Jean-Lambert-Alphonse Colin

First published in 1912, and written by a Commandant at the French War School, this book explored the teachings of world military history, focusing on whether war is an art or a science and taking into account its material, intellectual, and moral elements. The book's special distinction lies in its tracing of how the "physiognomy" of combat changed over the centuries as weapons, battles, acts of war, and the advent of combined operations modified, but did not necessarily change, the basic laws of warfare, especially after the Napoleonic era. A concluding chapter on "War in the Twentieth Century"" provides prescient views of the application of principles to modern war. Index.… (meer)