[A_C_Slater]

Before promoting an officer, Napoleon used to famously ask his generals if the promotee in question was "lucky."

The generals were always unerved by this question and confused as to why such an apparently great and educated man would be concerned about luck.


But Napoleon knew that if the man was perceived as being "lucky" by his troops then that meant the man had a good grasp of probabiltiy and the odds of an attack succeding or failing.

How's that for pretentiousness, malorum?