Clausewitz, Karl Von
Clausewitz, Karl Von
Karl von Clausewitz, military theorist, was born in 1780 in Burg, Prussia, into a Protestant family of administrators and theologians. His father had assumed the particule of nobility and entered the Prussian Army. Like many other middle-class officers, he was dismissed after the Seven Years’ War for being unable to substantiate his title; however, his military connections enabled three of his four sons to gain admittance to the service, in which they reached senior rank.
After joining an infantry regiment at the age of 12, Clausewitz took part in the campaigns against the French Republic and then served in a provincial garrison until he was sent to the Berlin War Academy in 1801—an event which he later described as the turning point of his life. At the academy Clausewitz studied military theory, philosophy, history, and literature, wrote his first essays, and gained the friendship of Scharnhorst, the leader of progressive thought in the army.
During the disastrous Prussian campaign against Napoleon in 1806, Clausewitz was captured and spent ten intellectually fruitful months in France and Switzerland before returning to Prussia. He soon became one of Scharnhorst’s most trusted collaborators in the task of changing the classridden military establishment into a fighting force that tapped all sources of energy and enthusiasm in the nation. He contributed to the evolution of strategic and tactical doctrine through lectures at the new Allgemeine War Academy (Kriegsschule) on the functions of the general staff and on irregular warfare and through his work on the new infantry manual. His marriage to Countess Marie Briihl brought him in closer contact with the court, as did his appointment as teacher of military science to the crown prince. Nevertheless, when the Franco–Prussian alliance was concluded in the spring of 1812 he resigned his commission and joined the Russian Army, with which he served throughout the French invasion. At the end of the year he played a major role in the negotiations at Tauroggen, which detached the Prussian auxiliary corps from Napoleon’s army, and during the following weeks he helped organize the East Prussian militia—two events with far-reaching political and military implications. Despite these achievements, conservative resentment of his readiness to subordinate monarchic loyalty to political convictions delayed his readmission to the Prussian Army until 1815 and continued to handicap him afterwards. In 1818 Clausewitz was promoted to major general and appointed director of the War Academy—a purely administrative post that allowed him no voice in the curriculum but did give him time to write. Dissatisfaction with routine duties prompted him several times to seek a place in the diplomatic service. In 1830 he was at last transferred to a more active position and the next year was appointed chief of staff of the observation forces mobilized at the outbreak of the Polish insurrection. On the verge of what appeared to be a new and promising stage in his career, Clausewitz died of cholera in Breslau in 1831.
Clausewitz belonged to that sizable group of cultured officers that formed a distinctive part of the German classical movement. He wrote on education, aesthetics, and national character, as well as on professional topics, and occasionally attempted poetry. From Scharnhorst he learned the value of historical studies in the training of judgment, a lesson to which his admiration for Schiller’s writings rendered him particularly receptive. The tenets of idealistic philosophy exerted a lasting influence on his thought from his twenties, when he acquired a sound knowledge of Kant’s works and discussed Machiavelli with Fichte, to the years when he wrote On War and mustered his arguments in an almost Hegelian dialectic.
Where Clausewitz differed from other military intellectuals of his day was in combining the tools of logical analysis with a realistic appreciation of political and military affairs. He rejected the theorists who tried both to explain war and to provide keys for successful generalship in systems of universal rules, derived from mathematics, geography, ethics, and even technology. Force and the willingness to use it constituted in his mind the essential element of war, but he went beyond such writers as Jomini, who had grasped the Napoleonic technique of seeking decision by battle, in his stress on the political and psychological factors that were steadily increasing the intensity of war. No contemporary recognized so clearly as he that an adequate theory of conflict must accommodate both general propositions and the constant changes introduced by new weapons and new political forces. A solution to this fundamental problem was suggested by his view of the past, which approached that of early historicism. Like Ranke, whom he resembled also in his distaste for moral judgments, he acknowledged the singularity of each period and each event: a particular campaign, therefore, can be understood only in its specific context. But in the varied history of warfare he discerned certain elements that are, in one way or another, present in every type of armed conflict: the force of accident; the role of the irrational, of emotions such as enthusiasm and patriotism; the power of numbers, both in regular units and in guerrilla bands; and, above all, the political nature and purpose of war. He reasoned that since war is basically political, its course should be determined by the political leadership. In his major but uncompleted work, On War, he attempted to develop his ideas into a comprehensive theory whose function was to guide inquiry and educate judgment, not to be an “algebraic formula” for victory.
Much of the criticism that has been leveled at Clausewitz stems from a failure to understand his purpose and methods. Readers have not always followed such distinctions as his differentiation between the ideal and the real: since violence is not in principle subject to limitations, the reciprocity of action and reaction escalates to the “ideal”—total war; but in real life considerations of policy, technology, and morality modify this absolute. Too often he has been misinterpreted as the prophet of brute force, perhaps because his dialectic does not lend itself easily to excerpting. Nevertheless, his writings have exerted great influence on the study of war, particularly among communist theorists from Engels and Lenin onward, enabling them to see significant concepts behind the operational speculations, which today are of largely historical interest. What is of lasting value in On War is its suggestive discussion of the relation between political and military power, its ability to delineate some basic problems of armed conflict between states, and its demonstration that these problems are amenable to logical analysis and empirical research.
Peter Paret
[See alsoMilitary power potential; Strategy; War.]
WORKS BY CLAUSEWITZ
Clausewitz published little during his lifetime. The bulk of his writings on the history and theory of war was brought out by his widow in ten volumes, 1832–1837, of which the first three constitute On War. Other manuscripts and much of his correspondence have appeared since. Between the Franco—Prussian War and 1914, many of Clausewitz’ writings were translated into French; several works have appeared in Russian; and Lenin’s annotations to On War are in print. The only work available in English, aside from incidental pieces, excerpts, and some campaign histories, is On War, but even the 1943 translation is based upon corrupted texts.
(1832–1834) 1943 On War. Translated by O. J. M. Jolles. New York: Modern Library. ? First published in German as Vom Kriege, in three volumes.
1832–1837 Hinterlassene Werke des Generals Carl von Clausewitz über Krieg und Kriegführung. 10 vols. Berlin: Dümmler.
Politische Schriften und Briefe. Edited by Hans Rothfels. Munich: Drei Masken, 1922.
WORKS ABOUT CLAUSEWITZ
Croce, Benedetto 1935 Action, succès et jugement dans le Vom Kriege de Clausewitz. Revue de métaphysique et de morale 42:247–258.
Hahlweg, Werner 1957 Carl von Clausewitz: Soldat, Politiker, Denker. Göttingen (Germany): Musterschmidt.
Paret, Peter 1965 Clausewitz: A Bibliographic Survey. World Politics 17:272–285.
Paret, Peter 1965 Clausewitz and the Nineteenth Century, Chapter 2 in Michael Howard (editor), The Theory and Practice of War: Essays Presented to Captain B. H. Liddell Hart. London: Cassell.
Rothfels, Hans 1943 Clausewitz. Pages 93–113 in Edward Mead Earle (editor), Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought From Machiavelli to Hitler. Princeton Univ. Press.
Schwartz, Karl 1878 Leben des Generals Carl von Clausewitz und der Frau Marie von Clausewitz. 2 vols. Berlin: Dümmler.