B. H. Liddell Hart
B. H. Liddell Hart
Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart, commonly known throughout most of his career as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was an English soldier, military historian and military theorist. Following World War II, he was a proponent of the West German rearmament and the moral rehabilitation of the German Wehrmacht. As part of these two interconnected initiatives, Liddell Hart significantly contributed to the creation of the Rommel myth...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth31 October 1895
military training may
For even the best of peace training is more theoretical than practical experience ... indirect practical experience may be the more valuable because infinitely wider.
military war mean
The principle of compulsory service, embodied in the system of conscription, lias been the means by which modem dictators and military gangs have shackled their people after a coup d'état, and bound them to their own aggressive purposes. In view of the great service that conscription has rendered to tyranny and war, it is fundamentally shortsighted for any liberty-loving and peace-desiring peoples to maintain it as an imagined safeguard, lest they become the victims of the monster they have helped to preserve.
military hopeful direct-approach
This high proportion of history's decisive campaigns, the significance of which is enhanced by the comparative rarity of the direct approach, enforces the conclusion that the indirect is by far the most hopeful and economic form of strategy.
military army aids
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.
military taken order
While hitting one must guard ... In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.
military guarantees unexpected
The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.
military mean air
Air forces offered the possibility of striking a the enemy's economic and moral centres without having first to achieve 'the destruction of the enemy's main forces on the battlefield'. Air-power might attain a direct end by indirect means - hopping over opposition instead of overthrowing it.
military enemy allies
Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of to-day is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future
military long promise
It is only to clear from history that states rarely keep faith with each other, save in so far (and so long) as their promises seem to them to combine with their interests.
military demand belief
It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off ... since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.
military opponents resistance
Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
military men stupidity
No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.
sake mark historian
The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.
human war
The chief incalculable in war is the human will.