In Michael Mann’s 1992 film, Hawkeye and his companions move through the forests of North America as if they were their own home. British linear tactics, made for the open fields of Europe, fail again and again on this terrain.
A solid block of many teal dots moves across an open surface, and small mist-blue dots bounce off it. Then arcs and wavy lines narrow the path into a bottleneck; the block becomes a thin line and loses its order, and golden dots break away from the terrain on both sides.
Principle #35
Terrain: If you know the terrain better than your opponent and use its features, you fight where your own strengths count and your opponent’s come to nothing.
3 min read5 sectionsSituationLink to the principle
Contents
The film is based on James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel and is set in 1757, during the war between Britain and France over North America. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Hawkeye, a white frontiersman raised by the Mohican Chingachgook (Russell Means). Madeleine Stowe plays Cora Munro, the daughter of a British fort commander, and Wes Studi plays the Huron Magua. The film is an adventure and a love story. But in almost every scene, it shows how much depends on who knows the terrain – the principle of Terrain on the screen.
Three rigid rows stand at the edge of the forest, while a golden path winds its way between the treetops – as in “The Last of the Mohicans.”
01
An ambush on the forest trail
Situation
A small British column under Major Duncan Heyward is to escort Cora and her sister Alice to Fort William Henry. Their guide is Magua, who leads the column along a narrow forest trail into a Huron ambush. Most of the soldiers are killed. Hawkeye, Chingachgook and his son Uncas intervene and rescue the sisters.
Link to the principle
The British army was strong when it could fire in close ranks on open ground. In the forest, this strength did not count. Whoever chose the path chose the outcome of the fight. The ambush shows how someone who knows the land can make the opponent’s strength come to nothing.
02
Paths only locals know
Situation
Hawkeye and his companions bring the sisters and Heyward to the fort. On the way, they find the farm of friendly settlers destroyed. They leave the dead unburied so that the Huron will not learn they were there. At the besieged fort, they slip past the besiegers and get inside.
Link to the principle
Knowing the terrain is not just knowledge of mountains and rivers. It shows in habits: how you walk, where you rest, when you show yourself. Hawkeye does not have to be stronger than his pursuers. He only has to know where they won’t expect him.
03
The siege of the fort
Situation
Fort William Henry is besieged and bombarded by French troops under General Montcalm. Cora’s father, Colonel Munro, waits in vain for reinforcements from General Webb at Fort Edward. In the end, he negotiates the surrender with Montcalm: the British may withdraw with their weapons.
Link to the principle
The fort is an attempt to build European terrain into the wilderness: walls, cannon, open fields of fire. It holds only as long as supplies arrive. In a land of forest and water, an isolated fortress is vulnerable, because the route to it runs through the opponent’s terrain.
04
The withdrawal into the forest
Situation
After the surrender, the British column marches out of the fort. On the way, Magua’s Huron warriors attack the long column, and no orderly defense is possible. Here the film takes up a historical event: the attack on the departing garrison of Fort William Henry in 1757.
Link to the principle
A long marching column in the forest is the opposite of a good position. The attackers know every approach; those withdrawing know none. Once again, it is not numbers that decide but position on the terrain.
05
The waterfall
Situation
Hawkeye and the others flee by canoe across a lake and downriver and hide in a cave behind a waterfall. Magua and the Huron find them. Hawkeye, Uncas and Chingachgook escape by leaping into the waterfall. Before he goes, Hawkeye promises Cora that he will find her.
Link to the principle
Even the escape follows the terrain. If you know water, rock and current, you find ways out where others see only a dead end.
Key takeaways
Key lessons
01
Check whether your strength works on this ground at all.
02
Don’t let the person who profits from it show you the way.
03
Know the paths off the beaten track.
04
An isolated position holds only as long as its supplies.
05
Read the terrain on the retreat, too.
Summary
“The Last of the Mohicans” shows two ways of fighting. The British army relies on close ranks, fortresses and columns. Hawkeye, Chingachgook and Uncas, but also their opponent Magua, rely on knowledge of forest, water and trails. On this terrain, the one who knows the land usually wins. The film makes visible what Sun Tzu means: terrain is an ally if you know it and an enemy if you underestimate it.
