Also 9 strategie. [a. F. stratégie (Du Pinet’s trans. Pliny, 1562), ad. Gr. στρατηγία office or command of a general, generalship, f. στρατηγ-ός STRATEGUS.]
† 1. A government or province under a strategus: cf. STRATEGIAN 1. Obs. rare–1.
1688. Morden, Geog. Rect., Armenia, 343. Pliny accounted 120 Strategies Governments or particular Jurisdictions of every Province.
2. The art of a commander-in-chief; the art of projecting and directing the larger military movements and operations of a campaign.
Usually distinguished from tactics, which is the art of handling forces in battle or in the immediate presence of the enemy.
1810. C. James, Milit. Dict. (ed. 3), s.v., Strategy differs materially from tactic; the latter belonging only to the mechanical movement of bodies, set in motion by the former.
1825. J. A. Gilbert, Expos. Princ. Milit. Comb., 11. The second combination is the art of bringing the mass of one’s forces as rapidly as possible on the decisive point of the primitive line of operation, or of the accidental line. It is what is vulgarly called strategy, but strategy relates only to the mode of executing this second combination.
1827. Scott, Napoleon, View Fr. Rev., xi. II. 73. A brave and excellent soldier, but with no idea of strategie [sic] or tactics, save those current during the Seven Years War.
1889. A. T. Mahan, Sea Power, Introd. 8. Before hostile armies or fleets are brought into contact (a word which perhaps better than any other indicates the dividing line between tactics and strategy).
b. An instance or species of this.
1833. Macaulay, Ess., War of Succession, ¶ 7. Where something different from ordinary strategy was required in the general.
1868. Farrar, Seekers, Concl. (1875), 320. By copying the strategy of the battle of Beth Horon.
1913. R. Lucas, Ld. North, I. vii. 277. His strategy was to hold the Hudson River and isolate the New England States.
c. transf.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville, I. 103. The captain had here the first taste of the boasted strategy of the fur trade.
1849. C. Knight, Ht. Martineau’s Hist. Peace, I. ii. 19. The battle against this tax was one of the most remarkable examples of Parliamentary strategy that was ever displayed.
1878. A. P. Stanley, Addr. & Serm. in Amer., Pref. to Serm. (1883), 83. It has been too often the conventional strategy of theological argument, in dealing with books or persons with whom we differ, to give no quarter.
3. Gr. Hist. The office of a STRATEGUS. rare–1.
1869. A. W. Ward, trans. Curtius’ Hist. Greece, III. iii. II. 456. Among the offices requiring a certain capacity … there was none more important than the generalship or Strategy [G. Strategie]. Ibid., 458. Pericles, besides the authority of a Strategy prolonged to him in an extraordinary measure, also filled the office of superintendent of the finances.
Hence Strategy v. trans., to force (a person) into (a position) by strategy. Strategying vbl. sb., exercise of strategy. (Both nonce-wds.)
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt. IX. x. (1872), III. 157. We hear there is marching, strategying in the Parma Country.
1894. Clark Russell, Good Ship Mohock, I. i. 21. Not the gods themselves could have strategied me into wedlock.
