THE RIGHT TIME AND PLACE.

If, therefore, all the threads of military activity terminate in the
combat, we shall grasp them all when we settle the order of the combats.
Only from this order and its execution proceed the effects, never
directly from the conditions preceding them. Now, in the combat all the
action is directed to the DESTRUCTION of the enemy, or rather of
HIS FIGHTING POWERS, for this lies in the conception of combat. The
destruction of the enemy's fighting power is, therefore, always the
means to attain the object of the combat.

This object may likewise be the mere destruction of the enemy's armed
force; but that is not by any means necessary, and it may be something
quite different. Whenever, for instance, as we have shown, the defeat of
the enemy is not the only means to attain the political object, whenever
there are other objects which may be pursued as the aim in a War, then
it follows of itself that such other objects may become the object of
particular acts of Warfare, and therefore also the object of combats.

But even those combats which, as subordinate acts, are in the strict
sense devoted to the destruction of the enemy's fighting force need not
have that destruction itself as their first object.

If we think of the manifold parts of a great armed force, of the number
of circumstances which come into activity when it is employed, then it
is clear that the combat of such a force must also require a manifold
organisation, a subordinating of parts and formation. There may and must
naturally arise for particular parts a number of objects which are not
themselves the destruction of the enemy's armed force, and which, while
they certainly contribute to increase that destruction, do so only in