21st Century U.S. Military Manuals: Surprise Marine Corps Field Manual, War Strategy and Surprise in Military History - FMFRP 12-1 (Value-Added Professional Format Series)

Part of our value-added professional format series, the Surprise Marine Corps Field Manual, War Strategy and Surprise in Military History(FMFRP 12-1) complements existing training manuals on deception and provides new perspectives on well-known examples of deception operations and surprises.

Surprise was considered as an essential element of victory by almost all ancient military writers. Frontinus and Polyaenus, for instance, had written a whole collection of ways and means of surprisealmost text books for victory. These books, especially Frontinus', were known to every military commander in the later period of antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages. Machiavelli, the founder of modern military science, heavily drew on Frontinus. During the eighteenth century, the problem of surprise again attracted the attention of military writers. The Chevalier de Cessac wrote an entire book on surprise. Frederick the Great never tired in advising his generals on the importance of surprise and declared that in war one should alternately don the skin of the lion and of the fox.

Yet the military school which began with Guibert and ended with the generals of World War I did not fully understand the role which surprise may play in war. For them, as Napoleon pointed out in a famous dictum, only one thing counted: mass. To be sure, almost every one of these military writers did mention surprise. Clausewitz himself, as can be seen from the quotations which General Erfurth faithfully collected, insisted on the importance of surprise. Occasionally surprise methods were applied on the battlefield.

As a bonus, this reproduction includes FM-1, The Army Field Manual, a capstone manual containing the vision for the Army - sold separately for $5.99. FM 1 establishes the fundamental principles for employing Landpower. The most important of these are the Army's operational concept and the fundamentals that support it. They form the foundation for all Army doctrine. All Soldiers should understand and internalize them. FM 1 describes the American profession of arms, the Army's place in it, and what it means to be a professional Soldier.

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