Introduction

War is a science covered with shadows in whose obscurity one cannot move within a shared step. Routine and prejudice, the natural result of ignorance are its foundation and support. Nothing is so disgraceful as slavishness to custom. The same troops who, if attacking, would have been victorious may be invariably defeated in entrenchments. Few men have accounted for it in a reasonable manner, for it lies in human hearts. And without a knowledge of the human heart, one is dependent upon the favor of fortune, which sometimes is very inconstant. These are some opening words from a book called reveries on war by Maurice de Sacks.