"Generals are always fighting the last war"

[Fred Shapiro]

Someone has asked me for the origin of the saying "Generals are always
fighting the last war."  I have something similar to this in The Yale Book
of Quotations from Barbara Tuchman (1962), but I imagine it predates her.
Any ideas or evidence as to early usages or origin?

Fred Shapiro


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press
Yale Law School                             ISBN 0300107986
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org