[The Pheonix]

LOL

The British had lots of machine-guns and modern weapons when they fought a famous battle against the half-naked primitive Zulus Warriors, armed only with spears and wooden clubs in South Africa, in the early 1900s.

Guess what, the Brits were massacred, wiped out to the last man. Why ????

Cos the arrogant Brit General ignored the most basic advice of Sun Tzu, who said "Never ever divide your army into two and never fight on two fronts at the same time". YUP, that's what the Brits General did, divide his army into two.

Similarly, Hilter did NOT follow Sun Tzu and tried to fight on TWO FRONTS at one time, the Western Front and Eastern Front. And the Allied opened up yet a THIRD FRONT, the Southern front to teach the arrogant NAZIs a lesson or two

[The Pheonix]

And of course. our very own General Custer, who split his troops into 2 groups and learnt the hard way

at Little Big Horn

May NOT have happened if he had read Sun Tzu

[KiaKaha]

I am curious how you can place the 1879 Battle of Isandlwana in the "1900"? It does not give you much credibility really.

[Lizard_King]

+Similarly, Hilter did NOT follow Sun Tzu and tried to fight on TWO FRONTS at one time, the Western Front and Eastern Front. And the Allied opened up yet a THIRD FRONT, the Southern front to teach the arrogant NAZIs a lesson or two+

If you'll recall, the whole purpose of German strategy from the first world war's Schlieffen plan (and long before that) was to avoid having such a war on two fronts. The error Hitler made was failing to take out Moscow directly and rather swerving towards Baku for the oil; the subsequent stalling gave the allies much needed breathing space (albeit at an unbelievable cost to the Soviets, which I am hard pressed to be torn up about).

If you think the "Southern Front", as you refer to it, was anything other than yet another futile manifestation of the British search for a "soft underbelly" rather than a direct strike, I would say that there is quite a bit of disagreement with your contention. It was a drain of manpower, rapidly stalled despite the best efforts of the Italians to collapse as soon as possible. If you mean North Africa, that was yet another call of questionable value.

Sun Tzu may have expounded on all this, but what you refer to in your post is less the domain of military philosophy and more that of military common sense. All the books in the world cannot teach that to a commander. I would also say that the British had much larger problems than the splitting of their army, although that was certainly a factor.

[I got the rope]

The British had lots of machine-guns and modern weapons when they fought a famous battle against the half-naked primitive Zulus Warriors, armed only with spears and wooden clubs in South Africa, in the early 1900s.

I'm not so sure about machine guns, but didn't someone figure out that the rifle the Brits were using was faulty and jammed after a few rounds. Good point on dividing forces.