Carl von Clausewitz - On War

Table of Contents

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Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex

Copyright 1976 by Princeton University Press

Index copyright 1984 by Princeton University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clausewitz, Carl von, 1780-1831.
On war.
Translation of: Vom Kriege.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Military art and science. 2. War. I. Howard, Michael Eliot, 1922
II. Paret, Peter. III. Title.
U102.C65 1984 355 84-3401

ISBN 0-691-05657-9 ISBN 0-691-01854-5 (pbk.)

First Princeton Paperback printing, 1989

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EDITORS NOTE

The reader may wonder why another English translation of Vom Kriege is needed when two already exist. The first, made by Colonel J. J. Graham in 1874, was republished in London in 1909. The second, by Professor O. J. Matthijs Jolles, appeared in New York in 1943. But Grahams translation, apart from its dated style, contains a large number of inaccuracies and obscurities; and while Jolles translation is more precise, both his version and Grahams were based on German texts that contained significant alterations from the first edition published in 1832.

The growing interest in Clausewitzs theoretical, political and historical writings in recent years suggested that the time had come for an entirely new translation. We have based our work on the first edition of 1832, supplemented by the annotated German text published by Professor Werner Hahlweg in 1952, except where obscurities in the original editionwhich Clausewitz himself never reviewedmade it seem advisable to accept later emendations.

In all but one respect we have followed the original arrangement of the text. The first edition printed four notes by Clausewitz on his theories, dating from various periods between 1816 and 1830, as introductions to On War itselfa practice adopted by most subsequent German and foreign editions. We have abandoned the haphazard arrangement in which these have always appeared, and instead print them in the order in which we believe the notes to have been written. Read consecutively they help to indicate how On War took shape in Clausewitzs mind, and suggest how it might have further developed had he lived to complete it. We have also included Marie von Clausewitzs Preface to the first edition of Clausewitzs posthumous works, which adds information on the genesis of On War, and on the manner in which the manuscript was prepared for publication. A brief note she inserted at the beginning of the third volume of Clausewitzs Works, immediately preceding Book Seven of On War, has been deleted since its primary concern is not with On War but with other historical and theoretical writings.

We have attempted to present Clausewitzs ideas as accurately as possible, while remaining as close to his style and vocabulary as modem English usage would permit. But we have not hesitated to translate the same term in different ways if the context seemed to demand it. For instance, we have translated Moral and moralische Kraft variously as morale, moral, and psychological. Clausewitz himself was far from consistent in his terminology, as might be expected of a writer who was less concerned with establishing a formal system or doctrine than with achieving understanding and clarity of expression. At times he writes Geisteskrfte, Seelenkrfte, even Psychologie instead of moralische Kraft or moralische Grssen, and a similar flexibility characterizes his use of such terms as means, purpose, engagement, battle, etc. As he writes in Book Five, Chapter Seven: Strict adherence to terms would clearly result in little more than pedantic distinctions.

The task of translation was initially undertaken by Mr. Angus Malcolm, formerly of the British Foreign Office, who to the deep regret of his many friends died while he was still engaged on the project. He had however already done much valuable preliminary work, for which we are greatly in his debt. We should like to thank Mrs. Elsbeth Lewin, editor of World Politics , and Professor Bernard Brodie of the University of California at Los Angeles for checking the manuscript and helping us resolve many ambiguities, and Messrs. Herbert S. Bailey, Jr. and Lewis Bateman of Princeton University Press for the care they took in preparing the manuscript for publication. Financial assistance by the Center of International Studies of Princeton University facilitated the early phases of our work. Finally, it is a pleasure to express our gratitude to Professors Klaus Knorr of Princeton University and Gordon Craig of Stanford University, without whose interest and encouragement this task would never have been undertaken.

We have corrected some errors and attempted to remove a few infelicities in our translation of Clausewitzs text. As in the past, however, we believe that this work demands translators who combine a deep respect for the author with the willingness to seek equivalents whenever too close a correspondence with the original would lead to artificiality.

In the introductory essays, minor changes were made in The Genesis of War, and two paragraphs on the Marxist interpretation of Clausewitz were added to The Influence of Clausewitz. The only other change from our original edition is the inclusion of an index, which Mrs. Rosalie West has compiled on the model of the index in Professor Werner Hahlwegs 1952, 1972, and 1980 German editions of On War.

MICHAEL HOWARD
Oxford University

PETER PARET
Stanford University

INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS

By Peter Paret, Michael Howard, and Bernard Brodie

PETER PARET

The Genesis of On War

Despite its comprehensiveness, systematic approach, and precise style, On War is not a finished work. That it was never completed to its authors satisfaction is largely explained by his ways of thinking and writing. Clausewitz was in his early twenties when he jotted down his first thoughts on the nature of military processes and on the place of war in social and political life. A pronounced sense of reality, skeptical of contemporary assumptions and theories, and an equally undoctrinaire fascination with the past, marked these observations and aphorisms and lent them a measure of internal consistency; but it would not be inappropriate to regard his writings before 1806 as essentially isolated insightsbuilding-blocks for a structure that had not yet been designed.

The presence of a few of his earliest ideas in On War suggests the con-sequentiality with which his theories evolved, though in the mature work these ideas appear as components of a dialectical process that Clausewitz had mastered in the course of two decades and adapted to his own purposes. An example is his concept of the role genius plays in war, which lies near the source of his entire theoretical effort. Survivors of a somewhat different kind are his definitions of strategy and tactics, which he first formulated when he was twenty-four, or the characteristically unromantic comparison of war to commercial transactions, dating from the same time. Most of his early thoughts, however, expanded and acquired new facets in the years between Napoleons defeat of Prussia and the Russian campaign. Clausewitz was a member of the loose alliance of reform-minded civilians and soldiers who attempted with some success to modernize Prussian institutions at this time, and his manifold activities as staff officer, administrator, and teacher further stimulated his intellectual interests and his creativity. Numerous passages from memoranda, lectures, and essays written during the reform era reappear, barely changed, in On War . After 1815, by which time his manuscripts on politics, history, philosophy, strategy, and tactics ran into thousands of pages, Clausewitz set to work on a collection of essays analyzing various aspects of war, which gradually coalesced into a comprehensive theory that sought to define universal, permanent elements in war on the basis of a realistic interpretation of the present and the past. In the course of a decade, he wrote six of eight planned parts, and drafted the remaining two. By 1827, however, he had developed a new hypothesis on what he called the dual nature of war, the systematic exploration of which demanded a far-reaching revision of the entire manuscript. He died before he could rewrite more than the first chapters of Book One.