exhausting and demoralising period which lies beyond the shock of armies.

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CHAPTER SIX

CONDITIONS OF STRENGTH IN LIMITED WAR

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The elements of strength in limited war are closely analogous to those
generally inherent in defence. That is to say, that as a correct use of
defence will sometimes enable an inferior force to gain its end against a
superior one, so are there instances in which the correct use of the
limited form of war has enabled a weak military Power to attain success
against a much stronger one, and these instances are too numerous to permit
us to regard the results as accidental.

An obvious element of strength is that where the geographical conditions
are favourable we are able by the use of our navy to restrict the amount of
force our army will have to deal with. We can in fact bring up our fleet to
redress the adverse balance of our land force. But apart from this very
practical reason there is another, which is rooted in the first principles
of strategy.

It is that limited war permits the use of the defensive without its usual
drawbacks to a degree that is impossible in unlimited war. These drawbacks
are chiefly that it tends to surrender the initiative to the enemy and that
it deprives us of the moral exhilaration of the offensive. But in limited
war, as we shall see, this need not be the case, and if without making