<head>On the Art of a Commander</head>The accidents attendant on military projects require much circumspection, but success is in every case possible if the steps we take to carry out our plan are soundly reasoned out.
That in military operations what is achieved openly and by force is much less than what is done by stratagem and the use of opportunity, can easily be learnt from the history of former wars.
And it is no less easy to be convinced by facts that in those actions depending on the choice of opportunity failure is far more frequent than success.
Nor can anyone doubt that most of the failures are due either to error or to negligence on the part of the commander.
We must therefore inquire in what such faults consist.
It is by no means proper to describe as actions, things in war which occur undesignedly, but such events should be rather styled accidents or coincidences.
As thing they fall under no systematic or fixed rules, I may neglect them, and deal only, as I will now proceed to do, with such things as are accomplished by design.
Since every such action requires a fixed time for its commencement, and a fixed period, and an appointed place, and also requires secrecy, definite signals, proper persons through whom and with whom to act and the proper means,
it is evident that the commander who is happy in his choice of each and all of these will not meet with failure, but the neglect of anyone of them will ruin the whole design;
so true is it that nature makes a single trivial error sufficient to cause failure in a design, but correctness in every detail barely enough for success.
Walbank Commentary