Carl von Clausewitz | |
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![]() Carl von Clausewitz, while in Prussian service, painted by Wilhelm Wach in early 1830s. | |
Birth name | Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz |
Born | Burg bei Magdeburg, Kingdom of Prussia, Holy Roman Empire | 1 July 1780
Died | 16 November 1831 Breslau, Province of Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia | (aged 51)
Allegiance |
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Service/ | Prussian Army |
Years of service | 1792–1831 |
Rank | Major general |
Unit | Russian–German Legion (III Corps) |
Commands | Kriegsakademie |
Battles/wars |
Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz[note 1] (German pronunciation: [ˌkaʁl fɔn ˈklaʊ̯zəvɪt͡s] ; 1 July 1780 – 16 November 1831)[1] was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral" (in modern terms meaning psychological) and political aspects of waging war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege ("On War"), though unfinished at his death, is considered a seminal treatise on military strategy and science.
Clausewitz stressed the multiplex interaction of diverse factors in war, noting how unexpected developments unfolding under the "fog of war" (i.e., in the face of incomplete, dubious, and often erroneous information and great fear, doubt, and excitement) call for rapid decisions by alert commanders. He saw history as a vital check on erudite abstractions that did not accord with experience. In contrast to the early work of Antoine-Henri Jomini, he argued that war could not be quantified or reduced to mapwork, geometry, and graphs. Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which the most famous is "War is the continuation of policy with other means" (often misquoted as "... by other means").[2]: 87 [3][dubious – discuss]
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