#337 Napoleon's Maxims and Strategy

**David Senra** (0:00)
Napoleon fought more battles than Alexander, Hannibal and Julius Caesar combined. He is, beyond any doubt, the greatest of European soldiers.
He never wrote his theories or principles on the conduct of war, although he often expressed the intention of doing so, and remarked that everyone would be surprised at how simple they were. I want to interrupt this real quick, because when I read that part, everybody would be surprised at how simple they were. I thought about one of my favorite quotes I've ever read, and it says, a novice is easily spotted because they do too much. Too many ingredients, too many movements, too much explanation. A master uses the fewest motions required to fulfill their intention. Back to this book. It remained for Napoleon alone, among the great generals of his time, to seize all these possibilities and develop from them a calculated system of strategy and a system of tactics calculated with equal brilliance. No other general of his time realized these possibilities until forced to learn by combating Napoleon. He astounded his opponents by the crushing rapidity of his battle. Speed and the importance of speed might be the thing that he repeats the most in these maxims. He astounded his opponents by the crushing rapidity of his battles. His strategical system was based on marching rapidly and secretly past the enemy's flank to get on the hostile line of communications.
This forced his opponents to turn and fight at a disadvantage. The way you and I have talked about this in the past is that you want to compete on your terms. You only want to play games where you have the edge. His battles were the result of his strategical movements and were carefully calculated. The art of strategy as developed by writers for the past century has its foundations in his operation. So in other words, he influenced the generals that came after him, just like he was influenced by the generals that came before him. Clausewitz's great book On War, I have this book, I just haven't read it or made a podcast on it yet. Clausewitz's great book On War was the outgrowth of Napoleonic studies. And so the first book published on Napoleon's maxims was published all the way back in 1827 Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War carried these maxims in his haversack throughout his campaign. This little volume, Jackson's biographer stated, contains a fairly complete exposition in Napoleon's own words, of the grand principles of war. And in the introduction of that book that he was carried around by Stonewall Jackson, it says, the art of war is susceptible of being considered under two titles. The one which rests entirely on the knowledge and genius of the commander. So that line, the commander, the general, the commander chief's gonna repeat it over and over again by Napoleon for the purposes of you and I, it'd be the leader of the company, the founder, the CEO.
The other on matters of detail. So first two titles, one rests entirely on the knowledge, the talent, the genius of the person, the founder, the CEO, okay? The other on matters of detail. The first is the same for all time, for all peoples, whatever the arms with which they fight. From this, it follows that the same principles have directed the great captains of all century. So when Napoleon realized, when he's studying the history of war, it's something you and I have realized setting the history of business. It's like, oh, these people didn't know each other. They worked in different industries. They lived in different parts of the world and they were alive at different times. How did they all arrive at similar conclusions? That should tell you and I, hey, there's some principles here that are always valuable. They are timeless. They never go out of style. The matters of detail, on the other hand, are subject to the influence of time, to the spirit of the people and the character of the armaments. The continuing interest and application of most of these maxims indicates that the original compiler succeeded in selecting Napoleon's most pertinent aphorisms of permanent value. And another way to say, another way to describe what they're saying there is that these are ideas that have lasted for centuries. Okay, so that is an introduction to one of the two books that I'm going to talk to you about today. That book is called Roots of Strategy, the five greatest military classics of all time in one volume. And so it's a book containing The Art of War by Sun Tzu, written in 500 BC. The Military Institutions of the Romans. There's no way in pronouncing anybody's name. You already know this, correct? There's no way I can pronounce them correctly. The Military Institutions of the Romans by Vegatius, who knows? That was written in 390 AD. Then My Reveries Upon the Art of War, written by Marshall Maurice de Sacks in 1732