War, Clausewitz and the Trinity

Thomas Waldman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317000457
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technologie et ingénierie
• Subtopic: Sciences et technologies militaires

Today, the ideas of Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) are employed almost ubiquitously in strategic studies, military history and defence literatures, but often in a manner which distorts their true meaning. In this book, Waldman explores Clausewitz's central theoretical device for understanding war - the 'remarkable trinity' of politics, chance and passion. By situating the great Prussian in historical context, he presents a conception truer to Clausewitz's intention. Seeking to achieve this through an in-depth reinterpretation of On War and Clausewitz's other writings, conducted through the prism of the trinity, this book draws on existing studies but argues that there is room for clarification. It presents fresh perspectives into aspects of Clausewitz's thought and emphasises elements of his theory that have often been neglected. Furthermore, it provides a solid basis from which debate on the nature of modern war can move forward.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781315547718-1

Writing in the early nineteenth century, Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), a Prussian general, produced what is perhaps the most famous book on the nature of war. Indeed, Bernard Brodie wrote that his masterpiece, On War, ‘is not simply the greatest but the only true great book on war’.¹ Harry Summers believed that in military science it ‘is still the seminal work’.² Christopher Coker describes Clausewitz as ‘the greatest phenomenologist of war’.³ Despite such acclaim, it has been observed that his book is often mentioned, occasionally quoted, but little read.⁴ As a result, it has also been frequently misunderstood. Studies employing purportedly Clausewitzian insights that demonstrate little evidence of deep familiarity with the text are commonplace.

1 Bernard Brodie, ‘The Continuing Relevance of On War’, in Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (New York: Everyman's Library, 1993), p. 58. Hereafter, all references to On War will refer to this edition, unless otherwise stated. 2 Harry Summers, On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2003), p. 4. 3 Christopher Coker, Waging War Without Warriors? The Changing Culture of Military Conflict (London: Lynne Rienner, 2002), p. 54. 4 Christopher Bellamy, Knights in White Armour: The New Art of War and Peace (London: Pimlico, 1998), p. 25.

Clausewitz is mentioned ubiquitously in strategic studies and military historical literature and often in an extremely instrumental fashion. His ideas are used in a selective and cursory manner, so that he appears everywhere but often only in passing. The real Clausewitz is lost in a mass of fleeting references, most of which are misleading or do not fully convey the complexity of his arguments. Many modern popular works deploy supposedly Clausewitzian ideas that are almost unrecognisable to anyone closely acquainted with his work or that present such crude, often derivative, representations as to appear almost satirical. Most striking is the disproportion between the towering status of his name and how little he appears to have been studied in any real depth. As is often the fate of great works, they are scavenged for ideas to lend gravitas to spuriously related arguments.

It has been written that, in order to avoid such endless misunderstanding, On War ‘has to be studied repeatedly, seriously, and in depth’.⁵ The irony that this was written by one of Clausewitz's most mistaken interpreters should not detract from the wisdom of the injunction. More importantly, Clausewitz must be studied in context because, ‘Every theory that outlasts its creator tends to be reinterpreted unhistorically … Clausewitz's writings have suffered the attendant distortions more than most’.⁶ Of course, interpretations are inevitably subjective, yet this does not prevent us from recognising where some are superior to others. The prominent sources of forgivable misinterpretations are well-known: the unfinished text, the complexity of the ideas, the use of outdated concepts and problems associated with translation. The obscurity of his work has thus allowed for radically divergent readings.⁷ The only means of overcoming these pitfalls is through a detailed analysis of On War and Clausewitz's wider work, attempting to understand the man himself and situating his ideas in the time they were written, as well as building on reliable secondary studies.

5 Martin van Creveld, ‘The Eternal Clausewitz’, in Michael I. Handel (ed.), Clausewitz and Modern Strategy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), p. 36. Creveld's analysis and interpretation in this article is clear and accurate – it is his later work that misrepresents Clausewitz's ideas. 6 Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 8. 7 Azar Gat, A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 202.

To guard against mistaken readings of On War, a key aim of the book is to provide a thorough interpretation of Clausewitz's central theoretical device: his ‘remarkable trinity’ of passion, chance and policy. The trinity can be considered the apotheosis of his theorising. His brief description of the trinity comes at the end of Book 1, Chapter 1 – the only chapter we know he considered complete⁸ – and is presented under the subheading, ‘The Consequences for Theory’. In this respect, the trinity represents his central analytical framework for comprehending the nature of war. It can be viewed as On War condensed into five paragraphs: it ‘ties all of Clausewitz's many ideas together and binds them into a meaningful whole’.⁹ Read in isolation, the trinity can and has led to as much confusion as clarity. On first reading it can appear decidedly simplistic, imprecise and perhaps even odd. As Hugh Smith observes, though Clausewitz ‘nowhere discusses passion, reason, and chance at length, these elements permeate his entire work’.¹⁰ It might be more accurate to state that he does discuss those elements at considerable length, but rarely explicitly in direct reference to the trinity itself.

8 He states that, ‘The first chapter of Book One alone I regard as finished’. Clausewitz, ‘Unfinished note, presumably written in 1830’, in On War, p. 79. 9 Christopher Bassford, ‘The Primacy of Policy and the Trinity in Clausewitz's Mature Thought’, in Hew Strachan and Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 75. 10 Hugh Smith, On Clausewitz (New York: Palgrave, 2005), p. 116.

It should also be noted that the trinity might appear to some as distinctly cold and analytical – a description of the nature of war which fails to reflect the awfulness of the subject. Yet, Clausewitz never lost sight of the ‘horrible reality of war’.¹¹ He certainly was no militarist, even if he saw war as an occasional necessity and, moreover, one which may entail great bloodshed. War, he believed, ‘is no pastime; it is no mere joy in daring and winning, no place for irresponsible enthusiasts. It is a serious means to a serious end’.¹² Nevertheless, he stressed that, ‘It would be futile – even wrong – to try and shut one's eyes to what war really is from sheer distress at its brutality’.¹³ Clausewitz was not deluded about the reality of his subject, but war, as only a soldier could understand, is more ambiguous in its meaning and impressions than those who have not experienced it may believe. He had witnessed the heart-rending crossing of the Berezina by Napoleon's retreating armies and was moved to write that, ‘If my feelings had not been hardened it would have sent me mad’.¹⁴ War could also be intensely enjoyable. Clausewitz often wrote to his wife describing his great excitement regarding impending battles.¹⁵ In sum, war for Clausewitz was an emotionally and morally complex phenomenon, at once dreadful, necessary and exhilarating.

11 Brian Bond, The Pursuit of Victory: From Napoleon to Saddam Hussein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 53. 12 On War, I, 1, § 23, p. 98. 13 On War, I, 1, § 3, p. 84. 14 Quoted in Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Clausewitz's Puzzle: The Political Theory of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 161. 15 Roger Parkinson, Clausewitz: A Biography (New York: Stein and Day, 1979), p. 58.

Who was Carl von Clausewitz?

Adventure, learning and love: 1780–1806

Carl Phillip Gottlieb von Clausewitz was born in June 1780 in Burg, seventy miles southwest of Berlin. His father was a retired lieutenant from the Seven Years War who had barely retained his claim to noble status. Clausewitz grew up in a house frequented by officers and received a fairly mediocre provincial education. Just prior to his twelfth birthday he was accepted into the 34th Infantry Regiment commanded by the brother of the late Frederick the Great, Prince Ferdinand. After missing the momentous cannonade at Valmy in 1792, within months he enthusiastically received his first taste of war when his regiment was deployed to take control of the Rhine from French revolutionary forces in early 1793. Clausewitz took part in the series of operations that culminated in the liberation of the strategically important garrison town of Mainz. The army then marched south to the Vosges Mountains where, due to being ‘fragmented into tendrils of outposts and detachments’, it conducted a series of limited raids and ambushes until the Peace of Basel ended hostilities between France and Prussia in 1795.¹⁶

16 Paret, Clausewitz and the State, p. 30.

These experiences undoubtedly ‘provided the impulse … to his early studies and his first theoretical speculations’ which were given time to germinate during the time Clausewitz spent garrisoned in the mundane town of Neuruppin between 1795 and 1801.¹⁷ Despite the somewhat prosaic nature of this tour of duty, Clausewitz nevertheless benefited from his intimate experience of Prussian military institutions and the pedagogical reforms and enlarged curriculum introduced by the regimental commander, Freidrich von Tschammer.

17 Paret, Clausewitz and the State, p. 35.

It was not until Clausewitz's admission to the Berlin Institute for Young Officers in the summer of 1801 that he could effectively begin to expand his education. The institution was under the directorship of the Hanoverian, reformist minded, Gerhard von Scharnhorst who soon became one of Clausewitz's closest friends. Scharnhorst emphasised the development of the students’ intellect, powers of judgement and independence of thought, while not forcing on them any particular theory of war. Here, Clausewitz became acquainted with some of the fundamental issues he would later expand on, such as the relationship between theory and practice and the importance of history. (Also, in December 1803, Clausewitz met his future wife, Marie von Brühl, lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother). Initially struggling to keep up in lectures, he graduated at the head of his class in the spring of 1804 and secured a regular appointment as adjutant to Prince August, bringing him into increasing contact with the imperial court, yet usually as something of an outsider. After much fumbled diplomacy and strategic manoeuvring, Frederick William III's Prussia again found itself on a collision course with France under Emperor Bonaparte, and as Clausewitz prepared to go to war he wrote prophetically that Prussia's situation was ‘infinitely wretched’.¹⁸ In September 1806 his regiment began its journey to the battlefield of Auerstedt.

18 Paret, Clausewitz and the State, p. 118.

Soldier, Teacher and Reformer: 1806–1815

Clausewitz's introduction to the Napoleonic form of warfare was a dramatic one. Positioned on the right flank of the Prussian army at the Battle of Auerstedt, in the midst of the fighting he had to take charge of an entire battalion, managing to command a reasonably orderly fighting retreat.¹⁹ Prince August and Clausewitz were cut off from the main force, captured by French troops and subsequently transferred to France where they were interned under ‘easy conditions’ until the treaty of Tilsit, in July 1807, permitted their repatriation. Before re...