The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1900-03-30

Nothing is more effective in war
than to take your enemy by surprise.
Except by surprise, says Clausewitz,
the greatest of all writer's upon war, it
is logically impossible to bring supe-
rior force to the decisive point.
The element of surprise is to be
traced through all the operations OF
war from the smallest to the greatest.
1t plays its part in each of the three
branches into which the conduct of war
is subdivided: in tactics, in strategy,
and in policy. At the present moment
there could, perhaps, be no more useful
way of reviewing the war, and of find
ing out exactly where the British ma
tion stands, and how it came there than
by tracing through each Of these
branches the influence of the element
Of surprise upon the course Of recent
events.
Troops are said to lie surprised when
the enemy comes suddenly upon them
when they are not expecting him, and
are not ready to receive him-that is
the primary meaning of the term. If
the troops are ON the lookout and
ready for fight they are not said to
be surprised, even though, in fact, the
enemy's appearance is sudden and un-
expected The remedy against sur
prise consists in precaution. 1t is the
affair of the commander, because no
one but the commander can make the
arrangements by which the various
possible actions of the enemy are an
ticipated. The precautions themselves
are very simple, and are for the most
part perfectly understood, yet half the
disasters that occur in war are due to
these simple arrangements being for
gotten. One half of the business of
tactics and one half of every textbook
on the subject consists of precautions
against surprise The object of out.
posts is to prevent an army from being
a tackled while it rests, Of an advance
guard to gain time for an army on the
march to put itself in order of battle,
f,, E,>1 ln
enemy is doing The British army in
recent campaigns has hardly distin-
guished itself for clockwork regularity
in the performance of these precaation-
ary duties. In the campaigns Of the
early eighties on the Red Sea littoral
there were surprises due to the neglect
of the outpost service, and the South
African campaign abounds with in
stances in which reconnaissance, though
it may have been attempted, has failed
to give the commanders the informa-
tion which it was indispensable that
they should have had. These elements
of failure are SO palpable that it would
almost be waste of time to dwell upon
them; they are writ large in the re-
ports of special correspondents, and
even in the official dispatches.
There is 4 much more serious kind
Of tactical surprise, which results from
the want of forethought, not on the
part of the officers leading the troops
in the field, but on the part of thosl
whose duty it was to superintenl the
training of officers and troops. 1t con-
been properly taught the use of the
weapons with which they and their
enemies are armed When the first
European ships visited the islands of
the South Seas there We're occasionally,
as WAS natural, misun lcrstandings be-
tween the natives and the new comers,
and more than once when the new com
ers in their ignorance violated what
appeared to the natives to be sacred
laws, the brave warriors attempted by
force to defend the sanctity Of their
laws or the majesty of their gods. But
when the new corners fashel thunder