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Occupying the Central Position

Excerpt from How Great Generals Win, by Bevin Alexander, pages 302-03

In the opening act of the Italian campaign in 1796, Napoleon drove his army between the Piedmontese and Austrian armies in the Apennines west of Genoa thereby permitting him to defeat one enemy force before having to deal with the other. (See page 104.) Later at Castiglione he got his army between two major Austrian attacking columns, driving back one, then defeating the other. (See page 110.)

Stonewall Jackson marched to Port Republic in the Shenandoah Valley in 1862, where his army kept the two Union armies pursuing him from uniting. Jackson then attacked one of the armies and forced it to retreat, causing the other Union army to withdraw as well. (See page 138.)

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