Early Wars

This section gives passages from ancient times to the middle of the nineteenth century.


Low Brainpower Cost Britain Its Colonies

Excerpt from How America Got It Right, by Bevin Alexander, pages 9-10

A nation that restricts its leadership to a narrow aristocracy deprives itself of most of its brainpower. Britain crippled itself in this fashion at the time of the American Revolution, with devastating consequences. Read more >>


Saratoga Guarantees American Independence

Excerpt from How America Got It Right, by Bevin Alexander, pages 10-11

The first great success of the American patriots came on October 17, 1777, when a British army under John Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga on the Hudson River in upstate New York. Burgoyne had gotten into an impossible position because of abominable leadership. Read more >>


Alexander’s Strategy for Conquering Persia

Excerpt from How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror, by Bevin Alexander, pages 181-82

An invasion into enemy territory can elicit all manner of responses from the defending population, many of them unpredictable....In general, however, a commander can anticipate firm opposition from both the enemy military and the civilian population, and must examine carefully how to meet various kinds of opposition. Read more >>


Cornwallis Falls into a Strategic Trap in Virginia

Excerpt from How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror, by Bevin Alexander, pages 216-17

On May 20, 1781, Cornwallis joined his army with a small British expeditionary force at Petersburg, Virginia, about eighty miles by road west of Hampton Roads. Cornwallis had moved up from Wilmington, North Carolina, giving up for the present a two-year effort to subdue the Carolinas. Read more >>


Feigned Retreat

Excerpt from How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror, by Bevin Alexander, pages 94-95

Pretending to be defeated, running away, and then ambushing the supposedly victorious pursuers has been a rule of war for as long as we have records of human conflict. Read more >>


Why William the Conqueror Won at Hastings

Excerpt from How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror, by Bevin Alexander, page 158

When William, duke of Normandy, decided to conquer England in 1066, he employed the knight on horseback and the bow and arrow, and therefore possessed weapons superior to those of the English. Read more >>


The Rise of the English Longbow

Excerpt from How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror, by Bevin Alexander, pages 54-55

The longbow was not an English invention. It was developed by native Celts in Wales, and first aroused attention in 1182, during one of the numerous English attempts to subdue the land, when Welsh arrows penetrated an oak door four inches thick. Read more >>


Frederick the Great’s “Oblique Order” of Attack

Excerpt from How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror, by Bevin Alexander, pages 238-40

The armies of eighteenth century Europe were largely mercenary, employed by kings who used military means and diplomacy to advance their own narrow dynastic interests, and who evoked few sentiments of nationalism or patriotism among their subjects. Read more >>


The Army Alexander Used to Conquer Persia

Excerpt from How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror, by Bevin Alexander, page 255

The army Philip [of Macedon] had created was radically different from other armies. Whereas the Greeks relied for protection on large shields carried on their left arms, which kept their right arms free to wield an eight or nine-foot-long spear, the Macedonians sacrificed an amount of shield protection in order to wield a longer, heavier thirteen to fourteen-foot spear, called the sarissa. Read more >>


How the Scots Fought Off the English

Excerpt from How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror, by Bevin Alexander, page 40

Another remarkable case of the effective use of guerrilla tactics is Scotland, which preserved its independence from England by following for 250 years, with occasional lapses, the “testament” of Robert the Bruce (1274-1329).
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