The Reality of War: A Companion to Clausewitz

"It is necessary for us to commence with a glance at the nature of the whole, because it is particularly necessary that, in the consideration of any of the parts, the whole shou...

Clausewitz defines strategy as "_the use of the battle to gain the object of the war_." War is "a chain of battles all strung together, one of which always brings on another."[4...

In reading Clausewitz it is, first, the great principles of the nature of war founded on human nature, which alter not; and, secondly, it is his spirit and practical way of look...

Strategically, the argument is stronger. It always seems to me that we must remember that Clausewitz had taken part in the defensive-offensive in its strongest, most absolute an...

Some will probably feel inclined to ask what Clausewitz, who wrote more than eighty years ago, can possibly have to say about tactics which can be valuable in the twentieth cent...

This point is here illustrated with more detail from Clausewitz than may seem necessary to some, because it is precisely the point regarding modern war which is least understood...

"War," says Clausewitz, "is only a continuation of State policy by other means." The first question that at once arises in the mind is what is meant by Policy. We may safely lay...

Now, as Clausewitz teaches it, the theory of war is easy enough to understand. There is no reason--one might almost say no excuse--why every one, soldier or statesman, should no...

"War belongs, not to the province of arts and sciences, but to the province of social life. It is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that r...

"Moltke, the most gifted pupil of Clausewitz," "Moltke, who knew Clausewitz's book well, and often liked to describe him as the theoretical instructor." As Chaucer would say, "W...

From the day of their publication until now the influence of the writings of Clausewitz has been steadily growing, till to-day it is impossible to over-estimate the extent of th...

The writings of Clausewitz are contained in nine volumes, published after his death in 1831, but his fame rests chiefly on his three volumes "On War," which have been translated...

In an endeavour, such as the present, to interest the British public in even the greatest military writer, the first necessity is to show that he was not a mere theorist or book...