Carl von Clausewitz On War

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branches of knowledge and those appliances of skill occupied with material things. The pattern and
preparation and the mode of using arms, the construction of fortifications and entrenchments, the organism of
an army and the mechanism of its movements, were the subjectthese branches of knowledge and skill above
referred to, and the end and aim of them all was the establishment of an armed force fit for use in War. All
this concerned merely things belonging to the material world and a one- sided activity only, and it was in fact
nothing but an activity advancing by gradations from the lower occupations to a finer kind of mechanical art.
The relation of all this to War itself was very much the same as the relation of the art of the sword cutler to
the art of using the sword. The employment in the moment of danger and in a state of constant reciprocal
action of the particular energies of mind and spirit in the direction proposed to them was not yet even mooted.
2. TRUE WAR FIRST APPEARS IN THE ART OF SIEGES.
In the art of sieges we first perceive a certain degree of guidance of the combat, something of the action of
the intellectual faculties upon the material forces placed under their control, but generally only so far that it
very soon embodied itself again in new material forms, such as approaches, trenches, counter-approaches,
batteries, and every step which this action of the higher faculties took was marked by some such result; it was
only the thread that was required on which to string these material inventions in order. As the intellect can
hardly manifest itself in this kind of War, except in such things, so therefore nearly all that was necessary was
done in that way.
3. THEN TACTICS TRIED TO FIND ITS WAY IN THE SAME DIRECTION.
Afterwards tactics attempted to give to the mechanism of its joints the character of a general disposition, built
upon the peculiar properties of the instrument, which character leads indeed to the battle-field, but instead of
leading to the free activity of mind, leads to an Army made like an automaton by its rigid formations and
orders of battle, which, movable only by the word of command, is intended to unwind its activities like a
piece of clockwork.
4. THE REAL CONDUCT OF WAR ONLY MADE ITS APPEARANCE INCIDENTALLY AND
INCOGNITO.
The conduct of War properly so called, that is, a use of the prepared means adapted to the most special
requirements, was not considered as any suitable subject for theory, but one which should be left to natural
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On War
talents alone. By degrees, as War passed from the hand-to-hand encounters of the middle ages into a more
regular and systematic form, stray reflections on this point also forced themselves into men's minds, but they
mostly appeared only incidentally in memoirs and narratives, and in a certain measure incognito.
5. REFLECTIONS ON MILITARY EVENTS BROUGHT ABOUT THE WANT OF A THEORY.
As contemplation on War continually increased, and its history every day assumed more of a critical
character, the urgent want appeared of the support of fixed maxims and rules, in order that in the
controversies naturally arising about military events the war of opinions might be brought to some one point.
This whirl of opinions, which neither revolved on any central pivot nor according to any appreciable laws,
could not but be very distasteful to people's minds.
6. ENDEAVOURS TO ESTABLISH A POSITIVE THEORY.
There arose, therefore, an endeavour to establish maxims, rules, and even systems for the conduct of War. By
this the attainment of a positive object was proposed, without taking into view the endless difficulties which
the conduct of War presents in that respect. The conduct of War, as we have shown, has no definite limits in
any direction, while every system has the circumscribing nature of a synthesis, from which results an
irreconcileable opposition between such a theory and practice.
7. LIMITATION TO MATERIAL OBJECTS.
Writers on theory felt the difficulty of the subject soon enough, and thought themselves entitled to get rid of it
by directing their maxims and systems only upon material things and a one-sided activity. Their aim was to
reach results, as in the science for the preparation for War, entirely certain and positive, and therefore only to
take into consideration that which could be made matter of calculation.
8. SUPERIORITY OF NUMBERS.
The superiority in numbers being a material condition, it was chosen from amongst all the factors required to
produce victory, because it could be brought under mathematical laws through combinations of time and
space. It was thought possible to leave out of sight all other circumstances, by supposing them to be equal on
each side, and therefore to neutralise one another. This would have been very well if it had been done to gain
a preliminary knowledge of this one factor, according to its relations, but to make it a rule for ever to consider
superiority of numbers as the sole law; to see the whole secret of the Art of War in the formula, IN A
CERTAIN TIME, AT A CERTAIN POINT, TO BRING UP SUPERIOR MASSES--was a restriction
overruled by the force of realities.
9. VICTUALLING OF TROOPS.
By one theoretical school an attempt was made to systematise another material element also, by making the
subsistence of troops, according to a previously established organism of the Army, the supreme legislator in
the higher conduct of War. In this way certainly they arrived at definite figures, but at figures which rested on
a number of arbitrary calculations, and which therefore could not stand the test of practical application.
10. BASE.
An ingenious author tried to concentrate in a single conception, that of a BASE, a whole host of objects
amongst which sundry relations even with immaterial forces found their way in as well. The list comprised
the subsistence of the troops, the keeping them complete in numbers and equipment, the security of
communications with the home country, lastly, the security of retreat in case it became necessary; and, first of
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On War
all, he proposed to substitute this conception of a base for all these things; then for the base itself to substitute
its own length (extent); and, last of all, to substitute the angle formed by the army with this base: all this was
done to obtain a pure geometrical result utterly useless. This last is, in fact, unavoidable, if we reflect that
none of these substitutions could be made without violating truth and leaving out some of the things
contained in the original conception. The idea of a base is a real necessity for strategy, and to have conceived
it is meritorious; but to make such a use of it as we have depicted is completely inadmissible, and could not
but lead to partial conclusions which have forced these theorists into a direction opposed to common sense,
namely, to a belief in the decisive effect of the enveloping form of attack.
11. INTERIOR LINES.
As a reaction against this false direction, another geometrical principle, that of the so-called interior lines,
was then elevated to the throne. Although this principle rests on a sound foundation, on the truth that the
combat is the only effectual means in War, still it is, just on account of its purely geometrical nature, nothing
but another case of one-sided theory which can never gain ascendency in the real world.
12. ALL THESE ATTEMPTS ARE OPEN TO OBJECTION.
All these attempts at theory are only to be considered in their analytical part as progress in the province of
truth, but in their synthetical part, in their precepts and rules, they are quite unserviceable. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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