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To a very high degree the measure of success in battle leadership is the ability to profit by the lessons of battle experience.
--
Quoted in Command Missions, A Personal Story, New York, 1954, (ISBN 0-89141-364-2)

 

Lucian Truscott

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Since Alyattes would not give up the Scythians to Cyaxares at his demand, there was war [ Battle of Halys] between the Lydians and the Medes for five years; each won many victories over the other, and once they fought a battle by night. They were still warring with equal success, when it happened, at an encounter which occurred in the sixth year, that during the battle the day was suddenly turned to night. Thales of Miletus had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within the year in which the change did indeed happen.

 

Thales

 

In a battle, as in a siege, the art consists in concentrating very heavy fire on a particular point. The line of battle once established, the one who has the ability to concentrate an unlooked for mass of artillery suddenly and unexpectedly on one of these points is sure to carry the day.

 

Napoleon Bonaparte

 

Our battle with our enemy is great...this is a battle between Islam and unbelief on this land. In this battle, the crusaders united with the World Zionism.

 

Ibrahim Mudeiris

 

He was a tactician of the greatest ability, with a firm grasp of every detail of the employment of armour in action, and very quick to seize the fleeting opportunity and the critical turning point of a mobile battle. I felt certain doubts, however, about his strategic ability, in particular as to whether he fully understood the importance of a sound administrative plan. Happiest while controlling a mobile force directly under his own eyes he was liable to overexploit immediate success without sufficient thought for the future.

 

Erwin Rommel

 

The tactical result of an engagement forms the base for new strategic decisions because victory or defeat in a battle changes the situation to such a degree that no human acumen is able to see beyond the first battle. In this sense one should understand Napoleon's saying: "I have never had a plan of operations."
Therefore no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.

 

Helmuth von Moltke