The Cone of Command — War and Peace

Only the expression of the will of the Deity, not dependent on time, can relate to a whole series of events occurring over years or centuries, and only the Deity can by His sole will determine the direction of humanity's movement. Man acts in time and himself takes part in what occurs. Reinstating the condition of time, we see that no command can be executed without some preceding order having been given rendering the execution of the last command possible. No command appears spontaneously, or itself covers a whole series of occurrences. Each follows from another, and never refers to a whole series of events but always to one moment only. When we say Napoleon ordered armies to go to war, we combine in one simultaneous expression a whole series of consecutive commands dependent one on another. He could not have commanded an invasion of Russia and never did so. Today he ordered papers to Vienna, Berlin, and Petersburg; tomorrow decrees to the army, the fleet, the commissariat: millions of commands forming a series corresponding to the events that brought the French armies into Russia.

If throughout his reign he gave commands concerning an invasion of England and expended on no other undertaking so much time and effort, and yet never once attempted to execute that design, but undertook an expedition into Russia, with which country he considered it desirable to be in alliance, this came about because his commands did not correspond to the course of events in the first case, and did so correspond in the latter. For an order to be certainly executed, a man should order what can be executed. But to know what can and cannot is impossible, not only in an invasion in which millions participate, but even in the simplest event. Every order executed is always one of an immense number unexecuted. All the impossible orders inconsistent with the course of events remain unexecuted. Only the possible ones get linked up with a consecutive series corresponding to events. Our false conception that an event is caused by a command which precedes it is due to the fact that when the event has taken place, those few commands consistent with it have been executed, and we forget the others. Historical accounts generalize innumerable petty events into one, and corresponding with that generalization the whole series of commands is generalized into a single expression of will. We say Napoleon wished to invade Russia and invaded it. In reality we find a series of orders very variously directed. Amid unexecuted orders one series, for 1812, was carried out not because those orders differed but because they coincided with the course of events, as in stencil work a figure comes out not because colour was laid on from this side or that, but because it was laid on from all sides over the figure cut in the stencil.

A command can never be the cause of the event. A certain dependence exists. The man who gives the command himself takes part in the event. That relation is what is called power. For common action people always unite in combinations in which, regardless of difference of aims, the relation is the same: the larger number take a more direct share, the smaller number a less direct share. An army is the most striking example. Rank and file, of whom there are the greatest number, do the stabbing, hacking, burning, and pillaging, and never give an order. Noncommissioned officers perform the action less frequently and already give commands. A general does nothing but command and hardly ever uses a weapon. The commander in chief never takes direct part, but only gives general orders concerning the movement of the mass. A similar relation is seen in agriculture, trade, and every administration. The more directly men participate in performing the action, the less they can command and the more numerous they are. The less their direct participation, the more they command and the fewer they are, rising to the man at the top, who takes the least direct share and directs his activity chiefly to commanding. That relation constitutes the essence of the conception called power.