An army should always be so distributed that its parts can aid each other and combine to produce the maximum possible concentration of force at one place, while the minimum force necessary is used elsewhere to prepare the success of the concentration.
B. H. LIDDELL HARTThe most effective indirect approach is one that lures or startles the opponent into a false move – so that, as in ju-jitsu, his own effort is turned into the lever of his overthrow.
More B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes
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Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.
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In reality, it si more fruitful to wound than to kill. While the dead man lies still, counting only one man less, the wounded man is a progressive drain upon his side.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
The most effective indirect approach is one that lures or startles the opponent into a false move – so that, as in ju-jitsu, his own effort is turned into the lever of his overthrow.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
The search for the truth for truth’s sake is the mark of the historian.
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In should be the duty of every soldier to reflect on the experiences of the past, in the endeavor to discover improvements, in his particular sphere of action, which are practicable in the immediate future.
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The more closely [the German army] converged on [Stalingrad], the narrower became their scope for tactical manoeuvre as a lever in loosening resistance. By contrast, the narrowing of the frontage made it easier for the defender to switch his local reserves to any threatened point on the defensive arc.
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The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.
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For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
The easiest and quickest path into the esteem of traditional military authorities is by the appeal to the eye, rather than to the mind. ‘The polish and pipeclay’ school is not yet extinct, and it is easier for the mediocre intelligence to become an authority on buttons, than on tactics.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
[The] aim is not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its continuation by a battle is sure to achieve this. In other words, dislocation is the aim of strategy.
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The higher level of grand strategy [is] that of conducting war with a far-sighted regard to the state of the peace that will follow.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
The predominance of moral factors in all military decisions. On them constantly turns the issue of war and battle. In the history of war they form the more constant factors, changing only in degree, whereas the physical factors are different in almost every war and every military situation.
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The nearer the cutting off point lies to the main force of the enemy, the more immediate the effect; whereas the closer to the strategic base it takes place, the greater the effect.
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In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there- a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender’s hold by upsetting his balance.
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For even the best of peace training is more theoretical than practical experience … indirect practical experience may be the more valuable because infinitely wider.
B. H. LIDDELL HART