"
"But that is just the art of war, Ryan. Of course, it is glorious to
defeat a greatly superior army and to lose half your own in doing so; that
may be heroic, but it is not modern war. The object of a general is, if
possible, to defeat an enemy in detail, and to so manoeuvre that he is
always superior in strength to the force that is immediately in front of
him, and so to ensure victory after victory until the enemy are destroyed.
That is what the general is doing by his skilful manoeuvring; he has
prevented Junot from massing the whole of the army of Portugal against us.
"To-morrow we shall defeat Laborde, and doubtless a day or two later we
shall fight Loison; then I suppose we shall advance against Lisbon, Junot
will collect his beaten troops and his garrison, there will be another
battle, and then we shall capture Lisbon, and the French will have to
evacuate Portugal. Whereas, if all the French were at Rolica they would
probably smash us into a cocked hat, in spite of any valour we might show;
and as we have no cavalry to cover a retreat, as the miserable horses can
scarcely drag the few guns that we have got, and the carriages are so
rickety that the artillery officers are afraid that as soon as they fire
them they will shake to pieces, it is not probable that a single man would
regain our ships.
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