Shrewdness and Coup d’œil: The Cognitive Attributes of the Consummate General (Greek Antiquity, Byzantine Era, Modern Times)

Abstract

This article tests Everett Wheeler’s hypothesis that the Greek concept of ankhínoia finds its equivalent in the 18th-century military writers’ notion of the coup d’oeil by comparing treatises on the art of war written in the two periods. After highlighting the different meanings of the coup d’oeil in 18th -century military terminology, Carl von Clausewitz’s approach is examined in his new conceptual way.