The knowledge of higher leadership can only be acquired by the study of military history and actual experience. There are no hard and fast rules; everything depends on the plans of the general, the condition of the troops, the season of the year, and a thousand other circumstances, which have the effect that no one case will ever resemble another.

Ordinary men died, men of iron were taken prisoner: I only brought back with me men of bronze.

The Princes of this house have abandoned their capital, not like soldiers of honour who cede to the circumstances and setbacks of the war, but like the perjured who are pursued by their own remorse.

Reconnaissance memoranda should always be written in the simplest style and be purely descriptive. They should never stray from their objective by introducing extraneous ideas.

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

Gentleness, good treatment, honor the victor and dishonor the vanquished, who should remain aloof and owe nothing to pity - In war, audacity is the finest calculation of genius.