I’ve been reading letters written by Napoleon today, generally concerning the management of politics and war, everyday operations. One thing that stands out is that he insists of not peace with England, but a “glorious peace.” It is not explicit, but it seems to be the condition where a peace is made, but only if France has a beneficial outcome (like the control of Egypt, which he believed would lead to the eventual control of India).
Another odd thing is that the translator uses the word “strategy” but notes that the original term was “system of war.” This pops out as I’m thinking that he’s orders work similarly to the design of an algorithm. I do a Google search of the word strategy and it doesn’t enter European Lexicon until 1770’s (through a translation of a Byzantine emperor Leo VI’s Taktiká (Edward Luttwak goes over it in the Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire along with newly discovered and translated texts available in English recently for the first time). In any case, the word did exist during Napoleons time, but doesn’t seem to be in general use (and was not used by Napoleon).
I found this odd since Clausewitz makes a distinction between strategy and tactics, did some googling and apparently it was one of the first major usages of the word. I like “System of War” since it does a better job at describing what Napoleon is doing and what strategy is. The word strategy has been completely ruined by going mainstream, you can find it in countless seminars and book titles describing simply a checklist. Strategy is more of an algorithm, or the programming of AI really. You’re managing a system.