The Art Of War In Its Highest

If You Entrench Yourself Behind Strong Fortifications, You Compel The Enemy Seek A Solution Elsewhere.

War Is A Conflict Of Great Interests Which Is Settled By Bloodshed, And Only In That Is It Different From Others.

But The Main Point Is That Soldiers, After Fighting For Some Time, Are Apt To Be Like Burned-out Cinders. They Have Shot Off Their Ammunition, Their Numbers Have Been Diminished, Their Strength And Their Morale Are Drained, And Possibly Their Courage Has Vanished As Well. As An Organic Whole, Quite Apart From Their Loss In Numbers, They Are Far From Being What They Were Before The Action; And Thus The Amount Of Reserves Spent Is An Accurate Measure On The Loss Of Morale.

The Deduction Of Effect From Cause Is Often Blocked By Some Insuperable Extrinsic Obstacle: The True Causes May Be Quite Unknown. Nowhere In Life Is This So Common As In War, Where The Facts Are Seldom Fully Known And The Underlying Motives Even Less So.

No Other Human Activity Is So Continuously Or Universally Bound Up With Chance. And Through The Element Of Chance, Guesswork And Luck Come To Play A Great Part In War.