On War (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)
4/5
()
About this ebook
Carl Von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a Prussian military officer and military theorist. Born to a family of nobles from Upper Silesia, Clausewitz followed his father’s footsteps by entering military service as a lance-corporal at a young age. He served in several major conflicts throughout his life, including the Rhine Campaigns and the Napoleonic Wars, and eventually reached the rank of general. In 1801, he went to Berlin to enter the Kriegsakademie, where he studied philosophy and the history and tactics of warfare, research which would lead to his work On War (1832), a treatise on the moral, political, and social aspects of warfare. In 1810, he married the aristocrat and socialite Countess Marie von Brühl, a highly educated and driven woman who would oversee the posthumous publication of his most important work, On War, editing Clausewitz’s manuscript and writing the introduction. Clausewitz was a decorated and ambitious soldier and leader, serving both the Prussian and Imperial Russian Armies in campaigns throughout Europe, as well as spearheading efforts to contain the cholera outbreak that would eventually take his life. His theory of war is still studied by scholars and military officials today, and is noted for its philosophical outlook and definition of war as an extension of political policy.
Read more from Carl Von Clausewitz
The Complete Art of War: The Art of War by Sun Tzu; On War by Carl von Clausewitz; The Art of War by Niccolò Machiavelli; The Art of War by Baron de Jomini Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On War: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Strategy: Napoleon's Maxims of War + Clausewitz's On War: The Art of War in 19th Century Europe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Strategy Collection: The Art of War, On War, The Prince Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn War: The Strategy of Military and Political Combat (Vom Kriege) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On War (Illustrated): Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn War — Volume 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On War (Complete edition translated by J. J. Graham) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Campaign of 1812 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War - Book Set: The Most influential Military Strategy Books: The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Confucius Machiavelli, Maxims of War by Napoleon, On War by Clausewitz, The Book of War by Wu Qi, Battle Studies by Du Picq, Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara, Arthashastra & U, Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn War — Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn War: All Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Strategy of Warfare: Napoleon's Maxims of War + Clausewitz's On War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to On War (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)
Related ebooks
Warfare in the Enemy’s Rear Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBiggest Stick: The Employment Of Artillery Units In Counterinsurgency Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUS Army Small Unit Tactics Handbook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Case Studies in Strategic Bombardment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGuerrilla Warfare Tactics In Urban Environments Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Practise to Deceive: Learning Curves of Military Deception Planners Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Handbook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Infantry Attacks [1944 Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDevil Dogs: King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines: From Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExam Prep for:: US Defense and Military Strategy Handbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStrike Warfare in the 21st Century: An Introduction to Non-Nuclear Attack by Air and Sea Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/57 Leadership Lessons of D-Day: Lessons from the Longest Day—June 6, 1944 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The U.S. Army Leadership Field Manual Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDirty Wars: A Century of Counterinsurgency Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFirst to Fight: The U.S. Marines in World War I Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of War: From Ancient Warfare to the Global Conflicts of the 21st Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gulf War Chronicles: A Military History of the First War with Iraq Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMilitary Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5On War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBait: The Battle of Kham Duc Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBradley Fighting Vehicle: The US Army's Combat-Proven Fighting Platform, 1981–2021 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Stripes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/524hr Trench: A Day in the Life of a Frontline Tommy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Kites to Cold War: The Evolution of Manned Airborne Reconnaissance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCounter Insurgency: Lessons from History Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Special Forces - WWII Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Wars & Military For You
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for On War (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)
217 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My first full reading of Clausewitz (accepting that the Penguin volume does not include several books on early nineteenth-century military operations) impressed upon me the essence of philosophy and theory as it applies to the social sciences. This Penguin volume is interesting in that it includes an introduction from the editor of the 1908 version used by the US military (Colonel F.N. Maude) and a later introduction from the time of the Cold War (1966 and the early stages of the Vietnam War) by Professor Anatol Rapoport. I have long viewed On War much the same as one might Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations: the quote “war is the continuation of policy by other means” proving to be as similarly unhelpful “as if by an invisible hand” in comprehending the extent of the philosophical grounding in store for the avid reader of classic literature. Reading Clausewitz is like reading John Stuart Mill: almost every lesson is so ingrained in the education of political scientists (or in this case, from my training as an army officer) that it seems like nothing new. From morale being one third of combat power (p. 424) to the implied role of the infantry (which I memorised years ago and can still recite), to the essence of war and the changes heralded by the Napoleonic period to the future of absolute or total war that would arrive in 1914, these things I mostly knew. But the references to philosophy (the Stoic’s negative visualisation gets a run), to how to develop a theory, to the social scientific view of the world that is largely inductive (and unfalsifiable if one is a fan of Karl Popper) astounded me. That I could learn so much unexpectedly was a blessing. Some ideas are worth noting. First, in the introduction, Rapoport writes of Clausewitz (p. 72):Those without specialized mathematical knowledge (e.g. political scientists, administrators, military men) tend to conceive of their expertise as that of the artist rather than of a scientist. Rapoport explains (p. 431):In the exact sciences, theory is used precisely in the sense rejected by Clausewitz, namely, in the sense of a collection of theorems deduced rigorously from postulates formulated in ‘if so… then so” terms, i.e. as formulas. Clausewitz here uses ‘theory’ in the sense often used in the social sciences, namely, as a synthesis of concepts which illuminate the subject matter without necessarily enabling us to make specific predictions or to control specific situations.This was illuminating, given that only today I was rummaging through the inductive nature of my own theories developed from research and then reading of Popper’s critique of historicism (another discussion that is new to me). An interesting reference from the notes is one of what was probably the most outdated books of the twentieth century even before it was published: Cavalry in Future Wars written in 1908. Rapoport argues that by then, cavalry in its traditional form had no future (Henry Chauvel aside). Finally, Clausewitz subordinates the military to the political without diminishing what he considered to be its noble qualities:In one word, the Art of War in its highest point of view is policy, but, no doubt, a policy which fights battles instead of writing notes.Clausewitz frequently argues that the Art of War can only be learnt through practice. While policy-makers might best be suited to determining the aim of war (as policy) from book-learning, military commanders could never attain the artistic qualities necessary for successful military campaigning without direct experience of the fog of war. As I have recently moved into research that involves practitioners, Clausewitz gives me some hope for my theoretical aspirations and the use of induction in my work. This was a wonderful surprise, a circumstance that often repeats itself when I embark on a cover to cover reading of books that I thought I knew. I must admit that this is the second volume of this work I have purchased. When the first arrived and I discovered it was an abridged version, I donated it to my local library. When this book arrived (Penguin classics are ‘unabridged’ – this version is unabridged from the 1908 abridged version), I was disappointed but pushed on out of frustration. I must say it was worth it and I will be recommending this as a reading project for others in my field who, like me, might also think they know Clausewitz.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brilliant strategist. Was ahead of his time, yet, subsequent strategies at war colleges would not develop for fear of orthodoxy.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5POINTS OF INTEREST The study of military history is the only means of supplying the place of actual experience, by giving a clear idea of that which we have termed the friction of the whole machine. To this end we must not confine ourselves to the leading events, much less keep to the reasoning of historians, but study details as much as is possible. For historians rarely make perfect fidelity of representation their object: in general, they desire to embellish the deeds of their Army, or to prove a consonance between actual events and some imaginary rules. They invent history, instead of writing it. If we cast a glance at military history in general, we find so much the opposite of an incessant advance toward 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. Some great sentiment must stimulate great abilities in the General. Open your heart to a feeling of this kind. Be bold and astute in your designs, firm and preserving in executing them, determined to find a glorious end, and destiny will press on your youthful brow a radiant crown – fit emblem of a Prince, the rays of which will carry your image into the bosom of your latest descendants. No battle in the world has more thoroughly convinced me that in War we should not despair of success up to the last moment, and that the effects of good principles, which can never manifest themselves in such a regular manner as we suppose, will unexpectedly make their appearance, even in the most desperate case, when we believe any such influences are completely lost. Theory can give no formulas with which to solve problems; it cannot confine the mind’s course to the narrow line of necessity by Principle set up on both sides. It lets the mind take a look at the mass of objects and their relations, and then allows it to go free to the higher regions of action, there to act according to the measure of its natural forces, with the energy of the whole of those forces combined, and to grasp the True and the Right, as one single clear idea, which, shooting forth from under the united pressure of all these forces, would seems to be rather a product of feeling than of reflection. In strategy there is no victory. On the one hand, the strategic success is the successful preparation of the tactical victory; the greater his strategic success, the more probable becomes the victory in battle. On the other hand, strategic success lies in the making use of the victory gained. In tactics, a surprise seldom rises to the level of a great victory, while in Strategy it often finishes the war at one stroke. But at the same time we must observe that the advantageous use of this means supposes some great and uncommon, as well as decisive error committed by the adversary, therefore it does not alter the balance much in favour of the offensive. One of the parties must of necessity be assumed politically to be the aggressor, because no War could take place from defensive intentions on both sides. A War in which victories are merely used to ward off blows, and where there is no attempt to return the blow, would be just as absurd as a battle in which the most absolute defence (passivity) should everywhere prevail in all measures. What is the object of defence? To preserve. To preserve is easier than to acquire; from which follows at once that the means of both sides being supposed equal, the defensive is easier than the offensive.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Overall, it was really great, but I'm uncomfortable with the way he slights logistics, and I think his ideas could have been communicated a lot more concisely (although that's probably a fault due to the work being an unfinished draft, he never had the chance to go over it and pare out the redundancies).I read it without any preparation and feel like I didn't miss too much. Historical references are used mostly in the form of, after discussing a point thoroughly, being dropped to say "and here are examples of what I was talking about". So you don't need to be able to parse them to follow the theory. You would need a pretty detailed grounding in the Silesian and Napoleonic wars to follow them if you wanted to, though, since for Clausewitz these campaigns were very recent history so he assumes any student of military theory would be so familiar with them that a mere place name ("Borodino") would be sufficient to conjure to mind the context, details, aftermath and implications of a battle.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hard to read! But smart. Reallll smart.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A classic.