If you know nothing else about Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) but that he wrote the seminal On War (1832), you might form a mental picture of an intellectual soldier moving in the top echelons of the early-19th-century Prussian Army. This conception would be partly right, as Clausewitz did indeed mingle with Prussian and other European royals, as well as diplomats, field marshals, and generals in the struggle against Napoleon. And yet, as Donald Stoker shows, Clausewitz also had a keen feeling for field service.
Here he is, writing to his wife Marie upon rejoining the Prussians after service in Russia:
Being with a very dear little army . . . headed by my friends, passing through beautiful country during the nice time of the year . . . is pretty much the ideal of Earthly existence. . . . The troops are happy and sing “Auf, auf Kameraden!” . . . [O]thers yodel to perfection. I see myself surrounded by friends.
Where the magisterial On War has a high theoretical style, here is the other Clausewitz: the patriotic, deeply romantic defender of his country’s honor against the Corsican invader.
Stoker is an expert guide. He moves easily from skirmishes, battles, and campaigns to the higher politics of the coalitions against Napoleon. Like his subject, he is also keenly attuned to the personal and the localized. Wars, as Clausewitz famously noted, are messy and unpredictable. The men fighting them are not abstract forces, but shape events by their abilities and ambitions, even as a host of others range against them. Sharing Clausewitz’s central insight that context is king, Stoker gives us his subject’s professional development in detail, following him as he rises (and partly falls) in the military hierarchy.
As has been noted widely, Clausewitz became increasingly bitter the closer Napoleon came to his ultimate defeat. In a useful appendix, Stoker lists the 36 combat actions in which Clausewitz is known to have served, from 1793, when he was just 12 years old, to 1815, when he was 35. His active service saw him: experience defeats at the hands of the French, notably at Auerstedt in 1806; defect to the Russians in 1812 to keep up the fight his country had given up; chase the French back to Paris in 1813/14; and take up arms one final time in 1815.
Yet for all this direct experience, Clausewitz’s superiors typically valued him for his planning, administration, training, and diplomatic skills. Arguably one of his biggest achievements was to negotiate a truce with the Prussian general Yorck von Wartenburg, who fought with the French against the Russians. Due to no small amount of psychological insight, patience, and reasoning, Clausewitz helped persuade a cagey Yorck to sign the Convention of Tauroggen (1812). This truce helped to destroy the remnants of Napoleon’s army after his ghastly Russian mistake, and subsequently saw Prussia strengthen its national self-confidence.
The problem, for Clausewitz, was that he craved battlefield distinction. Although focused on the destruction of Napoleon, whom he saw as the “God of War,” Clausewitz was overwhelmed by melancholy after Waterloo. Napoleon’s defeat by Wellington and Blücher, in which Clausewitz did not participate directly, effectively ended his opportunities to distinguish himself in the field. Ultimately, the intellectual skill with which he was blessed meant less to him than the idea of battlefield glory.
Stoker efficiently outlines Clausewitz’s personality, typically revealed in his letters to his wife and his two closest friends, General Gerhard von Scharnhorst (1755-1813) and Field Marshal August Neidhardt von Gneisenau (1760-1831). Clausewitz doubted the aristocratic “von” in his own name, which had been adopted by his father, giving him recurrent social anxiety. Together with his two brothers, who, like him, rose to the rank of general, Clausewitz worried about being seen as a social climber, going so far as to avow his readiness to duel anyone who dared to question his social standing. Most of the family’s forefathers had been pastors, teachers, or professors, despite a definite aristocrat in a grandmother’s second husband, the military leader Gustav Detlof von Hundt. This situation was not resolved until 1827, when the Prussian king Frederick William III formally recognized the family.
Again and again, we witness a remarkably talented, insightful man who barely allows himself to act without some anxiety, doubt, or profound thought. Clausewitz was a brooding presence, full of historical contemplation. As he noted to his wife: “I am an odd person with respect to the past. I love dwelling on it, even if it wasn’t good for much.” Clausewitz was one of those people keen to explain what just happened, even as others are still making it happen. He can be brilliant—invaluable, even—in giving us well-considered perspectives on military actions and the larger context. Yet one can instantly grasp why his superiors often kept him away from the frontline. Others less intelligent and less aware of the action could perhaps be much faster at dealing mortal blows. It was something Clausewitz seems to have either misunderstood, or willfully ignored, about himself.
That said, as a writer, he can be admirably forthright. In On War, he comes straight to the point on the first page: “War is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” He calls it “a duel on a larger scale” and states:
[K]indhearted people might think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy. . . . War is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.
This simple insight, easier to say than to act upon, stands as a useful lesson. In the present, much has been written about what exactly victory might look like. After all, we are no longer fighting Napoleonic battles, with clearly defined armies and conventions. Moreover, the nature of warfare has changed to include a range of weapons and techniques undreamt of two centuries ago. And yet, the central point is clear enough: Victory is the destruction of the other’s will, achieved so that you can decide what happens next.
Stoker’s understanding of On War is that it teaches us how to think about war, rather than what weapons or techniques will win the day. He mounts a short defense of Clausewitz in his conclusion, arguing that Clausewitz’s intellectual fluidity and rigorous honesty are more persuasive than his critics. Stoker feels little need to defend his subject at length, perhaps because Clausewitz is so central a part of military theory the world over. And yet, it is difficult to imagine a modern-day Clausewitz passing with so little commentary or argument over an existing text. Stoker has come to a rather fixed view about Clausewitz’s thinking, which contradicts his subject’s chief philosophical perspective on the world, in which uncertainty and conflict are paramount.
One of the most interesting aspects of Clausewitz is its commentary on Napoleon. We read about him on almost every page, only a shade less frequently than we read about Clausewitz. We see him through his contemporaries’ eyes, in the politicking of rulers like Czar Alexander I and King Frederick William III, in how leaders like the Duke of Wellington sought to evade his strengths and attack his weaknesses, and in how a mind like Clausewitz’s grappled with the challenge he posed.
Beaten back to France after the Russian disaster, Napoleon kept fighting, and often won. He came back from Elba in 1815, still not done, and by the time of Waterloo, he had won 60 of his 70 battles. In this light, it is fascinating to imagine Napoleon’s reaction to Clausewitz, both as fighter and thinker. Though it would not likely be ridicule or underestimation, it might be the bemusement of someone who could win so often and so well, typically at breakneck speed. In the end, Stoker gives us a valuable portrait of his subject—and, apparently without intending to, a glowing tribute to the French God of War.
Andre van Loon is a writer in London.