Clausewitz's on War (Books That Changed the World) [Hardcover]

Hew Strachan (Author)

Book Description

Series: Books That Changed the World | Publication Date: July 10, 2007

Perhaps the most important book on military strategy ever written, Carl von Clausewitz’s On War has influenced generations of generals and politicians, has been blamed for the unprecedented death tolls in the First and Second World Wars, and is required reading at military academies to this day. But On War, which was never finished and was published posthumously, is obscure and fundamentally contradictory. What Clausewitz declares in book 1, he discounts in book 8. The language is confusing and the relevance not always clear. For a book that has truly changed the world, On War is extremely difficult for the general reader to approach, to reconcile with itself, and to place in context. Hew Strachan, one of the world’s foremost military historians answers these problems in this fascinating book. He explains how and why On War was written, elucidates what Clausewitz meant, and offers insight into the impact it made on conflict and its continued significance in our world today. This is a must read for fans of military history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In contributing to a series that aims to publish short, readable books that illuminate long, unreadable ones, historian Strachan (The First World War) takes on the Prussian masterwork On War and emerges victorious, but at great cost. Only the first third of the book can be described as a biography, and that's the most accessible part. Clausewitz (1780–1831) rose to major general and fought Napoleon, but never reached the highest command. Appointed head of Prussia's Military Academy in 1818, he spent the rest of his life writing and rewriting his massive work, which remained unfinished and was published posthumously. Few outside the country paid attention until Prussia's astonishing victory over France in 1870. (The first English translation was in 1873). Readers who know Clausewitz's maxim that "war is politics carried on by other means" will yearn for more insights, and the author provides a few. Though generals often proclaim wars must end in absolute victory, Clausewitz asserted that in the real world annihilating the enemy is rarely possible and often a bad idea. Strachan works hard at defining what Clausewitz meant, comparing various writings, discussing precise meanings of German words, filling in textual gaps and quarreling with other interpretations. Scholars may approve, but even dedicated military buffs will find it hard going. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Hew Strachan is the Chichele Professor of the History of War at All Souls College in Oxford. Prior to that he was a professor of modern history and director of the Scottish Centre for War Studies at the University of Glasgow. A fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Historical Society, he was appointed deputy lieutenant of Tweeddale in 2006. He is the author oreditor of many books, including The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War and The First World War, Volume I: To Arms. Simon Vance, a former BBC Radio presenter and newsreader, is a full-time actor who has appeared on both stage and television. He has recorded over four hundred audiobooks and has earned over twenty Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, including one for his narration of Theft by Peter Carey. A twelve-time Audie finalist, Simon has won three Audie Awards, including one for Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and the 2008 Booklist Voice of Choice Award. He has also been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.

--This text refers to the MP3 CD edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press (July 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871139561
• ISBN-13: 978-0871139566
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #598,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On War - The Historian's View, September 30, 2007

By 

seydlitz89 "seydlitz89" (Portugal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clausewitz's on War (Books That Changed the World) (Hardcover)

Professor Hew Strachan's Clausewitz's On War is a worthy companion to the "Books that changed the world" series. His biography of Clausewitz and his magnum opus describe well the complexity and evolution that existed/developed in both author and work through the Napoleonic wars and up to Clausewitz's death in 1831.

Professor Strachan is of course the author of the current standard work on the First World War and his obvious effort to comb through and digest a work like On War is impressive.

Clausewitz attempted to accomplish two very ambitious goals in On War, the first was to write an art of war for his own epoch, and the second was to construct a general theory of war which would be able to cover all wars. This lends a certain duality to the work and promotes analysis from at least two distinct perspectives. The problem is of course that some parts are more heavily influenced by the Napoleonic art of war theme and others by the general theory of war theme. Parts of the Napoleonic art of war theme are still applicable today, but one must of course take Clausewitz as a man of his times who was writing to an audience of that time, not to us today. In normal historical works it is up to the reader to judge what is still relevant, but with Clausewitz this becomes even more difficult since the general theory comes also into play and has to be judged on its own merit. .

Strachan has attempted to do justice to both themes and in addition take on the necessary topics of the difficulty of translation from the original early 19th Century German and the book's unfinished condition. Overall I think the historian's view predominates which is to be expected. My only point in this regard is that if a great theorist (instead of a great historian) had written this book it would have been different, not necessarily better, but different.

Several points that really stand out for me:

First, the concept of "absolute war" can be seen as a Weberian ideal type, or as something "complete in itself" that "belonged in the real world" (page 148). This second concept sees war as a separate entity, that is no longer subordinate to politics but reacting to its own laws, possessing its own "Geist". That is capable of becoming in effect autonomous, like the Thirty Years War, a social phenomena propelled by ever increasing levels of hatred fuelled by seemingly limitless and lawless violence, The total destruction of a resisting society/community.

Second, the influence of Clausewitz on the course of the First World War has been hotly debated since the 1920s. Strachan argues that Clausewitz was saying that should the initial campaign fail, a war of attrition is called for, but I can't help but see this more in terms of war's reciprocity, that is Clausewitz arguing the defense, attrition being a means in which the defence gains time, preserves itself and attains its "negative purpose" by various ways. One must also remember that Clausewitz writes that, "One may admit that even where the decision has been bloodless, it was determined in the last analysis by engagements that did not take place, but had merely been offered. In that case, it will be argued, the strategic planning of these engagements, rather than the tactical decision, should be considered the operative principle." (Book 6, ch 8). For the mature Clausewitz, the theorist, the political purpose would dictate whether the war should continue after the culmination point had been reached. For Clausewitz, the patriot of 1807 war was more the means of retaining his country's lost honor and independence. Strachen notes that it was this Clausewitz who inspired the Nazis, but his political writings and Book 6, Ch 26 (The People in Arms) would also inspire any national liberation movement fighting a foreign occupation.

Strachan concludes his chapter "The Nature of War" with, "Those who blamed Clausewitz for the slaughter of the First World War were not guilty of finding things in the text of On War that were not there", which of course leaves the actual question of influence open. That question in my mind concerns more how Clausewitz was posthumously interpreted by Moltke; Schlieffen, Goltz, and others.

Third, Strachan describes Clausewitz's concept of theory well, "The role of theory was to elucidate events, and so reason alone was insufficient. Detailed military history s required to evaluate an understanding of the true nature of war . . . Theory has to be concrete and circumstantial, not dogmatic and prescriptive. (page 41).

Finally, Strachan makes very important points concerning the relationships between "tactics" and "strategy" and "politics/policy" and "war". By avoiding the intermediate concept of "operations" as existing between tactics and strategy, a conscious decision of Clausewitz's according the Strachan, he was able to avoid "an obstacle to conceptual clarity" (page 110). Also in regards to the two ways that the German Politik can be translated into English, Strachan points out that in On War Clausewitz deals with policy as representing all the interests of the political community (Bk 8 Ch 6B), but also in his analysis of the campaigns of 1814 and 1815, saw French party politics as having a negative influence on Napoleon's decisions (pp 164-5). In other words in strategic theory terms war's subordination to politics can be either rational and "subjective" as in policy, or irrational (in terms of military force being an instrument) and "objective" as in politics. This is important to keep in mind when considering Clausewitz's continued relevance, since we can see the collapse of the publically proclaimed policy goals in the current Iraq war as being replaced by domestic US political considerations and interests (party politics and their associated investors).

Some points that Strachan makes I find stimulating in that they invite discussion. For instance he criticises Clausewitz on his handling of logistics, arguing that Clausewitz believed "that war had been liberated from logistics . . . Book 5 treated the 1812 campaign in Russia, a country too backward to sustain a large army by requisitioning, as exceptional, whereas in Book 6, on defence, took the same campaign as characteristic. This was a contradiction which he never reconciled . . . Clausewitz's determination to set strategy free from its logistical constraints was reflected in German planning in 1914 and in 1941, with terrible consequences" (page 122).

Napoleon had been able to use requisition to supply his armies, which is Clausewitz's point, that being that this ideal type of warfare had achieved this, but this was not something that could be assumed in the future, since it had not always been that way in the past. Strachan mentions 1914, but not 1940 where the German Army was able to cover even greater distances in the West and defeat the allies whereas logistics had been one of the reasons for the lack of German success in the West in 1914. As to Russia being an "exception" in terms of logistics, there is a reason for this, as Clausewitz writes, "It is rare after all, for an army of 300,000 men to advance for 650 miles on practically a single road, to do it in countries such as Poland and Russia, and just before the harvest" (book 5, ch 14). In fact such a feat doesn't come up again until 1941 (Russian-gauge rail lines having replaced single roads), if one discounts the German advance into revolutionary Russia in 1918. Strachan's "contradiction" doesn't seem like a contradiction at all, but rather a switch in emphasis, for logistics Russia is an exception since "Russia is not a country that can be formally conquered . . . Only internal weakness, only the workings of disunity can bring a country like that kind to ruin." (Book 8, ch 9). So instead of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, Lenin in a sealed train in 1917 would be the Clausewitzian method of dealing with Russia as an enemy. It is this very strong defensive status that Russia enjoys that allows for such analytical diversity and leads various elements/means/methods of defense characterised by the campaign of 1812 to be "characteristic". Also Clausewitz repeatedly mentions that it was Napoleon's failure to prevent the wastetage of his army on the advance (that would include logistics) that led mostly to his failure in Russia (Bk 3, Ch 12, Bk 5 Ch 14). Linking Clausewitz to 1941 is dubious in my view given what should have been seen as a flashing red light in regards to defeating Russia in a single campaign through exclusively military means.

Something I did find a bit of a disappointment was Strachan's handling of Clasusewitz's concept of the balance of power (pp 164-5 and in On War, Bk 6 Ch 6). He provides no analysis of the situation in August 1914 from this perspective, and what better historian to do so than Hew Strachan?

One point needs to be kept in mind throughout, when reading Hew Strachan's great biography, or Michael Howard's Clausewitz - A Very Short Introduction (which I also recommend) or On War. As Herbert Rosinski wrote in the 1930s:

"Clausewitz grasped the idea of war as a coherent, continuous whole, directed to the complete overthrow of the enemy's power of resistance. This brilliant inspiration transformed his investigation from the naive brilliance of his earlier studies into the philosophical profundity of his mature work. Yet this very conception of the "military act" as a continuous, coherent whole - the truth of which he found confirmed by the concrete example of Napoleonic strategy, but which he did not deduce from it - was to lead him into a perplexity that later military thought completely ignored and that forced him in the last resort to emancipate his theory from the "Napoleonic " model altogether... Read more ›

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book only for the advanced reader..., July 24, 2009

By 

Yoda (Hadera, Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clausewitz's On War (Books That Changed the World) (Audio CD)

The book primarily covers three subjects in a manner interspersed throughout the book (as opposed to broken out into separate chapters explicitly). First and foremost a detailed analysis is Clausewitz's book itself. This is provided, in particular, to warfare in Clausewitz's time (i.e., French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars) as well as to the period that most influenced Clausewitz (i.e., period from the War of the Austrian Succession to the Napoleonic Wars). This is of importance as Clausewitz's himself had stated that it is the most important period from which the relevant lessons can be learned due to their "modernity". Hew Strachan, the author, meticulously provides this through his research.

The author's analysis assumes that the reader already has a good knowledge of the geopolitical, military and diplomatic events of the time. For example, the battle of Jena's influence on Clausewitz is discussed but the author provides no background on the battle itself. Strachan, a Professor of History, assumes that the reader already has the requisite knowledge. This book is analogous to a lectures being given to upper-level undergraduates in history or international relations. The assumption regarding the reader's historical background is made by the author not only about the battle of Jena but other battles and events of the time (i.e., Battle of Leipzig, Napoleon's military and geopolitical position vis-à-vis the Allies in the 1813-1814 period, etc.).

The second function of the book is to provide a bibliography of Clausewitz. This is natural, as an understanding of the author's life as well as the events surrounding it, provide valuable perspective as to Clausewitz's work. Over and above this, however, Hew Strachan has done meticulous research on Clausewitz's other works (primarily short papers and his career as an instructor at Prussia's war college).

Thirdly, Strachan's book discusses the implications of Clausewitz's "On War" on later military, diplomatic and geopolitical thinking. He provides examples such as the differences in military and diplomatic thought between Moltke (the elder, not junior) and Bismarck, Liddell Hart's critique of Clausewitz as it applied to military strategy in WWI and the differences, in the U.S., between Weinberger and Collin Powell in terms of the applicability of military. Again, as in the other parts of book, the author does not provide even a brief history of these characters or their times. Strachan assumes that the reader is already familiar (or at the very least aware) of these. This is definitely not a book written for Sarah Pallin.

With respect to the audio book's specific qualities, due to the fact that the author is eloquent, never monotone and always enthusiastic, it makes for good listening. Strachan has also read the book and his lecture style is very similar to Simon Winchester (not surprising considering they both have had significant experience as Professors).

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book on CD, April 14, 2010

By 

Ric "R" (New England) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Clausewitz's On War (Books That Changed the World) (Audio CD)

Book came in great condition and quickly. Strachan is an accomplished historian, and does a great job on Clausewitz. Many comparisons are made to later conflicts as well, citing possible reasons wars were fought the way they were. If you are a Strachan fan, be sure to read The First World War.