'War is deception'

War is deception.

Deception means to lie, treachery, cheat and fraud.

Prophet saying war is full of these things.
To be effective in war you have to deicieve the enemy.

In war you are allowed to deceive the enemy.

Prophet would take the enemy by surprise. When the Prophet wanted to conquer he did it without telling any Muslims. So the news does not get filtered out.

Prophet would tell companions to go undercover to find out plans.

Context of hadith: when the Prophet intended to go on a battle, he would pretend to be going somewhere else then he would say war is deceit.

Prophet personally took part in 25battles , 50 which he did not take part in. 9 times prophet engaged in battle.

Battle of uhud