On War. Carl von Clausewitz

Chapter I. The Attack in Relation to the Defence

       Chapter II. Nature of the Strategical Attack

       Chapter III. Of the Objects of Strategical Attack

       Chapter IV. Decreasing Force of the Attack

       Chapter V. Culminating Point of the Attack

       Chapter VI. Destruction of the Enemy’s Armies

       Chapter VII. The Offensive Battle

       Chapter VIII. Passage of Rivers

       Chapter IX. Attack on Defensive Positions

       Chapter X. Attack on an Entrenched Camp

       Chapter XI. Attack on a Mountain

       Chapter XII. Attack on Cordon Lines

       Chapter XIII. Manœuvring

       Chapter XIV. Attack on Morasses, Inundations, Woods

       Chapter XV. Attack on a Theatre of War with the View to a Decision

       Chapter XVI. Attack on a Theatre of War without the View to a Great Decision

       Chapter XVII. Attack on Fortresses

       Chapter XVIII. Attack on Convoys

       Chapter XIX. Attack on the Enemy’s Army in its Cantonments

       Chapter XX. Diversion

       Chapter XXI. Invasion

       Chapter XXII. On the Culminating Point of Victory

       Sketches for Book VIII. Plan of War

       Chapter I. Introduction

       Chapter II. Absolute and Real War

       Chapter III. A. Interdependence of the Parts in War

       B. On the Magnitude of the Object of the War, and the Efforts to be Made.

       Chapter IV. Ends in War More Precisely Defined Overthrow of the Enemy

       Chapter V. Ends in War More Precisely Defined (continued) Limited Object

       Chapter VI. A. Influence of the Political Object on the Military Object

       B. War as an Instrument of Policy

       Chapter VII. Limited Object—Offensive War

       Chapter VIII. Limited Object—Defence

       Chapter IX. Plan of War when the Destruction of the Enemy is the Object

      INTRODUCTION

       Table of Contents

      The Germans interpret their new national colours—black, red, and white—by the saying, “Durch Nacht und Blut zur licht.” (“Through night and blood to light”), and no work yet written conveys to the thinker a clearer conception of all that the red streak in their flag stands for than this deep and philosophical analysis of “War” by Clausewitz.

      It reveals “War,” stripped of all accessories, as the exercise of force for the attainment of a political object, unrestrained by any law save that of expediency, and thus gives the key to the interpretation of German political aims, past, present, and future, which is unconditionally necessary for every student of the modern conditions of Europe. Step by step, every event since Waterloo follows with logical consistency from the teachings of Napoleon, formulated for the first time, some twenty years afterwards, by this remarkable thinker.

      What Darwin accomplished for Biology generally Clausewitz did for the Life-History of Nations nearly half a century before him, for both have proved the existence of the same law in each case, viz., “The survival of the fittest”—the “fittest,” as Huxley long since pointed out, not being necessarily synonymous with the ethically “best.” Neither of these thinkers was concerned with the ethics of the struggle which each studied so exhaustively, but to both men the phase or condition presented itself neither as moral nor immoral, any more than are famine, disease, or other natural phenomena, but as emanating from a force inherent in all living organisms which can only be mastered by understanding its nature. It is in that spirit that, one after the other, all the Nations of the Continent, taught by such drastic lessons as Königgrätz and Sedan, have accepted the lesson, with the result that to-day Europe is an armed camp, and peace is maintained by the equilibrium of forces, and will continue just as long as this equilibrium exists, and no longer.

      Whether this state of equilibrium is in itself a good or desirable thing may be open to argument. I have discussed it at length in my “War and the World’s Life”; but I venture to suggest that to no one would a renewal of the era of warfare be a change for the better, as far as existing humanity is concerned. Meanwhile, however, with every year that elapses the forces at present in equilibrium are changing in magnitude—the pressure of populations which have to be fed is rising, and an explosion along the line of least resistance is, sooner or later, inevitable.

      As I read the teaching of the recent Hague Conference, no responsible Government on the Continent is anxious to form in themselves that line of least resistance; they know only too well what War would mean; and we alone, absolutely unconscious of the trend of the dominant thought of Europe, are pulling down the dam which may at any moment let in on us the flood of invasion.

      Now no responsible