.

• - In the 17th century, in accordance with the fundamental principles of the strategy, the troops led by Gustavus Adolf II, by Touraine (count)&action=edit&redlink=1 "Turenne (count) (not yet written)"), by Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy, moved.

• Gustavus Adolf II highlights his great strategic genius in the Thirty Years' War from 1630 to 1632, occupying almost all of Pomenaria and defeating Tilly in the Battle of Breitenfeld "Battle of Breitenfeld (1631)"). After this battle he made a strategic movement that, instead of going to Vienna to save Protestant Germany, he headed to the banks of the Rhine through Franconia and the Palatinate and defeated Tilly again in Würzburg and the Spanish in Openheim and Mainz.

• From Touraine it is worth highlighting, among other things, the strategic movement of moving his army located in Lorraine "Lorraine (France)") behind the Vosges, between Luneville and Befort to Alsace, where his enemy Montecucolli with his army committed the clumsiness of placing his troops and their winter quarters. Touraine suddenly fell in the middle of his cantons and Montecucolli could not gather his army, so he was completely defeated at Turwheim near Colmar and forced to cross the Rhine near Kehl. Montecucolli assumed that Tourena was calm in his cantonment behind the Vosges, but when Montecucolli least expected it, Tourena gathered his army and headed quickly to the center of Alsace and the situation became impossible for Montecucolli, whose troops were dispersed from Basel to Landau, to gather them in time to stop Tourena, due to the strategic movements characterized by their speed and secrecy of the French general.

• - In the 18th century, those guided by the Prussian leader Frederick II of Prussia in the valleys of the Elbe and Oder rivers were already examples of strategic movements, and very mainly those who guided Frederick's troops to the battlefields of Rosbach and Leuthen, where the famous king achieved his two greatest victories.

• - In the cause of the first triumphs of Napoleon I in Italy, which consisted of the strategic maneuver of leading the bulk of his forces on one of the enemy's wings (Napoleon I called the art of directing war * large tactics * or * la grande tactique * and the precepts established by him applied the same to combats as to maneuvers and therefore he never divided the art of war into two parts). In 1800 is when the Napoleonic system was characterized in the field of strategy, that is, in the way of arranging, directing and waging war and it was revealed in the following:

• Annihilate and destroy enemy army

• Or to take him materially prisoner

• He discarded old routines, contracted to the capture of one or two places or in the occupation of a small bordering province.

• The main means of doing things in a big way consisted of applying oneself to preferably disconcert the enemy army by ruining it, convinced that the States or Provinces were destroyed by themselves, when they did not have organized forces to protect them (With the exception of National Wars such as that of Spain in the 1st decade of the 19th century, although without the help of an organized national or foreign army, in any partial fight, the populations ended up succumbing).

• Calculate at a glance the probabilities offered by the different areas of the theater of war.

• Direct their masses of troops concentrically over the area that was most advantageous.

• Do not neglect anything to find out the approximate position of the enemy ranks.

• Launch against the enemy army with lightning speed:

• About its center if it was divided.

• On one of the extremities that led directly to their communications.

• Therefore envelop, cut, scatter, attack, relentlessly pursue the enemy army, forcing it to follow divergent directions.

• - French generals Hoche and Pichegrú"). In the autumn of 1793, generals Hoche and Pichegrú received the task of driving the Germans out of Alsace and lifting the blockade of Landau, but the Prussian army was on the banks of the Saar and the Moselle and the Rhine army between Strasbourg and Saverne.

The strategic movement was made when General Hoche left Sarrelouis, Saarbrücken, Sarguemines and Hornbach. In this province only the Kayserslautern battlefield existed.

• - The retreat to Zamosc of the Polish general Wojciech Chrzanowski.- The most honorable fact in the military life of Adalberto Chrzanowski is his passage through the enemy with 25 artillery pieces that led to Zamosc for the defense of the capital and having managed to take it to the walls of Warsaw. His retreat to Zamosc is considered a masterpiece of strategy and earned him the rank of major general (he also stood out in the capture of Varna "Varna (Bulgaria)" in 1828 against the Turks, and in Krassuvi, Leipzig and Waterloo).

• - The Feldmarshal, Helmuth von Moltke, famous Prussian officer of Danish origin fighting against the right of the French army that was marching ahead led by General Moreaux, just as the left was commanded by General Ambert and which was marching through San Vendel. The Prussian army, suspicious on its left because of General Moreaux's movement, gathered together at Kayserslautern, where it feared that General Moreaux, who was marching through Pirmasesns and Tripstand, would cut off its line of operation on Mainz. General Hoche then calls to his left and right and pretends to attack the Prussian army at Kayserslautern and then pretends to be defeated and retreats over Two Bridges towards Bitche, from where he heads through the Lautern gorges towards Weissenburg, Anweiter and Landau. Subsequently, it attacks the Austrian army and that of the German circles on the right flank, while the Rhine army, commanded by Pichegrú, attacks the enemy army head-on. With this beautiful strategic movement the remains of the German army were forced to withdraw in droves, some towards Manheim and others towards the right bank of the Rhine through Fort Louis, which they owned, and with such haste that the French entered that fort at the same time as the Austrian rearguard and took it over without firing a single shot. Denmark dedicated itself diligently to the reform of the German army and its great intelligence foresaw the events that made Germany the most powerful empire in Europe and wanted the army to be prepared to carry out this work of aggrandizement. War was declared against Austria in 1866, the plan that Moltke had drawn up was followed and after a single, quick campaign, the battle of Sadowa ended and he also led the movement on Vienna, which decided Austria to ask for peace. Later he was in charge of the studies and plans for the future campaign against France and for four years the siege of Paris and the positions to be taken were discussed in deep discussions. He was the true architect of the German triumphs in this Franco-Prussian war because the plan was due to him and he directed the campaign.

Also say that sometimes it happens that for the same war operation the strategic considerations are at odds with those derived from the analysis of the tactical examination of the current situation and in such case it is advisable to give preference to the strategic considerations that are absolute and depend on the general configuration of the theater of war, at the same time that the tactical considerations can be changed.

It is not strange that it happens that a decisive point on a battlefield, advised by tactical inconveniences, is different from that determined by strategic conveniences and in this hypothesis, if the variation of the point of attack does not bring insurmountable problems that could undermine the success of the battle, it is more decisive to give preference to the order of combat that allows obtaining greater and faster results of victory, in line with the final objective of the operations.

Thus it is understood that, with the battle of Bautzen in 1813 being the tactical decisive point on the left wing of the allied army, Emperor Napoleon I preferred, at the cost of greater efforts, to overwhelm the enemy's right wing, because there was the only line of retreat that the enemy army had. (This also made it clear that the line of retreat and the tactical flanks must be guarded with as much care as the lines of operations and the flanks. strategic**).

This strategic movement is what Napoleon I made to lead his army in the campaign of the year V from the margins of Miatius to the walls of Vienna, characterized by the following:

• - Its base of operation was Mantua, with its left in Trento, its right in Legnano on the Tagliamento.

• - Archduke Charles arrived on Carinthia, on Venetian Friuli with considerable reinforcements taken from Austria and the Austrian army from Germany.

• - The object of this campaign was to destroy the Austrian army in Italy before the arrival of that relief.

• - From March 10 to the end of year V, General Bonaparte set his army on the move and the following happened:

• He directed his left commanded by Joubert through Rovedero and Trento, on Bautzen, and from there on Tarvis, following the summit of the mountains and at the same time he marched with his center and his right on the Tagliamento, attacking the Austrian army in Vavassone, which had taken a position there on his right and repelling that Austrian army on Palmonova and Gradiska.

• But immediately after the battle of Vavassono, General Massena, who commanded the center, directed on Tarvis and with his left pursued the remains of the Austrian army in the same direction of retreat that he could have taken, that is, towards Trieste.

• After he arrived at Gradiska with the left of his army, he went up the same valley of the Isonzo and headed towards Tarvis, where he gathered the army in a single day.

• - Archduke Charles, rejected by the battle of Vavassone or Tagliamento over Trieste, had from that moment lost his line of operation, whose base he had established in Klagenfurt and as a result of these events the following occurred:

• He lost almost all his material that he had introduced into the Isonzo valley.

• It was not possible for him to take another line of operation, whose base he had established in Klagenfurt.

• His army lost its moral strength

• This army of Archduke Charles was thrown from position to position as far as Leoben.

• Austria was forced to ask for mercy from the French army.

Movimiento estratégico para reunir las columnas de un ejército de operaciones, que deben marchar separadas y abrazando el mayor frente estratégico posible, para lo siguiente:.

• - Tener víveres y holgura.

• - Desorientar al enemigo sobre el verdadero objetivo, es decir, sobre el punto de ataque elegido.

• - Requiere una inteligencia, un tino especial, en lo que se llama logística y la ciencia de las marchas.

• - Según Jomini, esta alternativa de los movimientos espaciosos y de los concéntricos es el verdadero distintivo de un gran Capitán.

Concentric strategic movements

They are the strategic movements that take place on imaginary arcs of circles, which progressively decrease in radius, the supposed center being the place occupied by the enemy and the famous concentric invasion of France by the allies in 1814 is well named.

Plotted on the map, the positions and successive stages are materially seen as arcs of circle, with an increasingly smaller radius and consequently with a decreasing interval between the invading bodies.

The adjective concentric is taken from geometry, since the circles or polygonal figures "Polygon (geometry)"), which have the same center, when a compass holding a point fixed, opens or closes, describes concentric circles.

It will be said with geometric exactness that a concentric movement is carried out by means of converging lines of operations.

Great strategic concentric movement of Napoleon I in 1805

In 1805 the French army was then on the beaches of the Ocean, its right on the Elbe and its left in Bayonne "Bayonne (France)"). Its base of operation was Bologna del Mar. This army was destined to destroy English power and England created a new coalition against France made up of the following nations:.

• - Prussia.

• - Russia.

• - Austria.

After Napoleon I learned of hostile movements of the Austrian army over Bavaria, he directed the entire French army by a concentric movement on Ulm and due to this great strategic concentric movement he managed to destroy the Austrian army in a single day.

After this campaign of 1805 and the peace that was its consequence, another coalition was formed with the following nations:.

• - Russia.

• - Austria.

• - Prussia.

• - England.

Prussia was the first to demonstrate its hostile intentions against France, seizing Saxony and came to take positions on the left of the Saale and its right was on the Elbe and its left in Saafeld and Hof and its center in Jena and Mersburg. Napoleon took Mainz as the base of his line of operation and climbed the Mein again to near its source and attacked the left of the Prussian army at Hof and Paluen and positioned himself on the right bank of the Saale and in the rear of the Prussian army between the Saaler and the Elster. In this way he took over the line of operation of the Prussian army, which was over Leipsick and Dresden, he crossed the Saale through Jena and Mersburg, attacking the Prussian army from its rear and destroyed it in less than an hour, these great strategic movements of Napoleon I being undoubtedly admirable.

In the Hundred Days, the policy of this great general, Napoleon I, who for this time had fallen into default, had given time to the Prussian and English armies to meet in Belgium and the Prussian army was at Ligny and the English at Waterloo. Napoleon could do the following:

• - Give up on your enemies and then negotiate, an option that I discard.

• - Remain on the defensive, receiving the shock in Paris and Lyon who were hastily putting themselves in a state of defense.

• - Anticipate the aggression, beating the Anglo-Prussians before the other contingents arrived.

For the man of 1796 and 1800, for the general of Montenotte, Rivoli, Champaubert or Montmirail, the choice could not be doubtful and the strategic movement of Napoleon I had the objective of forever separating the Prussian army from the English and counting on the following lines of operations, which were as follows:

• - * The Meuse") to cut the Prussians from their base:

• The Mons

• That of Sambra to intervene, preventing the union of Wellington's army and that of Blücher, choosing this to throw Blücher into the Meuse and Wellington into the sea and therefore ordered:

• That his left, commanded by Grouchy, who had under his command the generals Vandamme, Gerard") and Excelmans, attacked the Prussian army, commanded by Blucher, at Ligny.

• But at the same time he ordered his right, under the command of Marshal Ney, to move towards the Four Arms and thus forced the Prussian army to retreat on the right of the Byle.

Therefore, the planned and devastating attack was more suited to the character of his troops and he took the war outside of French soil and tried to provoke the uprising of Belgium and the Rhine provinces and chose the third line of operations, that of Sambra.

By a necessary consequence of this great strategic combination, the remains of the Prussian army had no other possible retreat than through Namur, Liège and the Rhine or Dusseldorf, but the French general Grouchy allowed the Prussian army, so completely defeated at Ligny, to retreat on Vavre and immediately join the English army at Waterloo.

The English army was already completely defeated, when the Prussian army reached the rear of the French army and Napoleon I believed because of how soon it was Grouchy that arrived and not the Prussians (A black dot began to appear on the right of the imperial army and it was first thought that it was a group of trees, then a column at rest, then Grouchy, to finally verify the tremendous truth that it was about those Prussians discarded in Ligny, supposedly in hasty flight and harassed by the body of Grouchy, who entered fiercely on the right flank into the scrambled and bloody battlefield). Wellington's cold perseverance was to be crowned by the ardent courage of the Prussian Blücher.

The mistake committed on this occasion by Grouchy is inexcusable, due to his lack of tact, wisdom, and opportunity, and in this catastrophe of Waterloo for French interests, Grouchy, destined to pursue the Prussian relics, insists on not seeing them and has them very fresh at his side. It must be said that Generals Vandamme, Gerard and Excelman also incurred serious responsibility, because assuming, as is said, that Grouchy did not want to march into combat, military duty obliged them to disobey him, move from the right to the left of the Byle and go to interpose themselves between the Prussian and English armies and prevent their meeting.

These French generals must have done what General Thareau, who died in the Battle of Moskowa, and General Allix did in the battle of Valontina in Russia, since these generals went into combat against the will of Junot and the lesson is drawn that there are circumstances in war in which a general officer should only take advice from himself and in this case it was on the day of the Battle of Waterloo.

Without General Grouchy's absence, the following would have happened to Wellington's English army:

• - It would have been rejected over Antwerp, which was its base of operation.

• - The Prussian army would have been rejected on the right of the Rhine, towards Dusseldorf and Koblenz.

• - The French army, with another strategic movement that was in the campaign plan, would have been marching on its right to attack the approaching Russian and Austrian armies on the Rhine, in the Palatinate and Alsace.

It would hardly be conceivable strategic movements, more brilliant and vast than Napoleon I, and strategic combination as daring, exact and perfect as the first in his military career, but it was in its execution that the reason for the defeat at Waterloo must be found.

It was due to Carnot a wise combination of strategic movements that saved France in the last decade of the 18th century from the invasion of European coalition armies in the campaign of 1794.

In the campaign of 1793 the good results depended on the strategic movement of the army of the Moselle, from left to right, but in the campaign of 1794 the strategic movement was carried out in the opposite direction and the army of the Moselle, marching from right to left, under the orders of General-in-Chief Jourdan came to join the army of the Ardennes on the banks of the Meuse and the Sambre, these two combined armies forming the Sambre and Meuse. This army attacked and defeated the Austrian at the Battle of Fleurus.

At the same time that General Jourdan executed his movement from right to left through Sarrelonis, Bouzonville, Thionville and Longni, etc. Another army of the Moselle was formed as if by magic behind the Saar, in Saarbrücken, Sarguemines, it headed through Pirmasens and Tripsfadt towards Kayserslautern, which it seized against the Prussian army, which at that time occupied that beautiful battlefield.

General Moreaux, who commanded this new army of the Moselle, left about 10,000 men in Kayserslautern under the command of General Ambert and with the 50,000 that remained he marched on his left, passing through Bitche, Sarguemines and Bouzonville and came to camp on the left bank of the Moselle between Thionville and Hayange and formed there the reserve of the army of the Sambre and Meuse.

As soon as the march of the army of Sambre and Meuse was decided upon Liège, the Lower Meuse, the Roer, and Aquisgran, General Moreaux left his camp for Sielk and Cousarrebruck.

The new army of the Moselle remained in Trevéris all the time necessary to give that of Sambre and Meuse, which was the left of that vast strategic combination, of which Carnot was the author, sufficient space for General Jourdan to arrive on the Roer. The Army of the Rhine commanded by General Michaut, formed the axis of the movement. By this new movement, so skillfully combined, the armies came to occupy the following positions:

• - The Sambre and Meuse between Düsseldorf and Koblenz.

• - The new army of the Moselle, between Koblenz and the Nahe, supporting its right at Over-Ingelheim.

• - The enemies of France only kept the city of Mainz on the left bank of the Rhine.

These strategic movements were so wisely conceived and so skillfully executed, that the enemy armies that were then owners of the entire left bank of the Rhine, found themselves in the need to retreat almost without fighting on the right bank.

Victory in battles is always due to the greatness of strategic movements, but battles are also lost due to strategic faults as shown in the following examples:

• - Due to a false strategic movement the French armies lost the year IV campaign in Germany.

• - By another false strategic move, Wurmser also lost the battles of Lonato and Castiglione in the same campaign.

• - Due to a forced consequence of false strategic movements, the French armies, commanded by Macdonald and Joubert, lost the battles of Trebia and Novi, as stated below:

• If Macdonald, upon retreating from Naples to Genoa, had followed the sea coast along the Speznia, he could have reunited his army with Joubert's in Genoa, but he marched from Florence through Bologna and Piacenza. The enemy armies were in Piedmont towards Tortona and Alexandria and in the center of the two French armies. They attacked General Macdonald as he passed the Trebia, defeating him, they returned on their right on Joubert's army, which ended in the mountains of Genoa above Novi through Borghetta and the two French armies caught red-handed in false strategic movements, were successively defeated. General Mcdonald, to avoid the loss of these two battles, had to have followed the natural path from Florence to Genoa via the Spezia, because then the two French armies would have met in the mountains of Genoa, a place from which they could not have been expelled. General McDonald's fault was even less unforgivable than Grouchy's at Waterloo.

• The greatest loss that France suffered in the battle of Novi was that of General Joubert, as the greatest in the campaign of the year IV was that of General Morceau.

Las condiciones fundamentales o esenciales (más otras que serán accesorias) para que un movimiento estratégico tenga un éxito completo son las siguientes:.

• - Celeridad o prontitud de su ejecución.

• - El secreto o sigilo del mismo.

• - Habilidad en los movimientos estratégicos.

Quizás sea Napoleón I (que opinaba que la mejor noticia de un plan estratégico era su ejecución) el general que reunió el grado más alto de estas tres condiciones y por tanto los movimientos estratégicos se caracterizaran por lo siguiente:.

• - Se hacen fuera de la vista del enemigo.

• - El objeto es conducir un ejército a un campo de batalla determinado.

• - Ejecutado de tal forma que el enemigo no pueda presumir jamás cual es la intención del adversario.

El general que efectúa un movimiento estratégico debe combinar el conjunto de él y sus detalles de modo que inspire el mismo recelo sobre todos los puntos del frente del enemigo y obligue a este ejército a tomar iguales precauciones sobre todo su frente, quedando, por consecuencia en todas partes débil y se conseguirá tanto mejor este objeto cuando mayor sea el atrevimiento, la audacia y la celeridad con que se ejecuta este movimiento estratégico.

Celerity

It is one of the main qualities of a general in war since it ensures events, because unexpected events undermine the perseverance of all men and without speed there is no great general and also the following:.

• - The enemy is prevented everywhere.

• - You enter the campaign early.

• - He takes over an important position.

• - An advantageous position is taken first.

• - 1st in battle is formed one day in action and the attack is undertaken.

• - The retreat of the fugitives is cut off.

• - You take all the advantages you can from a victory.

Examples in history of speed in the execution of strategic movements are given in the following historical figures, among others:

• - Cyrus II the Great, in the conquest of Lydia, who, knowing that Croesus had retreated towards Sardis, had to disperse his army, decided to march with him with all speed to attack him before gathering his Lydians and barely formed the strategic plan or project when he put it into execution and went to Lydia for long days and arrived before Croesus had news of his departure. And Croesus, although surprised by such an unexpected event, led his troops into combat but they were defeated and he was forced to take refuge in Sardis.

• - Jason "The Thessalian"), from the 4th century BC, had himself proclaimed leader of the entire region of Thessaly, gathered a considerable army and a squadron and with great speed and skill and allied with Thebes "Thebes (Greece)") against Sparta devastated Phocis, took over the passes of central Greece and even thought of being recognized as leader of all the Greeks and leading them against the king of Persia but was murdered before being able to execute these plans.

• - Alexander the Great, who for example after the battle of Gaugamela pursued Darius III all night and the next morning until noon. After a brief rest he marched all the following night and arrived at dawn at the field that Bagistanes had just left and found some enemy troops who gave him news of Darius. Although the men and horses were tired from this forced march, they continued it all night until noon the next day. He arrived at a place where Darius had stopped the day before and wanting to carry out an errand he ordered 500 knights to set foot on land, since neither the infantry nor the cavalry loaded with weapons could hold out and that the most vigorous infantry officers should mount horses, armed as they were and that Nicator and Attalus should follow the path that Darius with Kiss had taken, while he continued along a shorter path but without water and left at sunset after having He traveled 400 stadia or 16 leagues, reaching Darius and his escort at dawn and attacked them (although Bessus abandoned Darius after having killed him).

• - Julius Caesar, who when speed was necessary, as with the Avernia uprising by the Gallic leader Vercingetorix or in the civil wars pursuing Afranius and Petreius and later Pompey (who after the battle of Pharsalia Julius Caesar believed that the only objective of his care should be to pursue Pompey in any country that was going to hide, for fear that Pompey would gather new troops and renew the war ) nothing stopped him, nothing scared him and he despised all the elements of the seasons and no obstacle or fatigue could contain him. And the speed with which he had subdued Gaul served to contain it because Julius Caesar, passing from one city to another, repressed the desire that everyone had to renew the war and forced them to take care of their own preservation and forget that of others, and this behavior contained loyalty to their allies and the subject peoples.

• - Charlemagne, who passed from one end of Europe to the other and the difficulties of the roads, storms, mountains, rivers, did not seem to stop his excursions and the delays of an insidious, weak or surprised enemy had no influence on him and he always went straight to his end without losing a moment. And his long reign had two objectives, which were to form from all the Germanic peoples a single body of nation and provide it with a complete organization (a gigantic undertaking because the peoples that enclosed Western Europe were in perpetual war. The borders of Charlemagne's Reign were threatened; in the eastern part by Saxons, Bavars, Avars, Danes and Slavs; in the southern and southeastern part by Lombards and Saracens and in the interior, the Aquitanians"), Bretons&action=edit&redlink=1 "Breton (people) (not yet written)") and Thuringians were not always very loyal and finally the appearance of the Normans) and the attack, the initiative always came from Charlemagne and he lived in perpetual struggle with his neighbors.

• - Bertrand Du Guesclin, French general who, despite having received notice that revealed the ease of an enterprise, set out to execute it, without omitting the most capable precautions to ensure the success. He was also characterized because he never missed an opportunity, he warned the enemy everywhere and always followed his objectives, without stopping because of the misleading propositions that were made to him.

• - Napoleon I with the following examples:

• When General Bonaparte took command of the army of the Alps, in the campaign of the year IV, he began to harass the Austro-Sardinian army on its right and left and did not make any demonstration in the center. Deceived by these demonstrations, the enemy general brings all his forces to his right and left and leaves his center unguarded. When General Bonaparte saw that the enemy general had believed in those false demonstrations, he fell on the unguarded centers with all the forces he had called from his right and left. This movement resulted in the battles of Millesimo and Diago, which made the French army penetrate into the heart of Italy. This strategic movement forever separated the Austrian army from the Piedmontese army and by a necessary consequence of this movement and as a result of the battle of Ceva, the king of Sardinia was forced to sign a shameful peace and abandon his states to the French and by another consequence of this same movement the Austrian army found itself in the need to take refuge behind the left bank of the Po river. Bonaparte concluded an armistice with the king of Sardinia and did not follow the Austrian army in its retreat from Valencia to Milan since they could put all kinds of obstacles in the Po, Doria, etc. rivers. The fortresses of Alexandria and Tortona were handed over to Bonaparte by the king of Sardinia and he established a new base of operation against his adversary and quickly marched on Piacenza and from there on Lodi to anticipate the enemy, encountering only a weak obstacle that was immediately destroyed. The triumphs of the strategic movement from the sources of the Bormida to Lodi were so rapid that the Austrian general could not even order the destruction of the Lodi bridge. This last line of operation, Lodi and Adda, being well secured, the enemy, positioned between the mountains of the Swiss Alps, ran quickly through Milan and Brescia and through Bassano and Chiari to retake the line of operation on Mantua. But Bonaparte's French army quickly prevented the Austrian army from gaining the banks of the Mincio and after immense losses it only managed to save its remains to the north of Lake Guarda. It is difficult to find in military history such a brilliant strategic movement as the one analyzed and yet, General Bonaparte was only 26 years old and was fighting with one of the most skilled generals of the Austrian army.

• After the battle of Leipzig, Napoleon I returned to Paris and quickly organized another army to oppose the invasion of the coalition armies and upon learning that the Allies had crossed the Rhine, he quickly left Paris on January 25, 1814 and began one of the campaigns in which his military genius was most admirable with the following victories:

• On January 27, 1814 in Diezier

• January 29 in Brienne

• On February 1 at Miere, they opened a Congress at Chatillon du Seine and even subsequent new victories at Chapaubert, Montmirail and Chateau-Thieny so overwhelmed the Austrian army and separated it from the great army of Bohemia. But Napoleon I's last strategic plan to cut communications with the border and destroy them in front of Paris failed due to the inexplicable surrender of this square and the passivity of its own officers on March 31 and Napoleon I was forced to abdicate the Crown in Fontaineblau on April 11.

• - Erwin Rommel.

• - Others.

Secret

Strategic movements that are always made out of sight of the enemy and that are intended to lead an army to a given battlefield, must be executed in such a way that the enemy can never presume what his adversary's intention is.

Among the brilliant movements of Touraine, a French general, we must mention the one he made to transfer his army, located in Lorraine, behind the Vosges, between Luneville and Béfort to Alsace, where his adversary Montecuculli, although a very expert general, committed the clumsiness of placing his troops and his winter quarters. Touraine suddenly fell in the middle of his cantons and Montecuculli could not gather his army, which is why he was completely defeated in the battle of Turkhejm, near Colmar and forced to cross the Rhine near Kehl.

It is seen from this example that strategic movements must always have the objective of taking an army to the point or points, where the enemy least suspects that it may be attacked. Montecuculli assumed that Tourena was calm in his cantonments behind the Vosges, but when he least expected it, Tourena gathered his army and headed quickly to the center of Alsace and it was impossible for Montecuculli, whose troops were scattered from Basel to Landau, to gather them in time due to Tourena's rapid movement and the secret had been so well kept.

Skill in strategic movements

The year 1796 is classic in the history of the art of war with the entry on the scene of two great captains Napoleon Bonaparte and Archduke Charles, with two large, ancient and well-known theaters: Italy and the Rhine.

At the beginning of campaign V, Austria opposed General Bonaparte with his favorite general, Archduke Charles, who in the campaign of year IV had skillfully executed a beautiful strategic movement between the Danube and the Mein, against the French armies of the Rhine and Sambre and Meuse, commanded by generals Marceau and Jourdan, and shines the laurel of this notable campaign IV, both for the direction and for the execution of the aforementioned archduke and also his vigorous Lieutenant Latour, the following: mobility, initiative and the difficult art of moving with his collected forces against the emboldened and superior enemy (there are authors who also praise the withdrawal of Marceau's French republican troops through the Black Forest due to the material and topographical difficulties, but not tactically due to the absence on the flanks or behind of a powerful force capable of blocking the way for his retreat: Moreau continues his laborious retreat through the Black Forest and is defeated once in Amendingen by all the forces of the archduke and again in Schliengen until finally, on October 25 and 26, he crosses the Rhine through Huninga, and both this place and Khel in front of Strasbourg are immediately surrounded with more than audacity by Archduke Charles, who took them in the first months of 1797,[38]​).

On this occasion Archduke Charles showed himself to be extremely skilful, as skillfully concealing a movement from his left to the right, he headed along the banks of the Danube over the Mein and completely cut off the line of operation of Jourdan's army, whose base was Neuwied and Koblenz on the Rhine.

Perhaps there has been no general until this time at the end of the 18th century who has found himself in a more difficult position than that which General Bonaparte found himself in. But he was much more skillful strategically, since he brought his army safely to the left bank of the Rhine and in this French retreat there was only one considerable loss, that of General Marceau, whose rearguard he commanded and the body of this general was buried in the fort of Erhensbreistein and with the same respect of the two belligerent armies, who shook hands perhaps for the first time, in honor of the great general that France had just lost.

La estratagema militar es un ardid de guerra, engaño hecho con astucia") y destreza y se caracteriza por lo siguiente:.

• - Empleo de la astucia.

• - Fingimiento.

• - Engaño artificioso.

• - Destreza.

• - Empleo del ingenio.

• - Cálculo.

puestos en práctica y en acción para engañar al enemigo y colocarlo en posición difícil o crítica que produzca su rendición o derrota.

Por otra parte, la estrategia es la parte de la ciencia de la guerra que mueve a las tropas sobre el teatro de operaciones para colocarlas frente al enemigo en el campo de batalla.

Pero hablando de la estratagema: ¿en qué escala se toma ese ardid y ese engaño? ¿En la del sargento que guía una patrulla o en la de Napoleón I en sus ardides de la Marengo o de la Ulm?

Las opiniones al respecto de diversos autores sobre la voz militar estratagema como los siguientes:.

• - Federico Moretti autor de un diccionario militar español-francés, opina que la estratagema oculta lo cierto y hace creer al enemigo lo falso por verosímil.[39]​.

• - Según el diccionario militar del capitán retirado J.D'W.M., editado en Madrid en 1863, en la estratagema se realizan movimientos falsos para entretener al enemigo y hacer pasar por incierta la verdad sobre el objeto real de las operaciones.

• - El marqués de Carrion-Nisas opina que es una especulación establecida o fundada sobre el error que se pretende hacer caer al enemigo y es un cálculo sobre lo que probablemente hará el enemigo a consecuencia de este error y sobre lo que uno mismo debe hacer para aprovechar los movimientos que esta decepción le inspirase dentro de una guerra, de una campaña, de una sola operación. Afirma que la estratagema solo puede existir en los tiempos modernos solo en la estrategia no en la táctica.[40]​.

• - José Almirante opina que el estratagema se puede emplearse en las operaciones que se hacen al alcance del enemigo que fuera de la acción inmediata de este y estratagema es lo pequeño y estrategia lo grande, pero son ambas del mismo género y cita lo siguiente:El ardid, la estratagema del pobre guerrillero, del comandante "Comandante (militar)") del batallón, toma los vuelos en el que manda 30, 60, 100000 hombres de movimientos, operaciones estratégicas y así como el traidor puñal, cuadruplicando su longitud, se convierte en noble espada, también que en el valor de las palabras, dentro de la altiva estrategia, esta la humilde estratagema.

La conclusión es que no es posible analizando la voz militar estratagema rigurosamente reducir a reglas el modo de conducir y realizar las estratagemas ni reducirse a máximas la sagacidad, lo artificial y el terror y a lo largo de la historia operaciones militares de suyo difíciles, peligrosas y de éxito dudoso, si se intentaron por los procedimientos regulares y ordinarios, se hallaron siempre multitud de estratagemas que al ingenuo jefe u oficial "Oficial (fuerzas armadas)") que las ideó y ejecutó sugeridas por las circunstancias del caso.

Y aunque ha habido publicistas, eruditos y estudiosos que compilando estratagemas efectuadas en variedades de ocasiones, han formulado ciertos preceptos para llevar a cabo determinadas empresas de guerra, sirviéndose más de la sagacidad y del ingenio que de la fuerza y del valor. Pero José Almirante y otros opinan pretensión ridícula el reducir a regla escrita el arte de engañar, como el arte de conmover, como el arte de vencer e inútil parece detenerse en instrucciones sobre el modo de combinar y ejecutar estratagemas y seguir con ello el ejemplo de Frontino (o de Polieno o el marqués de la Roziere), cuyas añejas historias, al decir de Jomini, más bien parecen de otro mundo.

Por tanto reducir a máximas la estratagema parece tarea harto difícil y no admiten principios fijos y comúnmente se idean y llevan a la práctica en cada caso concreto, según el ingenio, la astucia y arte del que manda , en cambio la estrategia se puede reducir a máximas y reglas generales que deben observar siempre en el gobierno y dirección de los ejércitos en campaña.

Para terminar decir que se debe huir del abuso y complicaciones en ardides y estratagemas porque algunas son cándidas y absurdas y como por su índole propia no pueden ser sistemáticas o metódicas"), muchas fallan y hacen perder un tiempo precioso a quienes las utilizan.

Examples of Stratagems

• - Mark Antony, angry that the Parthians poked his rear in their marches every morning when they broke camp, did not vacate it until around midday, and he had time to finish his march without discomfort by using the trick that when the Parthians harassed him, his men, to cover themselves from the multitude of Parthian arrows, put one knee on the ground and that the second battle rank placed their shields on the heads of the first, the third on the of the second, the fourth on the third, etc., in such a way that all the rows were covered (the ancient Spaniards used bucklers for the same purpose and they were sufficient to resist the harquebuses, according to the former Field Master Francisco Ventura de la Sala y Abarca, in his work After God the first obligation and gloss of military orders, Naples: Gerónimo Fasulo, 1681).

• - Abenuth"), king of Murcia, to extend the terms of his reign, trusting more in industry than in his effort, he became a zealous preacher of the observance of the Alcoran, thus managing to get everyone on his side, he was able to resist and defend himself from the Holy King D. Fernando.

• - Prince Louis of Baden's plan to surprise the Count of Marsin, who was crossing the Rhine with a considerable fortune for the Duke of Bavaria, went badly, because although he sent General Palfi with fifteen hundred horses to bother him on his march, he found him so warned that he had to retreat; But Marsin, suspicious of any encounter, placed the gold and silver in different sacks or bags, so that, placed on the horses of the best officers, they would have the same security or risk of their lives, and he finally managed to reach the Duke's field without loss of people or wealth.

• - When Alexander Farnese (Duke of Parma) "Alexander Farnese (Duke of Parma"), crossed to France during the League, he crossed the plains of Picardy, marching in column "Column (military)") in the middle of two rows of chariots that covered his troops (Cyrus II the Great against Croesus had already used the movable trench of chariots to form his rearguard), and Henry IV of France despite his great wishes to engage in combat, he never dared to force it because he could not achieve it without attacking the aforementioned trench, which would have exposed him to irreparable loss.

• - In 1702, after the battle of Crostolo, Prince Eugene of Savoy was close to completely dismantling the army of Vendome, Luis José de Borbón, who, believing that he was still on this side of the Po, was camped behind the Zero dam and only a chance made him discover the French, since Eugene had perfectly calculated the inequalities of the country that should hide his ambush.

• - The Marquis of Bai, one of the generals of Philip V of Spain, set out to surprise Alcántara, when the allies had just taken control of it. Bai, who learned that his project had been discovered, pretended to abandon the company and had his troops withdraw along different routes. The garrison relaxed and Bai, who had foreseen it, had his troops gather and the square was surprised.

Algunos ejemplos de la diferencia entre movimiento estratégico y movimiento táctico podrían ser los siguientes:.

• - Movimiento estratégico.-En la Guerra de 7 años, sostenida por Federico II contra Austria, Rusia, Alemania, Inglaterra y Francia, por medio de un movimiento estratégico sabiamente combinado fue como vino desde Silesia a dar al general contrario Soubise, la batalla de Rosbach, marchando de izquierda a derecha, apoyando su izquierda sobre el Oder y su derecha sobre el Elba y el Saale.

• - Movimiento de táctica (maniobras).-Al llegar el ejército de Federico a la vista de Soubise hace ciertas demostraciones sobre la izquierda y le obliga a cambiar de posición y marchar por su derecha que era lo que deseaba Federico que pasase, el cual desde que comenzó el movimiento de Sousibe y cuando vio que este no podría contener ya dicho movimiento, marchó inmediatamente a la izquierda, atacó el flanco derecho de Soubise y destruyó su ejército. Los movimientos de ambos ejércitos son de táctica.

Si hay que distinguir la 'táctica' de la 'estrategia', es que la maniobra es peculiar y exclusivamente de la 'táctica' y el movimiento de la 'estrategia'.

Napoleon Bonaparte's tactical movements preceded by a strategic movement

Tactical movements are always made in the presence of the enemy and in the battle of Eckmul"), through his strategic movements Napoleon I leads the French army until he confronts the Austrian army of Archduke Charles, who had taken a position between the Danube and the Isar, supporting his right in Regensburg and his left in Lanshut). With feigned demonstrations Napoleon I annoys his adversary on his right in Abensberg and as soon as he obtains the result of this strategic movement, He marches on the right in front of the enemy, attacks the Austrian army in its center, overwhelms the entire left of the Austrian army on Landshut and immediately by a movement to the right marches on Eckmuhl and leaves Archduke Charles no further retreat than Bohemia, these tactical movements demonstrating the very sublimity of the military genius of Napoleon I.

theater of war

According to Jomini, the territory as a whole where the war is waged or takes place and embraces all the regions in which they can be attacked is its own territory, whether that of its allies or of secondary powers that it drags in its torrent out of fear or interest and when there are maritime operations (today it would be aero-maritime) it is not limited to the theater of the borders of a State and is characterized by the following:

• - Vague thing.

• - Subject to incidents.

• - The theater of war should not be confused with the theater of operations that each army can embrace independently of any complication.

Theater of Operations of an army

It includes all the territory that an army tries to invade or all the territory that an army may have to defend.

Base from a strategic and tactical point

Base at the end of the 19th century had the following meanings:

• - Tactically, base of alignment of the company, battalion, any fraction in the new line or alignment determined by a deployment, change of front or similar maneuver and the directive, the line of direction of march is generally perpendicular to the base.

• - Strategically, the base of operations was the point, the line, the border, the region where an army of operations was concentrated when opening a campaign, where the nucleus of all services was established and from where they had to draw their resources and forces:.

Regarding the best direction of the base of operations with respect to the enemy, the following:

• - Archduke Charles is on the parallel lines as less easy to break.

• - Jomini through the perpendiculars as more appropriate to divide the enemy:.

Forehead

Terrain that extends in front of a troop as opposed to flanks.

The extension of the front that embraces and looks at the enemy's side next to the enemies.

The ground position from which the enemy will probably be able to reach this front in 1 or 2 marches.

It is therefore the part of the territory that extends in front of the Strategic Front to the area to which the army's action can reach at a time.

Once an army is positioned in the area of ​​the theater that it must embrace to attack or defend itself, it usually occupies strategic positions there.

As soon as the operations of a campaign are about to begin, one of the two armies will undoubtedly make the decision to wait for the enemy and in this case will take care to rely on a line of defense more or less prepared in advance, which may be:

• - On the same line of the strategic front.

• - A little further to the rear.

• - From this it will naturally result that sometimes it will appear that this front also forms the line of defense as happened in 1795 and 1796 on the Rhine line which served at the same time as a line of defense for the Austrians and the French, while the strategic and operational fronts of both armies were themselves on the line itself.

• - Within the peculiar tactics of the infantry, the regulations of the Spanish army of the late 19th century call a deployed line to the formation of troops in a line, placing the companies and battalions deployed, on the same front.

The Strategic Front is best used to designate the positions actually occupied by the army.

The Operations Front designates the geographical space that separates the two armies, extending one or many marches beyond each extremity of their Strategic Front and where they are likely to collide.

However, according to what Jomini wrote, another author such as Vial did not admit Jomini's distinction and that he gives the operations front the concept that according to him the strategic front has:.

• - The operations front is entirely different from the base.

• - It is mobile and advances with the army.

• - The base is a material and immobile strategic accident.

• - The extent of the operations front varies not only with the strength of the army but also with the circumstances and nature of the terrain and is reduced by the following:

• Mountainous countries

• Close to the enemy

• On the eve of the battle.

• - It widens in the following:

• Flat countries

• When the enemy is far away.

• - A strategic operations front can be compared with a tactical operations front, when several columns march together on a maneuver terrain or on a battlefield and have the need to stop at certain points to make contact, position themselves at the same height and rectify their respective positions and the same thing happens in strategy.

• - A parallel operations front presents advantages for rapid concentrations and central attacks.

• - An oblique front of operations generally serves to prepare enveloping movements as long as it covers the army's communications well while threatening those of the enemy.

It is the side of the theater in which the first combats are fought or in which the army that remains on the defensive establishes a line of military positions to resist the invader.

The more or less regular line formed by the heads of the army corps that advance combined or the ends of the columns that retreat to take up defensive positions.

It is one of the most important maneuvers because, by thus forming a perpendicular line with its own base, the army becomes master of two sides of the theater and is immediately placed in a situation almost as favorable as if it had a base with two Fronts.

It frequently happens that an army is forced to have double strategic fronts

for the following:

• - The configuration of the Theater of War, and as examples according to Jomini the border of Turkey and Spain and the armies that tried to cross the Balkan or the Ebro would be forced to have a double front, the Turkish one to face the Danube valley and the second to serve the forces that could detach from Zaragoza and León "León (Spain)").

• - Because the entire line of prolonged offensive operations requires that its flanks be well secured and the defense of a Strategic Front is one of the greatest drawbacks for an army that operates on the offensive and is forced to deploy large masses.

Strategic points

According to Jomini, strategic points are those that can exert great influence, either in the entire campaign, or just in an act of arms, such as those whose geographical location and artificial advantages would facilitate the attack or defense of a front of operations or a line of defense and large well-located parade grounds.

Lines of operations

They are those that the army travels to go from the base to the objective point and it is rather a set of lines and an imaginary proportional average can be understood between all the paths actually traveled and an example, that of the Allies in 1813 when marching to Saxony, their armies formed three different lines of operations:

• - That of the Bohemian army that went to Herzberg through Dresden to Leipzig.

• - That of the Silesian army that went from Breslau to Leipzig.

• - That of the Swedish army, which was heading from Berlin through Desan to the same point.

For those who have studied the campaigns of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, "The Great Captain" characterized by his sagacity), marvelous wisdom and tenacious perseverance, with which fighting hand in glove with the goddess "Fortuna "Fortuna (mythology)")", he knew how to prepare his victories in Cerinola and others, seeing the following:

• - Ordered the battle with preparation.

• - It is the true strategic battle characterized by the following:

• Calculated

• Planned

• Forced

• They were not the brutal and blind clash of 2 errant masses

• They were not chance encounters.

• - These victories were the logical, foreseen outcome of a military situation created and sustained by reinforcements and ardent calculation.

Therefore, a Strategic Battle was characterized by the following:

• - Planned.

• - Prepared with an important and decisive objective.

• - That it was the product of thoughtful combinations.

• - That it was subject to a previous and studied plan.

• - But let this Plan be flexible in which adventitious modifications that events impose could fit.

• - That the terrain be taken into account to adapt the formation and maneuvers to it.

• - That the order as a whole presents the proper interconnection, without large gaps or gaps.

• - It offered the enemy some space to disorient.

• - That there be mutual defense and support.

• - That the flanks and rear were safe.

• - That the weapons help each other and combine, without getting embarrassed, without mixing, without hindering each other in their action.

• - That order would lend itself elastically to all types of movements, without defeat or disorder at one point being able to spread and disrupt the rest.

• - That the passage of lines or relief was verified without confusion.

• - May the fire of the "Reserves" expand, containing all impatience until the supreme moment.

• - That the impediments, park, material, train, luggage were not in danger, nor in case of withdrawal would they confuse the already distressing and occasional movement.

• - That the very impetus of the attack be restrained, assuming that the persecution had to be.

immediate and relentless.

The strategic break is the only possible frontal attack, because the frontal attack without breaking the enemy defense line cannot produce good results any more in the case of a true inequality of forces:

• - The rupture consists of falling on the enemy front like a wedge to break it and once separated into several parts, beat each of them separately, preventing them from combining their efforts.

• - For what has been said to be successful, the attacker must maneuver along lower lines so that once the gap is opened "Gap (military)") the attacked is forced to follow divergent directions, opening the gap more and more.

• - This combination should be used when the enemy extends over an excessive strategic front.

• - In the Battle of the Marne, the strategic rupture, with the general advance of the Allied troops, which had to take the British army and the 5th French army into the interior with elements superior to those of the Kaiser's cavalry corps that occurred in their line, could not be remedied with the tactical triumphs obtained by the imperial armies of the center and the right, because the French device was deformed without breaking while the existing gap in that of the Germans became increasingly larger, and the retreat German the only solution.

The strategic break should only take place when the enemy's mistakes recommend it and the attack on the flank "Flank (army)") is more advisable, which carries with it the advantage of forcing new positions to be taken and threatening the communications of the attacked, and the flank attack is the germ of the enveloping movement that consists of the prolongation of the attack on one of the wings, overflowing the attacked flank and cutting off the opponent's line of retreat (like the Battle of Tannenberg (1914) "Battle of Tannenberg (1914)"), in the First World War, in which Paul von Hindenburg immortalized his name).

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In the art of war, to achieve the primary goal of defeating the enemy, many means are needed, each of them fundamental: without weapons there is no possible war, without means of survival the troops cannot subsist, multiplying the number of things necessary to achieve victory, being no less true that from the exclusive point of view of military art, to obtain victory it is necessary to combine and execute a successful war plan of military strategy, and as a consequence of this plan to collide in favorable conditions with the adversary and destroy its resistance forces.

The notion of the aforementioned purpose, the art of guiding the troops until leading them in profitable situations to the battlefield is the object of military strategy, and that of using them meritorious against the adversary, whether offensive or defensive, is the object of military tactics, even though there are military writers who admit to defining the limits of the fields of action of strategy and tactics, confusing both concepts, tactics being the one who executes the plans projected by strategy, and if the fight is absolutely transcendental in war, All the sublimities of strategy will perpetually be superimposed by the disparate reality of tactics that changes with weapons and with the various elements of war, the most complex being the tactics applied, because the circumstances of the fight are so variable, and tactics should not be intended dogmatically to fall into the pitfall of foreseeing all cases, and although it must discuss, analyze, present the entire set of means of war, it must stop at the brief precept.

Antique

In ancient times, people were warriors and even those with peaceful customs were forced to take up arms to defend themselves from others who were more warlike, guided by the desire for loot or domination. They invaded and subjugated them: the aggressor, who was naturally the strongest, tried to surprise with rapid marches and movements the one who was less strong, or who was more confident, the latter being unnoticed for the combat.

Military art passed from Asia to Europe through Greece, it continued its natural progress in this country, transferring to Italy, perfecting itself in Rome along with the arts and sciences, to later decline with them under the rule of the barbarian peoples of the north and to be reborn again in the centuries following the restoration of the arts.

In the republican governments of Europe, Athens, Sparta and Rome is where military art developed, and although they were far from being perfect republics, they nevertheless acquired a superiority, owing to art and ingenuity the merit of resisting enormous forces with fewer troops or of subduing many kingdoms through the slow progress of a continuous war.

In remote antiquity, the infantry was already the main body, the nerve and the essence of the armies, and through it the conquering nations won: the Macedonian phalanx ruined the Persian empire, the Roman legion destroyed the Greek phalanx and conquered a large part of the world, and later, however, with the decline of the Roman militia the Empire collapsed.

The first war of the heroic times in which somewhat regular military operations appeared and endowed with a certain order is the Expedition against Thebes "Thebes (Greece)"), an established thought to which the operations had to be standardized, a constancy superior to impetus and a courage that knows how to wait and suffer the reverses of fortune.

Thus they will also manifest themselves in Troy, where nothing can be seen other than the infancy of art—the walled city, Troy, and the entrenched offensive field of the Greeks—still discovering certain elements of order.

The strength and division of the phalanx, organization and tactical order of the Greeks, was in each state of Greece adapted to the number of troops and the nature of the political organization. What was common to all the Greek phalanxes was the application of geometry to the art of combat and the attack and fight in indivisible masses, tactics, calculated and simultaneous evolutions appearing, and the art of war was modified and particular strategy and tactics began.

The second and greatest experience that the Greeks had to make of their forces and that contributed most to the feeling of a common nation was the Persian Wars, which allowed them to learn about the combat techniques of the Asians.

Cyrus of Persia regarded the good order of an army as that of a family and ordered the war tribes well. To his training orders when he marched towards the enemy he owed much of the fortune that accompanied him on his expeditions, and the battle he had against the powerful Croesus, Timbria, Phrygia, which decided the Empire of Asia, is considered a valuable monument of the most remote military art.

Thucydides participated in the Peloponnesian Wars, writing the history of the aforementioned wars associating the rules and applications of tactics and politics.

Xenophon directed and described the retreat of the Ten Thousand, and we owe him some special treatises on tactics and much news that he spread in his historical novel Cyropedia.

In the confrontation between Thebes "Thebes (Greece)") and Sparta in the century BC. C. an instructive example was given in the battle of Leuctra by the intelligent dispositions put into practice by Epaminondas, creator of the oblique order, which had earned him a memorable victory "Victory (triumph)"), using the aforementioned order for the second time in the battle of Mantinea "Battle of Mantinea (362 BC)").

These wars improved the military art of the Greeks, but its perfection must be sought in the times of Philip and Alexander the Great, mainly in the Macedonian army.

Military art already made great progress in this era since clashing and fighting throughout the line of battle and individual courage, it is even possible to choose the most suitable terrain for the type of combat and species of troops and dispositions are made, and victory becomes more dependent on timely and wise strategic dispositions than on individual and collective courage.

The countries through which Alexander the Great led his army were not a mere transit of his troops defeating the enemies that presented themselves to him, but in his expeditions he took and built fortresses, left garrisons "Guarrison (militia)") and appointed satraps who governed each region, his domination being affirmed, and his conquests and commercial relations that some of his successors, especially the Ptolemies of Egypt, maintained with India, gave to see the Ganges, the remote city of Tina and the island of Thapobana (Ceylon).

With the death of Alexander the Great, his vast Empire was divided and subdivided among many of his generals and Macedonia remained an independent state until in the time of King Perseus the famous Greek phalanx was broken by the Roman legions of Paulus Aemilius, who for this fact was given the nickname The Macedonian.

Among the Greeks, it was the phalanx that constituted the infantry order and this great tactical unit formed a compact, deep and closed mass in which the "syntagma" was the most manageable and consistent element, a battalion formed of 16 men deep by 16 in front, and this full and closed unit could both be doubled or reduced to four men deep, a maneuver that was used to extend the line.

When the aforementioned Alexander had reached the height of his glory, the formidable Roman Republic already existed, which had become powerful since the battle of Zama given by two great strategists, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, who received this nickname for his victory.

In the battle of Cannae, described by Polybius, the great talents of Hannibal are evident, and the representation of the battle is explained by Quintus Icillius in his work Military Memoirs on the Greeks and the Romans, and although the Carthaginians had adopted the deep order "Order (army)") of the Greeks, their battles are not at all similar to those of Epaminondas and Alexander the Great, Hannibal owing almost all of his victories by using two maneuvers: one using his superior cavalry to surround or cut the wings "Ala (battle)") of his enemy, and the other consisting of taking advantage of accidents to hide a part of his forces, which during the action would fall on the rear of the enemy that he was fighting head-on.

In the aforementioned battle of Zama, the Roman general Scipio Africanus, instead of ordering his legions as usual, placed the companies "Company (militia)") preferably in a square to the rear of the asteros and deployed the ranks of the triarians to give them an equal front and separated the lines three or four paces apart from each other, and the order of battle was formed by a series of columns by maniples "Manipule (formation)"). equidistant; variation made by the need to leave straight and capable steps for the Carthaginian elephants that were to be launched against the line. The aforementioned order that Scipio adopted in the column was not only appropriate to confront the elephants but also the best disposition to attack after having dislodged those animals, a new way of presenting himself to his enemies, which could not fail to surprise them.

The Roman legion was a spaced, mobile and maneuverable body, its intervals offering the advantage of the continuation of the efforts through the lines and formed in three lines of asteros, princes and triarii, thirty toises apart from each other, and through the intervals the continuous attack and reciprocal aid were provided.

The legion was divided or decomposed under the tactical and organic aspect into small troops or pieces with the names of centuries, maniples "Manipule (formation)"), etc. and the main merit of the legionary maneuver was its ability to reestablish the combat three times, the Hastarians coming to reestablish themselves at the intervals of the princes and in these, in turn, at those of the triarians, or vice versa, advancing and boxing each other between the maniples forming a full line, a flexible, extensive and staggered order, which in itself offered three attempts at success.

The art of siege, improved first by the Rhodians and the Carthaginians, was brought to its splendor by Dionysius, Philip and Alexander and later by Demetrius Poliocertes and the Ptolemies; and Poliorcetes introduced great innovations in military art by applying the science of his time to war machines and established warehouses and arsenals "Arsenal (armament)").

Prior to the Punic Wars, the examination of the three battles that Rome fought in the Pyrrhic Wars proves that Polybius was right when he said that when the irruption of Pyrrhus of Epirus, the Romans, through their wars against the Gauls and Samnites, had come to greatly perfect the military art, and the victors learned from Pyrrhus's fields to line up their tents and separate them by small streets and to observe a military order that only the Greeks knew until then[8]​ and at this time we see well-reasoned battle orders, well-combined diversions and the use of reserves.

Illyria, a large country on the coasts of the Adriatic Sea, had various rulers, but the most powerful was Queen Teuta, widow of Argon, who as regent governor became owner of the Peloponnese, also of Phoenicia, and ordered her pirates to seize all Roman ships. The Roman Republic resolved a strategic plan consisting of its consuls Lucius Postumius Albinus "Lucius Postumius Albinus (consul 234 BC)") and Gnaeus Fulvius Centumalus embarking for Illyria and attacking in combination, by sea with his fleet Fulvius, made up of 200 galleys, and by land Postumius's army. After being defeated, Queen Teuta retired to Rhizon, a strong town located in a small gulf of the Adriatic Sea.

Although the Roman war is characteristic of invasion, initiative, activity, surprise and wisdom, there are examples of delayed calculation and victorious slowness such as Fabius with his skillful and prudent strategy, ardent and systematic defense of avoiding battles and overwhelming Hannibal's army with maneuvers and stratagems to buy time.[9]​.

The order of the Romans was adjusted to their particular goals and their political constitution, and sometimes they adopted the weapons and practices of the same nations that conquered if they improved their political-military organization, acquiring a preponderance for a long time over other peoples in all kinds of sciences and arts and consequently in war.[10]

Roman military art has a vocation for universality and permanence that is lacking in the Greek, more circumscribed, always special, local, and the audacity and ambitious speed of the Romans' enterprises were favored by the smallness of their consular army, its severe discipline and its easy management.

The Romans made patriotism the basis of their severe discipline and sustained it with punishment and rigor on the one hand, and with honor and lucrative reward on the other. United in his mind the two ideas of country and God, the Roman military oath was not a vain formula of discipline, but the absolute consecration to the gods who watched over the country, and with such an elevation of thoughts the codes and regulations were useless since the hierarchical distance was established by itself, insubordination could be seen as very unlikely, the fulfillment of duty became a habit and the leader, freed and feared, could easily impress upon his whim the movement of the legionary machinery, sure of the perfect play of all its gears.

Sallust describes the Jugurtha war militarily and clearly exposes the oblique order used in the battle on the banks of the Mutul between that Numidian and Metellus.

The war of Jugurtha is the last period in which legions formed by classes are found, since later they are seen formed by cohorts, and at first they were only formed in two lines as seen in the order of battle of Catiline against Petreius, and later Caesar, Pompey the Great and all the good generals soon returned to the use of forming in three lines.

With the reforms of Marius, the three maniples of hastarians, princes and triarians were brought together in one, the distinction of all classes was extinguished and the true cohort was formed, which finally became the sole subdivision, the true tactical and organic unit of the legion, a battalion of 500 to 600 individuals divided into six centuries, with enough strength to not need to gather other elements similar to it.

In Hispania, the outlawed Sertorius stands out as military leaders, who tired the Roman soldiers with quick and improvised marches, cutting off their supplies, camping with skill and advantage, not venturing into fighting any battle without being very sure of winning it, or the famous leader of the Lusitanians Viriatus, organizing an army, which, with its raids, partial actions and skilful retreats, baffled the Romans, to finally take refuge in the mountains and with the The war of parties managed to become so fearsome that Quintus Servilius Caepio "Fifth Servilius Caepio (consul 140 BC)") resorted to artifice and betrayal to end his life.

The Romans learned strategy in the Punic wars and Marius showed great strategic mastery against the Cimbri and Teutons, Sulla in Asia and especially Gaius Julius Caesar in Gaul, where, always camped among enemies, he trained to triumph in the Roman civil war and subdue the aristocracy, and his Commentaries are the most important of ancient military works, however, for their understanding it is required to know the military and political institutions of the Romans.

According to an officer "Officer (armed forces)") and Prussian military writer of the 19th century, Ciriacy, Caesar's constant initiative, his unforeseen appearance, his eagle eye to use the enemy's faults defensively, contributed to bringing victory to disaster.

With the help of the ships originating from Liburnia, Dalmatia, Liburnians, Octavian defeated Mark Antony in the battle of Actium and from then on they were given preference in the Armies of Rome, built with the wood of cypress and black pine and fir and with copper nailing in preference to iron, and the largest ones carried a forty-oared felucca in advance to make the discovery, surprise the enemy ships, warn of their defeat and their intentions.

Titus Livy is the most poetic among historians and Flavius ​​Josephus wrote about the war in Judea, referring to the tactics and polyorcetics of the Romans in the time of the emperors.

The Platonist Onosandro treats military art from a philosophical point of view, learning from his work the moral part and the observation of human behavior applied to war.

Frontinus left written down a collection of battle plans and war schemes, and so did Polyenus.

Amage "Amage (queen)"), queen of the ancient Sarmatians who inhabited the coasts of the Euxine Pontus, established garrisons of troops on the borders of her kingdom, defeated and repelled the enemies who invaded her and did not deny help to the neighboring princes when they requested her help.

Tacitus studied human behavior rather than external vicissitudes, although the accounts of the campaigns of Germanicus, Corbulo, Vespasian, Titus, etc. are very fruitful in instruction.

Boadicea, wife of Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, after defeating the Romans successively, the army of Suetonius came to meet her, who risked a battle despite the inequality in the number of combatants and trusting in the tactics and discipline of the legions.[11]​.

Arrian wrote some of the most important treatises among the ancients on the science of war and revealed to us in the expedition of Alexander the Great the particularities of strategic operations.

Aelian, as in the time of Alexander Severus who armed his soldiers with Greek-style breastplates and helmets and long spears forming a large phalanx of six legions, once again gave preference to Greek art, wrote a treatise on the Tactics of the Greeks.

During the Lower Roman Empire, when Vegetius wrote about military art, it lay almost forgotten, and in vain Trajan, conqueror of the Dacians and Parthians, in vain Hadrian, restorer of discipline, in vain Septimius Severus, dominator of the Bretons, tried to preserve the ancient traditions, these were lost under Caracalla and his successors, the soldiers despising the exercise of the body and even abandoned defensive weapons, the weight of which was already unbearable for them.

At the command of Valentinian II, Vegetius composed a treatise on military art, the most complete work on the subject and of the ancients that has come down to us: without being a warrior, he showed himself to be a skilled writer, taking what he lacked in terms of experience from works by Cato, Cornelius and some others, which have not survived to our days; When Vegetius wrote, the Roman legion consisted of 6,100 infantry and 726 horses, whose number was never less and sometimes increased, but its composition was already different from that of the time of the Republic, since the maniples had been suppressed, and other variations had been made, as can be read in chapter 6 of his "Military Institutions", of book 2.

Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, after being defeated twice by Aurelian, retired to Palmyra, which was besieged by the Romans. This queen, who had herself captained her armies, gave encouragement to the besieged and defended herself as a great captain.

The emperors were seduced by the comfort of always finding among the Germans individuals willing to serve with a salary, and the Roman armies were already composed of mercenary troops, enervated with vices, demoralization and reductions, worthy instruments of the whims of the Head of the Empire, who was frequently a victim of the fury of his soldiers (Anarchy of the 3rd century), the barbarian nations that the Romans had previously defeated, defeated them in turn after several attempts at invasion, and overthrowing an Empire that was no longer great except in name.

The idea of ​​a centralized power was left as a legacy by Rome and the barbarian peoples could never match it, and the rebirth of a Christian empire in the time of Charlemagne was due to the aforementioned inheritance.

Athens: strategists

The Greeks excelled in tactics and the Romans in strategy, and Athens appointed its ten strategos or chief generals every year by election, one for each tribe, and they were characterized by the following:

• - Be equal in category.

• - They took turns in command daily.

• - Sometimes a battle was brought forward or delayed due to the intrigues of the strategist who wanted to take the glory. To avoid this, it was decided to leave 9 strategos in the capital, when only one army was standing.

Sparta

In Sparta, the polemarch, generally in Greece, head of an army corps, was head of a Moorish town, and the Lacedaemonians had little navy, they did not have walled cities, they slept in the field armed and the soldiers, to the beat of Castor's hymn, attacked the enemy boldly, and did not pursue the enemy until they saw victory assured.

Rome

In ancient Rome stratiotes or stratioticus meant soldier and stratiotica pecunia, military treasury or treasury, and in Rome the militia was not an independent institution but with everything else it was the Administration, it was the State, it was Rome and the result of that militia was its active army and the instrument of Rome was the legion, a body of troops with very variable strength over time, and a predisposition to methodical war was incubating from the earliest times in Rome.

The Roman legion, which was more mobile than the Greek phalanx, facilitated the conclusion of large military enterprises that required long-distance maneuvers and on uneven terrain, and the Roman camps on the borders or within the conquered provinces testify that they knew how to choose the strategic points: To emerge victorious from battles, one must meditate beforehand on the precepts of art, to fight according to them and not rely on chance (Vegecio).[12]​.

The Roman militia has three historical periods, which includes from the founding of the Monarchy to the reforms of Marius, that of the emperors and the Byzantine period, and within each of them with a multitude of administrative, organic and tactical reforms that prevent the grades and their functions from being satisfactorily characterized, and some of those grades in the legion were the following:

• - Praetor.

• - Consul.

• - Tribune.

• - Centurion.

• - Decurion.

• - Quincurion.

If among the Greeks the supreme leader of the troops was called strategos, among the Romans the following: consul, master of the militia, dictator, imperator, and later count and duke.

Goths

The legions of the Romans were succeeded by a militia composed of property owners, of Goths who had become so, which formed the link between the Roman and the feudal, soldiers who lived off the product of their lands, but paid tribute like the Romans and the feudals on the contrary had no burden but had to go without pay, the Goths founding their military organization on the nobility hierarchy and the decimal system and the nobility was divided into several hierarchies (dukes, counts, gardingos,..).

The Goths armed themselves at their own expense, and those who could not do so were equipped by the State and the prefect of the praetorium was in charge of providing for the army, and they knew how to fortify places and knew the machines to beat them.

Theodoric defended the borders by building fortresses and presidios and created a navy of warships called dromons, small galleys, and later Totila created another.

Byzantium

In the Byzantine Empire strategium referred to the imperial troop barracks in Constantinople, and some outstanding general who shone with Belisarius' own light, although hindered in his undertakings by the scarcity of the means provided to him and by the whims of an scheming Court.

The Byzantine infantry only had a mixed order, taken from the phalanx and the legion, which did not produce any of the great effects of the two methods, one based on its weight and the other on its flexibility, and its cavalry was inferior to that of the Persians and barbarians, and the Greek fire was used against the valor of the Saracens and Franks:.

• - The greatest power of the Saracens was in their physical courage, in their individual agility to handle weapons by throwing them and in the ease with which they guided their horses, which were inferior in war machines.

• - The Franks formed an entire warrior society and from this it turns out that the combatants had great fearlessness.

• - The Goths, among the barbarians, were the most advanced in the disposition of the troops, the Vandals excelled in the use of the sword, the Huns were fearsome archers, the Suebi were good infantry, the Alans excelled in heavy soldiers and in the Heruli the light soldiers.

The war between the Goths and the Byzantine generals Belisarius and Narses "Narses (Byzantine general)") presented great strategic skill and tactics on both sides, and according to Procopius,[13] Belisarius obtained a large part of his victories because the Goth cavalry always fought closely by fighting with a short sword and spear.

Parallel between the phalanx and the legion

• - The Macedonian phalanx, a thick square battalion, could not move except at once, and the Roman army was more willing and more alert to all kinds of movements.

• - The Romans learned well the art of dividing armies into many battalions and squadrons and of forming the reserve corps to help in the advance or to support the defense when part of the army faltered.

• - The Macedonian phalanx was terrible when it went to clash, although it needed its own places for its solidity and consistency, and not having them it broke due to its own movement and once divided it had no way of reuniting.

• - The legion was divided as has already been said into various bodies and used all places and was separated as it wanted, suitable for detachments, for all types of conversions and evolutions, and therefore had more diversity of movements and therefore more action than the phalanx.

• - The Romans considered discipline the foundation of their Empire and did not seek unnecessary risky battles, nor victories in which they lost many soldiers, and in their history, reference is sometimes made, to very considerable cohorts undoubtedly made up of chosen troops, heading for certain expeditions.

Charlemagne legitimized the dominion of the Barbarians by adhering them to the territory and when there was an emperor of the West, Charlemagne, Christendom became a vast monarchy, venerating the princes as superior to him and treated by those of other faiths as the head of believers, they ceased to be considered as usurpers of the rights of the emperor of the East, and with only a king of the Barbarians sitting on the throne of the Caesars "Caesar (title)"), those associated with the Roman nation remained, since the victors and vanquished had only one leader, and from then on it can be said that the feudal organization received its organization, that scale of powers superior to each other, with the only source of authority God and the Pontiff his representative, failing as an arbiter in the discussions of the Princes among themselves and with their people, and that could add to the disasters of war the remedy later used in Europe of the protocols "Protocol (International Law)") of diplomacy.[14]​.

In the feudal Middle Ages, as there were no organized armies, there were no forts and the castle had for a long time great military importance, since to repel the Normans, Saracens, Hungarians, etc., the attacked towns built walls and towers and very soon the feudal lords learned that those fortresses could serve their plans and they multiplied them and churches "Church (building)") and convents were also fortified and clashes could occur. fortuitous or calculated from neighbor to neighbor, war of siege and attrition, and in common dangers the neighboring lords gathered to agree on what each would execute in their domains and the king was one of the contracting parties, but without coercive authority, only owner of the fiefs conferred by him, not a supreme magistrate executor of the will of a sovereign assembly. Only the synods remained, from which, as mixed as they were, civil laws usually emanated.

Generally the feudatory chose a height in the middle of his domain for his residence and there he built a castle, a symbol of solitary and independent power, buildings of solid stone, with round towers or polygons crowned with battlements, and the art of war was combined with nature to make access to the castles impracticable, and the moats, ramparts, palisades, buttresses scattered in the surroundings, portcullises (architecture)"), narrow drawbridges without petrils, gates suspended from chains "Chain (object)"), underground doors, traps, in short, the entire system of defense and ambushes, sought to frighten those who tried to attack or surprise them, and when the sound of the watchtower bell was heard "Watchtower (construction)") the warning was immediately spread and they ran to the embrasures, to the battlements, to the barbicans, the bridges were raised, the portcullises were lowered and the fight began.[15]​.

Feudalism, dividing the armies into small groups, divided according to the importance of the fief and dressed, armed and instructed in different ways, removed the possibility of combined efforts with a common object, and the cavalry constituted the main force of the battles and the nobles dedicated themselves to it, protected by their armor "Armor (combat)"), "impenetrable shell", defying the shots of the archers "Archer (army)") and the pikes "Pica (weapon)") of the infantry.

In the Middle Ages, lordly war appears, since there was no lord without land and land without lord, and once this form of property was accepted, it spread and became generalized and everything became feudal and personal, real and jurisdictional lordship was called a fief and the one who granted it was called senior or lord, the one who received it junior or thousands, as obliged to military service, the one who received it directly as a vassal and the sub-beneficiaries. valbasores, and each individual was at the same time lord and lygio or vassal, and could be a vassal in one land and sovereign in the others, and when all property became a fief or subfief, each duke, count, etc., was considered lord of his land and could take revenge for the offenses received, whether he was the king, whether he was a noble, a right called of the fist that caused numerous partial wars between one or several nobles and the king or lord to lord, and since the vulgo depended on the whim of the lords, wars devastated the countryside and the slums of the villain.[16]​.

Private wars had great importance and general use, their regulations occupying a distinguished place in the legislation of that time, and only the nobles and knights were competent, since the brawl between the serfs, villains and free men of an order lower than the nobles were subject to the courts of justice, requiring private war equality of nobility or condition, and the clergy claimed for their part and exercised the right of personal war and the clerics were replaced by the vidames or advocati chosen by the various monasteries or bishoprics, men distinguished by their birth and reputation, who defended them and fought in their place, although on occasions ecclesiastics of noble family full of the bellicose ideas of their time forgot their mission of peace and fought hand to hand on the battlefield at the head of their vassals.

Next to the life of the castle, where the lords were among their warriors, the communal militias appeared, a reaction of the pawns against the knights, of the free man against the tyrant, and at the moment of danger the bell "Bell (instrument)") of the Common was rung, the meeting for that day was announced, each one carrying his weapons and thus they marched against the enemy, concluding the year's campaign in one or two battles.[17]

The commoners and villains who saw it necessary to defend their freedom against the cavalry or militia that served on horseback, contemptuous of the infantry, must have understood the need to act the opposite of feudalism, to give preference to the multitude over individual strength and driven by this need, the Swiss, one of the least chivalrous peoples where the infantry was considered honorable, adopted the use of lances by means of which, formed in thick bodies, they did not allow the disorder the enemy cavalry, at the same time that they were destroying the army of their adversaries, winning the battles on which their independence depended and then Charles the Bold, returning those triumphs their importance to the combatant on foot and the lance, a weapon feared by the feudal militia and horses, marching in columns "Column (military)") packed together like an impenetrable wall, later perfecting the Swiss discipline by the Spanish, forming a infantry that was the terror of Europe, the thirds.

With the passage of time, as the fiefdoms and that political separation began to come together and form larger bodies, counts, dukes, princes, republics and kingdoms, private wars ceased and State-to-State ones began, and as occupations were cultivated again in times of peace, the custom was introduced of hiring people who from a young age had dedicated themselves to the exercise of arms and mercenaries began, and in the germ of permanent armies and the progress of the art is the establishment of the aforementioned mercenary troops, such as the Great Catalan Company of Roger de Flor, their events related in the Chronicle of Ramón Muntaner or the companies of Sforza, Gattamelata, Braccio, Piccino, Del Verne and others, which show strategy in their movements, being very notable the war of Gattamelata and Piccino on the shores of Lake Garda between the Visconti and Venice.

The sons of the renowned Numidians and Mauritanians, and of the impetuous Getulians, penetrated and occupied the Iberian Peninsula under an expert strategic plan to begin a campaign devised by their general Táriq: the Arab cavalry was the main element of the armies of Africa, served almost entirely by the nobles and accredited, who guided or drove their invaluable horses with fabulous skill or aptitude, and the Emir Musa reviewed them. ibn Nusair to the first troops on peninsular soil, with twenty or so flags, with two of said emir, the third insignia of Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa, and the rest were from the Koraixites), of the wardens of the Arabs, of the captains and other governors, most of them coming from the Berbers and other tribes of nomadic Arabs without a flag, composing an army of 18,000 combatants, which It increased every day with people pouring in from Africa.

Regarding the tremendous irruption of Europe into Asia with the Crusades, it is worth saying that enthusiasm prevailed over political calculations in a Europe that had as many lords as powers, and this mass uprising of a people of property owners, this abandonment of comforts and goods to go in search of adventures, without an absolute need, were things less strange in times when customs provided for it, and the first were tumultuous enterprises of devotees guided by men whose sole provision was their trust in miracles. or partial efforts of a multitude of lords who commanded their dependents in the best possible way, without a grandiose design, but from one company to another, until in the successive expeditions led by the kings strategic plans were established such as the occupation of Egypt.

In the Crusades, Saladin shines for the great and decisive events to which he is involved and for having in front of him one of the most chivalrous kings of that time, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, human and magnanimous whenever it came to defeated enemies, inexorable and harsh when he contemplated the Christians as a nation, the most perfect hero of Islam, the most chivalrous prince of his time.

In the battle of Bouvines, on July 27, 1214, the crusader army was divided into the center, right wing and left wing, distributed in several lines, with cavalry that sustained the rigor of the clash and the count of Boulogne, Renaud de Dammartín, formed an empty battalion of soldiers placed in a round and armed with pikes "Pica (weapon)") (it is believed that the square was used for the first time), whose fronts presented a terrible obstacle to the enemy cavalry, and an opening through which Renaud came out to charge and entered to catch his breath.

Marino Sanuto the Elder spent much of his life in Romania to be able to scientifically carry out the book on the recovery and conservation of the Holy Land, presenting the work with four maps to John XXII on September 29, 1321 in Avignon, and Guido da Vigevano, physician to Joan of Burgundy, contributed to the Holy Land expedition of 1335 with the advice gathered in Thesauris regis Franciae acquisitionis Terrae Sanctae.

The Church, which in those very Catholic years, responded to every need of humanity with the miracle of an institution, conceived in its fertile womb a body, military religious orders, standing armies, true barracks "Barracks (militia)") in the Temples.

The military expedition, generally in the Middle Ages, is called cavalcade and always presupposed loot as a pledge of victory, and in a curious codex Fuero sobre el fecho de las cavalgadas written on parchment in two columns and which was inserted in the Spanish Historical Memorial, Tom. II, the spirit of order and legality that must preside over any military expedition is noted, in which the powers of leaders, allocation of loot, regularization of pillage, the sole purpose and object of the ride, etc. are regulated.

The equivalent of the Roman magister militum in the Middle Ages was the major adalid and the adalid was the leader of men of war, the one who directed or guided the hosts, that is, the meeting and temporary grouping of troops or contingents, both of the rich-men, barons or feudal lords and of councils "Council (history)") or towns "Villa (population)"), the host usually having as its object the taking or siege of a fortress rather than a pitched or decisive battle.

In Spain, the Reconquista was characterized by being a set of expeditions, commotions and rebates submitted more or less to a preconceived plan and with diplomatic combinations, and an attentive military study makes us discover everything that was strategic, systematic, paced in those long and dramatic wars, with their successive theaters in the transversal basins, with their mountain range passes, with their conquests of objectives, such as Toledo and Seville. In the century the double military expeditions of the fearsome Almanzor constituted, for 25 years, the war of expansion, whose core was in Muslim Córdoba "Córdoba (Spain)," and from 1492 the Spanish army began to adapt to the radical military revolution that was taking place throughout Europe.

The feudal lords and the advance guards of the borders, the walis and Arab knights, made mutual raids on their respective coastlines, and to that they called "make a commotion", "go on a skirmish", because according to the laws of war established they could attack any castle and make raids or rides by one or the other suddenly and with a stratagem that did not last more than three days.

Juan I of Castile created the following dignities or positions according to Pedro de Salazar y Mendoza: the constable of Castile, the first being Alfonso of Aragón the Elder, whose functions according to Clonard[18]​ were equivalent to a Minister of War, and two new offices of marshal to Fernando Álvarez de Toledo and Pedro Ruiz Sarmiento. According to Bardin, it was the position of marshal in principle palatine as Assistant to the constable until this equerry (constable comes from comes stabuli, count of the stable or chief equerry) became a general or commander of troops in war, the marshals who were subordinate to him in the hierarchy or palace servitude, continued to take him the name of field marshal "Field Marshal (military rank)"), and in France at the time of the first Marshal of Byron it was a true Chief of Staff, with great authority and multiple powers.

The Norman conquest of England by William the Conqueror established feudalism, since the conquerors divided their lands, preserved the military hierarchy and exercised dominion as lords over the dispossessed indigenous people, and the laws were nothing more than pacts between the foreign victors. William's troops were vehement in the attack, but when force was not enough they used cunning, and after winning the battle of Hastings, the resistance did not cease and they had to take all the lands and cities one after another, either by force, by using business or by subduing the enemy, intimidating them, convincing them of the futility of their effort.

The primary origin, the efficient cause of artillery in general, of firearms, is the invention and propagation of gunpowder, which at the same time caused radical transformations in the art of war and in the way of being of armies and the first fire mouth was called bombarda ("bombus-ardia"), and the true starting point for several scholars of artillery in Spain is in the description of the Moors besieged in Algeciras "Siege of Algeciras (1342-1344)") by Alfonso XI of Castile in 1342 chronicled this king*.*.

In Spain, in the 15th century, artillery was no longer defending walls, as in Algeciras in 1342, but fighting them, attacking them, a new, modern and transcendental use, and the capital perfection of artillery took place in Germany, and therefore the development of artillery must be sought in central Europe, in the 15th century, as a siege weapon and combat weapon.

In the aforementioned century, the canister of shrapnel was devised, a tube or cylinder made of tin, sheet metal or iron, a load with a mouth of fire that was made up of small bullets "Bullet (ammunition)") that were thrown at the enemy instead of a large projectile, and the canister came out propelled by the artillery piece in the shape of a cone or funnel, shot at a short distance with the strategic conception of causing considerable and terrible havoc to the flanks of the opponent, the closed formations that presented more bulk, in the defense of gaps, etc.

Jan Žižka and the Hussites in Germany, masters according to Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini in the art of fortifying and taking places[19]​ (in the campaign of 1430 they burned a hundred castles and cities and nearly 1,400 villages), already announce the eminent preponderance of infantry in European armies (in the campaign of 1431, the Hussite army was made up of 50,000 infantry soldiers, 7,000 cavalry and 3,700 chariots), and yet, due to a routine or a tenacity that is difficult to understand, not only the century but also the century is when cavalry and armor "Armor (combat)") reach their peak in the European Middle Ages.

The Hussites, after the death of their leader Jan, gave Procopius the nickname Raso as their successor because he was a clergyman and had his hair cut short, the only sign of his primitive profession, since he was a worthy disciple of Jan and had courage and skill like that as a captain. Procopius had already distinguished himself in 1421 by defending the square of Justemberg against all the forces of Albert, Duke of Austria and forcing him to lift the siege, subsequently defeating the imperials and invading and plundering Austria, Silesia, Lusatia, Brandenburg and eastern Franconia and making his name formidable throughout Germany.

It is difficult to determine the time when bastions or bastions were invented; but it is true that its use was established around the year 1500, and some authors make the aforementioned Žižka, leader of the Hussites in Bohemia, the author of this invention, claiming that he used them in the fortification of Tabor.

Maximilian I of Habsburg, born in 1459, perfected the art of casting artillery, the manufacture of firearms and the tempering of defensive weapons, and was the first to establish a standing army in Austria.

In the town of Jargeau, a strategic place in the Hundred Years' War, the Duke of Sufflok, warned of the surprise of the French army in the outskirts of the aforementioned town, left it and formed a garrison "Garrison (militia)") in battle, but the English, unable to resist the shock despite being experienced warriors who learned the art of war in the school of Henry V of England, took refuge. again inside Jorgeau. The next day the French cannons and Lombards began to fire on Jargeau (1429), the besieged having artillery as numerous as the besiegers, and yet the fire directed by Joan of Arc, in whom all the generals recognized an extraordinary talent for arranging artillery, produced great destruction in the besieged square in a few hours.

Joan of Flanders, wife of John IV of Brittany, Count of Montfort, after the captivity of her husband, taken prisoner in Nantes, who could not take advantage of the aid that Robert of Artois brought him from England, who was disputing the county of Brittany with Charles, Count of Blois, bravely continued the war with the support of the English, holding two sieges in Hennebon (1342 and 1345), having Joan of Penthiere, countess of Blois, wife of Charles, who supported the king of France, and this war was known as the War of the Two Joans, with the entire weight of the war falling on the two Joans (1345-1365).

Regarding maritime warfare, a treatise, "On Military Institutions" by Leo the Philosopher, gives an idea of the order of the navy and chapter CXIX, which deals with naval combat, reveals the state of the navy of the Byzantine Empire, the constructions, the uses and the strategy, news that completed his son's treatise regarding the dromon or the imperial galley that had a leather cannon "Cannon (artillery)" placed on the bow from the which Greek fire, made with wax, pitch, sulfur and other combustible materials, was launched at a great distance against the enemy ships, modifying the way of fighting, because it was necessary to try to burn the enemy ships, with better combined movements of approaching and retreating, defeating the Saracens for a long time and later the Normans until the Crusades (the Greek fire was also launched in grenade-like vessels or with balutes and catapults in the countryside and cities besieged).

Cristina de Piezano, in her work Book of the Facts of Arms and Chivalry, deals with active warfare and military jurisprudence and took the most selected precepts of Vegetius and Frontinus without copying them, on the contrary, she speaks of the essential changes to the new uses of warfare and artillery and proposes the best maxims of offense and defense that were used in the French wars of that time.

Leon Battista Alberti, in his work De re aedificatoria, talks about the fortifications of cities according to Vitruvius, Vegetius and other Greek and Roman authors.

Roberto Valturio in his treatise "Opus de re militare" illustrated constructions of military architecture, such as those of the aforementioned Alberti, the civil ones: it has sufficient historical significance to show the transition from ancient to modern shooting weapons, also indicating the time of its invention.

Egidio Colonna, scholastic writer and archbishop of Bourges, wrote a treatise towards the end of the century entitled De regimine principum that can be considered the military link that unites Vegetius with Machiavelli, Roman time with the Renaissance.[20]​.

• - Strategy also derives from the Greek Stratos Agein, The army that moves forward. From the words Stratos Camping army and Agein Push forward, advance. The above suggests that strategy is not static, but is intrinsically linked to movement.

• - Strategical.- Adjective used by Jean Maximilien Lamarque to express the movements that took place in a larger circle than those that the eye could see. Also strategematic according to Carrion-Nisas and attributes this word to Sextus Julius Frontinus who titled the three books that referred to great movements before, during and after the battle Sttragematicon and Estrategicon to the 4th book dedicated to what happens near the general and is the result of his character and personal influence.[21]​.

• - Stratitates.- In the lowest Latinity, this term had a similar meaning to stratego of Greece.

• - Estratarithmétria.- In the 17th century, the art of squadroning, of forming troops in a given figure, of finding the number of soldiers that could fit in it.

• - Stratology.- Greek name that some authors such as Myler and Walter gave to the science that dealt with the right to war (others stratology).

Contenido

En China, hubo dos grandes fases en la historia de la estrategia militar.

Military strategy in the era of the warring kingdoms

During the warring kingdoms, the war was fought by nobles in battle tanks. These commanded small armies of peasants armed with the sword. Combat between nobles was in a more courteous manner. In fact, in the Zhou kingdom there was the li, a code of conduct that demanded maximum respect from the enemy, as long as he was noble and both opponents were of the same lineage, since barbarian tribes, other Chinese kingdoms or nobles who were not of the same rank were subjected to an all-out war.

During this time, the brilliant General Sun Tzu stands out, who revolutionized military tactics with his book "The Art of War", an essential book for any general.

Strategy in times after Qin Shi Huang

With Qin Shi Huang the dimensions of the war reached enormous dimensions. Gigantic armies of thousands of soldiers were assembled. Spears were the Chinese infantry's favorite primary weapon at close range. The infantry was supported by cavalry and later, by the first artillery pieces.

The crossbow and repeating crossbow were the best long-range weapon of the time, as it was very easy and quick to use and manufacture. The cho-ko-nus Chinese soldiers who masterfully handled repeating crossbows stand out. The enormous demand for weapons by the emperors made the metal industry flourish, which became a massive industry, the most sophisticated in years.

El siglo XVI, tras la Edad Media, es el del renacimiento militar de Europa, que tuvo lenta preparación en los siglo XIV y XV, por los siguientes hechos:.

• - Primeramente decir que el mismo Maquiavelo, viendo el desorden que se había introducido en la milicia por culpa de los jefes de los bandos asalariados y disgustado de los soldados aventureros, quiso demostrar la necesidad de tener ejércitos nacionales y disciplinados, tratando de que se aprenda de los griegos y romanos la importancia de la infantería, base de los ejércitos y de la nación, y se le valora más como filósofo político que tratadista militar porque aspiraba a ordenar los ejércitos nacionales y en vez de formular métodos puramente militares, quería oponer la fuerza moral de los ejércitos al triste espectáculo de los capitanes aventureros[22]​.

• - Invención de la pólvora y su uso.- Con la invención y uso de la pólvora nació un arte militar enteramente diverso: las picas "Pica (arma)"), alabardas y partesanas fueron sustituyéndose con los arcabuces, mosquetes y fusiles, y en 1503, el célebre ingeniero español Pedro Navarro aplicó con éxito la pólvora en la mina que hizo contra Castel dell'Ovo en Nápoles, aplicada desde entonces como ingenio principal de la guerra de minas, contraminas y la guerra subterránea.

• - Presencia de arqueros "Arquero (ejército)") ingleses en Crecy, Poitiers "Batalla de Poitiers (1356)") y Aljubarrota.

• - La aparición victoriosa de la citada infantería suiza en el siglo XV.

• - La composición del lúcido ejército[23]​ que llevó Carlos VIII de Francia a la conquista de Nápoles: La invasión de Carlos VIII en Italia, la liga que se formó en contra suya para encerrarlo dentro de ella, su retirada que cortó estratégicamente Albiano, general de Venecia, la defensa de Calabria de Aubigny, el éxito de la batalla de Fornovo se parecen mucho a las operaciones que precedieron a la batalla del Trebia en 1799, al paso de Beresina en 1812, a la batalla de Hanau en 1813, prueba que los capitanes de aquel tiempo tenían el instinto de las grandes operaciones militares (Luis Blanch)[24]​.

Posteriormente, el mérito militar de Próspero Colonna que agrandó las combinaciones estratégicas, la campaña del Gran Capitán Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba en el Garellano, las de toda la escuela de grandes capitanes en el reinado de Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, sus expediciones a África con la indispensable cooperación de la marina militar de Andrea Doria, las guerras de Solimán y las de los capitanes franceses de la época, todo prueba el progreso de las combinaciones militares, y todos los Estados beligerantes tenían el vigoroso instinto de la guerra, porque los combates habían tomado mayores proporciones, las guerras civiles del feudalismo se habían concluido, las naciones peleaban por medio de ejércitos permanentes con vastos espacios que recorrer, que defender, que conquistar") y obligó al ingenio humano a desarrollarse en la dirección de su necesidad, por lo cual la estrategia fue presentida y practicada.

En el siglo XVI, aparecen las tropas imperiales españolas, con sus temibles Tercios, ya que después de la expulsión de los moros, surgió para España una serie de guerras exteriores, que la alzaran a un alto grado de pujanza, y como ya no podían actuar las compañías con independencia unas de otras, ni era posible la organización feudal de grupos disgregados e irregulares, hubieron de crearse subdivisiones del ejército con la agrupación de varias compañías, que constituyendo una especie de brigada recibieron el nombre de Tercio:.

• - En 1536, cada Tercio en 3 coronelías, con 10 compañías de piqueros, 2 de arcabuceros de la fuerza de 250 hombres cada una.

• - En 1560, Felipe II de España suprimió las coronelías y formó los Tercios de 8 compañías de coseletes armadas con picas "Pica (arma)") y 2 de arcabuceros de 300 individuos todas.

España hizo dar al arte de la guerra pasos gigantescos, basta indicar la operaciones del duque de Parma "Alejandro Farnesio (duque de Parma)") para socorrer a París y a Ruan sitiadas por Enrique IV de Francia, o la campaña del duque de Alba para apoderarse de Portugal que terminó con la Batalla de Alcantara o la guerra de Flandes con el citado duque de Alba, Luis de Requesens, Don Juan de Austria, el citado Farnesio "Alejandro Farnesio (duque de Parma)"), etc: donde se habían reunido cuantos soldados valientes y experimentados capitanes tenía Europa; las numerosas fortalezas detenían al ejército con largos y trabajosos sitios, las vastas llanuras requerían en las batallas que se desplegase todo el valor y toda la ciencia, y las mismas llanuras atravesadas por anchos y profundos ríos presentaban con frecuencia aun después de las victorias, inconvenientes graves y temibles a los progresos de los vencedores (Cita de Agostino Paradisi")[25]​).

En la batalla de Pavía, en 1525, los españoles, desplegaron en ella todas las ventajas del talento militar y todas las maniobras hijas del estudio más reflexivo del arte de la guerra, dando a la Historia Militar la primera página en que se estudia la táctica y el orden de las batallas modernas e igual pericia mostraron y victoria obtuvieron los tercios españoles mandados por Manuel Filiberto de Saboya en la batalla de San Quintín.

Mauricio de Nassau reuniendo la experiencia de los precedentes, regeneró el arte militar e introdujo muchas novedades en el ataque y en la defensa, indagó todos los medios de acelerar y asegurar más el buen éxito de la guerra, atribuyéndole algunos autores la creación de la fortificación de campaña y Gaspar de Coligny fue el primero que mostró la importancia de la rapidez, recorrió hasta 18 leguas en 24 horas, ya que anteriormente se creía una gran marcha 7 leguas por día.

Si entre los antiguos el cuadrado táctico se denominó sintagma, tortuga, en la Edad Media muro, cerca, corral, vino a constituir en los siglos XVI y XVII el escuadrón al que los tácticos geometras sometieron a múltiples sutilezas.

Mauricio de Sajonia poseía grandes cualidades: tan circunspecto y reservado en el plan, como osado y pronto en la ejecución, tan previsor en la preparación, como acabado en la obra.

En las Guerras de Religión en Francia (1562-1598), los fines de los pueblos calvinistas era no solo empuñar las armas por el libre ejercicio de su religión, sino también para desterrar el ejercicio de la religión católica que se la perfilaba como una idolatría cuyo abatimiento era un deber de conciencia para el buen cristiano, temiendo por su parte el pueblo católico por su religión que los hugonotes habían jurado deshacer, sosteniendo en el cometido de preservar aquella, temiendo también el soberano y los Grandes por su autoridad que el partido hugonote había resuelto usurpar; en los principios de la reforma protestante los predicantes hacían profesión de doblegarse a la obediencia del gobierno, como las protestas de fidelidad que trasladó Juan Calvino a Francisco I de Francia al principio de su Instrucción, cristiana, posiblemente por la debilidad de su partido, mas con el aumento de fuerzas fue trocando su lenguaje, proyectando sus doctores que era legítimo a los calvinistas el defenderse, con la estrategia de requerir y conseguir por medio de la rebelión y de la violencia la libertad de continuar y practicar públicamente su religión, declarado en muchos sínodos de los calvinistas con la mayor solemnidad.

En el siglo XVII abundan capitanes de alta inteligencia y que emplearon a menudo los métodos de la estrategia como Espinola, Albrecht von Wallestein, Turena, Bernardo de Sajonia-Weimar, Piccolomini, Montecuccoli, Gustavo de Suecia, El Gran Condé, Conde de Tilly y algún otro.

La verdadera guerra en grande esclarece principios en tiempos de Luis XIV de Francia, con gran protagonismo de las armas de fuego y la estrategia se une a la política, el gabinete con el pabellón, y las guerras no se principiaban sin haber determinado el plan y se procuraba prever sus efectos después de una serie de operaciones hipotéticas fundadas en datos desconocidos, y se vieron notables operaciones estratégicas: invasión de Holanda,; Marlborough alcanzó a orillas del Danubio al príncipe Eugenio; Villars se unió con el elector de Baviera; Luis José de Vendome y Berwick dirigieron las famosas marchas de España que concluyeron con la batalla de Almansa.

El tipo de la guerra de sitios es relevante en el siglo XVII, la toma de una plaza fuerte era en ocasiones el objeto de una campaña, y alguna tentativa de un ejército de socorro para descercar la plaza o librarla del ataque enemigo, solía producir un choque o batalla campal, y el asunto quedaba resuelto con la toma de la plaza o la retirada del sitiador. El ejército de socorro era adversario natural de un ejército de observación y el lento progreso de la táctica en el siglo XVII debe atribuirse en gran parte al índole acompasado de aquellas guerras de sitios y posiciones, por oposición a la campal, de marchas, maniobras y batallas.

Habiendo llegado muy lejos el arte de fortificar con Errard de Bardeluc"), ingeniero de Enrique IV de Francia, el caballero Ville con Luis XIII de Francia y el conde de Pagan, se debe el mérito de las aplicaciones sistemáticas en sitiar y tomar plazas a Vauban y en su defensa mejoras adaptadas a las nuevas armas, aplicando los sistemas ya conocidos, sobresaliendo en la sagacidad con que supo asociar la fortificación con las estrategias: Fue el primero que vio las cosas en gran escala; buscó las relaciones de las plazas de guerra entre sí y de la fortificación con las otras partes del arte militar y hasta con la administración política, y puso las fortificaciones en la mejor relación con la estrategia de su tiempo y merece el elogio de que la conservación de los hombres y de los establecimientos fue uno de sus principales fines (Cita Carnot).

Por los años de la Guerra de los Treinta Años, el elemento feudal casi desapareció, porque su composición no se fundaba ya en el servicio feudal sino que era una tropa permanente tomada de la plebe y mandada por señores o nobles sujetos sin embargo a la jerarquía de los grados en razón de sus capacidades y sus servicios y no del grado social, lo que destruía los contingentes feudales, y en la citada guerra, Waldstein y Gustavo de Suecia vivían a expensas de los países que ocupaban con sus soldados, guerra devastadora, pero el primero era considerado como una adversidad y Gustavo como un protector, porque el uno dilapidaba y el segundo regularizaba las exacciones, y ambos demostraron que en los ejércitos más móviles y en los terrenos menos montuosos sabían hacer servir las fortificaciones de campaña, y empezó también la división del trabajo en los ejércitos.[26]​.

Wallestein") ganó fama militar en la guerra contra los bohemos") y los turcos, y su fama y las promesas tentadoras de gloria y de botín trajeron a su bandera muchos soldados y jefes aventureros, guerra en la que se permitía el pillaje y la contribución militar, hallando donde quisiera el soldado paga y ganancias.

Gustavo Adolfo y Mauricio de Orange restauraron el arte militar, mejoraron las ordenanzas y combinaron en las masas de infantería las ventajas de la legíon con las de la falange, y fue Gustavo tan hábil en sus planes como rápido en su ejecución, la llamada por Napoleón guerra de pies e ideó fabricar cañones de cuero contra la artillería de los alemanes para hacerla más maniobrable.

Se considera a Enrique, duque de Rohan") (siglo XVII), como el primer escritor y general moderno que dio y aplicó algunos preceptos útiles en la guerra de montaña, exigiendo un principio general"): "la posición en las cumbres".

Conde y Turena aparecieron poco después, y el primero había nacido general y se condujo por sus inspiraciones propias, y el segundo aprendió a serlo en el libro de la experiencia, el cual, por un nuevo orden de formación de tropas, por el uso más razonado de la infantería, por sus admirables marchas y planes de campaña, encauzó el arte militar a un alto grado de perfección: Conde nació general, Turena se hizo; el primero se dirigía por sus propias inspiraciones, el segundo por la reflexión y la experiencia y sus batallas presentan disposiciones variadas y siempre hábilmente aplicadas al terreno (Cita de Lamarque).[27]​.

Turena instituyó la brigada en 1667, subdivisión táctica de un cuerpo de ejército, formando parte de una división, con el nombramiento del primer brigadier de caballería y la de 1668 para el de infantería, buscando unidad y cohesión, y agrupar sus tropas con más libertad, aunque para otros fue Gustavo Adolfo, y si bien su columna o unidad táctica se dividía en trozos y fracciones que le daban flexibilidad y movilidad (dos regimientos con 1000 mosqueteros y 900 piqueros), la caballería sueca todavía se interpolaba su turma como en los tiempos del duque de Alba y Alejandro Farnesio.

Cromwell formó tropas regulares y devotas, organizando a los indisciplinados y que ejercitó infundando una poderosa confianza en sí mismos, y mira hacer la revolución, la secunda, sigue y reduce a la unidad de su poder.

Raimondo Montecuccoli dejó tres libros en sus memorias, trata el primero del arte militar, el segundo de la guerra contra los turcos y el tercero de la campaña de 1664, conteniendo preceptos tanto para la guerra ofensiva como la defensiva, y la guerra entre él y el citado Turena, fue indudablemente un ejercicio del arte de la guerra, una rivalidad de sutilezas, de serenidad, de temple, de presteza y de diligencia, no pudiendo contar el uno con que el otro incurriría en más deslices o desaciertos, con las que el mismo hubiera cometido hallándose en su lugar, y Montecuccoli prosiguió con victorias hasta que fue hecho prisionero por el Príncipe de Conde.

Holanda, al haberse combinado con Francia, pudo disputarle el imperio de la mar a Inglaterra, con una marina diestra y ejercitada, capitaneada por hábiles almirantes como Engel de Ruyter, Martin y Cornelio Tromp.

A comienzos del siglo XVIII, en la Gran Guerra del Norte destaca como ilustre militar Carlos XII de Suecia, siendo dignas de atención y estudio el paso de Dwina, el de Bug en 1703, a nado con su caballería, las activas campañas de 1704 y 1705, y en 1708 penetra en Rusia hasta Berezina, donde le espera Pedro el Grande, fundador de la grandeza moscovita, soñando con herir al ruso en el corazón llegando hasta Moscú y para ello pone sitio en Poltava, plaza de importantes recursos y gran importancia estratégica.

En el siglo XVIII, tanto Federico II el Grande en la Guerra de los Siete Años como la guerra con España del inglés Pitt, fundaban su resolución en motivos estratégicos, en las ventajas que resultarían de descargar un golpe inmediato y bien dirigido contra el enemigo, sin darle lugar a prepararse.

Navío es el nombre propio o peculiar que ha permanecido a las embarcaciones grandes o que llegan a pasar de cierto porte, y más particularmente a las de guerra que tenían a los menos dos puentes o dos baterías "Batería (instrumento musical)") corridas por cada banda, navíos de dos andanadas, así como de tres puentes en el de constar de otros tantos o de tres baterías. También se decía navío de línea a cualquiera de los primeros o que por aquellas circunstancias se consideraba propio para entrar en la formación de la línea de combate, con un número elevado de cañones gruesos "Cañón (artillería)"), es decir, el que por su porte y armamento estaba destinado a combatir en batalla ordenada o en formaciones navales en unión de otros buques de la marina de guerra.

Federico sujetó la guerra a las especulaciones del talento "Talento (aptitud)"), redujo a cálculo todos sus elementos y formando un conjunto de la estrategia con la táctica, la redujo a una ciencia mixta que comprendía ambas cosas e hizo de modo que el soldado adquiriese una especie de instinto por la estrategia acelerada, y conociendo la importancia de la prontitud creó la táctica moderna, y en vez de romper el centro dio vueltas a las alas y a llevar el mayor esfuerzo al punto débil del enemigo, multiplicando las piezas de artillería, consiguiendo que se cruzasen con el fuego de los mosquetes, de manera que si el enemigo avanzaba se encontraba débil antes de llegar a las bayonetas.[28]​.

Estas perfecciones o creaciones originaron otra manera de combatir ya que en lugar de las batallas de choque del Gran Capitán y del gran Conde, de las batallas de posición del duque de Alba y Feuillade, de las batallas de puestos de Mauricio de Sajonia, Federico usó las batallas de maniobras: Es preciso remitir al éxito de las batallas el término de las querellas. Es preciso meditarlas, porque las que se encomiendan a la casualidad nunca tienen grandes resultados. Son las mejores batallas aquellas en que se obliga a recibirlas al enemigo (Cita del mismo Federico)[29]​.

Otros generales dignos de mención del siglo XVIII son Mauricio de Sajonia "Mauricio de Sajonia (1696-1750)"), Tollendal, Eugenio de Saboya; realizaron con sumo acierto grandes operaciones militares Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin, Keit, Ziethen y Seidlitz; en las campañas de 1758 y siguientes Fernando de Brunswick fue superior o al menos igual a los franceses teniendo un ejército heterogéneo e inferior; el príncipe Enrique de Prusia "Enrique de Prusia (1726–1802)") en Sajonia se mostró profundo en la defensa modelo respecto a la elección de posiciones y movimientos.

En la Guerra de independencia de los Estados Unidos, el ejército británico no aplicó correctamente las máximas estratégicas para la conducción de una guerra ofensiva, y en vez de concentrar sus fuerzas en algún punto decisivo y la destrucción del principal cuerpo del ejército revolucionario por repetidos y bien dirigidos golpes, dispersaron sus fuerzas en una inmensa extensión de territorio y llegaron a ser demasiado débiles de poder actuar con decisión y efectividad en ningún punto.

El Almirantazgo de Gran Bretaña mandó poner "entre-puentes de carronadas" en ciertas fragatas para experimentar el efecto que tenían, y después de haber reconocido los grandes estragos que causaba esta arma en la jarcia, arboladura y aparejo de los navíos de guerra francéses, contra los cuales dirigieron su fuego las fragatas inglesas en los combates particulares, mandó por orden general ponerlo entre los "entre-puentes" de todos los navíos de línea ingleses[30]​.

Como no eran bastantes los medios ordinarios para rendir una plaza como Gibraltar tan defendida por la naturaleza como por el arte militar, la Corte de Madrid adoptó el plan estratégico de acometer por mar y por tierra a un mismo tiempo, valiéndose de máquinas de nueva invención llamadas baterías flotantes con objeto de batir los dos muelles "Muelle (construcción)") y las fortificaciones que defendían la ciudad en lugar de los navíos de línea, pues como el aparejo y velamen de éstos estaba expuesto a ser quemado con las balas rojas de la plaza, se evitaba este inconveniente por la naturaleza de su construcción.

Del mismo modo que cambió la sociedad, se cambió en Francia el ejército en la Revolución, con grandes cambios en la legislación y en la administración y en las relaciones de la sociedad civil con el ejército y de éste con la sociedad, y la ciencia de las grandes operaciones cambió de faz y se aprendió a hacer útiles y movibles a las masas, creciendo extraordinariamente el ejército cuando se incorporaron a él los guardias nacionales y se hicieron las levas parciales y en masa, formando parte de los 18 ejércitos de la República, y de este modo un millón doscientos mil ciudadanos se armaron, se suprimieron los nombres de los antiguos cuerpos, el ejército tomó la divisa azul de la milicia ciudadana, cambiando de aspecto el arte de la guerra no solo con la sustitución de los ataques de los cazadores y a la bayoneta, sino con la guerra en grande que se había hecho necesaria desde el momento en que se conoció el poder de las masas.

Mal armados los soldados franceses, bisoños en las maniobras, se precipitaban sobre la artillería y líneas enemigas, protegidos por las baterías "Batería (artillería)") y unos cuantos escuadrones adiestrados, después de todo debían introducir una estrategia nueva, ya que no teniendo tiendas o bagajes se cuidaban poco de cubrir las líneas y con extraordinaria movilidad caían de improviso sobre enemigos acostumbrados a marchas metódicas, aprendiendo a rehacerse, a replegarse contra la caballería y a aprovecharse de los obstáculos del terreno para acercarse al enemigo.

Los numerosos ejércitos que cubrían sus fronteras obligó a sus generales a crear cuerpos francos y a emplearlos todos en las guerrillas para suplir la falta de experiencia militar de aquella época, contrarrestando a los diestros tiroleses y a los cazadores de lobo austriacos, y en la famosa jornada de Jemappes el general Dumouriez hizo un excelente empleo de estas tropas, cuyos batallones envolvieron los reductos austriacos y obligaron a los artilleros a abandonar sus piezas.

Carnot, ministro de guerra, se dedicó a regularizar aquel ímpetu y ordenó que se dieran golpes decisivos en los puntos estratégicos más importantes, que se rompiesen las comunicaciones, que se pusiera fuera de combate al ejército enemigo antes de tomar una sola fortaleza o de apoderarse de un palmo terreno, y a las teorías de Vauban para el ataque y reparación de plazas, sustituyó un nuevo sistema de fortificación y defensa, que consistía en usar de los fuegos verticales en casamatas, para destruir al enemigo cuando venía en grandes masas y de los golpes de mano atrevidos cuando el enemigo no tenía bastante fuerza.

International law

The first era of international law can be established after the Treaty of Westphalia, representing in its writings the bases of a system that sought to establish balance between the great powers, and the second era of the same law has its origin in the Treaty of Utrecht, when Hugo Grotius based the law of nations on ancient law, which became rational, philosophical and interpenetrated with natural law.

The word strategy in Europe in the 18th-19th centuries

The Greek word strategy was introduced in the second half of the 18th century and the Greek word remained for many years like others in mysterious incubation in the exclusive heat of scholars and even at the end of the 18th century it was unknown to generals of the time of the French Revolution and the Empire such as Ney, Masséna, Murat and until the last third of the 18th century the art of war was considered as an indivisible whole.

The victories of Frederick II of Prussia awakened military Europe from a certain apathy and numbness and there were long and noisy debates on everything concerning art, especially on improvements in tactics to which the triumphs of Frederick II, philosopher and warrior, were attributed. This discussion produced a return to centuries-forgotten studies and documents on the Greek phalanxes and Roman legions. New ideas about the art of war emerged, the most notable being those of Count de Guibert. Subsequently, all these opinions generated advances in military tactics.

The first to use the word strategy at this time was Archduke Charles, rival of the terrible strategist of modern times, Napoleon I. In competition with the archduke, two of the first writers on strategy were von Bülow") and Baron de Jomini. We must not forget Joly de Maizeroy[31]​ to whom Bardin")[32]​ attributes the invention of the word in 1771, nor Georg Heinrich von Berenhorst"), Jean-Martin Jabro")[33]​ Silva, Henry Lloyd")[34]​ and other authors who did not say "stratégie" but "strategic" and who did not form a body of doctrine as such.

Therefore, the first expositors and definers of the word military strategy were Archduke Charles in geometric form, von Bülow in scholastic form and Baron de Jomini in experimental form.

Despite this, military strategy existed in all ages of history and even though its principles were not established until the 19th century, it cannot be denied that military strategy was applied:

• - Where there were war operations of some extent.

• - Leaders of select understanding who knew how to skillfully move the troops they led to gain primacy over the enemy.

• - It is found everywhere since the first war between men, sometimes masked under different names such as general provisions or Theoretical and practical war. Therefore, since there existed in the world the first general who had the expertise and ability to lead the troops and so that his principles were observed and fulfilled.

• - Some keys to military strategy are found in popular sayings such as:

Definitors and primitive expositors of the word military strategy

• - Henry, Baron of Bulow, a Prussian officer who served in the infantry and then in the cavalry, was in the words of Napoleon I an "ideologist" (as Napoleon called everyone who thought) and adventurer, somewhat quirky, a caustic and daring writer. Beginning by getting involved in the insurrection in the Netherlands in 1789, he traveled on a long pilgrimage to the United States, England and France and his works Geist des neven Kriega-Sistems are famous, translated into French under the name Esprit du systeme de guerre moderne by T.Lave. which was published in Hamburg in 1799 and the other Lehsätze des newen Krieges... in Berlin in 1805. The acceptance was immense and the attention was greatly captivated by the happy application of geometry to war, the reference to the triangle, the eccentric retreats, the great lines, in a word, the great ideas and Prussia became conceited by calling it the Prussian Folard.

• - Baron de Jomini is the strategic successor of Bulow, a Swiss battalion commander at the beginning of the 19th century, an officer later in the service of France and then Russia, where he reached the last hierarchy of aide-de-camp to the emperor. This author since 1803 when he confesses that he threw the first manuscript into the fire for having read Lloyd. This inexhaustible writer made the printing presses sweat with voluminous works of critical history on the wars of Frederick II, the Republic of France, and Napoleon I and he alternated pamphlets with newspaper articles with extensive works such as Treatise on Great Military Operations in 3 volumes of 1819, his translation into French of the work of Archduke Charles Principles of Strategy, his Introduction to the Study of Great Combinations, etc. and finally in 1829 he wrote an Analytical Table to serve as a key and complement to that last work and in its 2nd edition of 1837 it took the title of Compendium of the Art of War which was translated in 1840 into Spanish.

• - Archduke Charles, son of Emperor Leopold II, was a first-class tactician and one of the best generals of his time, but tired of seeing his best combinations compromised by incapable generals, he resigned his command and lived apart from the army and politics. His two famous works are the following: Principles of strategy explained by the operations of the German campaign in 1796, Vienna, 1814 and History of the German and Swiss campaign in 1799, Vienna, 1819.[36]​.

19th century

Napoleon Bonaparte invented that military order with which he terrified all of Europe, with the difficult art of directing the masses to decisive points and replacing the number with the speed of movement, with the incomparable ability to gather, create and arrange the means proportioned to the enterprise, the activity that always gave him the initiative, the speed of vision and military action that did not allow the enemy to reflect or oppose his projects, ascendancy over his soldiers and over the enemies, the ability to know how to take advantage And, no one has better possessed at the same time all the elements of strategy and tactics, which is why he could successfully apply them from the most general ideas to the smallest particularities and knew how to take advantage of small armies and easily move large ones, things that hardly go together.

Just as a new tactic had resulted from the wars of the aforementioned Frederick II of Prussia, from those of Napoleon came the grand strategy, in which the writers meditating on the execution of their vast plans, laid the foundations of this military science, and far from introducing essential changes in the tactics established by Frederick, Napoleon extended its application to the new circumstances: with his infantry he defeated the Austrian, German and Prussian infantry, with his cavalry he made the cavalry of the Russian imperial guard and the famous of the Mamluks, with his artillery he charged to escape and destroyed paintings, he breached the most famous walls, with his engineers he mined, fortified and destroyed in a notable way, and the wars in which the fate of a great nation was discussed were resolved by him in only two battles at most and attacking a territory, he defeated the first army that presented itself, destroying it, annihilating it and before If he had recovered, he would go to give laws to the capital and if it resisted, he would enter by force.

In the study of maps is where Napoleon tried all the combinations, with skillfully thought-out march systems, to gain ground on the enemy and in this way he prepared infallible blows, he led the armies as if by hand, gathering them, dividing them and maneuvering from one end of Europe to the other with the same precision and security as on the battlefield, and in this way he decided strategically campaigns planned and even written in advance in his thoughts, and according to Jomini, Napoleon He excelled in the success of using tactical reserves and seeing at the first glance the key and decisive point of a battle.

Napoleon was as fortunate in his campaigns as he was unfortunate in his naval combats, since the French admirals rigorously observed ancient tactics, while Nelson concentrated all his efforts according to the rules of modern tactics, and the English navy, placed face to face with the French, played the same role as Napoleon and his armies with respect to the Austrians.

Napoleon's imperial ideas led him to unfortunate undertakings to give free rein to his ambition for war, attacking after the Treaty of Tilsit as an aggressor people animated by a great spirit of patriotism: His mission was not only to govern France but to subdue the entire world so that it would not annihilate him. Starting from such a gratuitous hypothesis, he organized the Empire for an eternal war. It was not in order to acquire the right to be an absolute monarch, so he fought at all latitudes. On the contrary, he founded despotism to create, vivify and continually renew the elements of battles.[37]​.

In the Spanish War of Independence, the immense losses suffered by the French in Spain are due more to the guerrillas than to the battles, and it is not possible to look at the tumultuously armed shapeless masses that surrendered to General Dupont in the battle of Bailén, those that defeated Moncey in Valencia, those that defeated Charles Lefebvre in Aragon, as well as those that defeated Charles Lefebvre in Aragon, as well as the sieges that perpetuated Zaragoza in the Memory, as nothing more than irregular troops. Burgos, Gerona and Tarragona.

In the siege of Zaragoza, July 1808, Agustina de Aragón, watching the French advance to the battery "Battery (musical instrument)") located at the Portillo gate, took the fuse of a wounded soldier and fired a 24-pound "Cannon (artillery)") cannon, loaded with shrapnel, which, heading towards the enemy columns, caused great destruction, and this unexpected blow caused disruption in the besieging troops. French forces and time for the besieged, who once again defended the Plaza del Portillo and rejected the French.

The Duke of Wellington distinguished himself more for his calm, energy and tenacity than for his courage, daring strategy and great sudden creations, and his march of concentration on the Duero River and his decisive movement on the banks of the Ebro River are a model for the correct application of the principles of strategy..

In the Spanish American wars of independence, the royalists of Spain, after having regained command, sent as a strategic resource an expeditionary force of 10,000 veteran soldiers in the fighting on Spanish soil under the command of Pablo Morillo, with a plan that covered the entire continent.

During the years 1838 and 1839, the English waged a war in Afghanistan, after which they took over the islands of Bahrain and Hormuz, with the strategic plan of securing the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and Socotra and Aden, which gave them the key to the Red Sea, and between 1845 and 1848 they conquered the Punjab or region of the five rivers, to which they later added Kashmir.

From 1856 to 1878 the European continent was the theater of five great wars: the Franco-Austrian war of 1859, the Danish war of 1864, the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and the Russian-Turkish war (1877-1878), all of which had their origin in the Crimean War.

In the Crimean War, the allies believed it was right to lead an imposing expedition to the Crimea to ruin Sevastopol, the very base of Russian strength in the Black Sea, forcing Russia to reduce its naval forces, and the reasons that led them to expect a successful result from their strategy consisted of one in the incontestable superiority of their fleets, which put them in a position to attack Sevastopol with advantage from the sea and the second in the sympathies of the Muslim Tatars, which assured them the probability of isolating the Russian army that wanted to rescue that place, the possession of Sevastopol meaning the creation for the allies of a solid base for their future military operations to penetrate southern Russia and destroy all the establishments it had on the shores of the Black Sea, Crimea being for the Russians the center of international transactions in Europe and Asia.

The famous engineer of the Russian defenses in the siege of Sevastopol was the Count of Todleben and of the surrender of Osman-Pasha's army in Plevna, combining his engineering knowledge with that of the artilleryman and the tactician, and in his strategic plan Vauban's ideas on the importance of moral strength and the quality of the troops in the defense of the square and those of Montalembert on the need to assign artillery are recognized. a predominant role.

In the second war of Italian independence (1859-1861), Turin was the primary strategic objective, with the Austro-Hungarian general Ferencz Giulay passing through Ticino with a late offensive and Napoleon III planning to accumulate imposing forces on the left, defeating the Sardinian-French in the Battle of Magenta, with an Austrian corps under the command of Ludwig von Benedek finally being expelled to the other side of the Adda, which remained somewhat Lagging behind when covering the Austrian retreat. Later, the Sardinian-Franks crossed the Adda after the Tudescans, concentrated in turn in Brescia, previously occupied by Garibaldi with his hunters from the Alps as the vanguard, the war ended with the Sardinian-French triumph in the battle of Solferino.

The siege and reduction of Fort Pulaski, which was located on Cokspur Island (Georgia (United States) "Georgia (United States)"), in a very strategic position, was one of the first events, among the military operations carried out in the Civil War, and fully demonstrated the power and effectiveness of the rifled cannons "Cannon (artillery)") to make breaches at great distances, distances not known until then and fully considered impracticable.

At the siege of Charleston, 1863, the naval authorities in Washington considered Fort Sumter, a brick casemate with five houses, with two floors of covered fires and another above Garbela, a strategic place, and once this fortress was demolished, its offensive power was destroyed, it was stated that the monitors and other armored ships could remove the obstructions of the canal, take over the entire bay and reach the city.

In the Austro-Prussian War, Austria had to constitute a double war and Prussia was forced to divide its attention into two different theaters of war, one to the east and the other to the west, and in this there were skillful operations, which reveal skills of combination and strategic-political success of the Prussian General Staff.

In 1866, in the battle of Sadowa, large batteries "Battery (artillery)"), skillfully arranged by the engineer Pidonell, trenches-shelters and other obstacles strengthened the positions of Lipa and Chlum, and at 9 in the morning of July 3, fourteen battalions of Franseky's division suffered the entire Austrian effort, fighting in the forest of Benatek or Maslowed, which was the strategic position as a key point of the conflict, since the two Prussian armies were to be linked through the aforementioned forest.

The Civil War of the United States and the Bohemian War already pointed out in 1867 the decisive influence that industry, public wealth and money take to frequently renew an expensive material that quickly becomes obsolete, and together with strategic skill and tactical opportunity it is necessary to use and perfect the latest advances.

During the Second Mexican Empire, Maximilian I of Mexico decided to put up energetic resistance in defense of his throne, but recognizing the impossibility of effectively occupying and dominating the vast territories of Mexico, he adopted a restricted strategic plan of occupation that should be limited to effectively protecting Mexico and the regions that extended between this capital "Capital (political)") and Veracruz, and also concentrating the action in the eleven central states and abandoning the maritime provinces, which were shortly evacuated.

The nationalist movement led by El Mahdi resulted in the decisive event of the formation of another state in ancient Nubia and Eastern Sudan, and against this state the British warred in 1898 under Lord Kitchener, who seized Dongola and won the Battle of Omdurman due to his military technological advantage, after which his troops are said to have finished off 3,000 wounded dervishes.

The Boers led by their elderly president Paul Kruger, and well equipped with modern weapons, initially obtained important victories over the British, and with their strategy they invaded the colonies of Natal, Rhodesia "Rhodesia (region)") and Cape Town, and then Lord Roberts was sent from England with the strategy of reinforcing the British with new troops, while Paul Kruger undertook his trip to Europe with the strategy of interesting the towns and governments in favor of the Boers. who did not move to help him, and the advantages of the Boers forced Roberts to be replaced by Kitchener, while the Boer armies were wasting away despite their victories.

20th century

Edward VII ended the Transvaal War and made a strategy of alliances with Japan to contain the advance of the Russians through Asia, in 1902, and for the same purpose he sent a mission to Tibet in 1904 and tried very hard to increase the fleet, believing that its superiority was an undeniable guarantee of the power of England, owner of a network of submarine cables so that its colonial empire around the world would not be endangered.

The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) was caused by Russia's strategy of establishing itself firmly in East Asia by fortifying the port of Wladivostock and securing Port Arthur, which dominates the Gulf of Petschill and maritime access to Peking (1898); but the intention to subjugate Manchuria and Korea put it in conflict with the Empire of Japan:.

• - The Japanese Emperor Mutsuhito (1867-1912), had inaugurated a new regime with an openness strategy, introducing European institutions in Japan, opened its ports to foreigners, removed power from the Palace Stewards (Shogun), sovereignty from the feudal nobility (Daimios) and with compulsory military service, deprived the turbulent warrior caste (Samurai) of their importance, giving a Constitution in 1890. parliamentary with two chambers.

• - The rapid growth of the population inspired a policy of expansionism, acquiring the Kuril Islands and Siu-Kiu, and later directed its ambitions on Korea, for whose possession Japan waged a victorious war with China (1894-1895), but the interference of the European powers forced it to settle with Formosa.

• - The Anglo-Japanese alliance (1902) and military progress enabled him to wage war against Russia, which, not satisfied with the lease of Port Arthur, desired to dominate all of Manchuria and influence Korea:

• The Japanese, without a declaration of war, with an offensive strategy, attacked the Russian squadron in Port Arthur and Chemulpo, laid siege to it, and rejected the bulk of the Russian army until Mukden, winning several stubborn battles.

• The Russians, with a purely defensive strategy, limited to the reinforcements they received through the Trans-Siberian railway, could not overcome their enemies, and they surrendered Port Arthur and, destroying their second Baltic squadron, achieved through the mediation of the United States of America the Peace of Portsmouth "Treaty of Portsmouth (1905)"), by which they ceded to Japan pre-eminence over Korea and the southern Manchurian railway, essentially

• Russia dissipates the prospects of its strategy of domination in the Pacific and in China's maritime region, and Japan strengthens its coalition strategy with England.

• - The Russo-Japanese War produced a long delay in the Balkan question, and then Bulgaria declared itself completely independent, shaking the nominal sovereignty of the sultan and annexed Eastern Rumelia, paying compensation to Turkey in 1909.

• - Xenophon, crowned with brilliant success the conduction of the 10,000 Greek warriors to their homeland after the Cunaxa raid, performing in that memorable retreat acts of excellent tactical and strategic skill that throughout the centuries excite the admiration of those who study them today. He wrote in his masterpiece Anabasis in which apart from the retreat of the ten thousand, there is the story of Cyrus the Younger's expedition to Upper Asia. Xenophon was with them almost by chance as he himself says, but after the death of the leaders of the Greek army he was one of the five new leaders who were elected and who led the immortal retreat. He described in detail the countries he had crossed and drew complete pictures of the customs and character of their inhabitants. What most enchants is the modesty of the narrator and the man was great in terrible situations and the historian did not show himself unworthy of the man and also brought with his writings and military deeds the path of Great Asia, later followed by the exalted Macedonian leader, Alexander the Great. He also contributed the idea of ​​the possible success of large marches and concentric expeditions.

• - Alexander the Great, to whom no one can deny the quality of strategic movements conceived by him and executed by the troops led by the famous captain of Antiquity from the banks of Asia Minor to the banks of the Indus. He realized the supreme aspiration of the Greeks in their foreign policy, which was to subjugate Persia and prepared the world for Roman domination. It united two civilizations, that of the East and the West, and established a fruitful exchange of ideas between them.

• - Hannibal, with that almost insurmountable and brilliant example, worthy of the greatest praise, conceiving and executing the strategic idea of ​​mortally wounding Rome, a Rome that focused all its attention on a possible Carthaginian attack in the southern part of Italy. Hannibal passed from the Ebro to the Pyrenees, then heading to the Rhone, ascending the basin of this mighty river, crossing the very high peaks of the Alps and then descending to the fertile plains of the Po River to enter Italy and deal terrible and fortunate blows to the very powerful and almost invincible Republic of Rome on Italian soil. It is seen with this example that strategic movements must always have the objective of taking an army to the point or points where the enemy army least suspects that it can be attacked. Hannibal's strategy stands out for its speed and he carried it out or executed it despite the obstacles of all kinds that he had to overcome and the Romans never suspected that Hannibal intended to go and conquer Italy by taking such a detour, not taking sufficient precautions nor did they worry about gathering some troops on Trebia and they only gathered these troops after having learned that Hannibal had crossed the Alps.

• - Another terrible enemy of Rome was Mithridates, who resisted the most illustrious generals of the Republic for 40 years and who meditated an extensive war plan, which consisted of advancing from the banks of the Bosphorus, dragging the barbarian and semi-barbarian nations in his march against that enemy.

• - Julius Caesar, His strategic conceptions and the way of executing them by this famous Roman leader are admirable, to defeat and subjugate Gaul (on which, among other things, he fixed his penetrating gaze because it could be the entrance again of more Barbarian Tribes as happened previously in the time of Gaius Marius in which Rome suffered the unspeakable to put an end to them (Teutons, Cimbri, Ambrones...)), leading his troops as a skilled general. in the Rhône, Rhine and Seine valleys.

• - Barbarian Tribes or Barbarians who ruled Rome, in which according to Du Roure in his work Histoire de Théoderic le Grand we must highlight, even though many doubt it, the strategic ability of those Tribes, whose war operations and daring invasions were guided and carried out following the rules of military science.

• - Attila, king of the Huns who conceived the project of subjugating the Roman Empire and became the faithful representative of the instincts of his nation who irresistibly supported his ambitious goals. According to some historians such as Jornandes and Priscus, Attila's Empire included all of Scythia, from the Black Sea to the shores of the Baltic, the Sarmatians, Scythians, Gepids, Heruli, Ostrogoths and other subject peoples. A multitude of kings surrendered before him and 700,000 warriors eagerly awaited the moment to launch into the fight. When he died in the year 453, his body was exposed in the field between two long rows of silk tents and the Huns around him sang with somber ferocity the following: annual tribute. He successfully completed his undertakings, and died, not from an enemy wound, nor from betrayal by his own, but in the midst of pleasure and without feeling pain.*.

• - The strategic ability of Tariq, Muza and their lieutenants after the Battle of Guadalete to subjugate the entire Iberian Peninsula in two years following the same lines indicated by the Romans as most conducive to the domination of the country.

• - Genghis Khan who, after defeating Ung-Jan, took possession of the Tartar States (he was still called Temugin and had himself crowned with the name of Genghis Khan or King of Kings). He highlighted the first moments of his reign for great military triumphs and declared war on Prince Juarezmite Mohammed after having subjugated the princes of Carakathai and becoming owner of all the provinces inhabited by Mughals and Tatars and the towns of Khatai. Later he took his winning weapons elsewhere and in 1214 he had taken over Peking, the capital of China. His States were immense and four years after having defeated Gelaleddin he died, leaving a posterity worthy of his name since his States made up one of the vastest Empires that have ever existed, having subjects from the Black Sea to China and specifically in Europe he subjugated the southern part of Muscovy, banks of the Dnieper, coasts of the Azof Sea), Crimea and the Bulgarian country.

• - In the 16th and 17th centuries, the great period of the Spanish military in its immortal campaigns in Italy, Flanders, France, the Holy Roman Empire and Portugal, strategic conceptions worthy of admiration were discovered by the Great Captain, Pedro Navarro, the Grand Duke of Alba, Alejandro Farnesio "Alejandro Farnesio (Duke of Parma)"), Fuentes, Ambrosio Espínola, and the Cardinal Infante "Fernando of Austria (cardinal-infant)") etc.

• - Pachacutec managed with intelligence, war acumen, sagacity and a little diplomacy to save an almost lost kingdom, Cusco, from its natural enemies, the Chancas, in the decisive battle of Yawarpampa"), in order to configure the largest southern empire, Tawantinsuyo.

• - Toyotomi Hideyoshi, of great cunning, prudence and militarily ingenious, completed the national reunification of Japan and planned to conquer Korea and subjugate China but without achieving it.

• - In the 17th century, in accordance with the fundamental principles of the strategy, the troops led by Gustavus Adolf II, by Touraine (count)&action=edit&redlink=1 "Turenne (count) (not yet written)"), by Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy, moved.

• Gustavus Adolf II highlights his great strategic genius in the Thirty Years' War from 1630 to 1632, occupying almost all of Pomenaria and defeating Tilly in the Battle of Breitenfeld "Battle of Breitenfeld (1631)"). After this battle he made a strategic movement that, instead of going to Vienna to save Protestant Germany, he headed to the banks of the Rhine through Franconia and the Palatinate and defeated Tilly again in Würzburg and the Spanish in Openheim and Mainz.

• From Touraine it is worth highlighting, among other things, the strategic movement of moving his army located in Lorraine "Lorraine (France)") behind the Vosges, between Luneville and Befort to Alsace, where his enemy Montecucolli with his army committed the clumsiness of placing his troops and their winter quarters. Touraine suddenly fell in the middle of his cantons and Montecucolli could not gather his army, so he was completely defeated at Turwheim near Colmar and forced to cross the Rhine near Kehl. Montecucolli assumed that Tourena was calm in his cantonment behind the Vosges, but when Montecucolli least expected it, Tourena gathered his army and headed quickly to the center of Alsace and the situation became impossible for Montecucolli, whose troops were dispersed from Basel to Landau, to gather them in time to stop Tourena, due to the strategic movements characterized by their speed and secrecy of the French general.

• - In the 18th century, those guided by the Prussian leader Frederick II of Prussia in the valleys of the Elbe and Oder rivers were already examples of strategic movements, and very mainly those who guided Frederick's troops to the battlefields of Rosbach and Leuthen, where the famous king achieved his two greatest victories.

• - In the cause of the first triumphs of Napoleon I in Italy, which consisted of the strategic maneuver of leading the bulk of his forces on one of the enemy's wings (Napoleon I called the art of directing war * large tactics * or * la grande tactique * and the precepts established by him applied the same to combats as to maneuvers and therefore he never divided the art of war into two parts). In 1800 is when the Napoleonic system was characterized in the field of strategy, that is, in the way of arranging, directing and waging war and it was revealed in the following:

• Annihilate and destroy enemy army

• Or to take him materially prisoner

• He discarded old routines, contracted to the capture of one or two places or in the occupation of a small bordering province.

• The main means of doing things in a big way consisted of applying oneself to preferably disconcert the enemy army by ruining it, convinced that the States or Provinces were destroyed by themselves, when they did not have organized forces to protect them (With the exception of National Wars such as that of Spain in the 1st decade of the 19th century, although without the help of an organized national or foreign army, in any partial fight, the populations ended up succumbing).

• Calculate at a glance the probabilities offered by the different areas of the theater of war.

• Direct their masses of troops concentrically over the area that was most advantageous.

• Do not neglect anything to find out the approximate position of the enemy ranks.

• Launch against the enemy army with lightning speed:

• About its center if it was divided.

• On one of the extremities that led directly to their communications.

• Therefore envelop, cut, scatter, attack, relentlessly pursue the enemy army, forcing it to follow divergent directions.

• - French generals Hoche and Pichegrú"). In the autumn of 1793, generals Hoche and Pichegrú received the task of driving the Germans out of Alsace and lifting the blockade of Landau, but the Prussian army was on the banks of the Saar and the Moselle and the Rhine army between Strasbourg and Saverne.

The strategic movement was made when General Hoche left Sarrelouis, Saarbrücken, Sarguemines and Hornbach. In this province only the Kayserslautern battlefield existed.

• - The retreat to Zamosc of the Polish general Wojciech Chrzanowski.- The most honorable fact in the military life of Adalberto Chrzanowski is his passage through the enemy with 25 artillery pieces that led to Zamosc for the defense of the capital and having managed to take it to the walls of Warsaw. His retreat to Zamosc is considered a masterpiece of strategy and earned him the rank of major general (he also stood out in the capture of Varna "Varna (Bulgaria)" in 1828 against the Turks, and in Krassuvi, Leipzig and Waterloo).

• - The Feldmarshal, Helmuth von Moltke, famous Prussian officer of Danish origin fighting against the right of the French army that was marching ahead led by General Moreaux, just as the left was commanded by General Ambert and which was marching through San Vendel. The Prussian army, suspicious on its left because of General Moreaux's movement, gathered together at Kayserslautern, where it feared that General Moreaux, who was marching through Pirmasesns and Tripstand, would cut off its line of operation on Mainz. General Hoche then calls to his left and right and pretends to attack the Prussian army at Kayserslautern and then pretends to be defeated and retreats over Two Bridges towards Bitche, from where he heads through the Lautern gorges towards Weissenburg, Anweiter and Landau. Subsequently, it attacks the Austrian army and that of the German circles on the right flank, while the Rhine army, commanded by Pichegrú, attacks the enemy army head-on. With this beautiful strategic movement the remains of the German army were forced to withdraw in droves, some towards Manheim and others towards the right bank of the Rhine through Fort Louis, which they owned, and with such haste that the French entered that fort at the same time as the Austrian rearguard and took it over without firing a single shot. Denmark dedicated itself diligently to the reform of the German army and its great intelligence foresaw the events that made Germany the most powerful empire in Europe and wanted the army to be prepared to carry out this work of aggrandizement. War was declared against Austria in 1866, the plan that Moltke had drawn up was followed and after a single, quick campaign, the battle of Sadowa ended and he also led the movement on Vienna, which decided Austria to ask for peace. Later he was in charge of the studies and plans for the future campaign against France and for four years the siege of Paris and the positions to be taken were discussed in deep discussions. He was the true architect of the German triumphs in this Franco-Prussian war because the plan was due to him and he directed the campaign.

Also say that sometimes it happens that for the same war operation the strategic considerations are at odds with those derived from the analysis of the tactical examination of the current situation and in such case it is advisable to give preference to the strategic considerations that are absolute and depend on the general configuration of the theater of war, at the same time that the tactical considerations can be changed.

It is not strange that it happens that a decisive point on a battlefield, advised by tactical inconveniences, is different from that determined by strategic conveniences and in this hypothesis, if the variation of the point of attack does not bring insurmountable problems that could undermine the success of the battle, it is more decisive to give preference to the order of combat that allows obtaining greater and faster results of victory, in line with the final objective of the operations.

Thus it is understood that, with the battle of Bautzen in 1813 being the tactical decisive point on the left wing of the allied army, Emperor Napoleon I preferred, at the cost of greater efforts, to overwhelm the enemy's right wing, because there was the only line of retreat that the enemy army had. (This also made it clear that the line of retreat and the tactical flanks must be guarded with as much care as the lines of operations and the flanks. strategic**).

This strategic movement is what Napoleon I made to lead his army in the campaign of the year V from the margins of Miatius to the walls of Vienna, characterized by the following:

• - Its base of operation was Mantua, with its left in Trento, its right in Legnano on the Tagliamento.

• - Archduke Charles arrived on Carinthia, on Venetian Friuli with considerable reinforcements taken from Austria and the Austrian army from Germany.

• - The object of this campaign was to destroy the Austrian army in Italy before the arrival of that relief.

• - From March 10 to the end of year V, General Bonaparte set his army on the move and the following happened:

• He directed his left commanded by Joubert through Rovedero and Trento, on Bautzen, and from there on Tarvis, following the summit of the mountains and at the same time he marched with his center and his right on the Tagliamento, attacking the Austrian army in Vavassone, which had taken a position there on his right and repelling that Austrian army on Palmonova and Gradiska.

• But immediately after the battle of Vavassono, General Massena, who commanded the center, directed on Tarvis and with his left pursued the remains of the Austrian army in the same direction of retreat that he could have taken, that is, towards Trieste.

• After he arrived at Gradiska with the left of his army, he went up the same valley of the Isonzo and headed towards Tarvis, where he gathered the army in a single day.

• - Archduke Charles, rejected by the battle of Vavassone or Tagliamento over Trieste, had from that moment lost his line of operation, whose base he had established in Klagenfurt and as a result of these events the following occurred:

• He lost almost all his material that he had introduced into the Isonzo valley.

• It was not possible for him to take another line of operation, whose base he had established in Klagenfurt.

• His army lost its moral strength

• This army of Archduke Charles was thrown from position to position as far as Leoben.

• Austria was forced to ask for mercy from the French army.

Movimiento estratégico para reunir las columnas de un ejército de operaciones, que deben marchar separadas y abrazando el mayor frente estratégico posible, para lo siguiente:.

• - Tener víveres y holgura.

• - Desorientar al enemigo sobre el verdadero objetivo, es decir, sobre el punto de ataque elegido.

• - Requiere una inteligencia, un tino especial, en lo que se llama logística y la ciencia de las marchas.

• - Según Jomini, esta alternativa de los movimientos espaciosos y de los concéntricos es el verdadero distintivo de un gran Capitán.

Concentric strategic movements

They are the strategic movements that take place on imaginary arcs of circles, which progressively decrease in radius, the supposed center being the place occupied by the enemy and the famous concentric invasion of France by the allies in 1814 is well named.

Plotted on the map, the positions and successive stages are materially seen as arcs of circle, with an increasingly smaller radius and consequently with a decreasing interval between the invading bodies.

The adjective concentric is taken from geometry, since the circles or polygonal figures "Polygon (geometry)"), which have the same center, when a compass holding a point fixed, opens or closes, describes concentric circles.

It will be said with geometric exactness that a concentric movement is carried out by means of converging lines of operations.

Great strategic concentric movement of Napoleon I in 1805

In 1805 the French army was then on the beaches of the Ocean, its right on the Elbe and its left in Bayonne "Bayonne (France)"). Its base of operation was Bologna del Mar. This army was destined to destroy English power and England created a new coalition against France made up of the following nations:.

• - Prussia.

• - Russia.

• - Austria.

After Napoleon I learned of hostile movements of the Austrian army over Bavaria, he directed the entire French army by a concentric movement on Ulm and due to this great strategic concentric movement he managed to destroy the Austrian army in a single day.

After this campaign of 1805 and the peace that was its consequence, another coalition was formed with the following nations:.

• - Russia.

• - Austria.

• - Prussia.

• - England.

Prussia was the first to demonstrate its hostile intentions against France, seizing Saxony and came to take positions on the left of the Saale and its right was on the Elbe and its left in Saafeld and Hof and its center in Jena and Mersburg. Napoleon took Mainz as the base of his line of operation and climbed the Mein again to near its source and attacked the left of the Prussian army at Hof and Paluen and positioned himself on the right bank of the Saale and in the rear of the Prussian army between the Saaler and the Elster. In this way he took over the line of operation of the Prussian army, which was over Leipsick and Dresden, he crossed the Saale through Jena and Mersburg, attacking the Prussian army from its rear and destroyed it in less than an hour, these great strategic movements of Napoleon I being undoubtedly admirable.

In the Hundred Days, the policy of this great general, Napoleon I, who for this time had fallen into default, had given time to the Prussian and English armies to meet in Belgium and the Prussian army was at Ligny and the English at Waterloo. Napoleon could do the following:

• - Give up on your enemies and then negotiate, an option that I discard.

• - Remain on the defensive, receiving the shock in Paris and Lyon who were hastily putting themselves in a state of defense.

• - Anticipate the aggression, beating the Anglo-Prussians before the other contingents arrived.

For the man of 1796 and 1800, for the general of Montenotte, Rivoli, Champaubert or Montmirail, the choice could not be doubtful and the strategic movement of Napoleon I had the objective of forever separating the Prussian army from the English and counting on the following lines of operations, which were as follows:

• - * The Meuse") to cut the Prussians from their base:

• The Mons

• That of Sambra to intervene, preventing the union of Wellington's army and that of Blücher, choosing this to throw Blücher into the Meuse and Wellington into the sea and therefore ordered:

• That his left, commanded by Grouchy, who had under his command the generals Vandamme, Gerard") and Excelmans, attacked the Prussian army, commanded by Blucher, at Ligny.

• But at the same time he ordered his right, under the command of Marshal Ney, to move towards the Four Arms and thus forced the Prussian army to retreat on the right of the Byle.

Therefore, the planned and devastating attack was more suited to the character of his troops and he took the war outside of French soil and tried to provoke the uprising of Belgium and the Rhine provinces and chose the third line of operations, that of Sambra.

By a necessary consequence of this great strategic combination, the remains of the Prussian army had no other possible retreat than through Namur, Liège and the Rhine or Dusseldorf, but the French general Grouchy allowed the Prussian army, so completely defeated at Ligny, to retreat on Vavre and immediately join the English army at Waterloo.

The English army was already completely defeated, when the Prussian army reached the rear of the French army and Napoleon I believed because of how soon it was Grouchy that arrived and not the Prussians (A black dot began to appear on the right of the imperial army and it was first thought that it was a group of trees, then a column at rest, then Grouchy, to finally verify the tremendous truth that it was about those Prussians discarded in Ligny, supposedly in hasty flight and harassed by the body of Grouchy, who entered fiercely on the right flank into the scrambled and bloody battlefield). Wellington's cold perseverance was to be crowned by the ardent courage of the Prussian Blücher.

The mistake committed on this occasion by Grouchy is inexcusable, due to his lack of tact, wisdom, and opportunity, and in this catastrophe of Waterloo for French interests, Grouchy, destined to pursue the Prussian relics, insists on not seeing them and has them very fresh at his side. It must be said that Generals Vandamme, Gerard and Excelman also incurred serious responsibility, because assuming, as is said, that Grouchy did not want to march into combat, military duty obliged them to disobey him, move from the right to the left of the Byle and go to interpose themselves between the Prussian and English armies and prevent their meeting.

These French generals must have done what General Thareau, who died in the Battle of Moskowa, and General Allix did in the battle of Valontina in Russia, since these generals went into combat against the will of Junot and the lesson is drawn that there are circumstances in war in which a general officer should only take advice from himself and in this case it was on the day of the Battle of Waterloo.

Without General Grouchy's absence, the following would have happened to Wellington's English army:

• - It would have been rejected over Antwerp, which was its base of operation.

• - The Prussian army would have been rejected on the right of the Rhine, towards Dusseldorf and Koblenz.

• - The French army, with another strategic movement that was in the campaign plan, would have been marching on its right to attack the approaching Russian and Austrian armies on the Rhine, in the Palatinate and Alsace.

It would hardly be conceivable strategic movements, more brilliant and vast than Napoleon I, and strategic combination as daring, exact and perfect as the first in his military career, but it was in its execution that the reason for the defeat at Waterloo must be found.

It was due to Carnot a wise combination of strategic movements that saved France in the last decade of the 18th century from the invasion of European coalition armies in the campaign of 1794.

In the campaign of 1793 the good results depended on the strategic movement of the army of the Moselle, from left to right, but in the campaign of 1794 the strategic movement was carried out in the opposite direction and the army of the Moselle, marching from right to left, under the orders of General-in-Chief Jourdan came to join the army of the Ardennes on the banks of the Meuse and the Sambre, these two combined armies forming the Sambre and Meuse. This army attacked and defeated the Austrian at the Battle of Fleurus.

At the same time that General Jourdan executed his movement from right to left through Sarrelonis, Bouzonville, Thionville and Longni, etc. Another army of the Moselle was formed as if by magic behind the Saar, in Saarbrücken, Sarguemines, it headed through Pirmasens and Tripsfadt towards Kayserslautern, which it seized against the Prussian army, which at that time occupied that beautiful battlefield.

General Moreaux, who commanded this new army of the Moselle, left about 10,000 men in Kayserslautern under the command of General Ambert and with the 50,000 that remained he marched on his left, passing through Bitche, Sarguemines and Bouzonville and came to camp on the left bank of the Moselle between Thionville and Hayange and formed there the reserve of the army of the Sambre and Meuse.

As soon as the march of the army of Sambre and Meuse was decided upon Liège, the Lower Meuse, the Roer, and Aquisgran, General Moreaux left his camp for Sielk and Cousarrebruck.

The new army of the Moselle remained in Trevéris all the time necessary to give that of Sambre and Meuse, which was the left of that vast strategic combination, of which Carnot was the author, sufficient space for General Jourdan to arrive on the Roer. The Army of the Rhine commanded by General Michaut, formed the axis of the movement. By this new movement, so skillfully combined, the armies came to occupy the following positions:

• - The Sambre and Meuse between Düsseldorf and Koblenz.

• - The new army of the Moselle, between Koblenz and the Nahe, supporting its right at Over-Ingelheim.

• - The enemies of France only kept the city of Mainz on the left bank of the Rhine.

These strategic movements were so wisely conceived and so skillfully executed, that the enemy armies that were then owners of the entire left bank of the Rhine, found themselves in the need to retreat almost without fighting on the right bank.

Victory in battles is always due to the greatness of strategic movements, but battles are also lost due to strategic faults as shown in the following examples:

• - Due to a false strategic movement the French armies lost the year IV campaign in Germany.

• - By another false strategic move, Wurmser also lost the battles of Lonato and Castiglione in the same campaign.

• - Due to a forced consequence of false strategic movements, the French armies, commanded by Macdonald and Joubert, lost the battles of Trebia and Novi, as stated below:

• If Macdonald, upon retreating from Naples to Genoa, had followed the sea coast along the Speznia, he could have reunited his army with Joubert's in Genoa, but he marched from Florence through Bologna and Piacenza. The enemy armies were in Piedmont towards Tortona and Alexandria and in the center of the two French armies. They attacked General Macdonald as he passed the Trebia, defeating him, they returned on their right on Joubert's army, which ended in the mountains of Genoa above Novi through Borghetta and the two French armies caught red-handed in false strategic movements, were successively defeated. General Mcdonald, to avoid the loss of these two battles, had to have followed the natural path from Florence to Genoa via the Spezia, because then the two French armies would have met in the mountains of Genoa, a place from which they could not have been expelled. General McDonald's fault was even less unforgivable than Grouchy's at Waterloo.

• The greatest loss that France suffered in the battle of Novi was that of General Joubert, as the greatest in the campaign of the year IV was that of General Morceau.

Las condiciones fundamentales o esenciales (más otras que serán accesorias) para que un movimiento estratégico tenga un éxito completo son las siguientes:.

• - Celeridad o prontitud de su ejecución.

• - El secreto o sigilo del mismo.

• - Habilidad en los movimientos estratégicos.

Quizás sea Napoleón I (que opinaba que la mejor noticia de un plan estratégico era su ejecución) el general que reunió el grado más alto de estas tres condiciones y por tanto los movimientos estratégicos se caracterizaran por lo siguiente:.

• - Se hacen fuera de la vista del enemigo.

• - El objeto es conducir un ejército a un campo de batalla determinado.

• - Ejecutado de tal forma que el enemigo no pueda presumir jamás cual es la intención del adversario.

El general que efectúa un movimiento estratégico debe combinar el conjunto de él y sus detalles de modo que inspire el mismo recelo sobre todos los puntos del frente del enemigo y obligue a este ejército a tomar iguales precauciones sobre todo su frente, quedando, por consecuencia en todas partes débil y se conseguirá tanto mejor este objeto cuando mayor sea el atrevimiento, la audacia y la celeridad con que se ejecuta este movimiento estratégico.

Celerity

It is one of the main qualities of a general in war since it ensures events, because unexpected events undermine the perseverance of all men and without speed there is no great general and also the following:.

• - The enemy is prevented everywhere.

• - You enter the campaign early.

• - He takes over an important position.

• - An advantageous position is taken first.

• - 1st in battle is formed one day in action and the attack is undertaken.

• - The retreat of the fugitives is cut off.

• - You take all the advantages you can from a victory.

Examples in history of speed in the execution of strategic movements are given in the following historical figures, among others:

• - Cyrus II the Great, in the conquest of Lydia, who, knowing that Croesus had retreated towards Sardis, had to disperse his army, decided to march with him with all speed to attack him before gathering his Lydians and barely formed the strategic plan or project when he put it into execution and went to Lydia for long days and arrived before Croesus had news of his departure. And Croesus, although surprised by such an unexpected event, led his troops into combat but they were defeated and he was forced to take refuge in Sardis.

• - Jason "The Thessalian"), from the 4th century BC, had himself proclaimed leader of the entire region of Thessaly, gathered a considerable army and a squadron and with great speed and skill and allied with Thebes "Thebes (Greece)") against Sparta devastated Phocis, took over the passes of central Greece and even thought of being recognized as leader of all the Greeks and leading them against the king of Persia but was murdered before being able to execute these plans.

• - Alexander the Great, who for example after the battle of Gaugamela pursued Darius III all night and the next morning until noon. After a brief rest he marched all the following night and arrived at dawn at the field that Bagistanes had just left and found some enemy troops who gave him news of Darius. Although the men and horses were tired from this forced march, they continued it all night until noon the next day. He arrived at a place where Darius had stopped the day before and wanting to carry out an errand he ordered 500 knights to set foot on land, since neither the infantry nor the cavalry loaded with weapons could hold out and that the most vigorous infantry officers should mount horses, armed as they were and that Nicator and Attalus should follow the path that Darius with Kiss had taken, while he continued along a shorter path but without water and left at sunset after having He traveled 400 stadia or 16 leagues, reaching Darius and his escort at dawn and attacked them (although Bessus abandoned Darius after having killed him).

• - Julius Caesar, who when speed was necessary, as with the Avernia uprising by the Gallic leader Vercingetorix or in the civil wars pursuing Afranius and Petreius and later Pompey (who after the battle of Pharsalia Julius Caesar believed that the only objective of his care should be to pursue Pompey in any country that was going to hide, for fear that Pompey would gather new troops and renew the war ) nothing stopped him, nothing scared him and he despised all the elements of the seasons and no obstacle or fatigue could contain him. And the speed with which he had subdued Gaul served to contain it because Julius Caesar, passing from one city to another, repressed the desire that everyone had to renew the war and forced them to take care of their own preservation and forget that of others, and this behavior contained loyalty to their allies and the subject peoples.

• - Charlemagne, who passed from one end of Europe to the other and the difficulties of the roads, storms, mountains, rivers, did not seem to stop his excursions and the delays of an insidious, weak or surprised enemy had no influence on him and he always went straight to his end without losing a moment. And his long reign had two objectives, which were to form from all the Germanic peoples a single body of nation and provide it with a complete organization (a gigantic undertaking because the peoples that enclosed Western Europe were in perpetual war. The borders of Charlemagne's Reign were threatened; in the eastern part by Saxons, Bavars, Avars, Danes and Slavs; in the southern and southeastern part by Lombards and Saracens and in the interior, the Aquitanians"), Bretons&action=edit&redlink=1 "Breton (people) (not yet written)") and Thuringians were not always very loyal and finally the appearance of the Normans) and the attack, the initiative always came from Charlemagne and he lived in perpetual struggle with his neighbors.

• - Bertrand Du Guesclin, French general who, despite having received notice that revealed the ease of an enterprise, set out to execute it, without omitting the most capable precautions to ensure the success. He was also characterized because he never missed an opportunity, he warned the enemy everywhere and always followed his objectives, without stopping because of the misleading propositions that were made to him.

• - Napoleon I with the following examples:

• When General Bonaparte took command of the army of the Alps, in the campaign of the year IV, he began to harass the Austro-Sardinian army on its right and left and did not make any demonstration in the center. Deceived by these demonstrations, the enemy general brings all his forces to his right and left and leaves his center unguarded. When General Bonaparte saw that the enemy general had believed in those false demonstrations, he fell on the unguarded centers with all the forces he had called from his right and left. This movement resulted in the battles of Millesimo and Diago, which made the French army penetrate into the heart of Italy. This strategic movement forever separated the Austrian army from the Piedmontese army and by a necessary consequence of this movement and as a result of the battle of Ceva, the king of Sardinia was forced to sign a shameful peace and abandon his states to the French and by another consequence of this same movement the Austrian army found itself in the need to take refuge behind the left bank of the Po river. Bonaparte concluded an armistice with the king of Sardinia and did not follow the Austrian army in its retreat from Valencia to Milan since they could put all kinds of obstacles in the Po, Doria, etc. rivers. The fortresses of Alexandria and Tortona were handed over to Bonaparte by the king of Sardinia and he established a new base of operation against his adversary and quickly marched on Piacenza and from there on Lodi to anticipate the enemy, encountering only a weak obstacle that was immediately destroyed. The triumphs of the strategic movement from the sources of the Bormida to Lodi were so rapid that the Austrian general could not even order the destruction of the Lodi bridge. This last line of operation, Lodi and Adda, being well secured, the enemy, positioned between the mountains of the Swiss Alps, ran quickly through Milan and Brescia and through Bassano and Chiari to retake the line of operation on Mantua. But Bonaparte's French army quickly prevented the Austrian army from gaining the banks of the Mincio and after immense losses it only managed to save its remains to the north of Lake Guarda. It is difficult to find in military history such a brilliant strategic movement as the one analyzed and yet, General Bonaparte was only 26 years old and was fighting with one of the most skilled generals of the Austrian army.

• After the battle of Leipzig, Napoleon I returned to Paris and quickly organized another army to oppose the invasion of the coalition armies and upon learning that the Allies had crossed the Rhine, he quickly left Paris on January 25, 1814 and began one of the campaigns in which his military genius was most admirable with the following victories:

• On January 27, 1814 in Diezier

• January 29 in Brienne

• On February 1 at Miere, they opened a Congress at Chatillon du Seine and even subsequent new victories at Chapaubert, Montmirail and Chateau-Thieny so overwhelmed the Austrian army and separated it from the great army of Bohemia. But Napoleon I's last strategic plan to cut communications with the border and destroy them in front of Paris failed due to the inexplicable surrender of this square and the passivity of its own officers on March 31 and Napoleon I was forced to abdicate the Crown in Fontaineblau on April 11.

• - Erwin Rommel.

• - Others.

Secret

Strategic movements that are always made out of sight of the enemy and that are intended to lead an army to a given battlefield, must be executed in such a way that the enemy can never presume what his adversary's intention is.

Among the brilliant movements of Touraine, a French general, we must mention the one he made to transfer his army, located in Lorraine, behind the Vosges, between Luneville and Béfort to Alsace, where his adversary Montecuculli, although a very expert general, committed the clumsiness of placing his troops and his winter quarters. Touraine suddenly fell in the middle of his cantons and Montecuculli could not gather his army, which is why he was completely defeated in the battle of Turkhejm, near Colmar and forced to cross the Rhine near Kehl.

It is seen from this example that strategic movements must always have the objective of taking an army to the point or points, where the enemy least suspects that it may be attacked. Montecuculli assumed that Tourena was calm in his cantonments behind the Vosges, but when he least expected it, Tourena gathered his army and headed quickly to the center of Alsace and it was impossible for Montecuculli, whose troops were scattered from Basel to Landau, to gather them in time due to Tourena's rapid movement and the secret had been so well kept.

Skill in strategic movements

The year 1796 is classic in the history of the art of war with the entry on the scene of two great captains Napoleon Bonaparte and Archduke Charles, with two large, ancient and well-known theaters: Italy and the Rhine.

At the beginning of campaign V, Austria opposed General Bonaparte with his favorite general, Archduke Charles, who in the campaign of year IV had skillfully executed a beautiful strategic movement between the Danube and the Mein, against the French armies of the Rhine and Sambre and Meuse, commanded by generals Marceau and Jourdan, and shines the laurel of this notable campaign IV, both for the direction and for the execution of the aforementioned archduke and also his vigorous Lieutenant Latour, the following: mobility, initiative and the difficult art of moving with his collected forces against the emboldened and superior enemy (there are authors who also praise the withdrawal of Marceau's French republican troops through the Black Forest due to the material and topographical difficulties, but not tactically due to the absence on the flanks or behind of a powerful force capable of blocking the way for his retreat: Moreau continues his laborious retreat through the Black Forest and is defeated once in Amendingen by all the forces of the archduke and again in Schliengen until finally, on October 25 and 26, he crosses the Rhine through Huninga, and both this place and Khel in front of Strasbourg are immediately surrounded with more than audacity by Archduke Charles, who took them in the first months of 1797,[38]​).

On this occasion Archduke Charles showed himself to be extremely skilful, as skillfully concealing a movement from his left to the right, he headed along the banks of the Danube over the Mein and completely cut off the line of operation of Jourdan's army, whose base was Neuwied and Koblenz on the Rhine.

Perhaps there has been no general until this time at the end of the 18th century who has found himself in a more difficult position than that which General Bonaparte found himself in. But he was much more skillful strategically, since he brought his army safely to the left bank of the Rhine and in this French retreat there was only one considerable loss, that of General Marceau, whose rearguard he commanded and the body of this general was buried in the fort of Erhensbreistein and with the same respect of the two belligerent armies, who shook hands perhaps for the first time, in honor of the great general that France had just lost.

La estratagema militar es un ardid de guerra, engaño hecho con astucia") y destreza y se caracteriza por lo siguiente:.

• - Empleo de la astucia.

• - Fingimiento.

• - Engaño artificioso.

• - Destreza.

• - Empleo del ingenio.

• - Cálculo.

puestos en práctica y en acción para engañar al enemigo y colocarlo en posición difícil o crítica que produzca su rendición o derrota.

Por otra parte, la estrategia es la parte de la ciencia de la guerra que mueve a las tropas sobre el teatro de operaciones para colocarlas frente al enemigo en el campo de batalla.

Pero hablando de la estratagema: ¿en qué escala se toma ese ardid y ese engaño? ¿En la del sargento que guía una patrulla o en la de Napoleón I en sus ardides de la Marengo o de la Ulm?

Las opiniones al respecto de diversos autores sobre la voz militar estratagema como los siguientes:.

• - Federico Moretti autor de un diccionario militar español-francés, opina que la estratagema oculta lo cierto y hace creer al enemigo lo falso por verosímil.[39]​.

• - Según el diccionario militar del capitán retirado J.D'W.M., editado en Madrid en 1863, en la estratagema se realizan movimientos falsos para entretener al enemigo y hacer pasar por incierta la verdad sobre el objeto real de las operaciones.

• - El marqués de Carrion-Nisas opina que es una especulación establecida o fundada sobre el error que se pretende hacer caer al enemigo y es un cálculo sobre lo que probablemente hará el enemigo a consecuencia de este error y sobre lo que uno mismo debe hacer para aprovechar los movimientos que esta decepción le inspirase dentro de una guerra, de una campaña, de una sola operación. Afirma que la estratagema solo puede existir en los tiempos modernos solo en la estrategia no en la táctica.[40]​.

• - José Almirante opina que el estratagema se puede emplearse en las operaciones que se hacen al alcance del enemigo que fuera de la acción inmediata de este y estratagema es lo pequeño y estrategia lo grande, pero son ambas del mismo género y cita lo siguiente:El ardid, la estratagema del pobre guerrillero, del comandante "Comandante (militar)") del batallón, toma los vuelos en el que manda 30, 60, 100000 hombres de movimientos, operaciones estratégicas y así como el traidor puñal, cuadruplicando su longitud, se convierte en noble espada, también que en el valor de las palabras, dentro de la altiva estrategia, esta la humilde estratagema.

La conclusión es que no es posible analizando la voz militar estratagema rigurosamente reducir a reglas el modo de conducir y realizar las estratagemas ni reducirse a máximas la sagacidad, lo artificial y el terror y a lo largo de la historia operaciones militares de suyo difíciles, peligrosas y de éxito dudoso, si se intentaron por los procedimientos regulares y ordinarios, se hallaron siempre multitud de estratagemas que al ingenuo jefe u oficial "Oficial (fuerzas armadas)") que las ideó y ejecutó sugeridas por las circunstancias del caso.

Y aunque ha habido publicistas, eruditos y estudiosos que compilando estratagemas efectuadas en variedades de ocasiones, han formulado ciertos preceptos para llevar a cabo determinadas empresas de guerra, sirviéndose más de la sagacidad y del ingenio que de la fuerza y del valor. Pero José Almirante y otros opinan pretensión ridícula el reducir a regla escrita el arte de engañar, como el arte de conmover, como el arte de vencer e inútil parece detenerse en instrucciones sobre el modo de combinar y ejecutar estratagemas y seguir con ello el ejemplo de Frontino (o de Polieno o el marqués de la Roziere), cuyas añejas historias, al decir de Jomini, más bien parecen de otro mundo.

Por tanto reducir a máximas la estratagema parece tarea harto difícil y no admiten principios fijos y comúnmente se idean y llevan a la práctica en cada caso concreto, según el ingenio, la astucia y arte del que manda , en cambio la estrategia se puede reducir a máximas y reglas generales que deben observar siempre en el gobierno y dirección de los ejércitos en campaña.

Para terminar decir que se debe huir del abuso y complicaciones en ardides y estratagemas porque algunas son cándidas y absurdas y como por su índole propia no pueden ser sistemáticas o metódicas"), muchas fallan y hacen perder un tiempo precioso a quienes las utilizan.

Examples of Stratagems

• - Mark Antony, angry that the Parthians poked his rear in their marches every morning when they broke camp, did not vacate it until around midday, and he had time to finish his march without discomfort by using the trick that when the Parthians harassed him, his men, to cover themselves from the multitude of Parthian arrows, put one knee on the ground and that the second battle rank placed their shields on the heads of the first, the third on the of the second, the fourth on the third, etc., in such a way that all the rows were covered (the ancient Spaniards used bucklers for the same purpose and they were sufficient to resist the harquebuses, according to the former Field Master Francisco Ventura de la Sala y Abarca, in his work After God the first obligation and gloss of military orders, Naples: Gerónimo Fasulo, 1681).

• - Abenuth"), king of Murcia, to extend the terms of his reign, trusting more in industry than in his effort, he became a zealous preacher of the observance of the Alcoran, thus managing to get everyone on his side, he was able to resist and defend himself from the Holy King D. Fernando.

• - Prince Louis of Baden's plan to surprise the Count of Marsin, who was crossing the Rhine with a considerable fortune for the Duke of Bavaria, went badly, because although he sent General Palfi with fifteen hundred horses to bother him on his march, he found him so warned that he had to retreat; But Marsin, suspicious of any encounter, placed the gold and silver in different sacks or bags, so that, placed on the horses of the best officers, they would have the same security or risk of their lives, and he finally managed to reach the Duke's field without loss of people or wealth.

• - When Alexander Farnese (Duke of Parma) "Alexander Farnese (Duke of Parma"), crossed to France during the League, he crossed the plains of Picardy, marching in column "Column (military)") in the middle of two rows of chariots that covered his troops (Cyrus II the Great against Croesus had already used the movable trench of chariots to form his rearguard), and Henry IV of France despite his great wishes to engage in combat, he never dared to force it because he could not achieve it without attacking the aforementioned trench, which would have exposed him to irreparable loss.

• - In 1702, after the battle of Crostolo, Prince Eugene of Savoy was close to completely dismantling the army of Vendome, Luis José de Borbón, who, believing that he was still on this side of the Po, was camped behind the Zero dam and only a chance made him discover the French, since Eugene had perfectly calculated the inequalities of the country that should hide his ambush.

• - The Marquis of Bai, one of the generals of Philip V of Spain, set out to surprise Alcántara, when the allies had just taken control of it. Bai, who learned that his project had been discovered, pretended to abandon the company and had his troops withdraw along different routes. The garrison relaxed and Bai, who had foreseen it, had his troops gather and the square was surprised.

Algunos ejemplos de la diferencia entre movimiento estratégico y movimiento táctico podrían ser los siguientes:.

• - Movimiento estratégico.-En la Guerra de 7 años, sostenida por Federico II contra Austria, Rusia, Alemania, Inglaterra y Francia, por medio de un movimiento estratégico sabiamente combinado fue como vino desde Silesia a dar al general contrario Soubise, la batalla de Rosbach, marchando de izquierda a derecha, apoyando su izquierda sobre el Oder y su derecha sobre el Elba y el Saale.

• - Movimiento de táctica (maniobras).-Al llegar el ejército de Federico a la vista de Soubise hace ciertas demostraciones sobre la izquierda y le obliga a cambiar de posición y marchar por su derecha que era lo que deseaba Federico que pasase, el cual desde que comenzó el movimiento de Sousibe y cuando vio que este no podría contener ya dicho movimiento, marchó inmediatamente a la izquierda, atacó el flanco derecho de Soubise y destruyó su ejército. Los movimientos de ambos ejércitos son de táctica.

Si hay que distinguir la 'táctica' de la 'estrategia', es que la maniobra es peculiar y exclusivamente de la 'táctica' y el movimiento de la 'estrategia'.

Napoleon Bonaparte's tactical movements preceded by a strategic movement

Tactical movements are always made in the presence of the enemy and in the battle of Eckmul"), through his strategic movements Napoleon I leads the French army until he confronts the Austrian army of Archduke Charles, who had taken a position between the Danube and the Isar, supporting his right in Regensburg and his left in Lanshut). With feigned demonstrations Napoleon I annoys his adversary on his right in Abensberg and as soon as he obtains the result of this strategic movement, He marches on the right in front of the enemy, attacks the Austrian army in its center, overwhelms the entire left of the Austrian army on Landshut and immediately by a movement to the right marches on Eckmuhl and leaves Archduke Charles no further retreat than Bohemia, these tactical movements demonstrating the very sublimity of the military genius of Napoleon I.

theater of war

According to Jomini, the territory as a whole where the war is waged or takes place and embraces all the regions in which they can be attacked is its own territory, whether that of its allies or of secondary powers that it drags in its torrent out of fear or interest and when there are maritime operations (today it would be aero-maritime) it is not limited to the theater of the borders of a State and is characterized by the following:

• - Vague thing.

• - Subject to incidents.

• - The theater of war should not be confused with the theater of operations that each army can embrace independently of any complication.

Theater of Operations of an army

It includes all the territory that an army tries to invade or all the territory that an army may have to defend.

Base from a strategic and tactical point

Base at the end of the 19th century had the following meanings:

• - Tactically, base of alignment of the company, battalion, any fraction in the new line or alignment determined by a deployment, change of front or similar maneuver and the directive, the line of direction of march is generally perpendicular to the base.

• - Strategically, the base of operations was the point, the line, the border, the region where an army of operations was concentrated when opening a campaign, where the nucleus of all services was established and from where they had to draw their resources and forces:.

Regarding the best direction of the base of operations with respect to the enemy, the following:

• - Archduke Charles is on the parallel lines as less easy to break.

• - Jomini through the perpendiculars as more appropriate to divide the enemy:.

Forehead

Terrain that extends in front of a troop as opposed to flanks.

The extension of the front that embraces and looks at the enemy's side next to the enemies.

The ground position from which the enemy will probably be able to reach this front in 1 or 2 marches.

It is therefore the part of the territory that extends in front of the Strategic Front to the area to which the army's action can reach at a time.

Once an army is positioned in the area of ​​the theater that it must embrace to attack or defend itself, it usually occupies strategic positions there.

As soon as the operations of a campaign are about to begin, one of the two armies will undoubtedly make the decision to wait for the enemy and in this case will take care to rely on a line of defense more or less prepared in advance, which may be:

• - On the same line of the strategic front.

• - A little further to the rear.

• - From this it will naturally result that sometimes it will appear that this front also forms the line of defense as happened in 1795 and 1796 on the Rhine line which served at the same time as a line of defense for the Austrians and the French, while the strategic and operational fronts of both armies were themselves on the line itself.

• - Within the peculiar tactics of the infantry, the regulations of the Spanish army of the late 19th century call a deployed line to the formation of troops in a line, placing the companies and battalions deployed, on the same front.

The Strategic Front is best used to designate the positions actually occupied by the army.

The Operations Front designates the geographical space that separates the two armies, extending one or many marches beyond each extremity of their Strategic Front and where they are likely to collide.

However, according to what Jomini wrote, another author such as Vial did not admit Jomini's distinction and that he gives the operations front the concept that according to him the strategic front has:.

• - The operations front is entirely different from the base.

• - It is mobile and advances with the army.

• - The base is a material and immobile strategic accident.

• - The extent of the operations front varies not only with the strength of the army but also with the circumstances and nature of the terrain and is reduced by the following:

• Mountainous countries

• Close to the enemy

• On the eve of the battle.

• - It widens in the following:

• Flat countries

• When the enemy is far away.

• - A strategic operations front can be compared with a tactical operations front, when several columns march together on a maneuver terrain or on a battlefield and have the need to stop at certain points to make contact, position themselves at the same height and rectify their respective positions and the same thing happens in strategy.

• - A parallel operations front presents advantages for rapid concentrations and central attacks.

• - An oblique front of operations generally serves to prepare enveloping movements as long as it covers the army's communications well while threatening those of the enemy.

It is the side of the theater in which the first combats are fought or in which the army that remains on the defensive establishes a line of military positions to resist the invader.

The more or less regular line formed by the heads of the army corps that advance combined or the ends of the columns that retreat to take up defensive positions.

It is one of the most important maneuvers because, by thus forming a perpendicular line with its own base, the army becomes master of two sides of the theater and is immediately placed in a situation almost as favorable as if it had a base with two Fronts.

It frequently happens that an army is forced to have double strategic fronts

for the following:

• - The configuration of the Theater of War, and as examples according to Jomini the border of Turkey and Spain and the armies that tried to cross the Balkan or the Ebro would be forced to have a double front, the Turkish one to face the Danube valley and the second to serve the forces that could detach from Zaragoza and León "León (Spain)").

• - Because the entire line of prolonged offensive operations requires that its flanks be well secured and the defense of a Strategic Front is one of the greatest drawbacks for an army that operates on the offensive and is forced to deploy large masses.

Strategic points

According to Jomini, strategic points are those that can exert great influence, either in the entire campaign, or just in an act of arms, such as those whose geographical location and artificial advantages would facilitate the attack or defense of a front of operations or a line of defense and large well-located parade grounds.

Lines of operations

They are those that the army travels to go from the base to the objective point and it is rather a set of lines and an imaginary proportional average can be understood between all the paths actually traveled and an example, that of the Allies in 1813 when marching to Saxony, their armies formed three different lines of operations:

• - That of the Bohemian army that went to Herzberg through Dresden to Leipzig.

• - That of the Silesian army that went from Breslau to Leipzig.

• - That of the Swedish army, which was heading from Berlin through Desan to the same point.

For those who have studied the campaigns of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, "The Great Captain" characterized by his sagacity), marvelous wisdom and tenacious perseverance, with which fighting hand in glove with the goddess "Fortuna "Fortuna (mythology)")", he knew how to prepare his victories in Cerinola and others, seeing the following:

• - Ordered the battle with preparation.

• - It is the true strategic battle characterized by the following:

• Calculated

• Planned

• Forced

• They were not the brutal and blind clash of 2 errant masses

• They were not chance encounters.

• - These victories were the logical, foreseen outcome of a military situation created and sustained by reinforcements and ardent calculation.

Therefore, a Strategic Battle was characterized by the following:

• - Planned.

• - Prepared with an important and decisive objective.

• - That it was the product of thoughtful combinations.

• - That it was subject to a previous and studied plan.

• - But let this Plan be flexible in which adventitious modifications that events impose could fit.

• - That the terrain be taken into account to adapt the formation and maneuvers to it.

• - That the order as a whole presents the proper interconnection, without large gaps or gaps.

• - It offered the enemy some space to disorient.

• - That there be mutual defense and support.

• - That the flanks and rear were safe.

• - That the weapons help each other and combine, without getting embarrassed, without mixing, without hindering each other in their action.

• - That order would lend itself elastically to all types of movements, without defeat or disorder at one point being able to spread and disrupt the rest.

• - That the passage of lines or relief was verified without confusion.

• - May the fire of the "Reserves" expand, containing all impatience until the supreme moment.

• - That the impediments, park, material, train, luggage were not in danger, nor in case of withdrawal would they confuse the already distressing and occasional movement.

• - That the very impetus of the attack be restrained, assuming that the persecution had to be.

immediate and relentless.

The strategic break is the only possible frontal attack, because the frontal attack without breaking the enemy defense line cannot produce good results any more in the case of a true inequality of forces:

• - The rupture consists of falling on the enemy front like a wedge to break it and once separated into several parts, beat each of them separately, preventing them from combining their efforts.

• - For what has been said to be successful, the attacker must maneuver along lower lines so that once the gap is opened "Gap (military)") the attacked is forced to follow divergent directions, opening the gap more and more.

• - This combination should be used when the enemy extends over an excessive strategic front.

• - In the Battle of the Marne, the strategic rupture, with the general advance of the Allied troops, which had to take the British army and the 5th French army into the interior with elements superior to those of the Kaiser's cavalry corps that occurred in their line, could not be remedied with the tactical triumphs obtained by the imperial armies of the center and the right, because the French device was deformed without breaking while the existing gap in that of the Germans became increasingly larger, and the retreat German the only solution.

The strategic break should only take place when the enemy's mistakes recommend it and the attack on the flank "Flank (army)") is more advisable, which carries with it the advantage of forcing new positions to be taken and threatening the communications of the attacked, and the flank attack is the germ of the enveloping movement that consists of the prolongation of the attack on one of the wings, overflowing the attacked flank and cutting off the opponent's line of retreat (like the Battle of Tannenberg (1914) "Battle of Tannenberg (1914)"), in the First World War, in which Paul von Hindenburg immortalized his name).

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