ON WAR / CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist. Clausewitz’s bracing theory with practicality, emphasis of the centrality of politics in the acts of war, emphasis of the importance of the moral forces (psychological forces) in war are among the prominent aspects of his work which add to the continuing relevance of his theories. 

Clausewitz joined the Prussian Army as an ensign at the age of 12, seeing his first action the next year as the Prussian Army invaded France during the revolution. In 1801, he was admitted to the new Military Academy in Berlin, where he was introduced to the teachings of Kant, and became the protege of the soldier, reformer and first director of the Academy, Gerd von Scharnhorst. On graduation, he was appointed as adjutant to the Prince of Prussia. He met and fell in love with the daughter of a Count, and although their marriage was delayed for seven years because of her family’s resistance, the relationship brought him lasting happiness, and she became the first editor of his work after his death. 

Clausewitz served on the Prussian general staff in 1806 during the renewed war with Prussia and France. He was taken prisoner with the Prince until their release in 1808. There on, he worked for developing army reforms to remould and modernize after their defeat, and as advisor. He was promoted to the rank of major-general in 1818, and was appointed director of the War College, which was mostly an administrative post, so he devoted most of the next 12 years to formulating his theories. During his chief of staff duty for putting down rebellion in Prussian Poland, he contracted cholera, which caused his death. Despite his life being devoted to the military, he remained both by birth (not aristocratic when the backbone of the army was aristocratic) and by temparament (solitary and studious) an outsider, which allowed him to formulate a theory of war detached from traditional thinking. Although he saw action, he was never given command duty on the battlefield.

Clausewitz starts with defining war as ‘nothing but a duel on an extensive scale’, and therefore ‘an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will’. Reciprocality in war naturally tends to progress into the extremes, yet it usually does not happen because it would lead to an unnecessary waste of power. And also because war is never an isolated act: Man is imperfect, and that is a modifying principle. And ‘[From] the outset there is a play of possibilities, probabilities, good and bad luck, which spreads about with all the coarse and fine threads of its web, and makes war [like] a gambling game’. He says the human mind is urged towards clearness and certainty, but it also is attracted by uncertainty, and almost unconsciously steers himself into the realms of chance and luck, reveling in the wealth of possibilities, with his courage now winged, plunges fearlessly into the stream. Hence, theory must take into account the human element, and therefore can never attain the absolute. War is a trinity composed of the original violence of its elements, hatred and animosity (akin to a blind instinct), the play of probabilities and chance (‘a free activity of the soul’), and the subordinate nature of a political instrument (reason’s realm). 

Clausewitz says there are many ways to win a war, and the single means for it is the Fight (whatever form it may take). On discussing the genius for war, he maintains that courage alone may suffice for lower ranks, but for the highest ranks it needs to be together with intellect, resolution, serenity, presence of mind, ability for imagining the whole. ‘Force of character degenerates into obstinacy whenever the resistance to opposing judgements proceeds not from better convictions or a reliance upon a mere trustworthy maxim, but from a feeling of opposition’. To conduct a whole war, the general should have a good grasp of state policies, but he should also not cease to be a general. 

The chief moral powers in war are the talents of the commander, the military virtue of the army and the national feeling. Bravery and enthusiasm are important for the military virtue of an army, yet they need to submit to obedience, order, rule and method. Military virtue is for the parts, and the genius of the commander is for the whole. The genius of the general plays a larger role when the army is concentrated. Military virtue grows through continuous war activity and victories, and pure discipline is not enough. 

Tactics is the theory of the use of military forces in combat, and strategy is the theory of the use of combats for the object of the war. In both, the most general principle of victory is the superiority of numbers, but it is not enough to guarantee a win. And surprise is at the foundation of all undertakings, secrecy and rapidity its two factors, but it takes great energy to produce it and ‘in idea it promises a great deal; in the execution it generally sticks fast by the friction of the whole machine’. 

‘The more helpless the situation, the more everything presses towards one single, desperate [blow]. Let loose from all further calculations, freed from all concern for the future, boldness and strategem intensify each other, and thus collect at one point an infinitesimal glimmering of hope into a single ray, which may likewise serve to kindle a flame’. 

On the suspensions of the acts in war: ‘If we cast a glance at military history in general, we find so much the opposite of an incessant advance towards the aim, that standing still and doing nothing is quite plainly the normal condition of an army in the midst of war; acting, the exception’. Causes are natural timidity, aversion to danger and responsibility, imperfection of human perception and judgement, and the greater strength of the defensive form: ‘[It] is not so easy then to change from the fencing posture into that of an athlete, and a slight blow is often sufficient to knock down the whole’. – Hesitancy is again mentioned as an evil in war more than 2200 years after Lao Tzu’s Art of War. 

Clausewitz defines the concept of victory as the greater loss of the enemy in physical power, in moral power, and his giving up of his intentions. The last one is the only real evidence as the first two are usually hidden or falsified information. Yet, retirement from the battlefield does not equal giving up of the object. 

No battle is decided in a single moment, although in every battle crises arise which determine the result. Therefore the loss of a battle is gradual, too, and timely decisions can save the forces from being wasted. After a lost battle, slow retreat, offering incessant resistance, bold and courageous counterstrokes, regaining concentration to recover order, courage and concentration are necessary. 

‘Another question is, whether, through the loss of a great battle, forces are not perhaps roused into existence, which otherwise would never have come to life. This case is certainly conceiveable, and it is what has actually occurred with many nations. But to produce this intensified reaction is beyond the province of military art, which can only take account of it where it might be assumed as a possibility’. 

On defense, Clausewitz states that it is a stronger form of conducting war (as opposed to offense), yet it must transition into offense as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Preservation is easier than acquistion, therefore both sides equal, defense is easier than offense. 

Most of the advantage of the offensive comes from the high spirit of the attacking side, the feelings of superiority, yet that may soon merge into the more general and powerful one imparted by victory or defeat, ‘by the talent or incapacity of the general’. When advantage presents itself, ‘the iron should be struck while it’s hot’: ‘[He] who does not from the first include this transition [from defense to offense] in his idea of the defensive will never understand the superiority of the defense as a form of war’. The conception of war starts with the idea of taking possession of something, which is not offensive. ‘The idea of war arises first by the defensive who wants to ward off the party who wants to acquire something. So the defender establishes the first laws of war’. This better explains how war only can happen with the consent of both sides. 

On arming of a nation for a people’s war, he says it is like a nebulous vapory essence that never condenses into a solid body that the enemy can grasp, yet it must collect at some points into denser threatening masses that now and again strike formidable blows. ‘No state should believe its fate, that is, its entire existence, to be dependent upon one battle, let it be even the most decisive’. 

Attack in war is also a perpetual alternating and combining of attack and defense, but defense is not an active principle, but a necessary evil. Every attack must lead to a defense, and ‘every assailant in advancing diminishes his military strength by the advance’. A successful defense may imperceptably change into offense and vice versa, so vigilance is necessary. ‘If we reflect upon the number of the elements of which an equation of the forces in action is composed, we may conceive how difficult it is in many cases to determine which of two opponents has the superiority on his side. Often all hangs on the silken thread of imagination’. 

Clausewitz describes his idea of an absolute war as one where both sides aim at the destruction of the enemy and utilize utmost energy and means to attain it. This idea for him is the ideal that should be strived for, but man is impulsive, confused, inconsistent, not sure of his purpose and timid, and probabilities, good and bad fortune also figure into war, therefore theory must be of an observatory kind to allow for such input. 

As governments separated themselves from the people, war became more exclusively a business of the government, therefore their means diminished and became estimatable, and this caused wars to be less extreme. War became a substitute for diplomacy. So ‘A new Alexander must [try] the use of a good pen as well as his good sword’: The diminishing of ‘great’ wars in a sense caused the diminishing of ‘great’ commanders. Yet, war once again became an affair of the people during the French Revolution, so if politics change again, how war is conducted may change again. 

‘We have tried to emphasize the necessary and the general, and to leave a margin for the play of the particular and accidental; but to exclude all that is arbitrary, unfounded, trifling, fantastical or sophistical’. 

The text is sober, calm and collected in spirit. It is brilliant in addressing those unquantifiable elements without falling into the usual traps of metaphysics. It is also brilliant in demonstrating the ever shifting of all the forces of war, and practicing what he preaches- formulating theory based on observation, rather than laying down stiff and sacred verdicts.

‘Although our intellect always feels itself urged towards clearness and certainty, still our mind often feels itself attracted by uncertainty. Instead of threading its way with the understanding along the narrow path of philosophical investigations and logical conclusions, in order, almost unconscious of itself, to arrive in spaces where it feels itself a stranger, and where it seems to part from all well-known objects, it prefers to remain with the imagination in the realms of chance and luck. Instead of living yonder on poor necessity, it revels here in the wealth of possibilities; animated thereby, courage then takes wings to itself, and daring and danger make the element into which it launches itself as a fearless swimmer plunges into the stream.’

‘Another question is, whether, through the loss of a great battle, forces are not perhaps roused into existence, which otherwise would never have come to life. This case is certainly conceiveable, and it is what has actually occurred with many nations. But to produce this intensified reaction is beyond the province of military art, which can only take account of it where it might be assumed as a possibility’. 

‘Let us not hear of generals who conquer without bloodshed. If a bloody slaughter is a horrible sight, then that is a ground for paying more respect to war, but not for making the sword we wear blunter and blunter by degrees from feelings of humanity, until someone steps in with one that is sharp and lops off the arm from our body.’

‘If we reflect upon the number of the elements of which an equation of the forces in action is composed, we may conceive how difficult it is in many cases to determine which of two opponents has the superiority on his side. Often all hangs on the silken thread of imagination’. 

Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Translator: J. J. Graham, revised by F. N. Maude
Title: On War
Published: 1997, by Wordsworth Editions Limited
Pages: 373