12. A SUSPENSION IN THE ACTION OF WAR UNEXPLAINED BY ANYTHING SAID AS
YET.

However insignificant the political claims mutually advanced, however
weak the means put forth, however small the aim to which military action
is directed, can this action be suspended even for a moment? This is a
question which penetrates deeply into the nature of the subject.

Every transaction requires for its accomplishment a certain time which
we call its duration. This may be longer or shorter, according as the
person acting throws more or less despatch into his movements.

About this more or less we shall not trouble ourselves here. Each person
acts in his own fashion; but the slow person does not protract the thing
because he wishes to spend more time about it, but because by his nature
he requires more time, and if he made more haste would not do the thing
so well. This time, therefore, depends on subjective causes, and belongs
to the length, so called, of the action.

If we allow now to every action in War this, its length, then we must
assume, at first sight at least, that any expenditure of time beyond
this length, that is, every suspension of hostile action, appears an
absurdity; with respect to this it must not be forgotten that we now
speak not of the progress of one or other of the two opponents, but of
the general progress of the whole action of the War.


13. THERE IS ONLY ONE CAUSE WHICH CAN SUSPEND THE ACTION, AND THIS SEEMS