Napoleon Bonaparte quotation from The Military Maxims of Napoleon

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also, of Kray and Wartesleben, during the battle, enabled him to oppose fifty thousand men to the French army, which scarcely numbered thirty thousand combatants. This last was consequently beaten, and obliged to continue its retreat by the mountains of Fuldes, where the badness of the roads could be equalled only by the difficulty of the country. The division of Lefevre, amounting to fourteen thousand men, would, in all probability, have turned the scale in favor of Jourdan, had the latter not unfortunately conceived that two divisions only were opposing his passage to Wurtzburg. MAXIM XXIX. When you have resolved to fight a battle, collect your whole force. Dispense with nothing. A single battalion sometimes decides the day. NOTE. I think it here desirable to observe, that it is prudent before a battle to fix upon some point in rear of the reserve for the junction of the different detachments; for if, from unforeseen circumstances, these detachments should be prevented from joining before the action has commenced, they might be exposed, in case a retrograde movement should be found necessary, to the masses of the enemy. It is desirable also to keep the enemy in ignorance of these reinforcements, in order to employ them with greater effect. “A seasonable reinforcement,” says Frederick, “renders the success of a ba