 Carl Phillip Gottlieb von Clausewitz (June 1, 1780 - November 16, 1831) was a Prussian general and influential military thinker. Carl von Clausewitz This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ...
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1831 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...
The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701-1918 The word Prussia (German: Preußen or Preussen, Polish: Prusy, Lithuanian: Prūsai, Latin: Borussia) has had various (often contradictory) meanings: The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of...
Biography Clausewitz' father was an officer in the Prussian Army; Carl entered the military at the age of 12, eventually attaining the rank of Major General. He served in the Rhine campaigns (1793–94), won the regard of Gerhard von Scharnhorst at the Berlin Military Academy, and served in the Napoleonic Wars. In the service of the Russian Empire from 1812 until 1814, Clausewitz helped negotiate the Convention of Tauroggen (1812), which prepared the way for the coalition of Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain against Napoleon I. He later reentered the Prussian army, played an important role at Waterloo, and was appointed director of the Prussian war college in 1818. Insignia of a United States Air Force Major General German Generalmajor Insignia Major General is a military rank used in many countries. ...
Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst (November 12, 1755 - June 28, 1813) was a general in Prussian service, Chief of the Prussian General Staff, noted for both his writings and his leadership during the Napoleonic Wars. ...
The Napoleonic Wars was a series of wars fought during Napoleon Bonapartes rule of France. ...
Imperial Russia is the term used to cover the period of Russian history from the expansion of Russia under Peter the Great, through the expansion of the Russian Empire from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, to the deposal of Nicholas II of Russia, the last tsar, at the start...
1812 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...
1814 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...
For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ...
Map of the Waterloo campaign The Battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18, 1815, was Napoleon Bonapartes last battle. ...
He married Countess Marie von Brühl and subsequently died in a cholera outbreak. Marie Sophie Gräfin von Brühl (en: Countess Marie Sophie von Brühl), (June 3, 1779 - 1836) was a member of the von Brühl noble family originating in Thuringia. ...
}} Distribution of cholera Cholera (also called Asiatic cholera) is an infectious disease of the gastrointestinal tract caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacterium. ...
His Ideas - For more details on this topic, see On War.
Carl von Clausewitz is most famous for writing the military strategy book Vom Kriege (On War), first published in 1832. The book is a compilation of his observations following the Napoleonic Wars. On War (Ger. ...
Military strategy in the Waterloo campaign Military strategy is a collective name for planning the conduct of warfare. ...
On War (Ger. ...
1832 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...
Clausewitz used a dialectical method to construct his argument, leading to frequent modern misinterpretation. As described by Christopher Bassford, professor of strategy at the National War College: Broadly speaking, a dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a disagreement. ...
The National War College (NWC) of the United States is a school in the National Defense University. ...
One of the main sources of confusion about Clausewitz's approach lies in his dialectical method of presentation. For example, Clausewitz's famous line that "War is merely a continuation of politics," while accurate as far as it goes, was not intended as a statement of fact. It is the antithesis in a dialectical argument whose thesis is the point—made earlier in the analysis—that "war is nothing but a duel [or wrestling match, a better translation of the German Zweikampf] on a larger scale." His synthesis, which resolves the deficiencies of these two bald statements, says that war is neither "nothing but" an act of brute force nor "merely" a rational act of politics or policy. This synthesis lies in his "fascinating trinity" [wunderliche dreifaltigkeit]: a dynamic, inherently unstable interaction of the forces of violent emotion, chance, and rational calculation.[1] Among these confusions has been that Clausewitz was the origin of the concept of total war as used in 1940s' Third Reich Propaganda. Clausewitz, however, did not coin the phrase as a ideologic ideal, but as an inevitable part of the equations underlying his theories: War, as any struggle or competition, cannot be waged in a limited way, as the rules of competition will force the opponents to go to their utmost possibilities and devote all means they have to victory. Similarly, his statement "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means," is perhaps his most oft-quoted and even more often missed point. It has been intepreted by some as the idea that war is only the "strong arm" of diplomacy, utilized when more peaceful means of persuasion are not sufficient; and by others, that military should only serve the politic and not end in itself. A US poster produced during World War II Total war is a 20th century term to describe a war in which countries or nations use all of their resources to destroy another organized countrys or nations ability to engage in war. ...
An act of war - the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan during World War II War is a state of widespread conflict between states, organisations, or relatively large groups of people, which is characterised by the use of violent, physical force between combatants or upon civilians. ...
The United Nations, with its headquarters in New York City, is the largest international diplomatic organization. ...
Influence Despite his death before completing On War, Clausewitz' ideas have been widely influential in military theory. Later Prussian and German generals such as Helmuth Graf von Moltke were clearly influenced by Clausewitz as they developed the concepts of total war. The idea that actual war includes "friction" which deranges, to a greater or lesser degree, all prior arrangements, has become common currency in other fields as well (e.g. business strategy). Graf Moltke Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke (October 26, 1800 - April 24, 1891), who became Helmuth, Graf von Moltke in 1870, was a famous Prussian Field Marshal. ...
A US poster produced during World War II Total war is a 20th century term to describe a war in which countries or nations use all of their resources to destroy another organized countrys or nations ability to engage in war. ...
Bibliography 1874 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...
See also This is a list of military writers, alphabetical by last name. ...
A US poster produced during World War II Total war is a 20th century term to describe a war in which countries or nations use all of their resources to destroy another organized countrys or nations ability to engage in war. ...
External links
Further reading Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about: - Clausewitz, Karl Von; edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. (1976) On War, Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691056579
- Clausewitz, Carl von. Col. J. J. Graham, translator. Vom Kriege. On War — Volume 1, Project Gutenberg eBook.
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