The Art of War

Nonfiction | Book | Adult

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-8

Chapters 9-11

Chapters 12-13

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 9-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary: “The Army on the March”

When traveling, move quickly through mountains and across rivers and keep to valleys. If an enemy crosses a river, wait until it’s halfway across to attack. Any such approach should be made from upriver, lest the opposition manipulate the waters to flood you.

Avoid swamps and marshes, and camp on high, flat ground, with any hills to your rear. Arrange battlefields so that the enemy has difficult terrain to its rear. Observe carefully the enemy’s actions: Lots of dust means troop movements; shouting and threats suggest weakness; chariots arranging themselves on the flanks signal the battle is about to start.

Keep alert for signs of trouble among enemy ranks, including knots of men speaking quietly or flags being moved around. If water carriers drink first, this hints at low water supplies; if the men lean on their spears, they’re hungry. Commotion at night suggests nervousness.

Soldiers must be treated kindly at first until they respect their leader, and afterwards they must be punished strictly for any misbehavior. Punishing troops before they’ve bonded to their general will cause unrest.

Chapter 10 Summary: “Terrain”

In war, six types of terrain are important: accessible ground, flat with good roads and good to occupy ahead of the other force; entangling ground that’s hard to cross; temporizing land with no first-move advantage, from which it’s better to retreat and lure the enemy to follow; passes, which can be controlled; cliff heights, from which to fall upon the enemy; and faraway positions, used only if the adversary can be forced to travel the distance and thereby exhaust itself.

In battle, six errors of leadership lead to disaster: confronting an enemy of overwhelming size, resulting in panicked flight; weak officers leading strong soldiers, which causes rebellion; overly eager officers and weak soldiers, which leads to exhaustion and collapse; angry officers, who countermand the general’s orders and cause ruin; unclear commands, which result in disorganization; and lack of planning, which pits weakness against strength and leads to rout.

Chapter 11 Summary: “The Nine Situations”

As an army marches, it may pass through as many as nine different regions, each with its unique effect on the army’s odds of victory. Dispersive ground, the home territory, is where soldiers are most likely to run away to their families. Facile ground, the early reaches of the enemy’s country, are where the invading general must make it clear there is no turning back. Contentious ground, such as a pass, is a valuable place that armies are likely to fight hard to gain.

Open ground is desirable and must be gained before the enemy can reach it. Intersecting highways are places where three or more states meet at their borders; here, a general can threaten several rulers at once and force some to join an alliance. Serious ground lies deep within enemy territory, where invaders must fight or face ruin. Difficult, hemmed-in, and desperate ground are, in increasing level of danger, areas where the troops must fight or die.

In tough situations, wise generals keep their enemies disorganized, use stratagems to deceive the foe, or take things of great value that their opponents must recapture. Smart leaders know that troops in peril fight the hardest, and they plan accordingly, using the dangers of travel deep into the enemy’s country to inspire great effort and spirit.

Chapters 9-11 Analysis

These three chapters address situations that arise when an army travels overland or maneuvers in the field. The focus is on how to take advantage of terrain and use those situations to keep troops organized and inspired.

Sun Tzu’s advice can seem cryptic, but a bit of thought reveals the intent. For example, the point of waiting for an enemy army to be halfway through a river crossing is to catch it while much of its force is trapped in the water, much of the rest is waiting to cross, and those divisions already across are wet, weakened, separated from their cohorts, and easy to attack.

The first half of Chapter 10 deals with terrain and how to use it; the second half concerns disasters caused by mistakes. The “terrain” of the chapter thus refers not simply to geographical conditions but the landscapes within the minds of leaders and soldiers, who are warned to avoid over eagerness, anger, and indecision.

As the longest chapter in the book, Chapter 11 digs more deeply into the specifics of terrain and how they affect the fighting mood of an army. Much of the discussion concerns “contentious ground,” or places of great strategic importance. As an example, a pass that controls access to valuable territory must be controlled. In ancient Greece, when a company of Spartans faced a gigantic invading army from Persia, they fought at a narrow coastal pass, Thermopylae, that the Spartans were able to blockade long enough for nearby city-states to bolster their defenses. The Spartans died, but the Persians were delayed, and their invasion ultimately failed.

That Spartan heroism, remembered to this day by proud Greeks, reflects Sun Tzu’s dictum that troops with no escape will fight hard because their death is a foregone conclusion and no longer figures into their tactics.

In general, any terrain that forces an army to march in single file—for example, a narrow pass or a trail across a steep mountain—puts the entire army at risk because the enemy can pick off the traveling soldiers one at a time.

These are the types of situations military leaders should consider carefully when planning an invasion. Giving short attention to such details can come back to haunt them.