Excerpt from Gustavus Adolphus: A History of the Art of War From Its Revival After the Middle Ages to the End of the Spanish Succession WarThat the immense gap of sixteen and a half centuries which intervenes between the last campaign of Julius Caesar and the first campaign of Gustavus Adolphus is left almost untouched, must be justified by once more reminding the reader that the author has made no attempt to cover the history of war, but seeks only to indicate the origin and growth of what to-day we call the art of war. N o preface, however long, can explain the purpose of the volumes of which the present is one, so well as the few words of Napoleon which have been chosen as a motto, and which follow the dedicatory page Read, reread the history of their eighty-eight campaigns, says this last of the Great Captains. A history of the origin and growth of the art of war is in reality only the story of the campaigns of those leaders whose deeds have created the art. The history of war is beyond limit to treat it in equal detail would call for hundreds of volumes, and the author has contemplated no such work.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.