"War," says Nazi Theoretician Ewald Banse, "is above all things a geographical phenomenon. It is tied to the surface of the earth; it derives its material sustenance from it, and moves purposefully over it, seeking out those positions which are favorable to one side, unfavorable to the other."
Not every great general has succeeded in expressing this axiom of military science so sententiously. But every real master of strategy, from Carthage's Hannibal and Rome's Caesar to France's Gamelin, has understood the intimate relationship between troops and terrain, countryside and conquest, strategy and...