Aleksa's Book Review: Reveries on the Art of War

in #war4 years ago

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Maurice de Saxe is one of those people who would probably be killed very quickly, were they to appear in today's time. The intro to the book explains his biography, which reads like the mythical life of Alcibiades more than that of a European nobleman officer - which, of course, means a lot of debauchery, arrests and fights.

The author mentions that he wrote the book in just under 2 weeks while suffering a fever, showing the almost effortless mental acuity he shows in matters of warfare and logistics. Interesting is the fact that Maurice endeavours to emulate in all ways the Roman legion, from the training to the logistics and battle formations thereof.

Examples of his strictures include removing the death penalty for your own soldiers as that will merely make the crimes get reported less often, providing warm footwear without soles that alters the gait of the soldier, making them more hunter-like, and my personal favourite: ensuring soldiers are constantly under hard work and deprivation so that they do not grow soft.

I like this book much more than I do Sun Tzu's or Clausewitz's treatises. This one is infused with much more worldly wisdom, grounded in combat and many decades of victory and success.
8/10