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On War (Ger. Vom Kriege) is a book on military strategy and tactics by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, written mostly after the Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1818, and published posthumously by his wife in 1832. It is one of the most important treatises on strategy ever written, and is prescribed at various military academies to this day. German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ...
Military strategem in the Battle of Waterloo. ...
The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701-1918 The word Prussia (German: 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 Russia and...
A young Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (June 1, 1780 - November 16, 1831) was a Prussian general and influential military theorist. ...
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars fought during Napoleon Bonapartes rule over France. ...
1816 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...
1818 is a common year starting on Thursday. ...
1832 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...
A military academy is a military educational institution. ...
On War is actually an unfinished work; Clausewitz had set about revising his accumulated manuscripts in 1827, but did not live to finish the task. Naval Battle of Navarino by Carneray 1827 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...
History
Carl von Clausewitz was a disillusioned Prussian officer among those baffled by how Napoleon's army had changed the nature of war through his ability to motivate the populace and thus unleash war on a greater scale than was generally fought previously. Von Clausewitz spent a considerable part of his life fighting against Napoleon and there is no doubt that the insight he gained from his experiences provided much of the raw material for the book. On War represents the compilation of his cogent observations published after his death by his wife. The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701-1918 The word Prussia (German: 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 Russia and...
For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ...
An act of war - the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945, effectively ending World War II. The bombs over Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki immediately killed over 120,000 people. ...
Synopsis Among many strands of thought, three stand out as essential to Clausewitz' concept: - War must never be seen as a purpose to itself, but as a means of physically forcing one's will on an opponent ("war as continuation of politics").
- War presupposes human weakness and is directed against it.
- The laws of war will always favor the party devoting more resolve and resource ("total war").
The West's modern perception of war is based on the Clausewitzian principles taught in On War. Its military doctrine, organization, and norms are all based on Clausewitzian premises, even to this day.
On War has been seen as the place where the concept of total war was made explicit and has been blamed1 for the level of destruction involved in the First and Second World War, whereas it seems rather that Clausewitz had merely foreseen the inevitable development starting with the huge, patriotically motivated armies of the Napoleonic wars and resulting (though not ending) in the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with all forces and capabilites of a state devoted to destroying forces and capabilities of the enemy state (thus "total war"). This article is about total warfare. ...
Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...
Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ...
The book contains a wealth of historical examples used to illustrate the various concepts. Frederick II of Prussia (the Great) figures prominently for having made very efficient use of the limited forces at his disposal. Napoleon also is a central figure. Frederick II of Prussia (January 24, 1712 – August 17, 1786) was a king of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty, reigning from 1740 to 1786. ...
For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ...
On War is a work rooted solely in the world of the state. Martin Van Creveld states that Clausewitz takes the state "almost for granted" as he rarely looks at anything previous to Westphalia. He does not address any form of intra/supra-state conflict, such as rebellion, because he could theoretically not account for warfare before the existence of the state. Previous kinds of conflict were demoted to criminal activities without legitimacy and not worthy of a declaration of war. Clausewitz explains that war requires the state to act in conjunction with the people and the army, the state becoming a massive engine built to exude military force against an identical opponent. This statement is easily verified by looking at the conventional armies in existence throughout the 20th century. A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. ...
Martin van Creveld (1946- ) is an Israeli military historian and theorist. ...
The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster by Gerard Terborch (1648) Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Münster by Bartholomeus van der Helst, 1648 The Peace of Westphalia, also known as the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, refers to the...
Notes - For example, writing in his introduction to Sun Tzu's Art of War, B.H. Liddell Hart states that Civilization might have been spared much of the damage suffered in the world wars of this century if the influence of Clausewitz's monumental tomes On War, which molded European military thought in the era preceding the First World War, had been blended with and balanced by a knowledge of Sun Tzu's exposition on `The Art of War'. Whilst this comment is tempered by the comment that the ill-effects of Clausewitz's teaching arose largely from his disciples' too shallow and too extreme interpretation of it, it still ranks as a strong criticism. Extracted from "The Art of War (UNESCO Collection of Representative Works)" Samuel B. Griffith [1]
Sun Tzu (孫子 also commonly written in pinyin: Sūn Zǐ) was the author of The Art of War, an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy (for the most part not dealing directly with tactics). ...
The Art of War (Chinese: 孫子兵法 sūn zi bīng fǎ) was a Chinese military text written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. ...
Basil Henry Liddell Hart (October 31, 1895 _ January 29, 1970) was a military historian and is considered among the great military strategists of the 20th century. ...
Editions (Translations are into English unless otherwise noted) - Translated by Colonel J. J. Graham, 1874, republished 1909 Project Gutenberg eBook
- Translated by O. J. Matthijs Jolles, 1943
- Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton University Press, 1976 (index added 1984) ISBN 0-691-05657-9
- Edited with introduction by Anatol Rapoport, Viking Penguin, 1982 (Paperback, 464 pages) ISBN 0140444270
Michael Howard The Right Honourable Michael Howard, QC, MP (born July 7, 1941) is a British politician and caretaker Leader of the Opposition and the Conservative Party, having formally resigned the post on 7 October 2005. ...
The Princeton University Press is a publishing house, a division of Princeton University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. ...
Anatol Rapoport (born May 22, 1911) is a Russian-born American Jewish, mathematical psychologist. ...
See also Art of War. ...
The Philosophy of War examines war beyond the typical questions of weaponry and strategy, inquiring into the meaning and etiology of war, into what war means for humanity and human nature, and also the ethics of war. ...
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