Читать книгу Art of War - Sun-tzu - Страница 11

The Battle of Kadesh saw the Hittite empire of Muwatalli II face the Egyptian Empire under Ramesses II. After the first attack, Ramesses claims in his first account of the battle, the “Poem”, that he renewed the action the next morning. Describing the battle in brief, vague, and purely conventional terms, he represents Ramesses as victorious, then states that the Hittite king sued for peace in a humble letter to Ramesses. The Hittite king may possibly have proposed a cessation of hostilities, but this is doubtful. To state that in the battle of the second day, he “was on the point of perishing”, or to refer to “the surrender of Qodshu” (Kadesh) is pure romancing. For the first statement there is not a particle of evidence; and not even the Poem has the face to claim that Kadesh was captured. For sixteen years after this battle, Ramesses was obliged to maintain incessant campaigning in Syria, in order to stop the Hittite advance and wring from them a peace on equal terms. Meanwhile he evidently found compensation in the fame which his exploit at Kadesh brought him, for he had it recorded in splendid reliefs on all his greater temples and assumed among his titles in his royal titulary the proud epithet: “Prostrater of the lands and countries, while he was alone, having no other with him.”

These movements show that already in the 14th century BCE, the commanders of the time understood the value of placing troops advantageously before battle; that they further already comprehended the immense superiority to be gained by clever manoeuvers masked from the enemy; and that they had therefore, even at this remote date, made contributions to that supposed science, which was brought to such perfection by Napoleon the science of winning the victory before the battle.

(adapted from: The Battle of Qadeš by J. H. Breasted)