The Art of War

“ I am not a soldier, Miss Wellington. But all victories are not won on the battlefields. The art—one of the arts—of diplomacy is to bring on war, if war must be, when you are ready and your adversaries are not. ”

“ It is interesting to trace the history of warfare from this point of view. Beginning with the club and hammer of the stone age, advancing through the bow and arrow and the sling-shot of later times, this art, even in the great days of ancient civilization, the eras of Greece and Rome, had advanced little beyond the sword and spear, crude weapons of destruction as regarded in our times. ”

“ If the art of war is enlarged by the adoption of the system of marches, humanity, on the contrary, loses by it; for these rapid incursions and bivouacs of considerable masses, feeding upon the regions they overrun, are not materially different from the devastations of the barbarian hordes between the fourth and thirteenth centuries. ”

“ Napoleon said, or is supposed to have said, that an army, like a snake, moves on its belly. The truth is, of course, that the art of war is, as to six-sevenths172 of it, the art of carrying heavy things from one place to another. ”

“ The means of attack and defence appear to have been among the first essays of human invention, and the miserable art of war has, perhaps, in succeeding ages, called forth the powers of the human mind in a greater degree than any of the arts of peace. ”

“ Sun Tzŭ said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State. ”

“ In like heathen spirit, it may be pleasant to behold a battle-piece in Art. But this is wrong. Admitting the calamitous necessity of war, it can never be with pleasure—it cannot be without sadness unspeakable—that we survey its fiendish encounter. ”

“ In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. ”

“ The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
3. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one’s deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field. ”

“ Under these conditions, how did you manage to gain the victory?" The general replied: "I fear you gentlemen have not studied the Art of War with sufficient care. Is it not written there: ‘Plunge your army into desperate straits and it will come off in safety; place it in deadly peril and it will survive’? Had I taken the usual course, I should never have been able to bring my colleague round. What says the Military Classic—‘Swoop down on the market-place and drive the men off to fight.’ [This passage does not occur in the present text of Sun Tzŭ.] ”

“ The increase of civility has abolished the use of poison and of torture, once supposed as necessary as navies now. And, finally, the art of war—what with gunpowder and tactics—has made, as all men know, battles less frequent and less murderous. ”

“ These questions will seem singular to those persons who are firmly convinced that nothing more remains to be said about the art of war, and believe it wrong to search out new definitions where every thing seems already accurately classified. ”

“ The great art, then, of properly directing lines of operations, is so to establish them in reference to the bases and to the marches of the army as to seize the communications of the enemy without imperiling one's own, and is the most important and most difficult problem in strategy. ”

“ By inuring armies to labor and fatigue, by keeping them from stagnation in garrison in times of peace, by inculcating their superiority over their enemies, without depreciating too much the latter, by inspiring a love for great exploits,—in a word, by exciting their enthusiasm by every means in harmony with their tone of mind, by honoring courage, punishing weakness, and disgracing cowardice,—we may expect to maintain a high military spirit. ”

“ I have only been anxious to show that in war a plan of operations may be often arranged, simply based upon the general principles of the art, without much attention being of necessity given to the details of the enemy's movements. ”

“ The apparatus of warfare, the art and method of fighting, changed absolutely every dozen years in a stupendous progress towards perfection, and people grew less and less warlike, and there was no war. ”

“ War once determined upon, the first point to be decided is, whether it shall be offensive or defensive; and we will first explain what is meant by these terms. There are several phases of the offensive: if against a great state, the whole or a large portion of whose territory is attacked, it is an invasion; if a province only, or a line of defense of moderate extent, be assailed, it is the ordinary offensive; finally, if the offensive is but an attack upon the enemy's position, and is confined to a single operation, it is called the taking the initiative. ”

“ In this important crisis of battles, theory becomes an uncertain guide; for it is then unequal to the emergency, and can never compare in value with a natural talent for war, nor be a sufficient substitute for that intuitive coup-d'oeil imparted by experience in battles to a general of tried bravery and coolness. ”

“ Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy’s forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy’s army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities. ”

“ Then, before there is time to range our soldiers in order of battle, the enemy in overwhelming strength suddenly appears on the scene. Advancing, we can nowhere take a breathing-space; retreating, we have no haven of refuge. ”

“ War in its ensemble is not a science, but an art. Strategy, particularly, may indeed be regulated by fixed laws resembling those of the positive sciences, but this is not true of war viewed as a whole. Among other things, combats may be mentioned as often being quite independent of scientific combinations, and they may become essentially dramatic, personal qualities and inspirations and a thousand other things frequently being the controlling elements. ”

“ The science of strategy consists, in the first place, in knowing how to choose well a theater of war and to estimate correctly that of the enemy. To do this, a general must accustom himself to decide as to the importance of decisive points,—which is not a difficult matter when he is aided by the hints I have given on the subject, particularly in Articles from XVIII. to XXII.
The art consists, next, in a proper employment of the troops upon the theater of operations, whether offensive or defensive. ”

“ It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him;
Straightaway, without waiting for any further advantage.
if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two. ”

“ So far from that, all the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war; no great art ever yet rose on earth, but among a nation of soldiers. There is no art among a shepherd people, if it remains [Pg 67] at peace. ”

“ The Ssŭ K‘u Ch‘üan Shu (ch. 99, f. 1) remarks that the oldest three treatises on war, Sun Tzŭ, Wu Tzŭ and the Ssŭ-ma Fa, are, generally speaking, only concerned with things strictly military — the art of producing, collecting, training and drilling troops, and the correct theory with regard to measures of expediency, laying plans, transport of goods and the handling of soldiers [2] — in strong contrast to later works, in which the science of war is usually blended with metaphysics, divination and magical arts in general. ”

“ “Conform to the enemy’s tactics until a favourable opportunity offers; then come forth and engage in a battle that shall prove decisive.” ”

“ The whole science of great military combination is comprised in these two fundamental truths. Therefore, all movements that are disconnected or more extended than those of the enemy would be grave faults ”

“ If you should desire to learn the secrets of your enemy and know his arrangement, some used to send ambassadors, and with them men expert in war disguised in the clothing of the family, who, taking the opportunity to observe the enemy army, and consideration of his strengths and weaknesses, have given them the occasion to defeat him. ”

“ War 's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art, Unless her cause by right be sanctified. ”

“ Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy’s purpose. ”

“ In the war that has just ended, however—or that would have ended if the Peace Conference would let it—we have seen an imaginative revolt against war, not on the part of mere men of letters, but on the part of soldiers. ”

“ “To mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy,” is one of the first principles in war, as has been frequently pointed out. ”

“ They may be committed by kings and ministers to peace or war, by generals to victory or defeat, by prophets to this religion or to that, by various geniuses to fame in art, science, or industry. A war is a true point of bifurcation of future possibilities. ”

“ If success be possible in such a war, the following general course will be most likely to insure it,—viz.: make a display of a mass of troops proportioned to the obstacles and resistance likely to be encountered, calm the popular passions in every possible way, exhaust them by time and patience, display courtesy, gentleness, and severity united, and, particularly, deal justly. ”

“ It embraces the moral combinations relating to the operations of armies. If the political considerations which we have just discussed be also moral, there are others which influence, in a certain degree, the conduct of a war, which belong neither to diplomacy, strategy, nor tactics. ”

“ The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known; for then the enemy will have to prepare against a possible attack at several different points; ”

“ Battles have been stated by some writers to be the chief and deciding features of war. This assertion is not strictly true, as armies have been destroyed by strategic operations without the occurrence of pitched battles, by a succession of inconsiderable affairs. It is also true that a complete and decided victory may give rise to results of the same character when there may have been no grand strategic combinations. ”

“ Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected. ”

“ So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. ”

“ War was a combat between man and man; consequently, the essential thing to insure victory was not to transform soldiers into marshalled automatons, as in our day, but to render each soldier the most resistant, the strongest, and the most agile body possible ”

“ Humble words and increased preparations are signs that the enemy is about to advance. Violent language and driving forward as if to the attack are signs that he will retreat. ”