How to Win a Civil War: The Case of Caesar (Gaius Iulius Caesar): Chapter-5 (Final)

If you want to become a dictator, a one-man dictator, by taking the top position in the country you live in and controlling the entire administration of the country, even at the cost of starting a civil war, you need to do the following:

-If possible, choose to become an officer or a politician as a profession. Because these professions are best suited for learning how to rule people and gain power quickly.

-Start in these professions as young as possible. In this way, you will have the opportunity to learn every level of the profession and gain experience.

-Be a good orator (speaker). Remember! Most people make decisions based on what they hear.

-For this reason, read, research and make public speeches at every opportunity to improve your speaking skills from an early age.

-Write a book. Very few people in society actually read books, but books are still very important. A book gives you permanence. It gives your supporters a reference even if they don't read them.

-Always write down your thoughts and especially your achievements.

-If you are not good at writing, get someone skilled to do it for you.

-If you do not write about your life and thoughts yourself or someone under your control, others will.

-If others do, they will write about your failures as well as your successes.

-Letting people know that you are likely to make mistakes is an obstacle to projecting the image of an unquestionable leader.

-Be successful in your profession, even if only a little.

-It is important that you and your propaganda supporters magnify these achievements.

-Make it seem as if you are the sole reason for your success, even if it is thanks to the state or other people.

-Build a myth around you.

-Make it seem as if nothing will go right without you.

-Propaganda that only you can solve all problems.

-Repeat this over and over again through the media and other means.

-Build up a large mass of people with unshakable faith in you.

-Always do big and ambitious things, or at least appear to do so.

-Always make a professional profit from your achievements.

-Let each success take you to the next level.

-Always be the top manager in a province/region before becoming a candidate for the highest level positions.

-Make good use of this management period.

-Do not try to solve all problems during your term of office.

-Instead, focus on the most complained about and most prominent problems.

-Solve them or pretend to solve them even if you cannot.

-While in office, build a staff that can support you in the future.

-In order to ensure the loyalty of this staff, raise and enrich them in terms of office and position.

-Do not hesitate to use the power of the office and the means of the state for this purpose.

-In the meantime, enrich yourself the most without making anyone feel it.

-Guarantee the loyalty of your associates by making them complicit in your crimes.

-Take an interest in as many different subjects as possible, especially law.

-You do not need to be an expert in these subjects.

-Just learn how to use each area of interest for your goals and who you can use to achieve them.

-Seize the opportunities that come your way.

-Timing is everything.

-Seize every opportunity just in time to move up.

-Be assertive and demanding.

-Claim that you are the best person for the position you want to hold.

-Do everything to get there.

-Don't be afraid to give up less important privileges on the way to the main goal.

-Know how to retreat when necessary for a greater victory in the future.

-If you are going to overthrow or change a system, you must first gain an important place in it.

-Therefore, when you are not yet strong enough, you must first gain a foothold in the system by following the existing customs and the legal rules of the system.

-Propaganda is paramount.

-Do not hesitate to take advantage of every opportunity for propaganda and make sacrifices if necessary.

-Make big ceremonies and spectacular shows whenever you have the opportunity.

-Make frequent public appearances.

-Gather large crowds in large squares and make impassioned speeches to them.

-In these speeches it does not matter whether what you say is understood or not.

-Undecided people who see crowds will join the crowd and rally around you.

-Be as close as possible to critical places at critical times.

When you are on the rise, but not in full power, frequently go to administrative and judicial decision-makers to seek your rights, and ask for what you claim you are entitled to.

-Make good use of time and plan in detail.

-Make good use of the time you have and the time you have available for the steps you need to take to achieve your goal.

-If time is short, sacrifice less important things and concentrate on the vital ones.  

-Be ambitious, but do not appear to be ambitious.

-Choose your goals correctly.

-First identify the end goal.

-Then identify intermediate goals that will lead you to that goal.

-Then define a strategy and make a detailed plan according to that strategy.

-Make sure that the intermediate goals you have chosen are achievable and, once achieved, empower you enough to get you to the final goal.

-Identify your supporters, your opponents and those who have not yet chosen a side and keep track of them day by day.

-There will be those who understand what you want to do right from the start and will be your fiercest opponents. If you are still weak, do not engage in an attritional struggle with them.

-Be decisive.

-If you are unable to fight the obstacles, take side roads, make tactical retreats when you get stuck, but never give up.

-Work with all your strength on the way to the goal.

-Do not be lazy, lax or negligent.

-Remove such people from your side.

-If necessary, you may have to appear as a simple citizen with no authority or power. Be courageous and impulsive in these situations.

-Don't be afraid of anyone, because no one will follow cowardly and timid people.

-Try to attract powerful people who are likely to be your rivals and form alliances with them on the basis of mutual interests.

-It is better if they are people who do not get along with each other because they will not be able to unite against you.

-Such people will not automatically cooperate with you.

Therefore, identify their expectations and vulnerabilities and promise to meet them.

-Promise to give office, money and position if necessary, but give nothing of yourself, use state means.

-Let the people with whom you make alliances of mutual interest be people who are among the highest institutions and classes in the existing system.

-This way they can get these institutions and classes to accept your demands.

-Do not hesitate to lend state treasury and treasury lands to those who will support you.

-By doing so, create a mass of people who will support you in any case and will do their best to protect your rule.

-Make their preservation of the property and money they have acquired through state means depend on your staying in power.

-If you fall, they will also fall, so they will support you loyally to the end.

-Put your own relatives and supporters in important positions in the state, not on merit, but on the basis of their loyalty to you.

-Analyze the leading influential people in politics and society, identify their weaknesses and expectations.

-Contact them and signal that you will meet their expectations if they support you.

-The most important thing in an electoral system is to get the votes of more people.

-The middle and lower classes make up the majority of the population.

-To win the votes of these classes, be as populist as possible.

-As soon as you take power, distribute money from the state treasury, houses and land to poor people.

-But instead of giving large plots of land to a few, give small plots of land to many.

-Also, distribute wheat and foodstuffs to the people.

-In this way you will create a large mass of people who will be able to eat for free and own property without working.

-Then give large sums of money and land to your close supporters and relatives.

-Be careful not to let them be seen.

-But even if they are seen, the masses of people will turn a blind eye and even defend them because they themselves benefit from the same theft.

-Thieves do not object to the head of the gang getting the biggest share of the stolen goods.

-As long as everyone gets a share, more or less.

-Therefore, make the biggest theft from the state treasury and its lands for yourself.

-Don't forget to share what you steal with your close relatives and close friends.

-If you are still weak, do not engage in an unnecessary struggle with the system.

-Instead, act like water.

-Water flowing down mountains will overcome or sweep away small obstacles, but when they come across a big block of rock, they don't waste time dealing with it.

-They move towards their goals by turning in alternative directions, that is, in directions where they can flow more easily.

-Unless you have an overwhelming majority in Parliament and are so powerful that you can ignore the law, you should do likewise.

-Try alternative methods to achieve your goal.

-Find the weaknesses of the system and work from there.

-If this is not possible, hold frequent referendums to eliminate the system's obstacles.

Draw in those at the bottom of society, those who are dissatisfied with the system, those who feel they have been wronged by it, any religious, ethnic or political opposition groups, the poor, criminals and immigrants - in other words, as wide a range of people as possible.

-It does not matter if you agree with all of them.

-It doesn't matter whether they agree with each other or not.

-Make them feel that everyone will benefit from what you do, but don't be their prisoner.

-Emphasize only their common interests and claim that you are the only one who can deliver them.

-Identify the powerful institutions and communities in the country and do not fight them all at the same time.

-Use the resentments of institutions and communities that feel left behind to your advantage.

-Weaken strong institutions and communities by cooperating with the weak against the strong.

-In this way, you will be able to divide the institutions of the state and the whole society.

-When these institutions and communities are at odds with each other, they will have no power to deal with you.

-Take advantage of this situation to move decisively towards your goal.

-As soon as your main rivals show signs of weakening, go at them with all your might and do not stop until they are completely neutralized.

-Threaten and harass your opponents, often reminding them of the popular support behind you and your legal immunities.

-If you can, frighten your opponents because fear immobilizes people.

-If your enemies are immobilized, you will be free to act.

-When you are strong enough and have the opportunity, change the old laws and rules to serve your interests.

-Find "Enough but yes!" supporters and exploit their support to the fullest to establish the order you want step by step.

-Do not hesitate to distribute every penny, every square meter of land and every office of the state to those who support you on this path.

-In this way, take over the state down to its smallest cell through your allies and supporters.

-In doing so, don't neglect those who you think might oppose you and cause some trouble.

-In order to guarantee their silence, pass laws protecting their personal interests, give them offices, positions and money.

-Even if this bribery does not make them your supporters, it will ensure their silence.

-State resources are not unlimited.

-As money and land dwindle, create new resources.

-At all costs, continue to support and increase the number of those who feed from the state treasury.

-The most important institutions for running a country are political institutions.

-Get your relatives, supporters and public figures elected to parliament in exchange for their unquestioning support.

-Your actions will surely provoke a reaction from the old elite, the upper class and the bureaucrats.

-It is inevitable that they will soon cooperate.

-Therefore, intimidate the bureaucracy through dismissal or exile.

-Do not hesitate to liquidate those you cannot intimidate through conspiracies.

-Use the security forces and the courts (through judges and prosecutors under your command, of course) to exert irresistible pressure.

-Cooperate with the mafia and other armed forces if necessary and do not hesitate to use violence against your opponents.

-Let not only your enemies but also your friends fear and dread you.  

-Fear is the most important means of propaganda and intimidation.

-No one dares to betray someone he fears.

-Through this pressure, even many intellectuals and neutrals will be convinced that everything you say must be done and that there is no other way than to get along with you in order to avoid a social upheaval.

-Even if the loyalty of these wise men cannot be won, their pacification will ensure that the masses of the people will follow suit.

-While doing so, remember this.

-You can get to the highest levels of the state through these methods, but there is a big problem with that.

-If you have not yet captured all the power of the country, you will never feel safe.

-The more people you lose sleep over, the more you lose sleep over what these people might do to you when your term of office is up, and this fear continues to grow with each passing day.

-So prepare for the time when your mandate may expire.

-First, take steps to ensure that you do not lose your legal immunity for life.

-But this is not enough to make you feel safe, because you have prosecuted, imprisoned and disempowered many people with immunity in defiance of the law.

-Remember that the same thing will happen to you.

-Therefore, find a suitable office and position that will protect you until you take over all the power in the country.

-This office and position should not weaken you, but should make you stronger militarily and economically.

-Maintain your influence in parliament and among the people.

-The instability and chaos caused by the environment you create should not weaken you; on the contrary, it should make you even stronger and enable you to become a dictator.

-Therefore, work to ensure that class, religious and sectarian conflicts do not end, but rather increase.

-When you are deprived of the power to govern the state and become politically passive, let the state be governed by the people you put in place.

-These people should increase, not decrease, the pressure and instability you have created.

-To do this, they must use violence through their gangs and threaten their rivals through their mafia organizations.

-Even those who barely escaped harm while you were in power must be repressed through exile and imprisonment.

-These developments are not a negative thing for you, but an opportunity.

-Do not miss this opportunity.

-Immediately express your sympathy for those who have been victimized and tell them that you can protect them if they join you.

-Most of them will not agree to this, but no harm done.

-In their weakest moments, this false compassion will sink into their subconscious.

-They will feel a small amount of gratitude towards you and will think that the real criminals are those around you, not you.

-At the same time, those who were previously your closest allies may want to take advantage of the vacuum created by your absence.

-They may also try to build a front against you by bringing back some of those who went into exile during your time.

-Because power poisons people.

-When you start to fall from power, those who want to seize that power will not hesitate to betray the old alliance.

-They will look for ways to break your influence.

-They will try to counterbalance you by drawing in your former allies and those whom you oppressed and persecuted.

-They will attempt to use the same methods and conspiracies against you.

-They will move to change the laws you have enacted and the system you have established.

-That is why you need to follow the developments in the country, and especially in the capital, minute by minute.

-For this you need a strong intelligence system.

-Find a person who is completely loyal to you and answers only to you and put him or her in charge of your intelligence system.

-Be alert to the possibility that this person may be swayed by other people's tempting offers.

-Because not only the achievement of your goals but even your very existence depends on the good functioning of this organization.

-On the other hand, try to achieve great success in your new position.

-That way, your reputation will grow and you will become legendary.

-People will recognize you as someone who succeeds in whatever task you take on.

-And of course, continue to increase your personal wealth rapidly.

-Remember! There may be no happiness with money, but there is nothing without it.

-Choose your subordinates well in your new position.

-Gain their unconditional loyalty.

-Remember that this cannot be achieved only through the right attitude and behavior.

-Promote and enrich them in terms of position.

-Make them believe that you will bring them to higher positions and more money in the future.

-If the tide continues to turn against you, call on your former allies and rebuild your alliance with new promises.

-This way, they will support you in maintaining your position.

-Build alliances with powerful families through marriages.

-Take their daughters to your sons or give your daughters to their sons.

-Being related by blood in this way will benefit them economically and politically and increase your power.

-Beware of people with whom you have lost kinship through death or divorce and who have become extremely powerful through their alliance with you.

-These people may aspire to become your rivals or to lead your rivals.

-This person or persons may also rise to the highest office of the state due to conflicts and legal obligations.

-In such a situation, do not immediately turn against them.

-Instead, try to maintain alliance relations for as long as possible.

-This will prevent your opponents from crushing you mercilessly, even if they do not support you.

-Keep an even more careful eye on those who have won the support of the opposing alliance and are likely to soon become its leader.

-Do not fall for offers to share power with them and rise to the highest positions in the state.

Do not give up your power for short-term and uncertain interests.

Stay at a distance, follow developments closely and continue to build up your strength to prepare for a possible all-out war.

-Propagandize that the alliance you are up against is like a patchwork, that there is no similarity between them and that they will soon fall apart on their own.

-Let your old allies and new rivals take the positions they want, as long as your hand is strong and their powers are not unlimited.

-As long as you are strong, they will not be able to openly turn against you and dare to completely change the order you have established.

-The possible failures of this person or persons and the coercive measures that will alienate the people from them will work in your favor.

-There will be many people who will see you as the lesser evil or even the only savior.

-Follow these developments closely and show your supporters that you have embraced this role.

-If your opponent changes the laws that you have passed and collaborates with people who want to strip you of all your powers, prepare accordingly.

-If you become someone without authority, power and immunity, not only will you become just another civilian, but your life will be in danger.

-Mobilize your supporters so that you do not lose your powers and immunity.

-Fan the flames of discord among your opponents, if it doesn't exist, try to create it.

-Make your opponents believe that it is too late to act against you and that you have gained too much power to be destroyed.

-This will make them hesitant to act against you.

Create the greatest indecision in the mind of your would-be opponent.

-Meet with him/her directly or through intermediaries.

-Give him/her positive messages and spread ambivalent rumors.

-Prevent or at least delay him/her from openly taking a stand against you.

-Even if your opponent remains undecided, those around him and your other opponents can continue their attempts to put you in a difficult position.

-They may try to make their point in parliament and try to get decisions taken against you.

-Therefore, try to maintain a numerical majority of your supporters in parliament.

-If this is not possible, at least get enough of your supporters into the parliament to try to stall the work of the parliament by voting against resolutions against you.

-Establish a strict monitoring and control mechanism so that they do not switch sides.

-They may try to weaken you by taking away some of your power.

-In this case, if the loss of power is not too much of a burden or can be compensated for in other ways, do not make a fuss.

-If the leader of your opponents can no longer withstand the pressure or has become too confident and is openly turning against you, it is time to take action.

-Mobilize your forces, deploy them where appropriate, but do not use them immediately.

-Where you advance with your army, build houses and distribute them to foreigners who can support you.

-Give them citizenship and place them in the buildings you have built so that they can be found en masse.

-Mobilize your intelligence network to inform you immediately of developments all over the country and especially in the capital.

-Once your opponents have mobilized and begun to gather forces against you, never agree to relinquish your authority and power and become a mere citizen.

-If you do, they will destroy you.

-However, do not act immediately.

-Wait for favorable conditions and the best time.

-First of all, express and exercise your legal rights.

-If the situation becomes too critical, recruit some people from the other side.

-You cannot recruit such people through friendship, etc.

-Learn all the characteristics of the people on the other side, including their private lives.

-Buy the loyalty of people who are broke by paying them money.

-Document their philandering and use it as blackmail to get them to join you.

-If they are one of your opponent's most trusted people, don't let them immediately reveal their defection.

-Let them continue to pretend to oppose you on the surface.

-Serve you by working from within and only make their position clear when it is most critical.

-Bribe some people in parliament to veto decisions against you.  

-Advise the people you have bought to ask, without revealing themselves, that the same things you want done for you should be done for your competitors in a similar position.

-In doing so, they should not openly support you.

-Instead, they should say that they are doing so for the survival of the state, democracy, law, justice and other lofty concepts.

-In this way, block your opponents' moves on every platform and drive the discussions on taking decisions against you to a dead end.

-Have your supporters, your bought and bribed people repeat your arguments over and over again.

-Let your arguments become ingrained in the minds of the public and the elite.

-So that they cannot distinguish between right and wrong and begin to doubt what they used to believe to be true.

-Do not hesitate to make small concessions when you are forced to do so.

-Wait for the other side to make the move so that you don't become the initiator of the conflict.

-Do not underestimate your opponent.

-On the contrary, take every opportunity to make him/her look down on you.

-If necessary, hire paid people to spread false news.

-Remember, deception is one of the most important principles of warfare.

-Do everything you can to maintain the loyalty of your men and supporters.

-Learn your opponents' ambivalence, anxieties and sensitivities and exploit them to the fullest.

-Claim that your opponents are responsible for everything bad that happens and that you are the victim and the wronged party.

-Don't be afraid to shed a tear in front of everyone.

-Remember, even children cry to get their parents to do something, and they usually succeed.

-Spread the idea among your opponents that it is too late to take action against you and that the only way is to appease you by giving in to your demands.

-This will divide them by blaming each other.

-Send messages of peace until the last moment, before you start a war.

-Say that you are in favor of resolving the conflict legally and through negotiations.

-But continue to prepare underhandedly and make every effort to prevent talks from taking place.

-Send messengers and write letters everywhere.

-In this way, present your arguments from your point of view.

-Propagandize that you do not want to shed citizens' blood for nothing, but that the actions of your opponents are provoking you and the citizens to shed blood.

-There may still be people on the other side who are not quite sure what to do.

-Therefore, forgive and show mercy to your captured enemies.

-A show of mercy is a good propaganda tool.

-This way, some undecided people may come over to your side without fear of being punished.

-Act at the most opportune moment, but don't throw all your forces into the game at once.

-Even after you have acted, continue negotiations and pretend to strive for a peaceful solution.

-Don't forget to use subtlety to persuade the other side to accept your demands.

-Tell them that you want peace, but that if you don't succeed, you have the power to take it by force.

-Do not hesitate to make threats if necessary.

-So don't just offer the carrot, but also the stick.

-Create a safe zone from which to retreat and send reinforcements when you need them.

-That way, you're sure of your rear.

-Deploy your forces according to the concept you will apply.

-Spread some of your troops over a large area and reserve a reserve for safety and contingencies.

-Do not concentrate your entire army in one spot, creating a threatening and intimidating image.

-Success does not require great forces, but good strategy, speed, deception and decisive execution.  

-Give clear and simple instructions and orders to your people.

-Tell them not to use violence unless they have to, and when they do, to use as little violence as possible.

-Because it is best to win without fighting.

-That way, every place you conquer will be filled not with enemies, but with supporters who have voluntarily joined you.

-That reverses the frictional effect of war and makes you stronger, not weaker, as you advance.

-Think carefully before making a final decision.

-Don't reveal your decisions and plans to everyone.

-Tell those who need to know as much as they need to know.

-When you have made your final decision, cross the Rubicon.

-Before you cross the bridge, be sure to give your men a powerful speech.

-Emphasize that the war is against injustice and that it is God's command.

-Because no one is willing to die for your personal gain, but most soldiers will die for a holy cause and because God commands them to do so.

-Declare and constantly emphasize that you are fighting for the rights of the broad masses of the people, the oppressed classes and the wronged.

-This will not only increase your soldiers' will to fight, but also the support of the broad masses of the people.

-Keep in touch with your enemies even after the war has begun.

-Make constant attempts to get them to accept your demands without fighting.

-During the war, continue to help the poor, distribute land and grant citizenship to foreigners.

-In other words, show at every opportunity that you are a populist leader.

-In fact, go all the way to populism.

-Identify your opponents with the tyrants of the past.

-Call them derogatory epithets.

-Claim that all current evils are caused by your opponents and their predecessors.

-Blame them for even the evils and failures that have occurred because of you.

-Tell about the events that you say caused these evils as if they happened yesterday, even if they happened 50 years ago.

-Therefore, constantly criticize the past, history, especially recent history.

- "In history the rival party oppressed and persecuted the people, and if they come to power now they will do the same thing, but I will not allow that. That's what my struggle is all about."

-In this way, show yourself as a savior, not a wannabe dictator who is leading the country into civil war for personal gain.

-Divide the country into us and them with your rhetoric and constantly blame them.

-Blame the source of all evil on others.

-Stay close to religious men and religious circles.

-Give them money and land or provide them with financial resources.

-Claim that religious people have been massacred and persecuted by the rival party in the past and that this is still going on.

-Declare the opposing party as irreligious and even enemy of religion.  

-First take control of the mainland, where the country's founding element lives, and then march on the capital.

-Capturing the capital will give you a huge advantage, because your opponents and their supporters will flee, and you will have the center of government and the legal power to govern.

-Once you have taken the capital, take over the parliament and the governing bodies.

-Create a homogeneous parliament composed only of your supporters.

-If necessary, hold elections for it.

- Through this assembly, declare yourself the head of the state and the army, i.e. the commander-in-chief.

-In this way, you will gain legitimacy in the eyes of the people and a legal status.

-Naturally, your opponents will also become illegal and illegitimate.

-Once you control the capital, seize the strategic areas on its periphery, especially the economically rich ones.

-Once you have consolidated your hold on the capital and the territories you have captured, march quickly against your opponent.

-Your aim should be to destroy them, not to weaken them.

-If your opponent escapes, pursue them and continue this pursuit until they are completely destroyed.

-After destroying your enemy, the country will be completely in your hands.

-Now you can be a rich person, a top executive or a dictator with the power to rule the country alone for life.

-But remember this: Whatever you become after such a struggle, you cannot be happy.

-because you live in constant fear of being removed from that position.

-Probably, you will soon fall victim to an intrigue that will make your intrigues look like yours.

-Caesar was assassinated in the Senate in 44 BC, shortly after he had completely taken over the state.

-Caesar fought a civil war for two years to seize power, but only stayed in power for three years.

-An English proverb says: "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

-Caesar also came to power by the sword and was deposed by the sword.