80 THE ARMED CAMP, 1745-56the Pensies et Rigles Ginirales pour la Guerre of 1755. This was a
discursive and private paper which he addressed to his confidant
Winterfeldt. We find here a good deal of repetition of the Principes
Gtntraux, but in much the most interesting section, entitled 'Des
grandes Parties de la Guerre', Frederick neatly reconciled his horror of
the costs of war with his desire for aggrandisement:I believe that no intelligent man, when he considers matters
calmly, will begin a war in which he knows that he will be
forced onto the defensive from the outset. Putting all high-
flown sentiments aside, I maintain that any war which fails to
lead to conquests is a war which weakens even the victor in the
conflict, and which undermines the strength of the state.
Therefore, you should never embark on hostilities unless you
have an excellent prospect of making conquests. This will
determine the way you go to war, and give that war an
offensive character.
Frederick was aware that once a war was under way, Europe inevit-
ably divided into two rival systems of alliance, which tended to
impose 'a certain balance' among the powers. For decisive and
positive results, therefore, the effort must be concentrated on a single
enemy, and eveiy possible advantage must be taken of the initial
offensive which could 'decide the whole war, if you have the ability
to exploit all the advantages which might be offered by the state of
your forces, the timing of the attack, or the facility of anticipating the
enemy on some important position' (Oeuvres, XXVIII, 124-25).
With all the reading m the world, the Prussian army would not have
been fashioned into the physically and mentally active force of 1756
without the experience of the strenuous peacetime reviews and
manoeuvres.
The season of the springtime and early summer reviews served
the same purpose as in the time of Frederick William, namely to give
the men and the junior officers practice in the skills of the parade
ground, to enable the king to see the regiments in detail, and to
enable to regiments to see him.
The autumn manoeuvres were an invention of Frederick's, and
they were a development of the first gathering of the kind at Spandau
in 1743. Day after day Frederick put large forces of mixed arms
through simulations of real actions, reproducing attacks, retreats,
foraging expeditions, the defence of positions, and the like. The
enemy' positions were at first represented only by flags or strips of
cloth, signifying the brigade boundaries, but in later years the forces
were sometimes divided in two and carried out genuinely contested