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exclusively to operations in the theatre of war. Archduke Charles, 1814, explained it simply as 'the science of war.' The Dictionary of the French Academy in 1835-when the word was still young-defined strategy as 'La partie de l'art militaire qui s'applique aux grandes opérations de la guerre.' Moltke declared that strategy was 'The practical application of the means placed at a general's disposal in the attainment of the object in view.' Our War Office Elements of Strategy' of 1887 laid down that strategy is 'The military branch of the Art of War which deals with the great movements which bring armies into the neighbourhood of the armies of an enemy.' It may be mentioned that this book has been out of print for over a quarter of a century and is termed obsolete' by the booksellers-a significant commentary on the 'eternalness' of its contents! But to the purely military conception a political one has been added of late years. Colonel Fuller talks of strategy as being the correlation between national power and military effort.' Admiral Custance uses the word 'to cover the relations between the national or political object and the military aim.' General Bird distinguishes 'Peace Strategy' from 'Strategy in War.' No objection can, of course, be made to an evolution in the significance of a scientific or technical term, but we must remember that obviously such amplification must react upon the alleged 'rules' and 'principles' which were supposed to pertain to the thing 'strategy' in its narrower significance.

There is no need to spend more time on these 'rules' and principles,' for their exposure is involved in the exposure of similar fictions of 'war' with which we shall immediately deal. We can, however, linger a few moments longer in strategy's nebulous domain. It is interesting to note how the most dogmatic exponents of strategy can arrive at no agreement as to whether the thing of which they write and speak is a science or an art. Lord Wolseley roundly declared that it is 'a constant science.' The Elements of Strategy' contains the phrase that strategy may be regulated by fixed laws resembling those of the positive sciences.' On the other hand, Colonel Henderson always wrote of 'The Art of Strategy,' and the late Colonel Maude in a very valuable article on Strategy in the Encyclopædia

Britannica, Eleventh Edition, insists vehemently that it is never a science but always an art. It is curious to contrast Lord Wolseley's dictum in his 'Soldiers' Pocket Book' that the rules of strategy are similar to those in the times of Cæsar' with a later statement of his in The United Service Magazine': 'Railways have revolutionised strategy.' Surely if a thing which is ex hypothesi a 'science' is 'revolutionised' the rules and principles of it must be affected and must shed some of that 'eternalness' to which some writers so eagerly cling?

The origin of the principles of war'-as we know them-has been revealed to us by Colonel Fuller, and the story bears repeating at some length. In 1911 he was set thinking by the remark in the Field Service Regulations of the day that the fundamental principles of war are neither very numerous nor in themselves very abstruse.' To quote from the preface of Colonel Fuller's admirable Foundations of the Science of War': 'This was excellent, but what were these fundamental principles?' Although they were 'neither numerous nor abstruse' they were not stated in the book. Like hundreds of others before him Colonel Fuller was puzzled by the complete silence of the authors of the Field Service Regulations, and unlike the hundreds of others he set out by himself to discover what he calls 'these hidden truths.' From a close study of Napoleon's Correspondence he deduced six working principles, and a few years later he added two more, although, even then, Colonel Fuller states that the principles which he had deduced 'could only be looked upon as a pure hypothesis.' This brings us to 1919, in which year a committee was assembled by the Army Council to re-write the Field Service Regulations. It seems to have occurred to the committee that to describe principles as being 'neither numerous nor abstruse' and then to preserve a stony silence about them was not likely to assist inquiring soldiers. How the difficulty was solved will be understood from Colonel Fuller's own artless admission: The chairman of this committee one day said to me: "I believe you have written something on the principles of war. May I have it?" The request was acceded to, and the principles were introduced practically word for word into the new edition of the

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ent Field Service Regulations.' Even then finality had not been reached, for Colonel Fuller-to use his own words-' scrapped one principle and introduced two to others.' So far, therefore, from there being any sacred aura of eternalness hovering over these principles of war, we are assured by one of the leading military students of Europe that twenty-six years ago they did not exist that they were brought into being, quite arbitrarily, as the result of his own investigations tanquam privatus: that they were then pitchforked practically wholesale and apparently without any discussion into the military bible of the Army; and that hardly was the printer's ink dry upon them when 'scrapping' and additions took place. And these are the 'principles,' forsooth, before which military writers prostrate themselves in adoration, to which they grant an antiquity going back three centuries before the Christian era, and for which they claim an eternalness' in sæcula sæculorum!

And, after all, what do these vaunted 'principles of war' amount to? To about a dozen words which can be here reproduced within a couple of lines of print as follows: Maintenance of Objective: Offensive Action: Surprise: Concentration: Economy of Force: Security: Mobility: Co-operation. This collection of substantives is admittedly arbitrary, and plausible additions to it will suggest themselves to every reader. There is, for example, nothing about Preparation, or Men, or Money, or Munitions, or Alliances. The words afford us just the amount of assistance, no more and no less, as if before embarking on a voyage we were to be told by some officious busybody that the 'principles' we should observe were Safety, Speed, Enough Cash, Adequate Baggage, Suitable Clothing, and so on. And are we to be called upon to read and re-read the voyages of Hanno, of Himilco, of Eudoxus of Cyzicus, and of other worthies to realise the elementary importance of these headings? The truth about these principles' of war is just this: They mean anything or nothing. They mean anything when they are just arbitrarily selected and vague generalities; and they mean nothing, or practically nothing, when they merely state what is axiomatic, obvious, and the simplest of 'horse-sense.'

It is, of course, only to be expected that a close study of the sporadic recurrence, throughout a period of over twenty centuries, of an event such as war will reveal a certain strain of similarity common to each outbreak. There are certain conditions and features which must remain constant. As a human being, a soldier of Alexander was probably almost identical with his successor of to-day. He required about the same amount of food, sleep, and drink. His pace was approximately the same length, he marched at about the same rate and for about the same distance a day. He was probably subject to precisely the same reactions of fear and bravery, of courage and despair, as is his successor in khaki of our times. A similar wound would disable him-for immediate purposes-in exactly the same way as at present. Similarly, natural features have remained practically unchanged. The sea, in extent, nature, depth, and phases is precisely what the sea was to Alexander. Mountains are unaltered; Mountains looked on Marathon,' and they look on it still. There is little or no difference in rivers. Since Alexander's era we know of no sensible alteration of climate, and when we examine these socalled 'principles' or 'rules' of strategy and war, and their claims to eternalness, we shall simply find that we are proving what is obvious, namely, that any changes of Nature since even the days of Alexander the Great have been very slight. But what we are apt to overlook-and what many military writers do constantly overlook-is that man's inventive faculty is always trying to turn the features, and to bend the resources of Nature to his advantage. In every age every effort is made to give the pieces with which war is played greater power and movement, and every change thus brought about renders some of the previous 'rules' obsolete, and the substratum of' principles' that is left becomes a mere sediment.

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The employment of this simile of the chess-board will enable us to realise the transit of strategy, or, in other words, to see how changes in the conditions of the contest react on the principles to be observed. Chess is a contest admittedly analogous to war. The word 'strategy' is part of the recognised terminology of the game. On the other hand, technical terms from chess, such as stalemate,' are used to describe situations in

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war.

For centuries past chess has been stabilised. It has been subjected to most exhaustive analysis and investigation, and from the accumulated experience of tens of thousands of games it has been possible to lay down certain definite principles. Let us, however, imagine the conditions of the game to be altered even in the slightest degree. Let us imagine that one player once, and once only, in the game, has the option of capturing straight ahead' with a pawn instead of diagonally as at present. What would be the result? The result would be that all analysis made for centuries would be valueless. The games played by masters would not be worth studying. Read and re-read the games of Blackburn and Morphy, of Zukertort and Philidor,' would be meaningless advice. The game would have been revolutionised and the way of playing it would have been altered almost past recognition. And, if we are honest, we must admit that the conditions of war in Napoleon's time, when contrasted with the wars of Hannibal and Cæsar, reveal a change enormously greater than the slight alteration postulated above for chess. And, compared with that trivial alteration, the difference between war in 1927 and war in the days of Napoleon simply staggers our imagination.

The die-hards for military history may reject the simile of the chess-board. But it is unfortunate for their case that they quote Napoleon as an example of the benefits to be derived from the reading of dead-andgone campaigns. For the outstanding feature connected with Napoleon as a great Captain is that, so far from following precedent, he cut himself entirely adrift from previous precept and practice. When first confronted by Napoleon the Austrian generals loudly complained that he had broken every rule of the military art.' The Archduke Charles laid especial emphasis in his writings on the changes brought about in the military art by the French Revolution.' Reading through some old 'Quarterlys' of over a century ago we were much struck by this contemporary criticism of an aspect of Napoleonic warfare: We have lived, however, to see the notions of our forefathers completely exploded and a total change introduced into the mode of making war.... The daring and impetuous spirit of Buonaparte