Fun fact: "The book was translated into French and published in 1772 (re-published in 1782) by the French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot." - Wikipedia
Not long before the French Revolution, which is already interesting. People keeping track of Reformation history (which features the Society of Jesus, i.e. "Jesuits", formed as a response to it to reassert the authority of the Catholic Church) and also ancient documents (knowing manuscript numbers like the 19,000 or so for the Bible vs. 205 for second place Iliad really helps in Bible apologetics) also note that there were just 6 manuscripts for Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", none of which were complete. Also, some of it seems rather out of character for 6th century China, in addition to referring to "temples" instead of military fortifications and command posts:
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."
...that implies that what we now consider the military crime of perfidy should be a regular part of warfare (although to be fair, it also refers to constantly practicing right off an enemy's border so as to take him by surprise when suddenly they go over, not considered perfidious when it was done by Egypt against Israel in 1973 nor when the UN Coalition did it against Iraq in 1991.)
Fun part is that this makes it impossible to rule out that a meme quote like this wasn't in the original Art of War :)
Fun fact: "The book was translated into French and published in 1772 (re-published in 1782) by the French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot." - Wikipedia
Not long before the French Revolution, which is already interesting. People keeping track of Reformation history (which features the Society of Jesus, i.e. "Jesuits", formed as a response to it to reassert the authority of the Catholic Church) and also ancient documents (knowing manuscript numbers like the 19,000 or so for the Bible vs. 205 for second place Iliad really helps in Bible apologetics) also note that there were just 6 manuscripts for Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", none of which were complete. Also, some of it seems rather out of character for 6th century China, in addition to referring to "temples" instead of military fortifications and command posts:
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."
...that implies that what we now consider the military crime of perfidy should be a regular part of warfare (although to be fair, it also refers to constantly practicing right off an enemy's border so as to take him by surprise when suddenly they go over, not considered perfidious when it was done by Egypt against Israel in 1973 nor when the UN Coalition did it against Iraq in 1991.)
Fun part is that this makes it impossible to rule out that a meme quote like this wasn't in the original Art of War :)