Read Ebook: Chess Generalship Vol. I. Grand Reconnaissance by Young Franklin K Franklin Knowles

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 851 lines and 50612 words, and 18 pages

PAGE

CHESS GENERALSHIP 3

GRAND RECONNAISSANCE 23 Military Examples 28

ORGANIZATION 45 Military Examples 59

TOPOGRAPHY 73 Military Examples 85

MOBILITY 97 Military Examples 116

NUMBERS 123 Military Examples 127

TIME 139 Military Examples 142

POSITION 147 Military Examples 158

PRIME STRATEGETIC MEANS 169

PRIME STRATEGETIC PROPOSITION 185

INTRODUCTORY

Many in the struggle to obtain their daily bread, are tempted to essay the unfamiliar, and for a stipulated wage to pose as teachers to the public.

Such always will do well to write modestly in regard to sciences which they have not studied and of arts which they never practiced, and especially in future comments on Military matters, such people may profit by the appended modicum of that ancient history, which newspaper men as a class so affect to despise, and in regard to which, as a rule, they are universally and lamentably, ignorant.

What orders of Generalship can exist in the future, different from those which always have existed since war was made, viz.: good generalship and bad generalship?

Ability properly to conduct an army is a concrete thing; it does not admit of comparison. Says Frederic the Great:

"There are only two kinds of Generals--those who know their trade and those who do not."

Hence, "a different order of Generalship," suggested by the editorial quoted, implies either a higher or a lesser degree of ability in the "general of the future"; and as obviously, it is impossible that he can do worse than many already have done, it is necessary to assume that the commander of tomorrow will be an improvement over his predecessors.

Consequently, to the military mind it becomes of paramount interest to inquire as to the form and manner in which such superiority will be tangibly and visibly manifested, viz.:

Will the general of the future be a better general than Epaminondas, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Eugene, Frederic, Washington, Napoleon, Von Moltke?

Will he improve upon that application of the principles of strategy and tactics to actual warfare which comes down to us of today, stamped with the approval of these superlative military geniuses?

Will the general of the future know a better way for making war than acting against the enemy's communications?

Will he devise a better method of warfare than that whose motive is the concentration of a superior force upon the strategetic objective?

Will the processes of his prime logistic operations be preferable to those of men who won their victories before their battles were fought, by combining with their troops the topography of the country, and causing rivers and mountains to take the place of corps d'armee?

Will the general of the future renounce as obsolete and worthless that military organization founded centuries before the Christian Era, by the great Theban, Epaminondas, the father of scientific warfare; that system adopted by every captain of renown and which may be seen in its purity in the greater military establishments from the days of Rome to the present Imperial North German Confederation?

Will the general of the future renounce as obsolete and worthless those intricate, but mathematically exact, evolutions of the combined arms, which appertain to the Major Tactics of men who are remembered to this day for the battles that they won?

Will he invent processes more destructive than those whereby Epaminondas crushed at Leuctra and Mantinea the power of Sparta, and the women of Lacedaemon saw the smoke of an enemy's camp fire for the first time in six hundred years?

Than those whereby Alexander, a youth of eighteen, won Greece for his father at Chaeronea and the World for himself at Issus and Arbela? Than those whereby Hannibal destroyed seriatim four Roman armies at Trebia, Thrasymenus, Cannae and Herdonea?

Will he find out processes more sudden and decisive than those whereby Caesar conquered Gaul and Pompey and the son of Mithridates, and which are fitly described only in his own language; "Veni, vidi, vici"?

What will the general of the future substitute for the three contiguous sides of the octagon whereby Tamerlane the Great with his 1,400,000 veterans at the Plains of Angora, enveloped the Emperor Bajazet and 900,000 Turks in the most gigantic battle of record?

Will he eclipse the pursuit of these latter by Mizra, the son of Tamerlane, who with the Hunnish light cavalry rode two hundred and thirty miles in five days and captured the Turkish capital, the Emperor Bajazet, his harem and the royal treasure?

Will he do better than Prince Eugene, who victoriously concluded eighteen campaigns and drove the Turks out of Christendom?

Will he discover processes superior to those whereby Frederic the Great with 22,000 troops destroyed at Rosbach a French army of 60,000 regulars in an hour and a half, at the cost of three hundred men; and at Leuthern with 33,000 troops, killed, wounded or captured 54,000 out of 93,000 Austrians, at a cost of 3,900 men?

Will he improve on those processes whereby Napoleon with 40,000 men, destroyed in a single year five Austrian armies and captured 150,000 prisoners? Will he improve on Rivoli, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, Dresden, and Ligny?

Will the general of the future renounce as obsolete and worthless that system of Grand Tactics, by means of which the mighty ones of Earth have swept before them all created things?

Will his system surpass in grandeur of conception and exactness of execution the march of Alexander to the Indus? Will he reply to his rival's prayers for peace and amity as did the great Macedonian; "There can be but one Master of the World"; and to the dissuasions of his friend; "So would I do, were I Parmenio"?

Will he do things more gigantic than Hannibal's march across the Alps?

Than the operation of Alesia by Caesar; where the Romans besieging one Gallic army in a fortified city, and themselves surrounded by a second Gallic army, single handed destroyed both? Than the circuit of the Caspian Sea by the 200,000 light cavalry of Tamerlane, a feat of mountain climbing which never has been duplicated? Than that marvelous combination of the principles of tactics and of field fortification, whereby in the position of Bunzelwitz, Frederic the Great, with 55,000 men, successfully upheld the last remaining prop of the Prussian nation, against 250,000 Russian and Austrian regular troops, commanded by the best generals of the age?

Will he conceive anything more scientific and artistic than the manoeuvre of Trenton and Princeton by Washington? Than the capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga and Cornwallis at Yorktown? Than the manoeuvres of Ulm, of Jena, of Landshut? Than the manoeuvres of Napoleon in 1814? Than the manoeuvre of Charleroi in 1815, declared by Jomini to be Napoleon's masterpiece? Will he excel the manoeuvres of Kutosof and Wittsengen in 1812-13 and of Blucher on Paris in 1814 and on Waterloo in 1815; each of which annihilated for the time being the military power of France?

Will he devise military conceptions superior to those whereby Von Moltke overthrew Denmark in six hours, Austria in six days, and France in six weeks?

Explanation of the invincible ignorance of the penny-a-liner is simple, viz.:

Of the myriad self-appointed educators to the public, few are familiar even with the rudimentary principles of Military Science and almost none are acquainted even with the simplest processes of Strategetic Art. Hence, like all who discourse on matters which they do not understand, such writers continually confound together things which have no connection.

Ignorant of war and the use of weapons; bewildered by the prodigious improvements in mechanical details, they immoderately magnify the importance of such improvements, oblivious to the fact that these latter relate exclusively to elementary tactics and in no way affect the system of Strategy, Logistics, and the higher branches of Tactics.

Of such people, the least that can be said and that in all charity, is, that before essaying the role of the pedagogue, they should endeavor to grasp that most obvious of all truths:

Says Frederic the Great: "Improvements and new discoveries in implements of warfare will be made continually; and generals then alive must modify tactics to comply with these novelties. But the Grand Art of taking advantage of topographical conditions and of the faulty disposition of the opposing forces, ETERNALLY WILL REMAIN UNCHANGED in the military system."

Naturally, the student now is led to inquire:

What then is this immutable military system? What are its text books, where is it taught and from whom is it to be learned?

In answer it may be stated:

At the present day, private military schools make no attempt to teach more than elementary tactics. Even the Governmental academy curriculum aims little higher than the school of the battalion.

Scientific Chess-play begins where these institutions leave off, and ends at that goal which none of these institutions even attempt to reach.

Chess teaches to conduct campaigns, to win battles, and to move troops securely and effectively in the presence of and despite the opposition of an equal or superior enemy.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet