“The acme of strategic ability is displayed in the provision of means for this great event (the battle), in the skillful determination of place and time, and direction of troops, and the good use made of success… all is here rather simple, the art of combination by no means great; but there is great need of quickness in judging of circumstances, need of energy, steady resolution, a youthful spirit of enterprise – heroic qualities. There is, therefore, but little wanted here of that which can be taught by books and there is much that, if it can be taught at all, must come to the General through some other medium than printer’s type.

The impulse towards a great battle, the voluntary, sure progress to it, must proceed from a feeling of innate power and a clear sense of the necessity; in other words, it must proceed from inborn courage and from perceptions sharpened by contact with the higher interests of life.”

– On War, Carl von Clausewitz, Book IV. The Combat Chapter XI.