The Art Of War [Large Print] [Paperback]

Antoine De Jomini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 2006

The greatest military textbook of the nineteenth century, this famous analysis of the art of Napoleonic warfare had a profound influence upon the military education of American officers in the decades prior to the Civil War.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English
Original Language: French

From the Publisher

Excerpt from Chapter III of the The Art of War

STRATEGY

DEFINITION OF STRATEGY AND THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF WAR

The art of war, independently of its political and moral relations, consists of five principal parts, viz.: Strategy, Grand Tactics, Logistics, Tactics of the different arms, and the Art of the Engineer. We will treat of the first three branches, and begin by defining them. In order to do this, we will follow the order of procedure of a general when war is first declared, who commences with the points of the highest importance, as a plan of campaign, and afterward descends to the necessary details. Tactics, on the contrary, begins with details, and ascends to combinations and generalization necessary for the formation and handling of a great army.

We will suppose an army taking the field: the first care of its commander should be to agree with the head of the state upon the character of the war: then he must carefully study the theater of war, and select the most suitable base of operations, taking into consideration the frontiers of the state and those of its allies.

The selection of this base and the proposed aim will determine the zone of operations. The general will take a first objective point: he will select the line of operations leading to this point, either as a temporary or permanent line, giving it the most advantageous direction; namely, that which promises the greatest number of favorable opportunities with the least danger. An army marching on this line of operations will have a front of operations and a strategic front. The temporary positions which the corps d'armee will occupy upon this front of operations, or upon the line of defense, will be strategic positions.

When near its first objective point, and when it begins to meet resistance, the army will either attack the enemy or maneuver to compel him to retreat; and for this end it will adopt one or two strategic lines of maneuvers, which, being temporary, may deviate to a certain degree from the general line of operations, with which they must not be confounded.

To connect the strategic front with the base as the advance is made, lines of supply, depots, &c. will be established.

If the line of operations be long, and there be hostile troops in annoying proximity to it, these bodies may either be attacked and dispersed or be merely observed, or the operations against the enemy may be carried on without reference to them. If the second of these courses be pursued, a double strategic front and large detachments will be the result.

The army being almost within reach of the first objective point, if the enemy oppose him there will be a battle; if indecisive, the fight will be resumed; if the army gains the victory, it will secure its objective point or will advance to attain a second. Should the first objective point be the possession of an important fort, the siege will be commenced. If the army be not strong enough to continue its march, after detaching a sufficient force to maintain the siege, it will take a strategic position to cover it, as did the army of Italy in 1796, which, less than fifty thousand strong, could not pass Mantua to enter Austria, leaving twenty-five thousand enemies within its walls, and having forty thousand more in front on the double line of the Tyrol and Frioul.

If the army be strong enough to make the best use of its victory, or if it have no siege to make, it will operate toward a second and more important objective point.

If this point be distant, it will be necessary to establish an intermediate point of support. One or more secure cities already occupied will form an eventual base: when this cannot be done, a small strategic reserve may be established, which will protect the rear and also the depots by temporary fortifications. When the army crosses large streams, it will construct tetes de pont; and, if the bridges are within walled cities, earth-works will be thrown up to increase the means of defense and to secure the safety of the eventual base or the strategic reserve which may occupy these posts.

Should the battle be lost, the army will retreat toward its base, in order to be reinforced therefrom by detachments of troops, or, what is equivalent, to strengthen itself by the occupation of fortified posts and camps, thus compelling the enemy to halt or to divide his forces.

When winter approaches, the armies will either go into quarters, or the field will be kept by the army which has obtained decisive success and is desirous of profiting to the utmost by its superiority. These winter campaigns are very trying to both armies, but in other respects do not differ from ordinary campaigns, unless it be in demanding increased activity and energy to attain prompt success.

Such is the ordinary course of a war, and as such we will consider it, while discussing combinations which result from these operations. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Greenhill Books (March 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853672491
• ISBN-13: 978-1853672491
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,886,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Returned due to printing errors!, July 25, 2009

By 

Paula Tiffany (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of War (Paperback)

I had to return this book due to the high number of printing errors contained inside. After 10 errors, I decided not to even bother counting the rest. Why is Amazon selling books like this? I found a better edition of this book in the catalog, but I wish someone had posted a review about the poor quality of the translation and printing.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the book flap, October 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Art Of War (Paperback)

Baron Antoine Henry de jomini, who served in both the French and later on the Allied side as an aide-de-camp to the Czar during the Napoleonic Wars, has remained one of the fundamental sources of military thinking right up to modern times. Jomini divided the art of war into five branches, strategy, grand tactics, logistics, engineering and tactics. He was also the first to recognise the sixth, diplomacy. Jomini's masterpiece still has lessons for the military planner today.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic on the art of war, June 12, 2008

By 

Steven A. Peterson (Hershey, PA (Born in Kewanee, IL)) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: THE ART OF WAR (Paperback)

The Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini's "The Art of War" is an early classic on military strategy and tactics. With von Clausewitz, he was one of the more widely read scholars on the subject in the 19th century. His book tends to have an abstract, scholarly air to it that suggests that he was more of an "arm chair" theorist than a man whom he learned much from--Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon may have had general perspectives on warfare, but he was also someone who was able to be improvisational on the battlefield, and Jomini cannot quite capture that in this work. Nonetheless, a classic.

Charles Messenger's Introduction does single out Jomini for mention, when he notes (Page v): "Nineteenth -century military thought was dominated by two men, one a German and the other a Swiss. . . . They were von Clausewitz and Jomini." Jomini argued that (Page vii): "Strategy decodes where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point; grand tactics determines the manner of execution and the employment of the troops."

As Jomini's actual work begins, he identifies the six key components of the art of war (Page 2):
"1. Statesmanship in its relation to war.
2. Strategy, or the art of properly directing masses upon the theater of war, either for defense or for invasion.
3. Grant tactics.
4. Logistics, or the art of moving armies.
5. Engineering--the attack and defense of fortifications.
6. Minor tactics."

The book itself, then, considers these elements of the art of war. No need to go into great detail. But some general points are in order. At one point, he emphasizes the importance of "lines"--interior lines, where one side has a more compact line and can move troops from one point to another with greater facility than the enemy; exterior lines, which are longer. If a smaller force, interior lines are critical; if a larger force, exterior lines may prove no impediment to success.

One facet of this book is his diagrams depicting various orders of attack (pages 188 and following). This tends, as noted earlier, to be pretty abstract. One hesitates to think that officers in the heat of combat will intellectually assess the various orders of attack and rationally choose one over another. Among these are straight linear orders (where the two forces approach one another in straight lines) to "en echelon" attacks, where the lines are arrayed in depth.

He notes in his conclusion that (Page 321) "War in its ensemble in not a science, but an art."

So, if one might be interested in an analysis of military strategy and tactics from the early part of the 19th century, this is not a bad starting point. It is a classic on the subject, and, even if too abstract and academic, can be a useful book to understand the military in that era.