Quotes About Strategy

It was madness. And, as Finan had said, sometimes madness works.

So what do we do?" Finan asked. "We ride down there," I said, easing my way back from the crest, "we smile politely, and tell the stupid bastard that he's our prisoner.

Ravn had given me much advice and all of it was good, but now, in the night wind, I remembered just one thing he had said to me on the night we first met, something I had never forgotten. Never, he had said, never fight Ubba.

Do you know who wins battles, boy?" "We do, Father." "The side that is least drunk," he said, and then, after a pause, "but it helps to be drunk." "Why?" "Because a shield wall is an awful place." He gazed into the fire. "I have been in six shield walls," he went on, "and prayed every time it would be the last.

Choose your battles," I snarled at Æthelstan. "That space between your ears was given so that you can think! If you just charge whenever you see an enemy you'll earn yourself an early grave.

Never do what an enemy expects, Dudda. We'll go in at dawn. On the flood.

The English chevauchée was a tactic to destroy a country's power, to starve the lords of taxes, to burn their

so long as Ivar is weak he will be your friend. Strengthen him and you make an enemy. -What use is a weak friend? -More use than a strong enemy.

treaties are best negotiated from a position of strength.

no one survives long by assuming his enemy is sleeping.

Politics were so very simple, the Cardinal thought, just so long as a man believed no one, double-crossed everyone, kept a full treasury, and inveigled others into doing the dirty work.

Fighting fair! Whoever heard of anything so daft? Fight fair and you lose.

They're frightened that we'll make a sally and kill them all," Ragnar said, "so they're going to sit there and try to starve us out.

This was a clever man, as clever as Alfred, and he knew that weakness invited war.

Hurry up and do nothing, that was the army's way of doing things.

He'll fight like a bull,' I said, 'and he's honest. But does he think like a wildcat?

Alfred would not listen. He was a clever man, perhaps as clever as any man born, but he did not understand battle. He did not understand that battle is not just about numbers, it is not about moving tall pieces, and it is not even about who has the advantage in ground, but about passion and madness and a screaming, ungovernable rage.

A hall-burning," Rorik said bitterly. "Hall-burning?" "It happens at home," Rorik explained. "You go to an enemy's hall and burn it to the ground. But there's one thing about a hall-burning. You have to make sure everyone dies. If there are any survivors then they'll take revenge, so you attack at night, surround the hall, and kill everyone who tries to escape the flames.

If they saw men swarming up the wall, if they saw the axes chopping at our shields on the wall's top, then they would join the battle. Men want to be on the winning side.

One thing I learned about the Danes was that they knew how to spy. The monks who write the chronicles tell us that they came from nowhere, their dragon-prowed ships suddenly appearing from a blue vacancy, but it was rarely like that. The Viking crews might attack unexpectedly, but the big fleets, the war fleets, went where they knew there was already trouble. They found an existing wound and filled it like maggots.

Confusion is inevitable in battle, but indecision is unforgivable.

The rest merely requires common sense; it is like a boxing match, the more you punch the better it is.

Clever doesn't win battles -Stupidity loses them.

Choose your battles,' I snarled at Æthelstan. 'That space between your ears was given so that you can think! If you just charge whenever you see an enemy you'll earn yourself an early grave.' Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg