Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories

1BATTLE OF MAGDALA—BRITISH ABYSSINIAN CAMPAIGNGENERAL NAPIER VERSUS EMPERORTEWODROS II (1868)

ON PREPARATION

Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.—miguel de cervantes

 

General Robert Napier, one of many unrelated Victorian soldiers and sailors named Napier, was a master at preparation. He was sent from Bombay to rescue the British representative and other hostages held by Emperor Tewodros II in Abyssinia. These hostages had been taken because Tewodros was insulted by Queen Victoria’s failure to reply to a letter he had sent two years earlier. Napier arrived at Annesley Bay on the East Coast of Africa. The army built piers ...