If You Entrench Yourself Behind Strong Fortifications,

However Much Pains May Be Taken To Combine The Soldier And The Citizen In One And The Same Individual, Whatever May Be Done To Nationalize Wars, Never Will It Be Possible To Do Away With The Professionalism Of The Business; And If That Cannot Be Done, Then Those Who Belong To It Will Always Look Upon Themselves As A Kind Of Guild, In The Regulations, Laws, And Customs In Which The "spirit Of War" Finds Its Expression. It Would Be Very Wrong To Look Down Upon This Corporate Spirit, Or Esprit De Corps, Which May And Should Exist More Or Less In Every Army.

A General In Time Of War Is Constantly Bombarded By Reports Both True And False; By Errors Arising From Fear Or Negligence Or Hastiness; By Disobedience Born Of Right Or Wrong Interpretations, Of Ill Will; Of A Proper Or Mistaken Sense Of Duty; Of Laziness; Or Of Exhaustion; And By Accident That Nobody Could Have Foreseen. In Short, He Is Exposed To Countless Impressions, Most Of Them Disturbing, Few Of Them Encouraging. ... If A Man Were To Yield To These Pressures, He Would Never Complete An Operation.

Our Knowledge Of Circumstances Has Increased, But Our Uncertainty, Instead Of Having Diminished, Has Only Increased. The Reason Of This Is, That We Do Not Gain All Our Experience At Once, But By Degrees; So Our Determinations Continue To Be Assailed Incessantly By Fresh Experience; And The Mind, If We May Use The Expression, Must Always Be Under Arms.

War Is The Province Of Chance. In No Sphere Of Human Activity Is Such A Margin To Be Left For This Intruder. It Increases The Uncertainty Of Every Circumstance, And Deranges The Course Of Events.

With Uncertainty In One Scale, Courage And Self-confidence Should Be Thrown Into The Other To Correct The Balance. The Greater They Are, The Greater The Margin That Can Be Left For Accidents.