War Quotes

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.

When you have resolved to fight a battle, collect your whole force. Dispense with nothing. A single battalion sometimes decides the day.

Two armies are two bodies which meet and try to frighten each other.

We frustrate many designs against us by pretending not to see them.

If I had not been defeated in Acre against Jezzar Pasha of Turk. I would conquer all of the East.

In war it is not men, but the man who counts.

The frontiers of nations are either large rivers, or chains of mountains, or deserts. Of all these obstacles to the march of an army, deserts are the most difficult to surmount; mountains come next; and large rivers hold only the third rank.

A plan of campaign should anticipate everything which the enemy can do, and contain within itself the means of thwarting him.

Plans of campaign may be infinitely modified according to the circumstances, the genius of the commander, the quality of the troops and the topography of the theater of war.

An army should have but a single line of operations which it should carefully preserve, and should abandon only when compelled by imperious circumstances.

A military maxim, which ought never to be neglected, is to assemble your cantonments at the point which is most remote and best sheltered from the enemy, especially when he makes his appearance unexpectedly. You will then have time to unite the whole army before he can attack you.

Nothing is more rash or more opposed to the principles of war than a flank march in presence of an army in position, especially when that army occupies heights at the foot of which you must defile.

It is contrary to the usages of war to cause your parks or heavy artillery to enter a defile, the opposite extremity of which is not in your possession; since, in the event of a retreat". they will embarrass you and be lost. They ought to be left in position, under a suitable escort, until yoU have made yourself master of thetermination of the defile.

Nothing is more important in war than unity in command. When, therefore, you are carrying on hostilities against a single power only, you should have but one army acting on one line and led by one commander.

The effect of discussions, making a show of talent, and calling councils of war will be what the effect of these things has been in every age: they will end in the adoption of the most pusillanimous or (if the expression be preferred) the most prudent measures, which in war are almost uniformly the worst that can be adopted.True wisdom, so far as a general is concerned, consists in energetic determination.

There are certain things in war of which the commander alone comprehends the importance. Nothing but his superior firmness and ability can subdue and surmount all difficulties.

Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. Make them your models. This is the only way to become a great general and to master the secrets of the art of war. With your own genius enlightened by this study, you will reject all maxims opposed to those of these great commanders.

Between a battle lost and a battle won, the distance is immense and there stand empires.

Good infantry is without doubt the sinews of an army; but if it has to fight a long time against very superior artillery, it will become demoralized and will be destroyed.

My star was fading, I felt the reins slipping out of my grasp, and could do nothing to stop it.