B. H. Liddell Hart on Scipio Africanus
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“The art of generalship does not age, and it is because Scipio's battles are richer in stratagems and ruses — many still feasible today — than those of any other commander in history that they are an unfailing object-lesson to soldiers.”
“Scipio had a clear grasp of what is just dawning on the mind of the world today — that the true national object in war, as in peace, is a more perfect peace. War is a result of a menace to this policy, and is undertaken to remove the menace, and by the subjugation of the will of a hostile State. "to change this adverse will into a compliance with our own policy, and the sooner and more cheaply in lives and money we can do this, the better chance of national prosperity in the widest sense. The aim of a nation in war is, therefore, to subdue the enemy's will to resist with the least possible human and economic loss to itself."”
“We cannot separate the nobility of Scipio's moral conduct, throughout his career, from the transcendent clearness of his mental vision — they blended to form not only a great general but a great man.”