“Coriantumr launched a kind of blitzkrieg, piercing the Nephite border defenses, and seized the capital city of Zarahemla. The conquest was quick and, for the moment, total … .
“As Hugh Nibley points out, his drive ‘had been successful because it was completely unexpected; and it had been unexpected because it was utterly foolish.’ It was utterly foolish because, having penetrated the Nephite defense on the circumference and seized the center of the land, Coriantumr was now, by the very nature of his own success, surrounded. … Following a bloody battle in which Coriantumr was killed, [it] left them no alternative but surrender. It was a humiliating defeat” (Peterson, “Their Own Worst Enemies,” 95–96).