Boldness Governed By Superior Intellect Is The

Politics Is The Womb In Which War Develops.

The Majority Of People Are Timid By Nature, And That Is Why They Constantly Exaggerate Danger. All Influences On The Military Leader, Therefore, Combine To Give Him A False Impression Of His Opponent's Strength, And From This Arises A New Source Of Indecision.

Where Execution Is Dominant, As It Is In The Individual Events Of A War Whether Great Or Small, Then Intellectual Factors Are Reduced To A Minimum.

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.

After We Have Thought Out Everything Carefully In Advance And Have Sought And Found Without Prejudice The Most Plausible Plan, We Must Not Be Ready To Abandon It At The Slightest Provocation. Should This Certainty Be Lacking, We Must Tell Ourselves That Nothing Is Accomplished In Warfare Without Daring; That The Nature Of War Certainly Does Not Let Us See At All Times Where We Are Going; That What Is Probable Will Always Be Probable Though At The Moment It May Not Seem So; And Finally, That We Cannot Be Readily Ruined By A Single Error, If We Have Made Reasonable Preparations.