When the French statesman Georges Clemenceau, who led his country into the First World War, said that ‘war was too serious a matter to be left to generals’ he wasn’t demeaning his commanders. It meant that active conflict is not a light matter to be trifled with and thus should not be left to people, who due to their training, have a natural propensity towards conflict. Many decades later, John F. Kennedy followed a similar principle in not adhering to advise of his generals in dealing with the Cuban missile crisis.
War is Not a Joke
When the French statesman Georges Clemenceau, who led his country into the First World War, said that ‘war was too serious a matter to be left to generals’ he wasn’t demeaning his commanders.