Cassell History of Warfare - Art of War War & Military Thoug

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T T W



TH RT O W R

W R N

MILIT RY THOUGHT

artinvan reveld

General Editor ohn Keegan

C SSELL CO



r COLONEL M O S H E B EN DAVID, stu ent n frien

From knowledge to competence it is a bi g step; from

ignorance to competence, a bigger one still.

H A N S VON SEECKT

First published in Great Britain 2000

by Cassell, Wellington House, 125 Strand,

London WC2R OBBwww.cassell.co.uk

Text copyright Martin van Creveld, 2000

Th e moral right of th e author has been asserted.

Design an d layout copyright © Cassell

Th e picture credits on p 224 constitute an extension to

this copyright page.

All rights reserved. No part of this t it le may be

reproduced or transmitted i n a ny m at er ia l f or m

includingphotocopying or storing it in an y medium

by electronic means an d whether or no t transiently or

incidentally to some other use of this publication

without th e written permission of th e copyright

owner, except in accordance with th e provisions of the

Copyright, Designs an d Patents Act 1988 or under th e

terms of a licence issued by th e Copyright Licensing

Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W 1P 9 HE.

Applications for the copyright owner s written

permission should be addressed to th e publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN: 0-304-35264-0

Cartography: Arcadia Editions

Design: Martin Hendry

Picture research: Elaine Willis

Typeset in Monotype Sabon

Printed in I taly by Printer Trento S r



part of the Cassell illustrated History of Warfare series this volume was

in consultation with the general editor John Keegan and the then

director at Weidenfeld Nicolson Judith Flanders With them I

to keep it free of references so as to retain as much as possible of the

space available for the te xt proper The reader who is interested in

the topic further however will find a list of reading at the end In this

it is to be hoped the demands of both brevity and scholarship can be

TIN VAN CREVELD


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/cassell-history-of-warfare-art-of-war-war-military-thoug 6/225The siege of Antwerp culminating in its capture on 7 ugust 8 by Alexander Farnese the uke of Parma



CONTENTS

~ = = ~ •• @ : . : = = ~ : I

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M A P LIST

CHRONOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

STUDYING W A R

5

9

T H E NI NETEENTH CENTURY

The discovery of th e otherness of history;

Du Picq an d th e qualities of th e soldier; Helmut vo n

Moltke an d th e technological revolution in warfare;

th e r oa d t o th e Schlieffen Plan 1 2 1

CHINESE MILITARY THOUGHT

Th e earliest known writings on w ar ; t he epic poems;

China from 400 BC ; Chinese military texts; S un T zu

an d Ta i Kung; t he e ra of th e warring states;

Lao Tzu s advice 19

FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE

M I D D L E AGES

Ancient military-historical writings; military works

of Aeneas th e Tactician; Asclepiodotus; Onasander

Frontinus an d Vegetius; the military treatises of th e

Byzantine Empire; medieval works on wa r 37

FROM 15 TO 176 3Machiavelli; Military thought t o t he second half of

the eighteenth century: Montecuccoli Vauban

Folard Puysegur de Saxe Frederick t he G r ea t 67

6 NAVAL WARFAREThe paucity of works on naval warfare before 1880;

Mahan s Influence Seapower upon istory as th e

most important work on th e subject ever written;

Julian Corbett s adaptation of Clausewitzian ideas

to naval warfare 145

T H E INTERWAR PERI OD

Military-technological developments; Douhet on

ai r warfare; Fuller an d Liddell Hart on armoured

warfare; Ludendorff an d th e r oa d t o total wa r 1 6 1

8 FROM 1945 TO T HE P RE SE NT

The collapse of large-scale interstate war; the rise

of nuclear strategy an d deterrence; Schellings s

rms and Influence; guerrilla activity an d terrorism

from Lawrence to M ao to Giap 185

GUIBERT TO CLAUSEWITZ

T he e nd of th e Seven Years War; Guibert an d his Essai

tactique generale; Miizeroy von Buelow an d th e

invention of modern strategy; Berenhorst an d th e

German Romantic school; Clausewitz s On War

SOME LEADING MILITARY THINKERS

FURTHER READING

INDEX

PICTURE CREDITS

2 1 4218

22



K Y TO M PS

Military units size

LJ rmy group

LJ rmy

LJ corps

LJ division

LJ rig de

LJ regiment

LJ tt lion

Military movements

tt ck

retre t

ir tt ck

X ttle

fortress

eographicalsymbols

ur n re

ro d

r ilw y

river

se son l river

c n l

order

r idge or p ss



M P L ST

I WAR R ING STATES TO T HE U N IF IC A TI O N O F CHI NA 20 21

IMPERIAL CHI NA 3 0 0 BC 20

IMPERIAL CHI NA 2 5 0 BC 2 1

IMPERIAL CHI NA 2 2 0 BC 2 1

2 . SPIES 3 2

3· BATTLE OF C HAER ONEI A 44 5

4 · LIVING OF F TH E L A ND : P RI N CI P AL C AM PA IG NS AN D BATTLES 60

5· BYZANTINE EMPIRE 562 1430 64 5

6. MACHIAVELLI S ITALY C. 1500 7 4

7 · T HE S P ANISH R OAD T H E H A B SB U RG E MPIR E C. 1600 7 9

8 . PRUSSIA 1713 86 96 7

9 · W A R ZONES OF SEVEN YEARS W A R 1756 63 9 8 9

1 0 . MANOE UVR E ON UL M SEPTEMBER 1 8 0 5 106

II B AT TL E O F LEUTHEN 1 7 5 7 112 3

1 2 . R OMAN LEGION BATTLE OR DE R 128 9

1 3 · SIZE O F A RM IE S 1 3 2 3

1 4 · T HE SCHLIEFFEN PLAN 1914 1 42 3

1 5 · LAND VERSUS M A RI TI M E P O W ER C. 1812 1 4 9

1 6 . DOUHE T S THEORY GUE R NIC A 166 7

1 7 · SC HW EI NFURT B OMBI NG RESULTS 1 6 8

1 8 . LIDDELL H A R T S EXPANDING T OR R E NT 176 7

1 9 · S O VI ET A N D AMERICAN BLOCS 1957 67 194 5

2 0 . A p BAC VIETNAM 206 7

2 1 . W A R BY TELEVISION 2 1 2



TH RT OF W R

C H R O N O L O G Y

29

800

371

1410

Columbus reaches Hispaniola.

Beginning of the French Spanish-

Austrian struggle for

Vasco d a G am a reaches India by sea.

Machiavelli writes The Art of ar

First use of the Italian system of

fortification.

Beginning of t he D ut ch Revolt.

Ottoman naval power broken in t he

battle of Lepanto.

Maurice of N as sau assumes

comm and of t he D ut ch a rm y at the

struggle against Spain.Spanish Armada defeated.

Thirty Years War.

Grotius publishes The Law of War

an d Peace

Gustavus Adolphus killed at Luetzen.

Montecuccoli writes Treatise on War

Battle of Rocroi breaks Spanish

power an d lays the foundation for

French hegemony in Europe.

Wa r of th e Spanish Succession.

Vauban publishes The Attack and

Defence of Places

Battle of Poltava marks th e triumph

of Russia over Sweden an d the rise of

t he f or me r t o th e status of a g reat

power.

Folard writes A History ofPolybios

Puysegur, attempting to adapt

Vauban s system to field warfare,

writes The Art of War by Principles

an d RulesDe Saxe writes Mes Reveries

expounding eighteenth century

warfare at its best.

Campaigns of Frederick the Great.

Seven Years Wa r leads t o t he c on qu est

by Britain of India and Canada.

Guibert writes General Essay on

Tactics pointing the way t o t he

military system of the French

Revolution.

Wa r of the American Revolution.

Strategy invented.

S tart of th e French Revolution.

1494

1520-21

1522

1492

1494

1566

1571

1584

1588

1618 48

1625

1632

1639-43

1643

1702 14

1705 6

1712

1720s

1720s

1741 63

1756-63

1732

1770

1776 83

1780s

1789

first century

e

453 221

c 4

Period of the Warring States China).

Sun Tzu writes The Art of War on e

of t he b est w or ks o n war ever written.

Spartan hegemony broken at th e

battle of Leuctra.

mi d third c en tu ry Wo rk of Aeneas th e Tactician.

334 323 Alexander s campaigns.

210 Han dynasty unifies China.

146 Fall of Carthage and of Corinth;

Roman rule no w extends over th e

entire Mediterranean.

Asclepiodotus writes an Outline ofTactics

Battle of Actium; Roman Empire

definitely established.

ADmi d first century Onasander writes The General

late first c en tu ry F ro nt in us w ri te s Strategemata

c 117 Roman Empire reaches its greatest

extent.

late fourth century Vegetius writes Epitoma Rei Militaris

th e best work ever w ritten on Roman

military organization and tactics.

Fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Campaigns of Belisarius an d Narses.

late sixth century Strategikon attr ibuted to E mperor

Maurice.

Charlemagne crowned Emperor of

Rome.

late ninth century Tacticon attr ibuted to E mper or Leo

the Wise).

Start of the First Crusade.Last crusader foothold in Palestine

lost.

Hundred Years War.

Battle of First recorded use of

gunpowder in battle.

Honore Bonet writes The Tree of

Battles

Christine de Pisan writes The Art

Chivalry

Fall of Constantinople to th e

Ottomans.

Spanish reconquista completed with

th e fall of G r anada.

476

535 567

10961291

1336-1453

1348

1400

1453

1492



C H R O N O L O G Y

Wa r of th e First Coalition; the levee 1914-18 First World War.

en masse proclaimed. 1915 Invention of th e tank.

Berenhorst publishes Reflections on 1917 Russian Revolution.

the rtof War pointing ou t th e 1921 Douhet publishes The Command

importance of moral factors. the Air probably the most important

799 Buelow publishes Spirit of the b oo k o n th e subject ever written.Modern System of ar Invents 1922 Fuller publishes Lectures on Field

bases an d lines of communication . Service Regulations III laying th e

Battle of Marengo illustrates the foundations of armoured warfare.

power of la manoeuvre sur les 1927 Lawrence publishes The Seven Pillars

derrieres . Wisdom expounding guerrilla

Jomini publishes A Treatise on Grand tactics.

Operations of War presenting 1929 Liddell Hart publishes The Decisive

s tr at eg y as a question of moving Wars History which is later to turn

forces in two-dimensional space. into his celebrated work Strategy.

813 Battle of Leipzig m ar ks t he h ei gh t of 1930s Term grand strategy invented.

the Napoleonic Wars. 1935 Germany builds th e first armoured

Battle of Waterloo p ut s a n en d to divisions.

French Revolutionary an d 1936 Ludendorff publishes The Nation at

Napoleonic Wars. War.

Clausewitz s On War published late 1930s Mao s writings on people s war.

posthumously by his widow. Quickly 1939-45 Second World War.

g ai ns f ame as a treasure of th e 1941 German attack on th e USSR initiates

human spirit ; probably the greatest largest single military campaign ever

Western work o n w ar ever written. known.

Crimean War. 1941 J apanes e attack on Pearl Harbor.

Franco-Austrian war. 1945 Nuclear weapons dropped on

Du Picq writes Battle Studies Hiroshima an d Nagasaki.

focusing on the behaviour of me n in 1949 USSR explodes nuclear device.

battle. 1949 Chinese Revolution triumphs.

American Civil War. Witnesses first 1950-53 Korean War.

large-scale use of railways, telegraph 1953 U tests first hydrogen bomb.

an d breech-loading rifles. 1958 Soviet Union explodes largest nuclear

Prusso-Austrian wa r witnesses th e device known t o d at e.

triumph of the General Staff. c 1960 First intercontinental ballistic missiles

870-71 Franco-Prussian wa r establishes ICBM) become operational turning

German hegemony in Europe. a ny i de a of defending against a

Mahan publishes The Influence nuclear attack into nonsense.Seapower upon History 1660-1783. 1963-75 Vietnam War shows limits of U

Advocates comm and of th e sea as a military power.

route to national greatness. 1966 Schelling publishes rmsand Influence.

Th e Schlieffen P lan conceived. 1967 China tests nuclear device.

Spanish-American war. 1971 Largest, an d last, Indo-Pakistani war.

904-5 Russo-Japanese war. 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty

Corbett publishes Some Principles of SALT) signed.

Maritime Strategy in opposition to 1973 Largest, an d last, Arab-Israeli War.

Mahan. 1982 Falklands War.

Italian-Turkish wa r sees first military 1991 Gulf War.

use of aircraft. 1991 Following its defeat in Afghanistan

Overthrow of th e Chinese Ch ing th e Soviet Union disintegrates. Some

dynasty; establishment of a republic. claim h isto ry h as c om e to an end.





INTRODU TION

: ~ : = = : ~ . . I @ : . ~ : = = ~ : i I

STUDYING W R

TH E RLIEST MILIT RY RECORDS were no t theoretical

treatises bu t accounts deeds done The destruction the

city h a m a n u ~ l a m ~ by the ssyrian king A s h u r b a n i p a l ~is shown here in stone reliet 9 BC



TH E AR T OF WA R

INTRO U TION

H E O RI GI NS O F military thought are unknown. Since wa r is among the oldest

of human activities an d lo ng an ted at es th e invention of writing

presuma bly the earliest a tt em pt s t o t hi nk it out have not survived a nd t oo k th e

form of poems which were sung or recited on suitable occasions. We do in fact

know that many tribal societies have warlike songs. Composed by anonymous

bards an d often modified to fit subsequent events as they unfold their purpose

to record glorious deeds that took place in th e pa st e ncoura ge the warriors on

one s ow n side an d frighten th e enem : An d i nd ee d t he Homeric poems like

broadly simila r one s in other cultures a pp ea r t o have originated in just such a

collection of songs.



However revealing and inspiring poems are no substitute for military t h e o r ~volume concentrating on systematic attempts to understand the nature of

r and the ways in which it ought to be fought will present the reader with a

survey of the development of military thought from its origins to the

I have decided to make my survey wide rather than deep the objectiveng less to analyse a few great writers each of whom has been discussed

times and more to aim at a measure of comprehensiveness and above all

continuity of thought. Even so given the very limited space available some

ssions have had to be made. Obviously only a small selection of those who

turned their minds to the study of war could be included. The rest

ticularly the enormous number who have done so since 1945 wi ll have to

use me if I a llow their writings to speak for themselves.

In this connect ion the vexed question as to whether and how theory

INTRODUCTION

n amphora showing men

rowing a warship late

eighth century e This

possibly how the ships that

carried the Greek rmy to

Troy m y have looked



TH RT OF W R

MISSILE-THROWING

WEAPONS

The earliest known military

theory was written down in

around 400 e in China

jus t at the time when thefirst stone throwing

machines were being

invented in Greece. During

the period covered in this

book military theory nd

military technology

advanced together.

16

influenced action will be largely pu t aside. At a conference once attended one

speaker claimed that American decision-makers of th e Second World War -

meaning senior civil servants an d generals with research money to spend treated

th e social scientists fro m w h om they deigned to commission studies a s dogs treat

lamp-posts . Upon examination it turned ou t that on e of th e social scientists in

question ha ppe ne d to be named Ruth Benedict. Her study of Japanese culture

written in 1943-4 a nd later published under th e title The hrys nthemum and

the Sword mayor may no t have actually influenced any particular decision made

MEDIEVAL CATAPULT

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ARTI L LE RY AND SUPPORT T E AM

TWENTIETH-CENTURY T O W E D ARTILLERY A N D T EA M

TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARMOURED SELF-PROPELLED ARTILLERY

d urin g t he w ar in fact i t would be very difficult to tell. More important though

h av in g s ol d by th e hundreds of thousands it did more to shape Western

American in particular notions about J ap a n t ha n almost an y o th er w ork before

or since despite the fact t ha t a t th e time she w ro te h er study Benedict ha d never

been to Japan nor di d sh e know J ap an es e. C er ta in ly i t d id m or e than the vast

majority of decision-makers whose very names moderately well known in their

ow n time have since been forgotten; a nd m an y of w h om w o ul d p ro b ab ly have

been unable to put whatever ideas they h ad a bo ut J ap a n in coherent form even if

they ha d wanted to.

Th e outline of this volume is as follows. Chapter deals with t he ancient

C hi ne se m il it ar y t hi nk er s. Chapter 2 presents a b ri ef o ut li ne of classical



TREBUCHET ONE 30-POUND MISSILE IN FIVE MINUTES

EARLY CANNON FIRING STONE SHOT MID SIXTEENTH CENTURY

INTRODUCTION

MISSILE PROJECTION

he original ballistae had a

range of approximately 300

metres against thousands o f

miles for modern missiles

From un zu to homas

Schelling military theory

was profoundly influenced

by these changes

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CANNON

TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARTILLERY FIRING SHELLS

LATE TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISSILE LAUNCHER

and Western medieval military thought. Chapter 3 covers the period

ween 1500 and the end of the Seven Years War and chapter 4 the immediate

of Jomini and Clausewitz as well as those wri te rs themselves.

5 discusses the rest of the nineteenth century to 1914 and chapter 6

with Mahan and Corbett as the only two writers on the theory of naval

r fa re not to be confused with i ts history on which there are many fine

who are worth studying. Chapter 7 analyses the period between t he two

ld wars including air warfare armoured warfare the indirect approach

d total warfare. Finally chapter 8 outlines some of the debates about war that

taken place since 1945 focusing on both nuclear strategy and modern

warfare.





H PTER ONE

: ~ : = = : ~ @ : . ~ : = = ~ i l

HINESE MILIT RY

THOUGHT

URING TH TIM th t the Chinese classical military

writings were produced chariots were giving w y to cavalry.

Bronze statues of horsemen n dynasty 206 220 e



THE ART OF WAR

CHINESE MILITARY THOUGHT

n dyn sty st tu tt of

w rrior 21 Be

s ALREADY INDICATED in the Introduction the earliest known writings on the

subject o f war did no t constitute theoretical treatises. Instead they took the

form of narratives: either poems that had been written down - such as the Epic of

Gilgamesh and the Homeric poems - or prose accounts commemora ting

individual campaigns an d battles such as may be found inscribed on ancient

Egyptian Babylonian and Assyrian monuments Both prose accounts and poems

were intended to record an d glorify events which mayor may not have been

historical bu t which even in the case of the Epic of Gilgamesh with its array of

gods and godlike heroes may have contained some

kernel of truth In addition the poems in

particular served the purpose o f inspiring the

young to deeds of excellence.

In China which is where our survey must start a

third type of writing on war developed and enjoyed

prominence China after the fall of the Chou c 400 BC was

divided into a large number of warring principalities. Fighting

each other too th an d nail these principalities developed

standing professional armies as well as expert generals.

Between about 400 and 200 BC several of these generals appear

to have put their methods down in writing; alternatively they



CHINESE MILITARY T H O U G H T

WARRING STATES TO TH E

U N IF I CA T IO N O F CH I N A

AN D T HE G RO W TH O F T HE

C H I N STATE

un zu credited with

holding back the expansion

the h ~ i n s tate for a

number years is

military experiences in

these operations formed

the basis for his military

treatise The Ar t o f War.

5 e

D e e t

various texts written by others a tt ri bu te d t o t he m by way of enhancing

e texts u t o r i t ~ In some cases, including t ha t o f S un T zu as th e greatest of

r number, it is possible that th e generals themselves were no t historical figures

merely legendary pegs on which anonymous authors hung their own

This method is still often used in China t o d ~ To make your case, don t

your originality, as many a modern Westerner would do; but on th e

attribute what you are saying to somebody who lived lo ng ago and

ose fame is greater than yours.

Once composed or written b ot h m a rt ia l poems an d prose a cc ounts of war

p ub li c p os sess io ns w hi ch were recited read or even displayed by

g inscribed on stone. N ot so th e Chinese texts, which, precisely because they

to lay bare the methods which famous generals used in order to gain their

tories, were treated as state secrets. Their nature is evident from their names:

i Kung s Six Secret Teachings The Methods of t he Ss u- ma Three

o f H ua ng Shih-kung an d th e Military Methods attributed to Sun Pin.

these, as well as several others were th e p ro du ct o f the pe riod of the wa rring

They tende d to disappea r into royal archives where they were made

to th e elect; there, given that they were written on strips of b am b oo a nd

together by having strings passed through holes in

t he re wa s plenty of occasion fo r them to fall into 5°

O nl y d ur in g medieval Sung) times were seven of

survi ving texts copied or printed on silk and

serving as t ex tb oo ks o n which t he a nn ua l



TH RT OF W R



Early Chinese

sometimes went to

graves with entire

made of terracotta,

them in the

erworld. The one shown

was made for Emperor

n Shih Huang Ti

e an d excavated

lowing its chance

covery in Xi an, Shaanxi

ince, in March 1974.

A Ch in dynasty

of a warrior from

Ch in Shih Huang

s Terracotta Army This s

w a general in the time o f

Tzu ma y have looked

CHINESE MILIT RY THOUGHT



TH E AR T OF WA R

military examinations were based. One by Su n Pin disappeared altogether and

only cam e b ac k t o l ig ht i n 1972 when a H an tomb wa s opened an d a copy of it

wa s discovered.

Some of th e texts that have come d ow n to us ar e presented in th e form of

lectures given by c omma nde rs to rulers into w ho se emp lo y t hey w an te d t o enter.W u Tz u for example persuaded th e Marquis of Wei to listen to what he ha d to

say and while seated on a m at w it h a gl ass of wine he opened his exposition.

Other texts consist of short pungent phrases which ha d come down from or else

were attributed to some outstanding general an d were then surrounde d by th e

comments of o th ers w ho e xpa nde d on his words or illustrated them by means of

historical examples. I n some cases w e ca n see a discussion unfolding as a r uler by

wa y of testing hi s would-be general presents him w ith increasingly difficult

questions to answer. The more of th e material o ne reads th e m or e o ne feels that

not all of it is meant to be taken seriously; some of it ha s a playf ul character asquestions examples an d attributions are piled on each other joining into regular

mental battles. T o h el p t he student keep th e essentials in mind mnemonic devices

are o ften emp lo yed for example t he five principles th e six preservations th e

nine manoeuvres an d th e like.

Finally t he te xt s i n question cannot be unde rstood without bearing in mind

the underlying way in which Chinese culture approaches war. Wa r was neither a

m ean s in th e hands of policy nor an d much less an en d in itself. Instead i t wa s

regarded as an evil albeit on e that w as s om et im es r en de re d n ec es sa ry by th e

imperfection of t he w or ld . W ea po ns a re i ns tr um en ts of ill omen s ai d S un T zuth e oldest and m o st f am ou s general of all wh o m a y o r may not have been a

historical figure. However vast t he s ta te he wh o takes pleasure in t he mil it ary

will perish added Su n Pin r ep ut ed t o h av e l ived a century or s o a ft er Sun Tz u

an d to have been the la tte r s direct descendant. As Wu Tz u told th e Marquis of

Wei i n t hei r first interview a ru ler mi gh t not have a liking for military affairs bu t

not t o p re pa re fo r war wa s to fail in his duty: When th e dead lie stiff an d yo u

grieve for them you have no t attained righteousness. Wa r is of vital importance

to th e state s ai d S un Tzu. T herefore i n t he w o rd s of Su n Pin military affairs

cannot be bu t investigated .

Constituting a necessary evil war wa s at the same time a temporary

departure from cosmic harmony or ao By definition o ca n only be r estored

by ao H en ce t he war will be won by th e side possessing t h e g reatest Virtue

Virtue itself being b ut a no th er translation of ao You should cultivate your

Virtue ... and observe th e ao of Heaven said Ta i Kung in his Opening

Instructions. I n general warfare is a question of Heaven material resources an d

excellence said Ssu-ma. Appraise it [i.e. war] in terms of th e five fundamental

factors s ai d S un T zu . The first of these factors is moral influence .. . by moral

influence I mean that w hi ch c au se s the people to be in harmony with their

leaders so that they will accompany them in life a nd u nt o d ea th w it ho ut fear of

mortal peril. And in the words of Sun Pin Engaging in a b at tl e w i th o ut




un Tzu teaching drill to the

concubines o King H a Iii.

no on e under Heaven would be able to be solid an d strong.

Th e military virtue of a n a rm y takes t he form of strict discipline - or perhaps

should say that since necessity is no t for every p riv ate to judge, discipline ise general s way t o i mp os e necessity on his troops. A f am ou s s to r y t ol d a b ou t

n Tzu illustrates th e p o in t. W h en Su n Tzu asked th e King of Wu Ho-lii to

hi m as a g en er al , th e king in turn asked hi m if he could fashion an ar my

t of th e royal wives an d concubines. Su n Tz u said he could an d promptly set

teaching them drill. The women took it as a lark: laughing and joking

themselves, they disobeyed Sun Tzu s instruc tions. Ha ving e xplained

self several times over, an d s eein g h ims elf still d is ob ey ed , h e gave orders that

e king s tw o fav ou rite wives b e executed. To th e king w ho t ried to intervene

n Tz u explained that s in ce h e himself wa s now the commanding general he

no t take all th e sovereign s orders. A ft er t he tw o had been e xe cuted the

ainder immediately fell into line an d carried out th e required exercises.

himself at t he ir h ea d Su n Tz u told th e k in g that they w ou ld n ow be

to follow his orders through fire an d water .

The need fo r strict discipline as a basis for all military action is equally

ident in the remaining texts. According to Ssu-ma, th e perfect army - placed far

the leg en dary past - is th e on e that requires neither rewards no r punishments.

mak e use of rewards bu t impose no punishments is th e height of instruction;

impose p un is hm en ts b ut issue no rewards is t he h ei gh t of awesomeness.employing a mixture of both punishments an d rewards - combining

with carrots as modern terminology ha s it - will en d up causing Virtue to

Thus th e basic idea of Tao which underlines e ve ry on e o f these texts

through once again. Governed by necessity, th e best-disciplined army is so

that it req uires neither rewards nor punishments. Behaving as if it were a

le p erso nality , it will follo w its commander of its ow n accord; although as

remaining texts make clear, this is an ideal that is r ar el y i f ever attained.

When these matters have been dealt with it is possible to discuss such

as organization armaments and According to Wei L ia o T zu

was a question of establishing clear regulations so that every soldier

know just what was expected of him. Th e me n h e als o speaks of chariots



TH E ART OF WAR

OPPOSITE: First century statuette o f a horseman

made around the time of

Christ.

A model bronze chariot

from c. 210 e excavated in

Xi an Shaanxi Province in

December 1980. sin the

Middle East during the

same period chariots were

being replaced by cavalry.

though by th e ag e of th e warring states they were o bs olete) were to b e d iv id ed

into units five, ten, on e hundred, on e t h ou sa n d a nd te n thousand strong with a

single commander in ch arg e of each; in each unit, the strongest and most

outstanding soldiers were to be positioned in fro nt. According to Ta i Kung, the

commander-in-chief was to surround himself with th e fol lowin g: a chief of

planning; five planning officers; three astrologers; three topographers; nine

strategists what we would call staff officers, responsible f or d is cu ss in g

divergent views, analysing the probable success or failure of various operations );

four supply officers; an d a v ar ie ty of officers responsible for keeping discipline,

gathering intelligence, carrying out engineering jobs, administering medicines

and accounting. Command was exercised by using pennants by day, an d gongs,

d ru ms a nd whistles b y n igh t.

All th e texts under consideration are s et in a legendary past which s assumed

to be both unchanging an d fa r superior to th e present. Hence they have relatively

little to say about armament; i n t hi s r es pe ct t he y d iff er sharply from our present-

da y voluminous discussions of th e so-called Revolution in Military Affairs ,

which are based on the assumption that th e key to warfare is t h n o l o g ~ To look

at it in another way, in th e China of t he w a rr in g s ta te s a revolution in military

affairs had already taken p lace. Cav alry was ta king the place of chariots. Th e use

of large formations of infantry was growing; iron weapons ha d taken the place of

bronze, swords that of m er e d agg er s. I n his chapter Preparation of Strategic

Power , Su n Pi n gives a succinct account of th e evolution of weapons an d

equipment as well as their use. T he Yellow Emperor created swords an d imagizedmilitary forma tions upon them. created bows an d crossbows an d imagized

stra te gic powe r on them. u created b oa ts a nd carts an d imagized tactical)



HINESE MILIT RY THOUGHT



TH RT OF W R



on them. T ang an d Wu [all t he se a re legendary emperors] m ad e l on g

missile] weapons an d imagized th e strategic imbalance of power o n t he m.

four types of weapons a nd e qu ip me nt ar e listed: th e first provides

with staying power, th e second enables users to ac t from a distance

third provides mobility change and th e fourth enables th em to dominateenemy: Th e art of war consists of combining th e four, employing ea ch in

interaction with th e others so as t o b ri ng ou t their advantages an d mask

weaknesses. I f o ne k no ws t he ir ao then the arm y will be successful .. .


Yi created bows

imagized strategic

on t h m ~ a

eling archer from the

Army

L FT The Yellow Emperor

created swords and imagized

military formations on

t h m ~ a scabbard from the

third century e



T H E AR T OF WA R

Then now money was

the sinews of war; Chinese

coins dating to the n

dynasty

if someone wants to employ t he m b ut does not know their Tao t he a rm y will

lack success.

Concerning supply, money is th e sinews of war . According to Sun Tzu, an

army numbering 100,000 me n with al l i ts equipment if led 1,000 a Chinese

itinerary measure of around 550 metres) into enemy territory, will cost 1,000 gold

coins a da y t o m ai nt ai n. I nc lu de d i n t he c al cu la ti on are such esoteric i tems as

presents for the commanders guests an d glue for fixing broken chariots; however,

th e greatest expenditure is that which must cover provisioning. The l arger t he

d is ta nc e f ro m h om e t he m or e r ui no us t he cost of transport. For that reason, bu t

also because th e presence of an army will cause th e price of everything to rise, a

commander who a tt em pt s t o support his forces from his ow n country will ruin

th e peop le. It is the re fore best to i mp os e t he logistic burden on th e enemy, a

principle that Su n Tz u considers so important that he repeats it twice.

Ta i Kung, whom I have already quoted wanted th e army to have four

officers wh o would look after the organization of T hey w ould be

responsible for calculating th e requirements for food and water; preparing th e

f oo d s to ck s and supplies and transporting th e provisions a lo ng t he route; an d

supplying th e five grains so as to ensure that th e army will no t suffer any hardship

or shortage . Once an army had entered enemy country it was to resort to

plunder as a matter of course; conversely, an a rmy opera ting in a country where

there were neither towns an d villages to feed th e me n no r grass to meet th e needs

of horses an d oxen found itself in di re straits. In such a situation continued Ta i



th e c ommande r should seek some o p po r tu n it y t o t ri ck t he en em y and

k ly g et a wa y , if necessary by using gold and jade to obtain th e necessary

Plentiful supplies, everything that is needed by wa y of arms an d equipment

d orga niz a tion an d strict discipline constitute th e foundation on which acamp aig n can be built . Provided these ar e available, th e next step is to

out a survey as to th e respective strength of one s ow n side an d t ha t o f th e

The favour of Heaven apart four factors ar e to be considered: first th e

second the terrain third c om ma nd a nd fourth doctrine. The weather

determine which season is th e most favourable for campaigning an d ho w this

be d on e. K no wl ed ge of t he t er ra in will enable th e general to calculate

size of th e forces, th e kind of troops needed and w ha t k in d of operational

t o a do pt . Command refers to th e qualities of the opposing general whereas

doctrine is meant everything that pertains to the organiza tion of t he e ne myhis supply system. There is sums up Sun Tzu no general who has

heard of these .. . matters. T ho se w ho m as te r t he m win; t ho se w ho do not

defeated.

Bu t how, precisely, is victory to be won? Since v io lence repres ent s a

of ao i ts us e should be kept to th e indispensable minimum. N o

e h as ever benefited from a long war said S un T zu . Those that garner five

tories will meet with disaster; those with four victories will be exhausted;

with three victories will become hegemons; those with tw o victories will be

kings; an d those w ith o ne victory will become emperorsWu T zu ). The best wa y to settle a dispute explained Su n

Tzu, is by diplomacy as when yo u negotiate with t he e ne my

an d give hi m presents. Secon d b es t is th e use of dirty tricks

such as assassinating t he e ne my commander or bribing his

officers; those wh o cannot use dirty tricks engage in

manoeuvre. Those wh o cannot manoeuvre fight a battle

an d t ho se w ho cannot fi gh t a battle lay siege.

In Clausewitz s view, th e m ax im um employment of

force in no way rules out th e use of intelligence . N ot so

according to th e Chinese commander sages, who following

th e fundamental world-view laid down by La o Tzu look at

t he t wo as opposites an d always seek to minimize th e f ir st by

relying on th e second. Force is to be used in carefully

measured doses, n ei th er mo re nor less than is necessary, an d

in short sharp bursts. This means that it must be very

precisely aimed: throw rocks at eggs is ho w S un T zu puts it

in on e of those incompara ble me taphors that have helped

make his work th e most famous of all. When y ou a re strong

,pretend to be weak so as to tempt th e enemy; when y ou a re

weak pretend to be strong so as to deter him. Use speed an d




T HE ART OF WAR

SPIES

The use of spies: what

enables the wise sovereign

and the good general to

strike and conquer, and

achieve things beyond thereach of ordinary men is

foreknowledge Sun Tzu .

secrecy to make o ut th at you are concentrating at on e place then attack at

another. If weaker than th e enemy, avoid him hara ss him an d dr aw h im into

terrain that is unfavourable for him ; if equal to him wait patiently unti l he

c ommits a n error, as in chess. Confuse h im a nd keep hi m ignorant of your designs

by offering bait mounting feints and/or spreading disinformation as appropriate.

Finally, when you have th e enemy where you w an t h im - in other words, just when

h e feels s ec ur e - fall on hi m like a thunderbolt.

o ap i ta l

XT RN L THR T

Thus t he s tr on ge st most successful action at the same time th e

most economic one. To ach ieve t hi s i deal tw o things a re n ee de d. Th e first is

extreme flexibility which will enable one to take advantage of fleeting

opportunities: said Su n Tzu an army is like water which adapts itself to

the c onfiguration of th e ground . Plans must have many branches an d be so

arranged that a lt er na ti ve o ne s ca n be put into o pe ra ti on w i th ou t undue

disruption. Forces earmarked fo r on e mission must be capable of switching

to another if necessary at a moment s notice

a nd w ith neither c om ma nd er s n o r troops missing

a heartbeat. In all this there can be no fixed

routine no unalterable modus operandi, bu t only

as many stratagems as there are enemies an d

circumstances.

INT RN L THR T

local spies report onterrain and resources

Th e seco nd req uir em en t IS of course,

intelligence. Su n Tz u distinguishes b etween five

different types of spies: local spies, internal

spies, turned spies, dead spies an d th e living spy

Local sp ies are s imply travellers an d residents of th e

theatre of wa r wh o ar e e xa mi ne d c on ce rn in g

th e terrain its resources an d

w ha te ve r t he y may know of

th e enemy. Internal spi es a re

people who hold positions

inside th e enemy s forces.

Turned spIes are double

agents i.e. th e enemy s spies

wh o have been forced or

persuaded to work for one s

ow n side. Dead expendable)

spies are sent out into th e

enemy camp for th e purpose of spreading

disinformation. Finally, living spies consist of one s

ow n agents who ar e e xpec te d to return an d deliver

reports. The e ntire question of espionage requires t he wisdom of a sage both when it comes to

perceiving th e truth of in co mi ng r ep or ts a nd In

turned spies spies captured

and persuaded to supplydisinformation to the enemy

dead spies sent into enemyterritory to spread disinformation

internal spies hold positionsinside enemy forces

living spies return from enemyterritory with reports and

captured material evidence

Spies

•

S T T H

apitalO



HINESE MILIT RY THOUGHT

Handling spies requires the

wisdom a sage ; an

eighteenth-century painting

Confucius on th e right .



THE ART OF WAR

handling those valuable but difficult creatures, the spie s themselves. There are no

areas in which one does no t employ spies.

Correctly and systematically employed, espionage will endow the

commander with a thorough understanding of the enemy, including, above

al l, his strengths and weaknesses. The art of war demands that the former be

avoided and the latter exploited; in other words, that the enemy s qualities

be made to mesh, or synchronize, with one s own. Thus knowing oneself

no less, and may be more, of a requirement than understanding the enemy.

According to Ta i Kung, Know them and know yourself is the great essence of

military strategy. Contemporary generals, even if they do not know the enemy,

ought to be able to know themselves, so how could they lose the advantage? Said

Sun Tzu: Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never

be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances

of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both o f your enemy and of yourself,

you are certain in every battle to be in peril. To which the commentator Li

Chu an added: Such people are called mad bandits . What can they expect if

no t defeat?

In spite of their antiquarian bent, which leads to the discussion of out-of-date

weapons and sometimes gives the whole a quaint air, for sheer sophistication

Chinese military writings have never been equalled. In them high seriousness

alternates with play, pungent sayings with relaxed discussion, abstract analysis

with an abundance of concrete examples taken from the annals of the warring

states and more often t han not associated with the names of famous generals;

yet seldom do they descend to the kind of technical trivia which, as we shall

presently see, mark much of classical Western military thought. An underlying

humanity pervades all: [Virtue is] sparing the people from dea th , eliminating

the hardships of the people, relieving the misfortunes of the people, and

sustaining the people in their extremities (Ta i Kung). This is combined with a

readiness to ignore personal considerations concerning love and hate, take the

most drastic measures (including such as we should consider underhand or

immoral), and inflict the harshest punishments; all as may be dictated by

necessity which knows no bounds. Above all, no clear line is drawn betweenmilitary affairs and the rest of life. On the contrary, it is a question of achieving

o in the military field also.

As in the rest of life, the best way to achieve o is no t to depart from it in the

f irst p lace. To paraphrase, the best war is that which is never fought. The second

best is that which is avoided, the third that which is won without bloodshed, the

fourth that which involves heavy loss of life, and the fifth that which has to be

repeated time after time. As in Plato s epublic which was written at

approximately the same time and where the state is made to s tand as a metaphor

for the human soul, all five ways of behaviour apply not just to the ruler but tothe prIvate individual too. The first marks the way of the commander-in-chief

who is also a sage; the last, that o f the man who is both bru ta l and stupid. Yet



· I E ~ _ : = ~ : ; : y


Usefulness arises from

whatever not ; Lao Tzu

the l Master ) leaving

his home to save the world,

riding on a bull.

as a n i nc li na ti on t ow ar ds peace ma y be , on no account should

l ea d to a negle ct of military affairs: Those wh o forget warfare will inevitably

endangered Ta i Kung). Perhaps it is impossible to do better than to sum

in th e words of Lao Tzu t he O ld M aste r . While not a military expert

e was th e father of Tao-ism an d t hu s s ta nd s at th e root of ev ery one of th e

xts we have discussed:

Once g ra sp t he g re at f or m without a form

an d you will roam whe re you will

w it h n o evil to fear,

calm, peaceful, at ease.

T he h ub of th e wheel runs upon th e axle.

In a jar, it th e hole that holds water.

So a dvanta ge is ha d

from whatever there is;bu t usefulness rises

from whatever is not.





CH PTER TWO

: ~ : ~ . t @ : . ~ : = = : f I .

FROM NTIQUITY

TO TH

MI LE GES

A R THER F N IFUL siege tow r shown in

a German edition o g t i u s ~ 529



THE ART OF WAR

FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES

HEN IT COMES TO the writing of military history Classical antiquity has

never been surpassed. Thucydides and Sallust and Caesar and Josephus:

in the entire record of mankind one looks in vain for authors better capable of

describing the goals of commanders, the activities of armies the motivations of

troops, the possibilities and limitations of weapons and the sufferings of civilians.

Not quite on the same level but still very impressive are the works of Herodotus,

Xenophon, Polybios and Livy although from the Renaissance to the

Enlightenment it was usually the last-named who was regarded as the greatest

historian of all . Both Herodotus and Livy wrote patriotic history and are

perhaps a trifle too inclined towards the legendary the supernatural and the

moralistic to suit our supposedly scientific taste. Xenophon, though a

competent commander and a superb journalist, does not have psychological

depth. Polybios represents the point o f view of the Hellenistic magistrate and

diplomat. As such he certainly knew his business bu t tended to be dry and

technical.

Against this grand tradition in historicis it is remarkable that ancient

L FT Josephus Flavius: a

nineteenth-century

engraving showing hi m in

Turkish dress.

RIGHT: Roman copy a

fourth-century Greek bust

of Herodotus known as the

father history .

military theory does not attain nearly the same level of excellence. Certainly this

is no t due to the absence of great generals; who in the whole of history can equal

an Alexander, a Hannibal, a Scipio or a Caesar? Yet with the exception of the

last-named in his commentarii which are exactly what they claim to be none of

them has left us a first-hand record of his experiences much less tried to develop

them into a systematic treatise on the art of war. Such treatises as do exist and




During the RenaissanceLivy was considered the

greatest of all ancient

historians This illustration

shows a 1523 erman

edition of his work

are quite a few were written by decidedly second rate figures. Like their

counterparts most though probably not all had some personal

of war. Unl ike their Chinese counterparts none seems to have

at the highest level let alone acquired fame as a great general.Disregarding Xenophon whose Cyropaedia constitutes not so much military

lysis as semi imaginary tale concerning the ways of a successful prince the



TH RT OF W R

annibats elephants in

battle a 9 5 painting by

ndre Bauchant



FROM NTIQUITY TO THE MI LE G S



T H E ART OF WAR

earliest writer whose work is extant is Aeneas th e Tactician in th e fourth century

Be Th e last f ro m t he ancient world is Vegetius w ho m us t have writte n a t th e very

en d of th e fourth century AD . Judging by the examples w hi ch h e d oe s an d does

no t adduce Aeneas wrote before either Philip or Ale xa nder the Grea t appeared

on th e scene an d transformed Greek warfare. contrast Vegetius belongs to the

period w hen t he Roman Empire was being metamorphosed i nt o t he Byzantine

o ne. Perh ap s th e fact that they are separated by a ga p of almost seven centuries

explains why these writers in c on tr as t w it h their Chinese opposite numbers

neither possess a common ideology no r adhere to a single world-view.

Sta rting then with Aeneas on e may note that he wa s th e author of a number

of treatises on th e art of war all bu t on e of which ha s been lost. Th e on e which

survives deals with a single highly technical question namely how to d ef en d a

besieged city against attack. Chapter 1 deals with th e disposition of troops a nd

th e preparation of positions. Chapter explains how morale is to be maintained

and attempts at treachery an d revolution th\varted an extremely important

question in Greek city states which at t he ti me w he n Aeneas wrote were often

threatened by factional s tri fe even as th e enemy was at th e gates. Chapter 3

explains h ow s ud de n raids o ug ht t o be foiled. Chapter 4 deals with keeping the

enemy away f ro m t he walls chapter 5 with methods for guarding th e walls an d

chapter 6 w it h h ow to meet actual assaults upon th e walls an d repulse them. All

this is done in a competent enough way an d often in considerable detail: for

example t her e ar e so and so many methods by which a city s gates ca n be

unlocked an d which accordingly ought to be guarded against by t ho se w ho bear

th e r e s p o n s i i l i t ~ Similarly th e passwords with which patrols are issued ought to

be carefully selected for memorability an d r e c o g n i z i l i t ~ Sentries should not be

allowed to leave the ir posts before their replacements have arrived. When sawing

through th e bolt of a g at e pour on oil so as to proceed faster an d make less noise

an d so forth down t o th e suggestion that to make a few s oldi er s appear like

many they should be m ad e t o m arc h in lines abreast with each successive rank

carrying their spears on alternate shoulders.

In military science as in so ma ny others a ttention to detail is absolutely vital

a nd c an no t be dispensed with. In military science as in so many others attention

to detail is not enough an d does no t automatically translate into genius. Some of

th e devices which Aeneas suggests - particularly those which deal with encoding

methods - appear naIve; others such as a kind of optica l telegraph for th e

transmission of messages were impractical an d already subjected to criticism in

ancient times. Bu t on t he w ho le his is a useful collection of rules an d devices

which an y competent person appointed to defend a town ought to have at his

fingertips. Had this author selected a motto no doubt it would have been f or

w an t o f a nail a city was lost .

As fa r as ca n be re construc ted Ae ne as re ma ining writings dea lt with military preparations war finance encampments plots n av al t acti cs

historical illustrations and siege warfare . Supposing these to have been of a




similar character to the one which still exists, then a person who had mastered

them all ought to have had at his disposal a vast depository of admittedly

somewhat pedestrian military knowledge. would have come in handy in almost

any situation, provided of course sufficient time was available to consult the

many volumes in which it was contained.

would no t have been of any help atall in the planning of war at the highest level.

No such praise may be bestowed on our next text, Asclepiodotus utline

Tactics. As far as can be determined Asclepiodotus, who flourished around the

middle of the first century e was a student of the great Stoic philosopher

Poseidonius. Unlike Aeneas he was not a military man, and indeed the treatise

i tself may have been written merely as an exercise in rhetoric. At the time the

Tactics was written its main subject, i.e. the Greek phalanx, was long out o f date

and the Roman legion, as used for example by Pompey and Jul ius Caesar, was

approaching its zenith. Yet nothing in Asclepiodotus work indicates that he wasliving in an age of military genius; instead the book takes the original Greek

meaning of tactics , i.e. order , literally. conta ins an extremely pedantic

discussion of the distances to be kept between the men in the phalanx, the length

of their spears, the width of their shields, the titles of the leaders of various sub

formations and how to make the men turn right or left without falling into

disorder. The t reat ise ends in a long list of orders such as: Stand by to take arms

parastethi epi ta hopla to give the reader who is no t a classicist an idea of what it

sounded like), Silence in the ranks and Attention Baggage-men fall out Take

up arms Shoulder arms the Greek drill-master whose voice we hear.The phalanx apart, Asclepiodotus also includes brief discussions of light

infantry (peltasts), cavalry, chariots and elephants. However, they are even less

inspiring than the rest and indeed one gets the impression that, by the t ime he

reaches the la st two, the author himself, aware that they are hopelessly out of

date, can scarcely suppress a yawn. The entire work bears an abstract character,

ai ling as it does to adduce a single example drawn from actual military life; nor

does it even attempt to discuss the way in which the various kinds of troops ought

to interact with each other and the enemy, i.e. tactics as we would understand the

erm. Still, as one modern author has commented, i t is useful t o know that therexisted a Macedonian, a Laconian and a Cretan counter-march and that the last

of these was also known as the Persian. Not to forget the earth-shaking fact that

he leader of a single elephant was known as an animal-commander zoarchos

nd of two, as a beast-commander therarchos .

Like Asclepiodotus, who wrote about one hundred years earlier, Onasander

s primarily a student of philosophy. His work, en ti tled 0 Strategos (The

eneral), may also have been intended as an exercise in rhetoric, bu t if so it must

e admitted that it is considerably less technical than that o f his predecessor.

aving dedicated his book to the Romans, and especially to those of the Romansho have attained senatorial dignity and who through the wisdom of Augustus

Caesar [Nero is meant] have been raised to the power of consul or general , he



TH E ART OF WAR

proposes to discuss everything that p er ta in s t o t he g oo d commander. First things

first: th e post of co mm ande r must be taken by one who is temperate self-

restrained vigilant, frugal hardened to labour alert free from avarice, neither

to o young no r to o old indeed a father of children if possible, a ready speaker an d

a ma n with a good reputation . Th e bulk of Onasander s first chapter consists of

a very sensible explanation as to why each quality is needed.

The rest of th e treatise is equally balanced an d unexciting. Chapters an d 3

each chapter is no more than a page or so long describe the character which the

subordinate officers must have as well as th e need for t he c om ma nd er t o have an

® Macedonian light infantry ® ThebansPhilip attacks, then falls back

followed by the Athenians and

® Alexander with heavy cavalry ® Greek allies allies, leaving a gap in the centre

of the Greek line

© Macedonian phalanx sixteen ranks @ AtheniansMacedonian cavalry begin to

deep

·advance on the left flank

® Philip with hypaspists

·PH L·CHAERO EIA

t haeroneia tbe

Macedon 9n phtl tl nX

ared its associated

cavalry won a

aecisive victory

over its Greek



M EDONI N PH L NX

The acedonian phaLanx up

to sixteen men deep as

against the reek eight to

tweLve offered more offensive

power bu t was more

vuLnerabLe from the flanks

Its main armament was the

ongpike that was intended

for forward motion on y

Alexander advances through a

® gap i n t he Gre ek l ine and c uts off

the Theban right flank

f \ Philip resumes his advance against the Athenians

FROM NTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES

The Athenians on seeing their

right flank trapped by Philip s

f \ advance give way and retreat

followed byMacedonian phalanx

who maintain discipline

and formation



T H E ART OF WAR

advisory council of s om e s or t. Chapters 4 an d 5 deal with th e need to have a

reasonable, real no t unjust, cause for war as well as th e importance of listening

to soothsayers and omens. Chapters 6 an d 7 deal with the ma intena nc e of

military formations, an d here too Onasander s advice is sensible enough. Order

should be m ai nt ai ne d a t all t imes Depending on th e country in question, i e

whether it is wide open or narrow, formations should be either broad or deep

Th e former better suited for fighting th e latter for marching; other things being

e qual, some c ompromise between them should be found Vulnerable elements of

th e army such as its medical equipment, pack animals an d baggage, should be

placed either in th e centre of the c olumn or in case the latter comes under attack

on th e side that is farthest away f rom the n ~ Allied country is no t to be

plundered an d the question of supply is to be attended to

Like Asclepiodotus Onasander does no t provide any examples to illustrate or

clarify his meaning though it must be admitted that his meaning almost always



FROM ANTIQUITY TO TH E MIDDLE AGES

rfectly clear . Unlike Asclepiodotus or Aeneas , only rarely does his advice

enerate into trivia. The discussion of th e way th e different arms o ug ht t o be

an d co-operate with each other points to real insight on his part, albeit

unfortunately the force he has in mind is no t th e Roman legion of his day bu t

long-obsolete phalanx. Various tactics, such as th e feigned retreat, th e need told some troops in reserve so as to assist formations that have become exhausted

n d the effectiveness of s ud de n a tt ac ks d ir ec te d a ga in st t he e ne my s flank an d

ear, are discussed. All this is done in a sensible if curiously bloodless manner,

d again without any illustrations or examples.

Thus fa r th e arrangement of t he m at er ia l is reasonable and orderly. From

r 23 onwards it degenerates, however, losing coherence as th e author jumps

on e subject to t he n ex t without really bothering to maintain an y particular

der. While scarcely sensational, much of th e advice proffered continues to be

te sensible: for example, th e need for a general to m ak e t he t ro op s look after

This illustration shows a

campaign planned in

accordance with the phases

of an eclipse Military

textbooks written at any

time between 400 Be and

7 often contain

material on the need to

consult soothsayers and

astrologers as to whether

an action auspicious or

not The illustration from

a seventeenth century work

on the wars between the

ustrianEmpire and the

Ottomans



T H E ART O F WA R

ne of the aqueducts

leading to ome the _

Claudian aqueduct for

which Frontinus was

responsible

their equipment or to avoid fighting in person; victorious troops should be justly

rewarded defeated ones encouraged; cities that have surrendered fairly treated

th e dead buried and th e gods always honoured by performing th e appropriate

rites. In sum a go od m an w ho a tt en ds to all these will not only be a brave

defender of his fatherland an d a c ompete nt lea qer of an army but also, for th e

permanent protection of his own reputation will be a sagacious strategist .

In ou r ow n day t he w orks of Aeneas, Asclepiodotus a nd Onasa nde r have long

been dead - and understandably so, given th e dry, schematic an d sometimes

pettifogging way in which they approach their subjects. Not so during t he p erio d

from about 1450 to 1700 when t he ancients were revived by humanist

scholarship and e nj oy ed h ig h e st ee m. Onasander s work in particular was

described as t he most learned concise an d valuable [treatise] to be found upon

th e art o f w ar Francis Guilliman 1583 ; but this is even m or e t ru e of t he n ex t

tw o authors we must consider Frontinus and Vegetius. Both of them were no t

dead at all, but reissued a nd t ra ns la te d a nd considered to be of immediate

practical use to c omma nde rs of th e Renaissance an d beyond.

Sex tu s J ul iu s Fron ti nu s w as a Roman official whose career spanned t he l as t

q u ar te r o f th e first century AD an d wh o accumulated considerable experience

both military - he fou gh t t he t ri bes i n what is no w Wales - an d as a civil ian in his

capacity as supervisor of th e Rome s aqueducts. Hi s m ain w or k o n th e art of wa r

ha s been lost; what remains is th e Strategemata best translated as tricks of the




trade and apparently m ea nt t o serve as a c o mp an io n t o th e

theoretical treatise. It consists of four books of which t he l as t

on e was written by another person. Unlike so many others it

has nothing to say about raising troops formations discipline

etc.; instead it is divided into fifty chapters with t it les such as

Distracting the Attention of the Enemy By W h at M ea ns th e

Enemy Ma y be Reduced to Want O n Terrorizing th e

Besieged and O n th e Effect of Discipline . Eac h chapter

contains a list of devices used by past commanders in th e

realization of their p la ns . F or example whenever Alexander

of Macedon ha d a strong a rmy he chose th e s or t o f warfare in

which he could fight in o pe n b at tl e . A n ambassador of Scipio

Africanus wh o was conducting a parley once deliberately ha d

a horse ru n wild in th e enemy s camp presenting his me n with

an opportunity to chase it a ro un d a nd thus observe more than

they should have. The Carthaginians lac king ma te ria l fo r

cordage used their wome n s h ai r t o e qu ip t he ir fleet. Caesar

once spurred his soldiers t o b at tl e by showering such praise on

his Tenth Legion that th e rest became envious a nd w an te d t o

emulate it.

Since Frontinus makes no at te mpt to link the various

lex nder always led fromthe front nd was wounded

m ny times. This amphora

shows him with lance in

hand charging Emperor

Darius in his four horse

chariot.



THE ART OF WAR

The oman statesman and

general ato as he appears

on a playing card dating to

the French Revolution t

that time his supposed

qualities of austerity and

patriotism were much in

vogue

devices with each other as an exercise in monotony his work has seldom been

equalled Yet it must be conceded that so long as the technical limitations of his

age are borne in mind many of his suggestions were practical A commander

capable of employing only a small fraction of them would be considered highly

inventive, which presumably explains why he was quite popular in n t q ~ t y and

remained so throughout the Middle Ages and beyond When the grea t scholar

Jean Gerson 1363-1429) drew up a l ist of works which ought to b e in t he l ib ra ry




th e French Dauphin he included Frontinus. Machiavelli, wh o though a fa r

writer also possessed a practical mind not so very different from

own, c onsidered him indispe nsable . He continued to be read, and

by c om ma nd er s d ow n t o t he t hi rd q u ar te r o f th e eighteenth century:

Writing s ome t hree centuries after Frontinus, Flavius Renatus Vegetius, with

pitoma Rei Militaris Summary of Military Matters , stands in a class al l

his o wn . Apparently Vegetius, wh o was not a soldier b ut a n a dm in is tr at or in

Imperial service, produced th e w or k o n b eh al f of a Roman emperor by th e

of V al en tian - we do not know which on e of tw o possible c a ndida tes he

in mind - who, faced w ith th e m uch weakened state of th e Empire, wanted

k no w h ow th e ancient Romans had gone about their business so successfully:

nse quently he does no t deal with th e army of his own da y but with an

lized version of previous ones. A mo ng t he s ou rces w hi ch he m en tio ns are

Sallust an d Frontinus, an d th e military ordinances of Augustus, Trajan an d

rian. Thus it is lik ely that th e military organization which Vegetius describes

r existed at any single time an d pl ace. Still, i t is a tribute to his work that he

in bringing it to life and presenting us with a remarkably coherent

Of th e four pa rts, the first on e discusses recruits, their selection fishermen,

rs, confectioners, weavers, an d all those who a ppe a r to have been engaged in

appropriate to w o me n s ho ul d not, in my opinion, b e allo wed near

barracks an d their training in marc hing, th e use of arms an d th e various

mation s which are u sed in battle. Part 2 gives th e best account of th e legion s

w hi ch we have or are likely to have, including its organization an d

sub-units of which it consists, th e officers, th e promotion system, th e

iary services, its troop of horse, an d th e way in which it o ug ht t o be drawn

for b at tl e. Part 3 d ea ls with th e various tactical methods which were used by

legion, part 4 which seems to have bee n tagge d on by another writer with

an d naval warfare. Yet precisely because h e d oes not focus on an y

T H E ADVANCE

n army advancing

according to the rules set

down in the Strategikon, a

treatise produced by the

yzantine Empireand

attributed to the Emperor

Maurice



T H E AR T OF WA R

OPPOSITE: An illustrated text

of Vegetius, c 1270,

showing a sea battle.

particular period, Vegetius work is as much prescriptive as it is descriptive. From

beginning to end th e importance of thorough training, strong discipline, hard

work as i n b ui ld in g a fortified camp each night) and sound planning are

emphasized; in particular, part ends with a long list of do s an d don ts, such as

i t is better to have several bodies of reserves than to e xtend your front too much

a nd t ro op s ar e not to be led i nt o b at tl e unless they ar e confident of success .

Epitoma s succinct style, plus th e fact that it wa s dedicated to an e mp er or a nd

thus contained a direc t link with th e prestige of Imperial Rome, an d t he m an y

useful suggestions it contains in regard to fortification in particular, explain why

fo r over a thousand years af ter it w as written, i t r em ai ne d t he m os t p op ul ar o f

any military handbook - in 1770 on e Austrian field marshal, th e Prince de Ligne,

went so fa r as to claim that Vegetius ha d bee n inspire d by God . He was

considered th e greatest writer of all , even in the Middle Ages w he n t he core of

armies consisted of cavalry rather than the infantry of which he wrote.

B oth the Strategemata and th e Epitoma were written in Latin, w hi ch is

another reason why they were so popular during the Middle Ages in Europe. Not

so, of course, the military treatises produced by th e Byzantine Empire. The best

known one, th e Strategikon is a tt ri bu te d t o th e E mp er or M au ri ce reigned

582-602) bu t in fact wa s composed in his name by others. Written no t long after

th e grea t c a mpa igns of Belisarius an d Narses, it represents Byzantine military

practice at its zenith. Part 1, comprising the introduction, describes th e training,

equipment and discipline of th e tagma a cavalry formation which ha d taken the

place of th e infantry legion. Reflecting th e much-diminished i mp or ta nc e o f

infantry in Byzantine times, it is d ea lt w it h onl y in part 12 along with mixed

formations, camps an d hunting. Parts 2 and 3 deal with th e way in which th e

tagma ought to be prepared an d positioned fo r battle. Part 4 advises th e

commander on ho w to deal with ambushes an d set them up; part 5 discusses the

wa y baggage trains are to be arrayed an d part 6 various tactics an d drills to be

used when confronting th e n ~ The subject of part 7 is generalship

strategia). F ar f ro m d ea li ng w it h m at te rs o f supreme import pertaining to th e

overall conduct of the campaign, however, it is subtitled t he points which th e

generalm u st c on si de r . T he se include

blessingth e

flags, organizing thesquads,

gathering enemy intelligence, making speeches to encourage the troops,

interrogating prisoners, punishing o ff en de rs , w at er in g t he h or se s an d making

sure that t he m en c ar ry r at io ns i n t he ir saddlebags.

A general who ha s followed th e Strategikon s instruc tions up to this point

o ug ht t o have his army ready and d ra wn u p for battle. Accordingly, part 8 deals

with p oi nt s t o be observed on th e day of battle , such as t he n ee d for the general

not to overburden himself and to conceal his intentions for as long as possible.

Part 9 deals w it h m et ho ds fo r l au nc hi ng s ur pr is e a tt ac ks , and part 10 with

offensive an d defensive siege-operations including building a border fortress bystealth a nd w it ho ut o pe n battle . Obviously produced by a group of experts, all

this material makes very good sense. And inde ed tra ce s of its influence on



FROM NTIQUITY TO THE MI LE AGES



TH RT OF W R




stions such as castrametation the making of camps are said to be discernible

the conduct of actual campaigns such as t he o ne a ga in st t he A ra bs i n AD 636.

Even more interesting, both to th e historian an d probably also to th e

te mporary c omma nde r, is part 11, w hi ch p ro vi des brief anthropological

of the principal enemies facing t he E mp ir e, t he ir weaknesses and theiran d suggests ways for dealing with each one. For example, t he Persian

is wicked, dissembling an d servile, but at the same time p at ri ot ic a n d

Seldom bothering to look a ft er t he ir flanks, they ar e vulnerable to

an d encirclements f ro m a n o ut fl an ki ng position a ga in st t he flanks an d

of their formations and should, if possible, be engaged on open, smooth,

d level terrain .. . without an y swamps, ditches or brush which co ul d b re ak u p

[Byzantine] formation . y contrast, t he light-haired races place great value

freedom. They ar e bold a n d u n da u nt e d i n b at tl e; d ar in g a n d i mp et uo us as

are, they c on si de r a ny t im id it y an d even a short retreat as a disgrace . they are hurt by suffering an d fatigue .. . [as well as] heat, cold, rain,

of provisions especially of wine and postponement of battle . Therefore,

warring against t he m o ne m us t avoid engaging in pitched battles, especially in

early stages, bu t make use of well-pla nne d a mbushe s, snea k attacks and

tagems .

Compa re d with th e Strategikon a masterpiece of sorts, th e other Byzantine

on military ar t which have come do wn t o us - all that remains of a vast

- ar e less comprehensive an d less informative. The earliest is an

s sixth-century treatise whose main subjects are siege warfare on th e

e hand an d the operations of th e cavalry p ha la n x o n th e other. Then we have

Tacticon an essay on military organization and battle arrays attributed to

Leo th e Wise 866-912 ; though usually mentioned in t he s am e breath

the Strategikon it is in fact much less interesting an d less original, being largely

abbreviation of its predecessor as well as containing entire passages lifted

ou t of Onasander. Th e list is completed by tw o late ninth-century essays,

e on skirmishing said to have been th e work of Emperor Nicephorus, and an

o ny mo us o ne on c a mpa ign organiza tion. All t he se v olu me s reflect th e

of a highly sophisticated, a rt ic ul at ed a rm e d force w i th n um er ou s

and an emphasis on combined arms. As might perhaps be expected

the Byzantines , all of them als o d is pl ay a strong penchant fo r secrecy,

cunning an d guile in order to achieve victory. In this respect they

th e Chinese classics; however, since war is r eg ar de d p ur el y as an

in t he h an ds of th e emperor, th e underlying humanitarianism which

th e Chinese works so attractive is entirely absent.

During th e tim e wh en th e Byzantine Empire flourished, much of Western

ha d b een o verru n by barbarian tribes. Their preferred form of military

erature, if that is the term, consisted of th e chansons de geste narrative songs

which th e usually legendary exploits of usually legendary heroes were

La Chanson de Roland from th e early twelfth century is th e most

OPPOSITE: The death of

Roland at the bat tle of

Roncesvalles from a

fifteenth century rench

manuscript



THE ART OF WAR

This fourteenth century

French illustration shows

King Richard the Lionheart

embarking the Third

Crusade in 1190

famous composition of all but there are many others of varying literary q u l t ~Even later when the higher classes at any rate ceased being illiterate the Latin

West in spi te of its marked warlike qualities did not have either professional

soldiers or standing armies and possibly as a result produced remarkably little

by way of military textbooks Since yzantine works only became available after

the humanist revival the most popular treatises by far were those of Frontinus

and Vegetius as already noted; the latter in particular graced many a princely




of which we are informed including that of Richard the Lionheart. These

o were supplemented by a number of o thers whose subject was not so much

theory and practice as the art of chivalry and the rules of war. An

specimen is Honore Bonet, whose ~ r b r e des t illes The Treeof

tles) was written around 1400. A monk and a doctor of law, Bonet s professedal was to help mitigate the evils of war - thi s was the Hundred Years War

ich, as a native of Provence, he could see all around him.





FROM NTIQUITY TO THE MI LE GES

Nineteenth century painters

prided themselves on the

historical accuracy of their

work this painting

produced in 1830 Eugene

Delacroix shows KingJohn of France being

captured in the battle of

Poitiers 356 during the

Hundred Years War



TH RT OF W R

Living off the landprincipal campaigns and battles

Edward 1111339 40 Edward 1111342 3

Edward 1 1346

Edward 1111359 60

ancaster 1345

Lancaste r 1346

ancaster 1356 The lack Prince 1355 The lack Prince 1356 The Great Companie 1360 66

Robert Knowles 1370

John of Gaunt 1373

uckingham 1380

Henry V 1415




In th e introduction he defines war as a discord or conflict that ha s arisen on

of certain things displea sing to th e human will, to th e en d that such

should be turne d into agreement an d reason . Next to determine whence

jurisdiction i.e. the origins of th e laws which he cit es), h e gives a brief

account of the four great kingdoms of th e past namely Babylonrsia, Alexander s an d Rome. The core of th e book however, consists of several

questions an d answers c on ce rn in g t he things that ar e an d ar e not

I f a s old ier has accepted wages fo r a year, may h e put another man in

place during that period? Whether i t is l aw fu l to give battle on a f ea st day

LIVING OF F T H E L AN D:

PRINCIPAL CAMPAIGNS

AN D BATTLES

uring the undred Years

War the combatant armies

were forced to take a large

part of their food and

supplies from the land they

advanced through A

protracted campaign could

result in the devastation of

large areas of country

The recapture o f Paris from

the English during the

undred Years ar1396

_by the French painter Jean

Berthelemy dated late

eighteenth century



TH E AR T OF WA R

OPPOSITE: Christine de

Pisan who was perhaps the

first woman writer in

history to support herself by

her work also authored a

treatise on chivalry Here

she is shown presenting a

book to King Charles of

France

Towards the end of the

undredYears ara

military camp may have

looked like this

Whether th e holder of a safe-conduct may take w it h h im a m an of higher estate

than himself , Whether clerics should pay taillages or impositions levied for the

purposes of a war they should not , I f a baron a vassal of tw o lords wh o are

at w ar w it h each other, which should he help? a nd W he th er a n English student

dwelling in Paris for purposes of study could be imprisoned this, remember, a

time of war between France an d England .

To t ho se w ho would understand the me ntality of war in t he M id dl e Ages

Bonet s work, like that of his self-professed disciple Christine de Pisan, is

invaluable. Neither they nor th e various chronicles constitute military theory,

however, an d t he y a re mentioned here only by way of an indication of the kinds

of writing which th e period in q ue sti on p ro du ced . Sum min g up t he p re se nt

chapter, on e ma y perhaps conclude that such t he or y d id no t constitute a strong

point either of th e Latin Middle Ages or of t he a nc ie nt world. Ignoring th e

differences that existed between the ir own feudal system an d th e Roman Imperial

one, medieval people were content with a small number of Roman texts which

had been handed down and of which t he y m ad e use as b es t t he y c oul d. Th e

ancient world saw th e writing of muc h supe rb military history; however, judging



FROM NTIQUITY TO THE MI LE G S



TH RT OF W R

GUARDIANS OF TH E EMPIRE

The Byzantine Empirerecruited and trained soldiers

from within and beyond its

borders.

RIGHT: A Varangian

guardsman. These were

recruited mainly from

Scandinavia and after

1066 were joined by

displaced Anglo Saxon

nobility. BELOW: A cavalry

soldier recruited mainlyfrom the plain of Anatolia.

by what remains the theoretical treatises which it produced tended to be no more

than sensible at best an d pedestrian at worst. sto th e Byzantine texts they

formed a world a pa rt . T h ou g h obviously written for t he m os t part by persons

wh o knew what they were talking about, they exercised little influence outside a

small circle of Imperial generals wh o may have wanted t o k no w such things as

qu ot in g t he o ne on campaign organization) h ow to avoid confusion inside the

camp . These g en er al s m ay have carried them abou t and used them as th e

situation demanded.

What is more, an d as their arrangement suggests even th e best of th e works

discussed in t he p re se nt chapter ar e little more than handbooks. They make

suggestions an d proffer advice which may be appropriate to this occasion or

B Y Z AN T I NE E M P I R E 562 143

The Byzantine Empire inheritor of

omanmilitary tradition survived by

its ability to produce an efficient and

well led army considered by many who

opposed them or attempted to the

most efficient in discipline organization

and in tactical and strategical methods.



FROM A TIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES

taking the formations and armament of the ir own day more or less for

however they seldom rise above the specifics of time and place. From

to time they go lower still delving into such questions as the use of heated

for splitting rocks and how to train archers to fire a c c u r a t e l ~ The fact

some of them were still in use until 1700 and beyond shows how indebtedmodern Europe felt itself to be to the ancient world or conversely how

the evolution of warfare was. Unlike the Chinese classics they do not

ide a coherent philosophy of war. In the West the only wri te r who met that

was Clausewitz Before we can turn to an examination of his work

ever it is necessary to fill in the gap between about 1500 and the end of

Seven Years War.

Byzantine Empire562 1430 Imperial frontier c 1 25

extent ofthe yzantine mpire

565

8 4

1 95 3 8

143

• external t hreats t o t he mpire

o internal threats to the mpire

\

I

I

\

\





H PTER THREE

: ~ : = = : = @ : . - : : = ~ i + - I

KING FREDERI K PRUSSI was one of history s

greatest commanders as well as the author of numerous

works on the art o f war



TH RT OF W R

F R O M 1500 T O 1763

ICCOLO MACHIAVELLI S PLACE among t he g reat political scientists of history

is secure an d deservedly so. No o ne w ho ha s compared If Principe Th e

Prince) to say, Erasmus Institutes Principis Christiani Ways of a Christian

Prince: I prefer this translation to th e usual Education of a Christian Prince ) ca n

b ut n ot e t he i mmens e g ap between them: though separated by no more than tw o

iccolo Machiavelli>

uthor of L Arte della

Guerra> was presented as

the embodiment

falsehood p inting by Santi

di i to from the second h lf

of the sixteenth century



t hr ee ye ar s, th e latter is a treatise on morals the former on power.

iavelli s insights i nt o t he nature of power have rarely been equalled never

They remain as fresh today as they were w he n he put t he m d ow n in

I n s pi te of th e attempts made by modern historians to include Machiavellithe makers of modern strategy L Arte della Guerra The Art of War) is

t a first-class treatise on th e subject. Written in 1520-21 the work is c as t i n th e

of a c on ve rs at io n w hic h ta ke s p la ce i n a Florentine garden. Th e chief

FROM 1 50 0 T O 1763

is Fabrizio Colonna a member of a noble family of t ha t name which

disturbed t he p ea ce of Rome for centuries. Like others of his kind this

ha d served as a mercenary commander under Spain s Catholic Kings

an d Isabella - during their wars in northern No w he is travelling

to his native Rome and stopping in F lorence ready t o h ol d f ort h on his

During his years in office 1498-1512) Machiavelli himself ha d been in charge

conducting Florence s wa r against Pisa. Th e conflict dragged on a nd on and

save money Machiavelli at on e point persuaded th e signoria to supplement the

doing th e fighting with conscripted inhabitants of Florence s ow n

or countryside. Th e experiment the subject of much scepticism, worked

d Pisa was duly taken. Not long after, however, the same troops scattered to th e

The Catholic KingsSpain s Ferdinand and

Isabella were much

admired by Machiavelli for

their prowess in turning

Spain into the strongest

power in the world



T H E AR T OF WA R

OPPOSITE: In the hope of

getting a job Machiavelli

dedicated Th e Prince to

osimo andPiero de

Medici artial painting

from the edici Palace

c.1490.

four winds in th e face of Emperor Maximilian s hard-bitten mercenaries. As the

Medicis, expelled in 1494, returned, Florence s republican government fell an d

Machiavelli himself was briefly imprisoned an d tortured.

Nothing daunted, eight years later Machiavelli put his predilection for

conscripts into th e m ou th o f Fabrizio Colonna . The c ommon opinion, which ha d

it that civilians could no t be successful soldiers, was wrong. M y Romans during

th e Republic b oth in this w ork a nd in others Machiavelli all bu t i gn ored t he

Imperial period) ha d been th e best soldiers in th e world ; since they ha d consisted

of conscripts, so ought others in th e modern age. H av in g t hu s proven th e

superiority of conscripts to his ow n satisfaction, Machiavelli proceeds to describe

their selection, training, discipline, e quipment, ma rc hing order, meth od s o f

castrametation and th e lik e. All of t his wa s to be don e in the Roman manner,

partly as could be culled from Livy bu t mainly as described by Vegetius, even

though Vegetius himself belonged to th e late Imperial pe riod ra the r than to th e

Republican on e which Machiavelli so much admired.

Ha ving shown w ha t g oo d soldiers his imaginary Romans were, Machiavelli

draws t he m u p for an equally imaginary battle. They are a rme d with a mixture of

Greek an d Roman weapons; since the formations he suggests are hopelessly ou t

of date, t prevent t he m f ro m being blown to pieces he must first of all pretend

that artillery is of little use. Having done so - even at th e risk of h av in g his

a udience la ugh at him, as he admits - he is no w in a position where he ca n

dispense some useful advice: I n the midst of battle to confuse the hostile army, it

isnecessary to make something happen that

willbewilder them, either

byannouncing some reinforcement that is coming or by showing something that

appears like it. When a general wins, he o ug ht w it h all speed to follow up his

v i t o r ~ A c o mm a nd e r s ho u ld never fight a b at tl e if he does not have th e

advantage, or if he is not compelled by necessity . T he greatest an d most

important matter that a g en eral should a tte nd to to have nea r him faithful men,

very skilful in war an d prudent, with whom he continually advises. When either

hunger or other natural necessity or human passion ha s brought your enemy to

complete desperation .. . yo u o ug ht t o avoid battle so fa r as is in y ou r power.

These and similar pea rls of wisdom ar e provided with plentiful illustrations,most of them taken f ro m t he a nc ie nt world; after all, if Roman consuls such

as Minucius Rufus an d Acilius Glabrio wh o f ou gh t a ga in st Hannibal an d

Antiochus respectively) c ou ld d o i t, w hy no t we?

Thus three of Machiavelli s key propositions - his unde restima tion of

artillery , h is recommendation that pikes be supplemented with swords an d

bucklers, an d his preference for citizen-soldiers over professionals - provedto be

dead wrong. The last of these ideas even compelled h im to strike some decidedly

unMachiavellian attitudes. As, fo r example, when he claims that professional

soldiers could not be good men , a claim which, when put into th e m ou th o f aman who was himself a professional soldier, forced hi m to turn s ome s tran ge

intellectual somersaults. It also c ompelle d him to pretend that Roman military



FROM 5 TO 763



TH E ART OF WA R

Soldiers o Machiavelli s

time s own in this etching

by Durer.

prowess ended around th e time of th e Gracchi an d devote bu t little attention to

the exploits of a Marius, a Sulla a Pompey or a Caesar let alone other Roman

c omma nde rs who ha d the misfortune to live during the Imperial period

Wh y Machiavelli s w or k a tt a in ed th e fame that it di d remains a mystery

Though none of his contemporaries took his advice with regard to conscription

they seem to have appreciated his emphasis on discipline an d order He obviously

ha d a good understanding of th e differences among th e armies of his day bu t his

discussion of this topic is of interest only to t he k in d of military historian wh o

takes th e Renaissance as his speciality an d w an ts t o know for example ho w the

Imperial horse differed f ro m t he French an d Spanish ones Many of his concrete

suggestions ar e sensible enough, bu t lacking in originality as they are taken

almost entirely from Livy Frontinus an d Vegetius no t knowing Greek, an d

preferring the Roman legion t o t he G reek phalanx, he placed much less reliance



t he r em ai ni ng a nc ie nt authors . An underlying philosophy of war may be

cerned in his insistence that rich an d well-ordered states cannot exist without

defences; in The Prince he says that a just war is a necessary war , thus

through the Gordian knot formed by endless medieval discussions of just

r f ro m Sa int Augustine to Saint Thomas Aquinas. Th e reason for includingm in these pages is principally because he is there an d because in other respects

e is a commanding intellectual figure. Like a major general standing in th e

of th e r oa d, o ne m us t salute h im w he th er o ne w an ts to or not.

In truth, much of the remaining military thought produced between the time

Machiavelli an d the French Revolution is even less impressive. Wh y this should

the case is not easy to say: certainly Gustavus and Turenne, Marlborough,

ince Eugene of Savoy, Maurice de Saxe an d Frederick th e Great deserve to be

in th e list of great commanders. Yet even as t he y f ou gh t t he ir v ar io us

paigns, military thought continuedo draw on t he ancients , taking their

as the acme of wisdom and

little themselves that wa s

new. To cite bu t on e

example, when th e Marquis de

wrote a famous essay on tactics

th e 1720s, he cast it e nt ir el y i n th e

of a commentary on Polybios and,

th e unsuccessful pitting ofc ed on ia n p ha l an x against Roman

egion, even to th e point where he

ated the musket, no w fixed with th e

wly invented bayonet, almost as if it

re simply some s or t o f pike.

After Machiavelli, th e first writer

oeuvre must be discussed on

ese pages is Raimondo Montecuccoli.

Italian wh o served th e Habsburgs

from the beginning of

e Thirty Years War to his death in

680, he somehow found the time to

k e a n i nt er es t in every aspect of th e

ctual life of his t imes, including,

t least, the occult. H is m os t important

was th e Treatise on ar which

written in 1639-43 when he wa s a

of th e Swedes; however, it wa s

parently regarded as a state secret

though allowed to circulate in

FR OM 1500 TO 1763

In claiming that artillery

was of little use its cannon

balls, he says, usually went

high , Machiavelli may

have been thinking of

contraptions like this one. ewas wrong, however,

since sixteenth century

artillery was effective, and

getting more so.



TH E AR T OF WA R

manuscript form was published only long after his death.

Foreshadowing the Enlightenment Montecuccoli s objective was to

investigate every part of th e art of war from observation and

experience. Next he proposed to d ra w u p detailed rules an d join them

into a s ys te m w hi ch would b e s ub ject to reason.

Accordingly part 1 discusses preparations for war including

political preparations: t he s tr ik in g of alliances an d th e amassing of

supplies arms and money. Part 2 deals with training discipline

logistics an d intelligence; unlike Machiavelli Montecuccoli was a firm

other Italian states

Sea

Mediterranean kmI

Tyrrheni n Sea

/

Republic of Florence

Italian territoriescontrolled by foreigndynasties

other states and

territories

Machiavelli s Italyc.1500

D

D

D

F V L G I N T I S T R D V C T I O N R i l i g n ~ t c me nd at a. .

iAtliIH4jilnuillf1,. ,frg,untn i) Jti 1*orll ; - fln .,.M.. hi« ,IJ , firif tU pOftfJ t:Jo

ijle. :l),incipl4 n ; ; ?TfCnnO

MACHIAVELLI S ITALY

N I C O L IM A C H IA V E L LI

I R I NC E P S.

B S I L E E xofficinaPetrirernre.M D XXC

g-YL VES T R I T E L I i

The cover of Machiavelli s

Th e Prince Latin edition,

Basel, 1580.

During Machiavelli s time

I taly was divided between

numerous city states, large

and small. Some were

republics, but the majority

were ruled by tyrants.

Against this political

background Machiavelli s

proposals for a citizen army

made no sense.



of standing professional forces of the which ha d been pioneered by

e Dutch general, Maurice o f N as sa u This part also has.much to say about th e

of war, including fortification, marches, operational manoeuvre - a field

n which Montecuccoli wa s considered a master - an d th e peculiar tactical

that r esulted fr om the ne ed to combine cavalry with artillery and

antry, muskets with pikes. Finally, part 3 deals with what we today would call

ar termination an d the attainment of a more favourable peace.

A point which is worth making here, an d which distinguishes Montecuccoli

om previous writers, is that he looks at war as something made by sta te s rather

FR OM 1500 TO 1763

When the Marquis de Folard

wrote a famous essay on

tactics in the 1720s, he cast

it entirely in the form of a

commentary on Polybios, as

if no two thousand year

interval separated them

The picture shows the battle

of Eryx Sicily , 8 e

used by Folard to illustrate

Polybios.

by peoples as in classical Greek and Republican Rome) or rulers as in

ina, Imperial Rome, B yz an ti um , t he Middle Ages and the Renaissance .

licitly following t he i de as of th e la te sixteenth-century political scientist

Lipsil1s,_he clearly distinguishes between external an d internal war; and

the p oint was soon to come where th e l at te r n o longer counted as wa r at



TH RT OF W R

The Italian-born imondo

Montecuccoli was the first

to distinguish internal from

external war. By so doing

he m de a decisivecontribution th t led

straight to Clausewitz s

continuation of politics by

other means .



FROM 5 TO 763

The hirty Years War

1618-48 formed the

background to the military

thought of aimondo

Montecuccoli. he

illustration shows the battleof Fleurus 1622 .



T H E AR T OF WA R

The background to the

Thirty Years War was

formed by the political ideas

Justus Lipsius second

from right The picture is

by Peter Paul Rubens

all bu t wa s downgraded to civil war revolution uprising and in our ow n day

terrorism. To use a term have coined elsewhere th e age of trinitarian warfare -

government against government regular army a gainst regula r army with th e

p eo pl e r ed uc ed to a passive role had dawned. A century or so after

Montecuccoli wrote Frederick the Great said that Lipsius wa s hopelessly

a nt iq ua te d a nd sh ou ld be thrown out of th e window. That however was

precisely b ec au se t he Flemish philosopher s ideas on the state as th e only

legitimate war-making organization were now being taken very much for granted.

Much like his predecessors Montecuccoli still failed to distinguish between

strategy th e operational level an d tactics. As ha s been well said during most of



history wa r consisted mainly of an extended walking tour combined with large-

r o r ~ Deficient communications p re ve nt ed t he co-ordination of forces

ss they were kept closely together whereas th e short range of weapons meant

active hostilities against the enemy could only get under way on those

paratively rare occasions w he n a rm ie s d re w u p o pp os it e each other so as to giveThough s ta te sm en s uc h as Pericles and commanders-in-chief such as

clearly ha d in mind some master plans by which they s ou gh t t o achieve

ory if we look for the above-mentioned distinctions in an y of th e writings

ussed so far we will do so in vain. Towards th e en d of Montecuccoli s life th e

tactics derived f ro m t he G re ek an d meaning th e ordering of formations on

E SPANISH ROAD T H E H A BS B UR G EMPIRE

ing the sixteenth century Spanish

ers were almost always ahead o f

of other nations in the development of

ctics the introduction of small arms and in

e development of artillery weapons. This

s funded by the wealth supplied by the

and silver mines of Spain s American

and transformed into troops and

deployed to support her

ean ambitions.

FROM 1500 TO 1763

Th e Spanish road -Th e Habsburg Empirec 16

D Spanish Habsburg land

D Austrian Habsburg land

D Habsburgs traditional allies

D Habsburgs enemies

Church lands

Holy Roman Empireboundary 6 8

Spanish Road ;main supply routes toHabsburg possessions



T HE AR T OF WAR

th e battlefield was just beginning to come into usage. However another century

ha d to pass b efore i t was clearly distinguished from strategy in th e sense of the

conduct of war at th e higher level.

To a man Montecuccoli s eighteenth-century successors continued to write

as if tactics operational ar t an d strategy were one. To a man too they accepted

t he i dea that war was something to be conducted against foreigners in a different

norma lly but no t invariably neighbouring o u t r ~ Finally to a ma n they shared

his notion that th e purpose of theory was to reduce warfare to a system of rules

which would be grounded in experience a nd supporte d by reason. Obviously this

wa s something that was much easier to do in regard to fields where th e enemy s

independent will di d not have to be ta ke n into c onside ra tion. Thus discipline

marches logistics an d cantonments were easier to encompass than were tactics

t ac ti cs e as ie r than o pe ra ti on al a r t an d o pe ra ti on al art easier than s t r t g ~Hence as Clausewitz later noted from about 1690 on there was a tendency for

M OT T E A ND BAILEY T I MB E R F O RT AD

ith the advent of

gunpowder the fort

adopted new forms of

defence in order to

present a minimum

profile and walls of

maximum thickness to

withstand cannon fire

T HE CASTLE

s a focal point of

power the castle or fort

developed from its

original rudimentary

mound and wooden

palisades into stone

towers walls and keeps

various designs

MEDIEVAL STONE CURTAIN-WALLED CASTLE 1 2 0 0

FORTRESS F R OM T H E A DV E NT O F ARTILLERY 1 6 0 0



to grow from the bottom up, so to speak. It started with th e most

operations and expanding its horizons progressed towards greater

With Montecuccoli having pointed out th e things which military theory

g ht t o a im a t t he first part of th e art of w ar to be reduced to a system w as , a sbe expected siege warfare. Since th e en d of th e fifteenth century an d th e

of the sixteenth a period which sa w th e i nt ro du ct io n o f th e first

ective siege artillery on th e on e hand an d of th e bastion on the other both th e

t of attacking fortresses an d that of defending them ha d made great strides; by

e l at e s ev en tee nt h c en tu ry t he a ck no wl ed ge d m as te r in both fields wa s a

hman, Sebastien Ie Prestre de Vauban 1633-1707). Of bourgeois origins a

itary engineer w ho s pe nt his life alternately building fortifications for Louis

or conducting sieges in that king s name Vauban put down his experiences

tw o slim volumes which dealt with th e defence an d th e attack r s p t i v l ~ Hi s

FROM 1500 TO 1763

Since the end of the

fifteenth century the art of

attacking nd defending

fortresses h d m de great

strides; later it was to be

reduced to a system by suchexperts Vauban who also

wrote the most famous

treatise bout it Measures

t ken in defence of a city

woodcut by lbrecht Durer



THE ART OF WAR

OPPOSITE: ris city gaty

yil t y Vauban to com ine

the requirements of defence

with those of aesthetics.

Vauban uthor o f works on

defence nd attack planning

the fortifications of Belfort

1678.

work neither was nor claimed td be a comprehensive treatise on the ar t of war.

On the other hand and thanks largely to the fact that of al l t yp es of military

operations siege warfare was the easiest to reduce to rules, it was a mo del of its

kind which others sought to emulate. Elsewhere, Vauban was less narrow-

minded. s he wrote having done so much to diminish the members of the

human race he would now do something fo r their propagation and produced a

treatise on increasing the number of France s inhabitants.

The precise ways in which Vauban recommended that fortresses be attacked

or defended do not concern u s h er e. S uffi ce it to say that in both respects, he

proposed an extremely methodical modus operandi designed to achieve the

objective step by s te p and with as few c as ua lt ie s - the king s professional soldiers

were expensive to raise, equip and maintain - as p os si bl e. F oc us in g on the attack

the first step was to concentrate an army as well as sufficient supplies of

everything needed: including besides the men and their arms ammunition

powder also for putting in mines), engineering materials and tools. Then i t was



FROM 5 TO 763



T H E ART OF WAR

necessary to isolate .the soon-to-be-taken fortres s by iso latin g it from th e o utside

world using lines of vallation an d countervallation fo r t he p ur po se . Next a

thorough reconnaissance made by th e commander in person was to reveal th e

fortress s weak points. The guns were to be brought up properly situated an d du g

in. The bombardment its elf was to be carried out i n t hr ee bounds as each bound

brought t he a tt ac ke rs closer to th e w al ls. Sal li es by th e defenders were to be

carefully g ua rd ed a ga in st a nd if they took place nevertheless allowed to run

their course an d b e rep ulsed b efore sieg e operations properly speaking resumed.

Breaches were to be systematically widened u nt il t he y were practicable . An d so



, measure for measure, until the capture - or, even bet ter, the surrender - of the

tress was obtained.

Lately, attempts have been made to belittle Vauban s originality an d deny his

importance both as a bui lder an d as a commander. this as i t may, th e

remains that his writings have never been surpassed in their own field. As late1830 they were sti ll being reprinted as a practical guide; meanwhile whatever

wisdom wa s contributed by o th er s w ho were active in th e field had

been forgotten. Th e ai m of his successors, on e and all, wa s t o e xt en d his

to warfare in its entirety, a task in which they invariably failed. To pass

over them rapidly, Jacques r n ~ o i s de Chastenet,

Marquis de P uysegur 1655-1743), s pe nt m o st of

his life fighting fo r Louis XlV, i n w ho se army he

f inal ly rose to th e position of quartermaster-

general. Written in th e 1720s, his L rt de guerrepar des principes et des reg es Th e Art o f War by

Principles an d Rules) was explicitly modelled on

Vauban; what the latter ha d done for siege warfare

Puysegur sought to do for t he entire theory of wa r

f ro m t he s ma ll es t part to th e largest . Seeking to

contradict those wh o claimed that o nl y p ra c ti ce

mattered, moreover, he wanted to show that war

could be taught without war, without troops,

without an army, without having to leave one s

home, simply by means of study, with a little

geometry an d geography .

H av in g p ro vi de d a survey of ancient and

modern military writers as well as his own military

experience, Puysegur explains that t he foundation

of th e art of wa r is knowing ho w to form good

ordres de bataille an d ho w to make them move an d

opera te according to the most perfect rules of

movement; th e principles of which are derived

from geometry, which all officers must be familiar

with . Applying his ow n recipe step by step, he then

i ll us tr at es t he use of g eo me tr ic al p ri nc ip le s i n

order to find t he best method for inter a ia

conducting marches, carrying out manoeuvres in

th e face of th e enemy, constructing camps,

confronting an e ne my w ho may have taken shelter

behind lines, rivers, marshes, inundations, woods

an d other obstacles, as well as foraging an d passing

convoys. H av in g d on e all th is h e c on cl ud es with

t he movements of tw o a rm ie s advancing upon

FR OM 1500 TO 1763

Soldiers asleep; an

illustration from Puysegur s

L Ar t de la Guerre.



THE ART OF WAR

each other breaking of f his near-endless cata logue of principles and rules

precisely at the point where war, here understood as an inter ction of the two

sides, begins.

More famous than Puysegur was Maurice also known as Marshal de

Saxe 1 69 6- 17 50 ). A na tu ral son of the Elector of Saxony, h e became a

professional soldier and rose to become commander-in-chief of the French army

during the war of the Austrian Succession 1740-48). He produced his everies

Dreams) in 1732, allegedly during thirteen feverish nights and with no other aim

in mind except that of amusing himself. On one level the book is a reaction

against Puysegur; it starts by lamenting the absence of any reference to the



i.e. non-mechanical aspects of war in his predecessor s work. On

level it epitomizes eighteenth-century warfare at its complex best,

as it does two comparatively small armies at on e point, following

he says that 50,000 is th e maximum that ca n be handled by an y

manoeuvring against each other with t he a im of fulfilling th e sovereign sto capture this province or that. This manoeuvring wa s seen as th e essence

war; battle was to be engaged in only as a last resort, a nd t he n only w he n t he

for victory appeared certain. There ar e separate chapters about field

mountain warfare, siege warfare, and the problems of building field

an d dealing with them. Unlike many of his contemporaries,

FROM 1500 TO 1763

Me s Reveries, y Marshal

de Saxe was a famous

eighteenth century treatise

on the art of war. The

picture shows the uthor

after his greatest victory

won t Fontenoy in 1745.



T H E ART OF WAR

OPPOSITE: France under

Louis was governed by a

cabal of four plus Madame

de Pompadour. Painting by

r n ~ o i s Drouais 1763-4.

moreover, de Saxe as a foreign nobleman without an inde pendent fortune ha d

worked his way up th e chain of command almost f ro m t he bottom. Hence he also

ha d many shrewd observations concerning t he n ee d to keep th e soldiers clothing

simple and th e commander s mind free of excessive detail; not to mention th e

d an ge r o f making generals out of mere colonels an d thus risking th e possibility

that, following th e Peter Principle, they would find themselves on e step above

their natural i l i t ~Generally, though, his most important contribution is considered to be th e

legion . Aga inst the background of a period that still di d no t possess integrated

formations comprising all arms - th e largest unit was the regiment - de Saxe

proposed the e sta blishme nt of such forma tions, each o ne n um be ri ng exactly

3,582 me n an d comprising, besides four infantry regiments, four troops of horse

one fo r each regiment , two twelve-pounder guns, a permanent headquarters,

transport, engineers an d various supporting services. With that th e need to draw

up a detailed ordre de bataille which Puysegur ha d regarded as th e very essence

of t he m il it ar y art, fo r ea ch o cc as io n w ou ld be obviated. On e would simply

be able to name a legion and send it on t hi s m is si on or that; in addition,

permanent formations would prove to be more cohesive than th e rest an d would

thus be a bl e to serve as a kind of universal seminary of soldiers where different

nations ar e freely a do p te d a n d their natural prejudices effectually removed . In

th e event the idea of building large, perma_nent, c ombine d forma tions was

destined to be adopted d ur in g t he second half of th e century an d proved critical

to the development of th e art of war and of strategy in particular. Still, no

more than his contemporaries di d de Saxe himself distinguish between strategy

an d tactics.

To round of f this chapter, th e military works of Frederick th Great must be

briefly discussed. Reflecting th e typical Enlightenment belief in education, they

were produced over a period of some thirty years. First came the Principes

generaux of 1746; this was f ol lo we d by th e Testament politique 1761), th e

Testament militaire 1768) and th e lements de castrametrique et de tactique

1771), as well as a long didactic p oe m k no wn as The rt of War. M uc h o f this

material was originally secret an d intended strictly for th e use of senior Prussian

officers and officials. Accordingly it does not deal so much with th e ar t of wa r

per se as th e way in w hi ch i t o ug ht t o be practised by Prussia, an d a ga in t he

reason for including it here is mainly th e fact that its author was undoubtedly one

of th e greatest commanders of all time.

Prussia, then, is described as an artificial country, spread over much of

Germany and Poland, an d held together as a work of art. At th e centre of th e

work wa s th e army, w hi ch a lo ne could guarantee its continued existence an d

which accordingly h ad t o be fostered by all m eans. For both military an d political

r eas on s t he a rm y s commander wa s tobe

t he k in g alone; no tfor Frederick

th e

conseils de guerre which were common elsewhere and f or w hi ch h e f re qu en tl y

expressed his contempt, commenting for example that France under Louis



FROM 5 TO 76



TH E AR T OF WA R

was g ov ern ed by a cabal of four plus Madame de Pompadour. The officers were

to be drawn exclusively from th e nobility: t he on e factor which c an make men

m ar ch i nt o t he cannon that ar e trained at them is honour and honour was to be

found among n ob le s a lo ne . W hi le not incapable of p ut ti ng o n a show of gruff

appreciation fo r th e r an k a nd file Frederick believed that th e on e way to keep

them in line wa s ferocious discipline. They need to fear their officers more than

th e enemy he once commented.

H e ld t og et he r by iron bonds such an army would be able to m ar ch m or e

rapidly ma noe uvre more precisely and fire more rapidly than th e enemy. Above

all it w ou ld be able to take casualties recover f ro m d ef ea t an d fight again -

Under Frederick the Great

Prussian soldiers were

supposed to fear their

officers more than theenemy A Prussian army

camp mid eighteenth

century.



ost important factor considering the number of battles which Frederick lost.

h these rock-solid elements in place he could instruct his generals about th e

Thus during marches th e a rmy s tw o wings were not to be separated by

than a few miles. Provisions were to be obtained by eating everything there

to eat [in a p ro vince] a nd t he n moving somewhere else . Mountains swampsa nd o th er places capable of offering shelter to deserters were to be avoided

fa r as possible and foraging soldiers were to be carefully guarded. Th e best

of espionage which always succeeds was to choose a peasant arrest his

fe as a hostage an d attach to him a soldier disguised as a servant before

him into the enemy s camp - an idea which could equally well have come

FROM 1500 TO 1763



T H E AR T OF WA R

Before the invention of

photogr phy comm nders

h d to e dept t sketching.

This topographical sketch

was prepared y Frederick

the Great in 1741 as p rt of

his plan to invade Silesia.

from some Chinese or Byzantine

manual. He also ha s something to say

about th e use of artillery an d cavalry

and about th e capture of defended

places. Much of what he does say is

incisive an d succinct. Limited as it is to

his ow n time an d place however, little

of it deserves to be studied by way of a

theoretical introduction to war.

A ro un d t he en d of th e nineteenth

century, by which time the king had

come to be celebrated as the founde r of

th e Prussian-German army an d an y

milita ry a c tion had to be traceable to

hi m in o rd er t o gain respect much in k

wa s spilt over the question as to

whether he preferred annihilation

Niederwerfung to attrition Ermattung

or .th e other way round. In fact his

w r it te n w or ks d o no t have very m uc h t o

say about the ma tte r; instead his views

must be de duc ed from his practice. On

tw o occasions then Frederick engaged

in what today would be called a

Blitzkrieg: in 1741 he sought to overrun

Silesia, an d in 1756 Saxony, before th e

enemy, in both cases Austria could

react. Each time the attempt to

annihilate the enemy, if such it was, failed an d he became involved in a protracted

war which even assumed pan-European dimensions. If only because tw o are

needed for a fight, in these wars Frederick showed himself neither more no r less

inclined toward fighting decisive battles than his contemporaries. Such

bloodbaths were indeed frequent; bu t so, particula rly during the latte r phases of

th e Seven Years War, were lengthy pauses an d complicated manoeuvres intended

to preserve his ow n forces an d outfox the n ~As h as alr eady been m en tio ne d several Enlighte nme nt milita ry writers

la me nte d the fact that unlike other sciences, t ha t o f w ar did no t have an y clear

and universally applicable rules. O ne an d all, their objective in writing was to

provide such rules for themselves as, like de Saxe, they often claimed , for their

comrades for their subordinates an d for a wider readership. Precisely because the

scope of Vauban s writing was limited - it completely ignores both the militaryan d th e political c on te xt o f th e fortifications and sieges with which it deals

among all these works his wa s by f ar t he most successful. Recognizing no such



itations the rest sought to construct systems which would not comprise mere

bu t cover wa r as a whole

That attempt however was seldom successful While many a ut ho rs h ad

things to s y with the possible exception of de Saxe an d his legions

are concerned with the technicalities of their ow n age rather than anything

foreshadows the future Perhaps t he b es t that ca n be said for them is that as

growing n um be r o f publications in th e field proves they both reflected an d

re responsible for a situation in which w ar fa re w as c om in g to be considered a

subject for serious theoretical Th e age of th e self-taught officer wh o was

an entrepreneur was drawing to an end to be replaced by that of th e soldier

o was c om mi ss io ne d a ft er h av in g p as se d through a military academy and

ng been subjected to further study at on e of t he ne w s ta ff colleges that were

to open their doors i n P ru ss ia and France from about 1770 th e

re i t was to students and graduates of these institutions above all that

on military theory were to address themselves

F RO M 1500 T O 1763





CH PTER FOUR

- - : : : ; ; ; : = = : ~ . : @ : . : = = ~ : + - I

GUI ERTTO

CL USEWITZ

THE SI G O MINORCA April 756 during the Seven

Years War. Despite the bastions protecting the city the

French landed and invested Port Mahon the island s

capital while the fleet blockaded the port. Minorca

surrendered on May. The British Admiral John Byng s

failure in his action against the French led to his court-

martial and execution



TH RT OF W R

GUIBERT T O CL AUS E W IT Z

The Peace Treaty of

Westphalia 24 October

1648 ending the Thirty

Years ar

N TH E MILITARY FIELD as in others the years l ead in g u p to th e French

Revolution were marked by intellectual ferment. Th e political system of

absolute states which ha d been created at th e Peace of Westphalia in 1648 was

visibly coming apart at th e seams. Both Louis XV an d Frederick II were aware

that radical change wa s on th e way; and t he f or me r in particular expressed his

hope that th e deluge would only come apres moi Th e nature of th e change was

foreshadowed in th e work of political writers of whom th e m os t radical was

Rousseau. In th e military field t he w ri te r w ho m ad e th e greatest name for himself

was a young m an n am ed Jacques Antoine Hippolyte Comte de Guibert.

The background to Guibert s work like t ha t o f his late eighteenth-century

contemporarieswas

formedby

th eSeven Years War which related

tothe

period

1763-89 much as the Fir st World War did to the period 1919 39 i.e. as a

paradigm. In that conflict th e French army ha d performed poorly failing to

achieve much against Frederick th e Great s Prussia even though together with its



s Aus tria an d Russia France ha d enjoyed every advantage economIC

an d geographical. Guibert pere had participated in th e Seven Years

r as an assistant to the last French commander i n G er ma ny Marshal de

The question which occupied Guibert fils, wh o ended up as a c ol on el in

conflict washo w to d o b et ter n ex t

time. Typicallyof th e

timesin

whichhe

sought to answer t he qu es ti on not merely by offering specific

bu t by producing a grand system of war which would cover

en ti re s ub je ct both historically an d p h i l o s o p h i c l l ~ The Essai t ctique

published in 1772 when Guibert was only twenty-nine years old wa s

to represent that system and at th e s am e time confer immortality

its author.

Guibert s detailed r ec om me nd at io ns c on ce rn in g t he s ha pe of military

- for example he helped produce the ordinanc e of 1791 with which

Frencharmy

f ou gh t t he R ev ol ut io na ry a nd N ap ol eo ni c wars - need notcern us here. Four propositions however are outstanding an d justify th e high

he enjoyed among his contemporaries. First to overcome th e

leness so characteristic of France s conduct of th e recent conflict future wa r

°

I l t ic

nholm

GUIBERT T O C LA US EW I TZ

PRUSSIA 1713-86

Prussia s growing milit ry

might under the leadership

Frederick the econd

Frederick the Great)

l rmed her neighbours,three which eventu lly

mobilized rmies against

her.

Prussia 1713-86

Prussia 1713 40

o Prussia 1740 86

D Holy Roman Empire

Each symbol represents 10 000 men

under arms in the period 1740 86

~ r u s s i n s

Russians

IIL ustrians

French



TH E T OF W

W AR ZONES OF T HE S EV EN

YEARS W AR 1756-63

lthough i t was the smalles t

o f the large powers Prussia

with just 175 troops nd

assisted only by ritain

took on the remaining great

powers Emerging from the

w r exh usted but

triumph nt

it established

itself as a great power for

the first time

should be waged not merely w it h t he ai d of th e

standing a rm y b ut o n the basis of the united forces

of th e entire nation. Second, to make such

participation possible, general conscription was to

be introduced. Third, to enable t he h ug e resulting

armies to survive without ruining the treasury, th e

existing logistic s ys te m w as to be reformed an d

wa r made to fe ed wa r. Fourth, those s am e h ug e

armies were to move no t in a single block - as ha d

been standard practice from time immemorial to

tha t of Frederick t he G re at - bu t in independent

formations of all arms. Th e last-named demand

clearly echoed de Saxe: bu t it could also rely on th e

French commander de Broglie who, during th e

latter years of th e Seven Years War, wa s th e first to

conduct practical experiments with th e type of

u ni t l at er to be known as th e division. However,

what really made Guibert famous was not so

m uc h t he technical details which he expounded as

his implied demand for far-reaching political

reform which in turn would make possible an

army of a c om pl et el y n ew k in d. Backed by th e

mobilized nation, such an army, thanks to its

numbers on th e on e hand an d its patriotic vigour

on th e other, would sweep away its opponents like

reeds before th e north wind .

As w il l be evident f ro m t he title of his work,

Guibert still di d not distinguish between tactics an d strategy so it is strange to

find on e mode rn b oo k on him subtitled The Voice of St ra te gy . A t t he s ame

time his distinction between elementary tactics the use of the various arms) an d

great tactics marching, combat, deployment an d encamping) shows that he was

groping his way towards th e latter concept. Against this background th e term

strategy wa s initiated during those very years by another French soldier-scholar,

loly de Maizero)T. Maizeroy too sought to put right the defects which ha d become

apparent in th e French army during th e Seven Years Wa r a nd , t o do so, produced

his ow n system -. As he defined th e subject, tactics were merely mechanical an d

included t he c om p os in g an d ordering of troops [as well as] th e m ann er o f

marching, manoeuvring and fighting as expounded by P uys eg ur , d e S axe an d

others. On th e o ther h and , strategy wa s concerned with th e overall conduct of

military operations a ga in st t he enemy - a field which h it he rt o h ad b ee n le ft

almost entirely to the general s intuition.

To call th e conduct of wa r at th e higher level by a ne w name was on e thing.

To devise principles fo r it wa s an entirely different matter, an d on e whose



al t i c ea

had defeated all previous writers even if, as w as s el do m t he case before

or so, they had attempted i t in th e first place. Th e credit for putting together

earliest treatise on strategy belongs to a Prussian officer an d writer Adam

nrich Dietrich von Buelow, whose eist des neuern riegssystems Spirit of

e Modern System of War appeared in 1799. An eccentric, arrogant genius wh od a knack for alienating people and creating enemies Buelow s point of

was th e much improved maps which were becoming available. Fo r

Roman commanders ha d maps to judge by th e only specimen that ha s

down to us, th e so-called t bul peutingeri n in which only east an d west,

t no t north an d south were indicated. Spanish commanders ma rc hing their

from northern Italy to t he N eth er lan ds in the latter half of the sixteenth

ha d relied on mere sketches to show t he m t he way; even Vauban as great

e xp er t on military geography as ha s ever lived, at v ari ou s t imes produced

of th e surface of France which differed from each other by as much aspe r cent. However, by th e time Buelow wrote the first map of a large country

to be b as ed o n triangulation ra the r th an on guesswork ha d just been

G UI BE RT T O CLAUSEWITZ

Prussian victory

Prussian defeat

l l fortress

Prussia in 1713

gains 1713 4

main area ofcampaigning

Holy Roman Empire

other states andterritories



TH E AR T OF WA R

completed an d submitted to th e depot de guerre in Paris, an d several more works

aiming to cover other countries in a similar way were approaching completion.

Strategy, then wa s th e art of conducting wa r no t by means of coup d oeil

from behind a h or se s ea rs bu t in an office, on th e surface of a map. Thus

regarded an y army once deployed on th e border would occupy a base, conceived

by Buelow not as a point but as a definite area with definite dimensions.

Depending on geography and th e general s decision a base could be either

narrow or wide. Starting from it , th e army was to advance upon its objective or

objectives; b et we en b as e and objective t he re s tr et ch ed a line, or lines, of

o pe ra ti on s. A lo ng t he se lines there flowed supplies an d reinforcements in on e

direction an d th e wounded the sick an d prisoners in th e other. As of recent times

th e growing role played by firearms had g re at ly i nc re as ed t he demand for

CASTORI R O M AN O RU M C OS MO GR AP HIlabula quae dicillif Pculing ~ r i a n a Hccoqno\ it Conrad Mill r.1887

1. 2.Jr.

SEOMENTUM n3. 4.

SEGMENTUli 1.

[emporumm qu t pertit

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O T T O M A I E R IN R A V E N S B U R G

D 0 1 n / ~ c n ~ Bucnhandlung.)

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J,, tI<uns IJdr;m.r

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GUIBERT T O C LA US EW IT Z

Early maps were oftenprimitive providing a scant

base for strategy. The tabula

peutingeriana was a

thirteenth century copy of a

fourth century oman map.

The section shown here

includes England France

and orth Africa.

T5

unition and i n t hi s way th e importance of th e lines. It w as in them that th e

to strategy was to b e fou n d.

Fo r example a general who contemplated an invasion of a neighbouring

might adv an ce in on e line, in two or i n m or e. Depending on the e xte nt

th e b ase, as well as th e n um be r a n d location of th e objectives selected, thesemight either diverge, converge or run parallel to each o th er. The columns

along each one might be made equally strong or else different numbers

t ro op s mig ht be assigned to e ach . T o obtain certainty in such questions as in

y o th ers) it was n eces sary to resort to mathematics; which made Buelow s work

nothing so much as a textbook in Euclidean geometry. Definitions ar e

an d followed by propositions w hi ch a re then linked to each other by

Thus various possibilities, such as diverging lines an d parallel lines, are

carefully el im in at ed . H av in g determined that

converging lines ar e best, th e remaining question ishow far away th e objective ought to be. Li ke th e

power of gravity, that of th e offensive diminishes

th e f ur th er i nt o enemy t er ri to ry i t advances. If

th e advancing force is not to be cu t of f by a

flanking attack a definite relationship should be

maintained between the length of th e line of

operations an d th e w id th of th e base. Thus tw o

lines stretching f ro m t he flanks of th e base should

meet at th e objective in su ch a way that they form aright angle. Proceed further than this - in other

w or ds , a ll ow a sharp angle to be created - an d yo u

ris k b ei ng cu t of f b y a s id e-stro ke. Thus th e entire

art of strategy wa s reduced to a si ngl e, simple

geometrical formula.

Though not entirely without forerunners - in

particular the British officer a nd w ri te r Henry

Lloyd deserves to be mentioned - Buel ow was right

in claiming that his system of strategy marked a nentirely new way of looking at war. Fo r centuries,

if not millennia students ha d busied themselves

with the best method fo r raising an army,

disciplining it , a rm in g a nd equipping it , building

camps for i t, provisioning it , adopting this o r t ha t

marching o rd er a nd w hen i t c am e to confronting

th e enemy, either fighting him or tricking hi m by

means of this stratagem or that. However, Buelow

shifted t he e mp ha si s f ro m what we today would

call t he o rg an iz at io na l technical and tactical

aspects t ow ar ds t he l ar ge r operations of war. No



TH E AR T OF WA R

ith the invention of

modern strategy towards the

end of the eighteenth

century generalship ceased

to be a question of coup

d o l nd began to be

conducted on a map. This

a portrait of the French

general Louis Lazare Hache

c 1795



he w as carried away by his own discover): Thus in the face of unfolding

leonic warfare with its numerous climactic battles he ins is ted that the

understanding and adoption of his system of strategic manoeuvres would

battle to disappear. Given that their growing dependence on magazines and

of operationsprevented

armies from proceedingvery

far from theirbase,

he

en expected that war itself would be rec ognize d a s futile and come to an end

t that t hi s was a r ar e b el ie f either in the years before 1789 or, more surprisingly,

r 1815.

Buelow and his fellow German strategists for some reason the term strategy

on much faste r in Germany than anywhere else) have often been ridiculed,

more so than in Tolstoy s War and Peace Yet the censure is undeserved:

en if wars did not come to an end his prediction that the art of strategy would

in favour of large states and lead to political consolidation proved correct.

o t hi s day, ev en those who have neverh ~ r

ofhim

us e the conceptswhich he

- b as e, ob jecti ve, lines of operations - and what is more look at

rategy in a manner which was l ar ge ly h is making From th en on as fa r as


Following his discovery o f

lines of communication

Buelow expected battle to

disappear This however

did not happen This picture

shows Napoleon issuing an

DCwith orders for

Marshal Grouchy at the

Battle of Waterloo 1815



THE ART OF WAR

strategy on land was concerned it only remained to work ou t the details.

Nineteenth-century schools of strategy - i.e. the multiplying staff colleges - were

soon to engage in endless arguments as to whether a s in gle lin e of operations or a

double one converging or diverging, was preferable; and whether to drive forward

in other words attack was eas ier than to maintain one s base in other words,

defend). Furthermore as we sh al l see, Buelow w as by no means the last to try to

arrange things in such a way that strategy - expressed in the form of lines or

arrows on a map - would take the place of battle.



Buelow s direct and much better known successor was Antoine Henri

A Swiss citizen who saw service under Napoleon and eventually rose to

ome chief of staff to Marshal Ney he began his career as a military theorist

throwing his own ea rl y essays - w hi ch had been written before he discovered

and Buelow - into the fire. His military career was no t a great success; yet

developed into the high priest of strategy or as he himself preferred to call it

es grandes operations de guerre Acknowledged or not h is i nf lu en ce has

no t been surpassed even by the great Clausewitz.


The Swedish king Gustavus

dolphuscould never have

carried out his conquests in

Germany if he had been

dependent on lines of

communication to bring his

supplies from Sweden Here

is shown preparing for the

assault at the battle o f

Luetzen 16 November 1632

in which he lost his life



THE ART OF WAR

MANOEUVRE ON U

lm autumn1805 was the

first of Napoleon s greatest

campaigns. It involved

several corps over a large

area combining operations,converging on the enemy s

lines of communication and

cutting them off.

Very much like Buelow Jomini conceived strategy in terms of armed forces

moving against each other in two-dimensional space Much more than Buelow

whose mind t ended to work in eighteenth-century geometrical terms he was

prepared to take i nto account such complicating factors as roads rivers

mountains forests fortresses and the like which either facilitated manoeuvre or

obstructed it As with Buelow the problem was to discover a system which

would guide a commander in conducting those manoeuvres The most important

elements of the system remained as before i e bases objectives and lines of

r06



of which there could be various numbers an d which stood i n v ario us

to each other. To these, however, J om in i a dd ed a considerable

o f o th er con cept s. Some, s uch as Theatres o f O p er at io ns assuming a

ntry engaged against multiple enemies, each of its armies would opera te in a

theatre an d Zones of Operations the district between an army s based its objective, through which its communications passed), were to prove useful

d make their way into subsequent strategic thought. Others merely injected

compl ex it y an d, s ome would say, i n c o m p r e h e n s i i l i t ~

GUIBERT T O C LA U SE W IT Z

The battle of Marengo

June 1800 for the first time

illustrated wh t

manoeuvre su r les derrieres,

ould do when applied on a

strategic scale

All armies, then, necessarily ha d lines of operation or, as we would say today;

Earlier commanders such as Alexander, Julius Caesar, or even

Adolphus during th e first half of th e seventeenth century ha d been able

survive a n d o p er at e for years in e ne my territory while maintaining only th e

t t enu o us ties with home. Now, however, th e whole p oi nt o f th e art of ~ rs to cut o ne s enemy s lines of operations without e xposing one s o wn ; t hi s

lead either to th e enemy s surrender as actually happened to the Austrians

DIm in 1805 or to a battle in which he would be placed at a grave disadvantage

happened to th e Austrians a t M ar en go in 1800 an d to the Prussians a t J en a in

Thus wa s born th e m noeuvre sur les derrieres a method of operation by



TH E AR T OF WA R

Fig 8

5

which on e part of th e a rm y w ou ld h ol d th e enemy while th e other if possible

while using some natural obstacle in o rd er t o conceal and protect itself would

march around hi m an d fall upon his rear As ]omini very sensibly wrote a n a rm y

with tw o different lines of operations running back to tw o different bases would

be less exposed to this s or t o f manoeuvre than its

e ne my who possessed o nl y o ne particularly if th e

lines in question formed a n o bt us e angle rather an

acute one That he spoke of the theatre of wa r as a

chessboard and presented his idea in an old-

f as hi on ed g eo me tr ic manner reminiscent of

Buelow detracts nothing from its v l i i t ~The second most important manoeuvre

advocated by ]omini consisted of operating on

L..

typical illustration from

one of fominis w o r k s ~showing one of the

numerous different

formations th t might be

employe in battle



ternal what Buelow called d iv erg ing ) l in es . A blue army might f ind i tsel f

etween two r ed o ne s, as had happened to Napoleon during his Italian campaign

1796 and again in those of 1813 and 1814 the practice of always using blue for

and red for hostile originated with Helmut von Moltke . Su ch a situation

not without its dangers, but on the o ther hand it was also a source ofSeparated from each other, the red forces would find it difficult to

and thus bring superior force to bear. Conversely, the blue army was already

and only a short distance away from each red force. These

might be used in order to deliver a swift, sharp blow at one red force

the other could intervene; after which blue would turn around and the

would be repeated against the other. A perfect example, and one which

the continuing relevance of Jomini even in the age of air warfare w hi ch h e

contemplated, is I sr ae l s conduct of the 1967 war against th ree Arab


he campaignof 18 6

culminating in the battle of

len represented the

manoeuvre sur les derrieres

tits most effective



TH E ART OF WAR

enemies, each of which, being separated from th e r es t by long an d tenuous lines

of communications, wa s attacked an d defeated i n its turn.

W ha te ve r t he precise manoeuvre selected, it was always a question of

bringing superior force t o b ea r against the decisive point. Given their importance

as centres of communication, capitals were always decisive points. So, to a lesser

degree, were road unctions, river crossi ngs, fortresses which blocked or

dominated a ro ad a nd th e like. Another type of decisive point wa s that from

which red s lines of operation could be threatened so that he either ha d to retreat

from his positions or else ha d to turn a ro un d a nd fi gh t. If he tried to do the

second without doing th e first, his force s would become d iv id ed , w hi ch i n turn

might present blue w it h a n opportunity to be at them in detail.

In a certain sense the ma noe uvres advocated by Jomini had always existed.

F ro m a t least t he t im e of Hannibal, armies h ad n ot only fought each other front

t o f ro nt b ut so ugh t to outflank an d surround th e other. Before th e middle of th e

eighteenth c entury, however, by an d large there were no lines of o pe ra ti on t o

threaten or c ut. M oreove r, as explained earlier, primitive communications an d th e

fact that no formations of all arms existed c om pe ll ed a rm ie s t o stick closely

t og et he r a n d only p e rm i tt ed t he m t e ng ag e e ac h other in battle by mutual

consent. Given th e vastly increased forces made available by the introduc tion of

genera l c onsc ription in 1793, first Carnot an d then N ap ol eo n h ad been

compelled to disperse them an d group them into formations of all arms whether

they wanted to or not. Once t he m ac hi ne ry fo r commanding such dispersed

formations ha d also been cr eated in t he f or m of th e etat major these changes

greatly increased the repertoire of strategic manoeuvres, which in turn were pu t

into systematic form an d codified by Jomini.

Jomini s earliest work on strategy, the Traite des grandes operations miLitaires

Treatise o n G ra nd Operations of War), was published in 1804-5 an d submitted

to Napoleon who, according to its author, is said to have expressed his

appreciation. Elsewhere, however, Napoleon expressed his disdain for Jomini,

saying that o ne c ou ld turn to him if on e needed a n e xpla na tion concerning th e

nature of lines of operations, etc.) From no w on he steadily a dd ed t o it, without,

however, c hanging the essence. In his m os t m at ur e work, Precis de L art de

guerre Th e A rt of War) of 1830, he h as m uc h to say about th e political uses to

which war could be put an d also about th e resources an d military institutions of

different states; at t he s am e time he extends the work to include formations,

tactics, various kinds of special operations such as th e crossing of rivers, an d

logistics, defined as t he practical art of moving armies . There is even a short

chapter on Descents, or Maritime Expeditions . Therefore, if Clausewitz in Yom

riege On War) of 1833 accused Jom ini o f having concentrated merely on

strategy to th e detriment of th e political side of war, t hi s is du e to th e fact that

th e Prussian general di d no t live to see his rival s most ma ture work.More t o t he p oi nt , Jomini, li ke all hi s Enlightenment predecessors, sought to

create a system which would tell a commander ho w t o c on du ct wa r on th e



higher level. Particularly in his earlier works, this objective forced h im t o p re se nt

wa r as more rational than it rea ll y is, given that only the rational ca n be

systematically analysed, systematized a nd t au gh t. T he s am e w as even m or e t ru e

of th e Enlightenment as a whole. From about 1770 on , this view came under

attack at th e han d o f the na sc ent romantic mo vemen t, w hi ch i ns is ted that th eemotions of th e heart, no t the calculations of th e merely mechanical brain, stood

at the centre o f h um an life. In the military field t he m os t important critic was yet

another Prussian officer, diploma t a nd scholar, Georg Heinrich von Berenhorst.

Published in three volumes between 1796 and 1799, Berenhorst s

etrachtungen iiber die riegskunst Reflections on th e A rt o f War) began with a

survey of military s t o r ~ Antiquity ha d been t he g re at period when th e art of

war, emerging from its p ri mi ti ve s ta ge w he re it had b ee n c on fi ne d to raids,

ambushes, skirmishes an d th e like, ha d been perfected. Then came a long

medieval interval marked by n ot hi ng b ut ignorance an d disorder; but at somepoint between Machiavelli an d Montecuccoli Berenhorst ha d in mind Maurice

of N ass au, t he early seventeenth-century Dutc h c omma nder) orde r was restored

an d progress resumed. The very nature of their quest, however, ha d led all

subsequent authors to overestimate th e role of immutable laws while

underestimating t ha t o f the unknown, unc ontrollable forces of human will an d

emotion. Soldiers were more than r ob ot s w ho c ou ld fire so an d so many rounds a

minute; an ar my was no t simply a machine moving along t hi s a xi s o r th at and

carrying ou t evolutions as its commander directed. I t w as th e ever-variable, often

unpredictable, state of mind of commanders and troops, an d no t simplycalculations p er ta in in g t o time, distance and th e angles between lines of

operations, which governed victory an d defeat - to say n ot hi n g a b ou t th e role

played by that great incalculable, pure chance.

These arguments were illustrated by referring to Frederick th e Great. To th e

majority of late e i g h t e e ~ t h e n t u r y commentators the king wa s perhaps t

greatest commander of recent times whose manoeuvres, particularly the famous

oblique approach i n w hi ch o ne w in g a tt ac ke d t he e ne my while th e other wa s

kept back, were assiduously studied. On e commentator wh o was no t misled was

Napoleon. While second to none in his admiration for th e k in g, h e claimed thatth e spectacle of foreigners studying the evolutions of the Prussia n a rm y m ad e

hi m l au gh u p his sleeve .) Berenhorst, however, pointed to the fact that during

some te n years of active operations in t hr ee w ar s t he f ir st , second a nd t hi rd

Silesian wars) those manoeuvres ha d been carried out n o m or e than tw o or three

times. Those few an d far-apart occasions aside, Frederick was primarily a d ri ll

master who time after time forced his troops into murderous battles. Those battles

were wo n - if they were won, for Frederick s defeats were about as numerous as

his v ict or ies - o nl y by virtue of iron discipline an d sheer force of will.

Well written an d provided with plentiful examples, Berenhorst s work wa sextremely popular d ur in g the years imme dia te ly a fte r 1800. He and Jomini

formed opposite poles. The one e mphasize d the rational conduct of war at th e

GUIBERT T O C L AU S EW I TZ



THE RT OF W R

ustri n pos t o

r s

TTLE OF LEUTHEN

1757

The battle of Leuthen

1757 represented

eighteenth-century

warfare at its superbbest. Marching with

machine-like precision

the Prussian rmy

tt cked one wing of an

ustri n rmy twice its

own strength. The

outcome established

Frederick the Great s

military reputation for

all time.

CHARLES

7 21 GUNS

XXXX



of t he s trat eg is t; t he o th er its essential irrationality unpredictability an d

on chance. Both strands of thought were to be united in the greatest

all Western writers on war, Karl von C la usewitz. Given that he to o was a chi ld

his times an d went through t he s am e tumultuous events as everyone else, it is

t easy to say exactly what qualified hi m for playing t hi s rol e. I n th e productionm il it ar y th eory , as i n so many other aspects of life, r oo m o ug ht t o be left for

Clausewitz s ow n life h as b ee n told so many times that we ca n all bu t skip it

Th e essential point is that while in his mid-twenties this unusually earnest

d well-read officer began to take a serious interest in military t h o r ~ There

wed his participation in the disastrous campaign of 1806, a period spent as a

of war in France, and an appointment to the General S ta ff i n Berlin

he helped Scharnhorst his revered master rebuild the Prussian r m ~ By

his t al ent s as a theoretician were already sufficiently well known for hi m toentrusted with teaching the Crown Prince later, Friedrich Wilhelm IV) about


6 December 1757: Frederick s army

approaches the Austrian positions

screened b y a lin e of low hills.

Changingdirection obliquely, he

moves to the right

Prussian cavalry now i n t h e r ea r o f

Frederick s army begins a feint

attack towards th eAu strian righ t

---S;;slau

f \ Th e Austrians move reserves to face the threat to th eir righ t flan k

Overlapping the Austrian left

f4\ Frederick found his army to the left and attacks in two lines, his

battalions moved from th e righ t

Th e Austrians attempt to form a

o new line facing the Prussian attack

::: J and also launch a cavalry attack

towards th e Prussian left

Th e Prussian cavalry advance an d

@ scatter the Austrian attack then

attack the Austrian right

By dusk the Austrian survivors

j retreat across the Schweidnitz river

towards Breslau



TH E AR T OF WA R

r j t

{ i n t r t a f f r n t 5 ~ t t

t r in

i r in. n ii man t

t S3

In the work of Karl von

lausewitzboth the

rationality of w r nd its

irrationality were

emphasized This m de him

into the greatest Western

military thinker of all

war. In 1812 h e found himself fighting Napoleon in Russia. During the campaigns

of 1 81 3- 15 h e w as active as a staff officer an d in 1817 assumed administrative

control of th e Berlin staff college or Kriegsakademie Rising to th e rank of

general it was there that he produced his great work.

Like almost all other military writers s in ce 1 80 0 Clausewitz w an te d t o

penetrate th e secret of Revolutionary an d Napoleonic warfare which as he an d

th e rest saw clearly differed from what had gone before. Some had sought that

secret in the mobilization of all national resources advocated by Guibert an d

made possible by th e Revolution others in the conduct of strategy as explained

by Buelow and ab ov e al l Jomini. Clausewitz however wa s no t simply a

thoughtful soldier bu t a true philosopher in uniform; while accepting that th e

Revolution ha d made it possible for w ar t o be waged with th e full energy of th e

nation he sought to go b ac k t o first principles. This he di d by focusing on two

questions: what wa s war and what purpose di d it serve? F ro m t he answers to

these and constantly checking against both military his tory a nd actual

experience he s ou gh t t o d ed uc e all th e rest. H is a pp ro ac h was therefore both

deductive and inductive. He himself discusses th e ways i n w hi ch war ought to be

studied as well as th e purpose which s uch study o ug ht t o serve. He was no t to go

into th e details of a rm a me nt a nd formations let alone try to o ff er a solution for

every problem that might arise but to provide commanders with a basis for

thought an d make it unnecessary to reinvent th e w hee l every t im e. In th e eyes of

some th e p ages wh ich d eal with this aspect of the problem are th e best an d most

enduring part of his entire opusTo answer th e first question C la us ew it z i n th e last book of n War

constructed an imaginary picture of absolute war that is wa r as it would have



n if stripped of all practical considerations concerning time,

an d intent, it ha d been able to stand up naked, so to speak.

device which he b or ro we d f ro m contemporary physical

ence by way of K an t, e na bl ed him to define wa r as an

ac t of violence in which all ordinary social restraintsre cast off. Since force would naturally invite th e use of greater

wa r also possessed an inherent tendency towards escalation

made it essentially uncontrollable and unpredictable, a

passionate drama . As such it was no t primarily a question

acting a cc ording to this or that principle or rule; i ns te ad i t

th e d om ai n o f danger, friction an d u n e r t i n t ~ Its

conduct was above all a question of possessing th e

n ee de d i n o rd er to c ou nt er a nd m as te r these inherent

racteristics where those qualities were to come from isother question, into which he refuses to enter . Not

Clausewitz ha d much to say about will-power

an d endurance, both in th e commander - whose genius

G UI BE RT T O CLAUSEWITZ

The m n to whom

Clausewitz owed most was

nother Prussian st ff

officer Gerhard von

Scharnhorst.

By w y of enhancing its

prestige the Prussian t ff

College s original location

was in a wing of the

Charlotte nburg Palace

Berlin. Clausewitz too

lived there.



T HE ART OF WA R

they formed - an d in th e army which, from to p to bottom, had to be imbued with

military virtue . Though allowing th e use of every expedient an d requiring the

full participation of th e intellect, a t b o tt o m wa r was a question of character.

Much like hi s immediate predecessors, Clausewitz distinguished between

tactics - th e ar t of winning battles - an d st ra teg y, w hi ch h e d ef in ed as t he a rt of

u sing b att les in order to gain the objectives of t he cam paign . More

fundamentally, t ho ug h, w ar wa s a duel b et we en t wo independent m in ds . Its

interactive nature sharply differentiated it from other activities; to paraphrase,

making swords which only involved acting u po n d ea d matter wa s on e thing,

using them a ga inst another swordsma n who is cap ab le of parrying one s thrusts

an d replying with others of his o wn , q ui te a no th er . In a brief bu t brilliant

discussion of th e theory of war, Clausewitz acknowledges that th e system

proffered by each of his predecessors c on ta in ed a n element of truth. t no

system o ug ht t o b e all ow ed to obsc ure the e le me nta l fact that wa r consisted of

fighting an d that fighting - in other words, battle - de te rmined the outc ome of

wars; n o a mo un t of fancy m an oe uv ri ng c ou ld d o a ny g oo d u nl es s i t w as b ac ke d

up with a big, sharp sword.

Furthermore, and given th e high degree of uncertainty an d friction involved,

Clausewitz tended to belittle th e effect of manoeuvre, surprise an d stratagems of

every k in d. T ry in g to achieve victory by s uc h m ea ns wa s a ll v er y well; bu t th e

higher the level at which wa r w as w ag ed , an d t he g re at er t he masses which took

part in it , th e less likely they were to achieve decisive results. T he b es t s trateg y is

always to be very strong, first in general an d then at th e decisive point. Wa r was



physical an d moral struggle by means of t he f or me r . Since t he en em y s

was concentrated in his armed forces th e first objective of strategy

always to be t o s ma sh t he m; this achieved his c a pital c ould be captured

d his country occupied. T hu s, c om pa re d w it h m uc h of what had gone before

m the time of Montecuccoli onwards an d also with much of what wa s tolater d uring the second half of t he t we nt ie th c en tu ry in particular),

n War puts forward a brutally realistic doctrine, and indeed he

mself says as much

Still on th e subject of strategy an d to illustrate th e way Clausewitz proceeds

first principles consider his discussion of the relationship between attack

d defence which ha d also occupied many earlier authors. T h e o ut st an d in g

of th e attack, he writes is th e delivery of a blow Th e outstanding quality

th e defence was th e need to wait for that blow a nd p ar ry it Since anything

di d no t happen favoured th e defence other t hi ng s b ei ng equal, to defends eas ier than t o a tt ac k. Moreover, th e further away an attacker got from

base the grea te r his logistic difficulties and th e m or e forces he would lose

to the need to leave b eh in d g ar ri so ns , s af eg ua rd his communications

d th e like Conversely falling back on his base the d ef en der w ou ld gather

forces an d reinforce them. In the end, an d it is here that Clausewitz

ws his originality over his predecessors, inevitably there would come a

point . The attack would turn into a defence an d th e defence

an attack; that is unless th e enemy ha d been smashed an d a decisive victory

d been wo n first


The battle of Leipzig

fought in ovember 1813 in

many ways represented the

culmination o f French

Revolutionary and

apoleonic warfare The

numbers involved almost

five hundred thousand on

both sides remained

unsurpassed for half acentury



TH RT OF W R

rr8

So far he gives a brief summary of t he i nh er en t qualities of wa r as such.

However wa r was no t simply a phenomenon in its ow n r ight . A product of social

intercourse it was or at an y rate ought to be a deliberate political act a

c o nt in ua ti on o f policy by o th er m ea ns t o q uo te th e single most celebrated

phrase that Clausewitz ever wrote. It is true that war ha d a grammar of its own

i.e. rules which could no t be violated with impunity; bu t it was equally true that it

di d not have a logic of i ts own. That logic was to be provided from outside so to

speak. Unless its higher conduct and general character were governed by policy

wa r would be a senseless thing without an object .

Translated into practical terms this view of wa r as an instrument me ant that

ultimately its conduct ha d to be laid down no t by the commander-in-chief bu t by

the politica l leadership. What is more it enabled Clausewitz to argue that wa r

was morally neutral- as he says thus onc e again allowing his tendency towards

brutal realism to come to th e fore. There ca n be no war-without bloodshed; in

dangerous things such as war errors committed out of a feeling of benevolence

are th e worst. Consequently in th e entire massive work th e only sentence which

devoted to th e law of war is th e on e which says that it so weak and unimportant

as to be virtually negligible.

Towards t he e nd of his life Clausewitz possibly because th e Napoleonic wars

were slowly falling into perspective underwent a change of mind. He no w began

to recognize that besides aiming at th e total overthrow of th e enemy as would

follow from his theoretical premises a nother kind of w ar might be possible

whose objectives were more limited. H e h ad st art ed to revise his work when he

died of cholera leaving behind a mass of unfinished drafts. Whether ha d he

lived he would have been able to maintain his original framework or been forced

to replace it with another is impossible to Th e question was ho w to reconcile

war s essentially unlimited n at ur e w i th its use as a tool in th e hand of policy;

w he n h e died he ha d still no t found an answer.

Among Weste rn write rs on war th e position of Clausewitz is unique. To

resort to a metaphor his is no t an o r i n ~ r y cookbook full of recipes concerning

th e utensils an d ingredients which correctly used will yield certain foods; instead

it contents itself with explaining the na ture of cooking an d th e uses to which it

put leaving readers to proceed on their own. As a result when technological

progress caused organization tactics an d much of strategy to change he alone

retained his relevance. While some of th e details of r are without enduring

interest for instance th e discussion of th e relationship between th e three arms

and th e methods fo r attacking a convoy th e book as a w ho le ho lds up

remarkably well as a treasure of th e human spirit .

Thus t o c om pa re Clausewitz s advice on this o r t ha t detail with that which

proffered by his Western predecessors an d contemporaries is to do him an

injustice. Unlike them he was a philosopher of war; only th e Chinese classics rivalhi m in this respect albeit that their underlying philosophy is radically different.

Clausewitz s way of thought goes back to Aristotle an d is based on th e



s ti nc ti on b et we en m ea ns an d ends. By contrast it is a fundamental

of Chinese thought that such a distinction is absent - to Lao Tz u

d his followers admitting its existence would constitute a departure from ao

th e Chinese texts regard wa r no t as an instrument for th e attainment

this en d o r t ha t bu t as the product of stern necessity something which must be

an d coped with and managed a nd brought to an end. As already

ioned the only Western w ri te r t o take a similar view is Machiavelli. While

witz emphasizes that wa r is brutal an d bloody an d seeks to achieve a great

the Chinese texts are permeated by a humanita ria n a pproac h a nd have as

aim t he rest orat io n of ao

These underlying philosophical differences cause Clausewitz to re comme nd

e use o f m ax im um force t he Chi nese of minimum force. In turn th e Chinese

on minimum force leads to a greater emphasis on trickery of every sort

Clausewitz with his realistic assessment of such factors as uncertainty and

ction regards as practicable. H ad th e tw o sides met then S un T zu l would

have accused Clausewitz of overemphasizing brute strength which

turn means encouraging stupidity an d barbarism. Clausewitz on his part

have replied that th e kind of super-sophisticated warfare advocated by

was intellectually attractive but alas often unrealistic an d sometimes

as excessive manoeuvring provided th e enemy with opportunities to

o ff o ne s head . N one o f this is to deny that in practice Western warfare

made use of stratagems whereas Chinese warfare could be quite as bloody

d b ru ta l as its Western counterpart. Indeed it could be more so given that

ha s no limits an d that questions re ga rding the law of wa r l Bonet

have brought a contemptuous smile to th e faces of th e sages.

These considerations explain why Clausewitz an d th e Chinese were able to

scend their o wn t ime an d place. Inevitably their reputations had t heir u ps an d

O ut si de C h in a itself w he re t he y served as th e b as is f or t he s ta te - ru n

system th e military writings were particularly popular d u ri ng t he

craze for chinoiserie an d from th e 1949 Chinese Revolution

; currently there are no fewer than four different English translations of Su n

u on th e market. As for Clausewitz after b ein g g reat ly v en erated during th e

century he was often regarded as to o philosophical during the first

of th e twentieth. Hi s nadir proba bly c a me during th e early nuclear years

he was relegated to the sidelines only to make an impressive comeback

er 1973 when th e Arab-Israeli war encouraged people to think of large-scale

warfare an d also when a ne w English translation appeared. More

s an d downs ar e to be expected and on e recent historian even speaks of th e

ol d tradition of Clausewitz-bashing . Yet it is likely that when all th e rest

forgotten both Chinese military theory an d Clausewitz will sti ll be read an d

ed by t ho se w ho seek to achieve a serious theoretical understanding of war.

consideri1 g that even th e modern Clausewitz is n ow alm ost tw o

years- old constitutes high praise indeed.

G UI BE RT T O C L AU S EW I TZ





H PTER IV

: : ~ : ~ ~ ... @ : ~ : = = ~ i f I

THE NINETEENTH

ENTURY

THE CRIME N W R 1854-6 was no t ex ctly famous for i ts

brilliant strategy Here Corporal Philip mith is shown

winning the Victoria Cross during the assault on Sebastopol



T HE ART OF WAR

THE N I N E T E E N T H CENTURY

A

N ASPECT OF CLAUSEWITZ S THOUGHT that ha s no t yet been discussed in these

pages an d in which he differs from virtually all his predecessors is the way

history is approached. As we saw th e Chinese classics were written between 400

and 200 BC and se t a gainst the background of a semi-mythological past which

wa s regarded as s up er io r t o th e present. With th e exception of Vegetius wh o

resembles th e Chi nese i n this respect in th e treatises written by ancient military

authors a sense of historical change is almost entirely lacking. The same is true of

the Byzantine an d medieval texts. Severely prac tica l, the former are really little

more than handbooks, ar e interested solely i n t he p res en t an d exclude an y hint

concerning the possibility that th e past ha s been or th e future could be different.

The latter a re u su al ly a wa re of t he g lo ri ou s if idola trous pa st, bu t somehow

m an ag e t o combine this awareness with a complete disregard for th e immense

differences that separated their own times from those of say Vegetius.

The p os it io n o f modern Western authors from Machiavelli on is more

complicated. Regarding themselves as emerging from centuries of barbarism, the

me n of th e fifteenth century were acutely aware of the ir own inferiority vis vis

the a nc ie nt world in every field th e military on e included. Accordingly for them

it wa s a question not so much of seeking for innovation as of recovering an d

assimilating th e achievements o f th at world. No on e was more representative of

these attitudes than Machiavelli to w ho m t he very idea of outdoing his admired

R om an s w ou ld have smelt of sacrilege; bu t it was e qually evident in his

successors. Throughout th e eighteenth century most writers on military affairs

insisted that th e best authors to study were Frontinus an d Vegetius and, among

historians, Polybios Caesar an d Thus Joly de Maizeroy no t only translated

th e Byzantine classics f rom the G reek b ut was regarded as th e leading e xpert on

ancient warfare, a subject on which he wrote several specialized studies; whereas

Buelow an d Berenhorst both start their works by comparing ancient warfare with

that of th e modern age.

And yet even with Buelow t he s it ua ti on b eg an t o change. With hi m this was

because t he a nc ie nt textbooks had absolutely n ot hi ng t o say about strategy -

precisely th e field in which h e h im se lf made the grea te st c on tr ib ut io n a nd o f

which understandably he was inordinately proud. This also accounts for th e fact

that with Jomini, t he n c i e n t ~ are no t even mentioned. Perhaps more important,

however was th e overall intellectual climate in which b ot h o f them wrote. As the

Enlightenment gave way to the Roma ntic movement, philosophers such as Vico

and Hegel began promulgating a view of history which emphasized th e

otherness of th e past rather than its essential similarity with th e present. Thus

historywhich hitherto had been

aquestion of t he s am e thing happening again

an d again precisely ycenturies-old events could serve as a source for practical

lessons , was transformed i nt o t he record of change. From n ow o n, th e further



w t ~ o n i g . mliittcliIbcfgifdmn 3 j r ~ f i ~ t t 3 0 9 r SjcififdJcm u bet ftcitll·6tQl t·

. ~ r o l 1 f f l l f . t tiuiCtgium StOtt llm m Q d ) ~ r u c t IInl>; m a d ) b r u c f ~ ' ~ e t f Q f .

t r i t l , , 1 ~ 3 7 .

mc.r letguon• iY cf . run b . p l ttl b : ~ . o t• •t

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

ck in t ime any period, the greater by and large the gulf that separated it from

at came later on.

This is no t the place to follow the transformation of history, a subject better

to specialized students of that subject. Suffice it to say that by the t ime

did his main work in the 1820s it had been fully accomplished.

most of the authors here discussed had assumed that since history was

entially unchanging,war too had unchanging principles. Given his historicist

however, to Clausewitz this was much less evident; in book 8 he comesry close to saying that since each per iod made war in a manner corresponding

its social and political characteristics, a single theory of war applicable to all

and places might not be possible at all. Much later, interestingly enough,

ao Tse-tung quoted him on precisely this point .) Regarding himself as a

tical soldier writing for other practical soldiers (the first edition of his book

s sold by subscription), he was in some doubt as to how fa r back one could go

one s quest for rules, lessons, principles and examples; whether, in other words,

history began with the campaigns of Frederick the Great , or with the

d of the war of the Spanish Succession, or with the Peace of Westphalia, whichd marked the construction of the modern European state. In any case there was

doubt in his mind that, since only recent events were at all like the present, the

The ermanpolitical

scientist Georg Friedrich

Hegel invented the

otherness the past By

doing so he rendered out of

date all pre nineteenth-

century military thought at

a stroke



T H E AR T OF WA R

Owing to the fact that pikes

were abandoned for the first

time the War of the Spanish

Succession is sometimestaken as the beginning of

modern military history

This shows the battle of

Cassano Italy 1705

f ur th er b ac k o ne went th e less useful t he t hi ng s that o ne c ou ld find Hi s ow n

writings on military history only go as fa r back as Gustavus Adolphus; previous

wars such as those of th e T a rt a rs a n d t he M id d le Ages are mentioned only in

o rd er t o emphasize their otherness . As to th e ancient authors they are entirely

ignored an d none of them is even allowed to make his appearance on th e pages of

On ar

Even without th e contemporary revolution in historical thought it was

becoming all to o clear that th e ol d an d trusted me thods for t hi nk in g a bo ut w ar

would no longer do Between 217 ewhen Ptolemy IV ha d confronted Antiochus

at Raffia and W at er lo o i n 1815 th e number of m en w ho ha d opposed each



had scarcely grown. An exception, and one which was to prove significant

the future, was the bat tle of Leipzig in 1813. It is true th at, at some point

approximately three-quarters of the way f rom the first to the second of

e battles, firearms in the form of muskets and cannon had largely taken over

edged weapons. Even so, battle remained very much what it had alwaysn: a question of men standing up, at a certain carefully defined time and space

tended to be over in a few hours and seldom took up more than a few

re kilometres , in relatively t ight formations throughout the eighteenth

there had been an intense debate on the relative merits of the column

us the line and fighting one another in full view of the other. Thus Napoleon

TH E NINETEENTH CENTURY



TH RT OF W R

6

t ow ar ds t he e nd of his career wa s able to boast of having commanded no fewer

than sixty pitched battles batailles rangees , a phrase that speaks for itself.

By th e middle of t he n in et ee nt h c en tu ry these parade-like occasions were

becoming increasingly obsolete. New, quick-firing weapons were beginning to

m ak e t heir appearance from about 1830, c au si ng t he amount of fire-power

p r od uc ed p er u ni t an d per minute to leap upwards as well as l ea di ng to dramatic

improvements in accuracy an d range. These developments made it questionable

whether men would still be able to fight while s ta nd in g o n their feet an d

confronting each other in a relatively t ight forma tion. As on e might e xp ec t, a

period of experimentation followed, nowhere more so than in th e United States.

There during th e C iv il W ar , commanders wh o had never previously been in

charge of large units and amateurish troops who were less bound to th e past

than many of th eir professional colleagues across th e Atlantic, di d no t hesitate to

break formation seek shelter a nd a d op t camouflage clothing when they thought

it could save their lives. Confining our view to writte n military thought however,

on e of th e first an d most important a ut ho rs w ho a tt em pt ed t o come to grips with

t he n ew phenomenon was a French officer, Charles-Jean-Jacques A r da nt d u Picq

1821-70).

In on e sense, as du Picq himself says, his work represented a reaction against

th e geometrical approach of Buelow an d Jomini. Conversely, though h e d oes no t

me ntion them he followed Berenhorst an d Clausewitz in that he considered that

th e key to war wa s to be found not in any clever manoeuvres let alone

geometrical formulae bu t in th e heart of man. Much more than Clausewitz in

particular who served explicit warning against indulging i n mere idle talk about

th e last-named subject he wa s prepared to try to look i nt o t he f act or s which

rendered t hat he ar t at least partly i mm un e t o th e terror of battle. Having seen

considerable active service in t he C ri me a Syria an d Algeria, du Picq was under

no illusion that it could be rendered anywhere near completely i mm un e. ) I n his

attempts to find o ut w ha t made me n fight h e r es or te d t o t wo different methods.

One wa s to m ak e d et ai le d s tu di es of a nc ie nt w ar fa re w he n b at tl es ha d been

simple an d clear an d sources in th e form of Polybios, impeccable. Th e other

wa s a questionnaire which he sent out to .his. fellow officers and in wh ic h he

interviewed them very closely about th e way their me n behaved in c omba t a nd th e

factors which influenced them. In th e event, the Franco-Prussian wa r broke ou t

and du Picq himself w as k il le d b ef or e h e ha d received many answers. Not that it

mattered fo r by that much of hi s tudes de comb t Battle Stu dies ) was

largely complete an d his mind ha d been made up.

Fighting against non-European peoples, du Picq ha d been able to witness th e

power of military organization at first hand - had not Napoleon said that

whereas on e Mameluk wa s th e equal of three Frenchmen one hundr ed

Frenchmen could confidently take on five t im es t he ir number in Mameluks?

Individually me n were often cowards; having trained together and standing

together in formation however, they became transformed. A ne w social force,




as cohesion made it s appearance as comrade sustained comrade and

tual shame prevented each one from runningaway. To

paraphrase: four men

do not know each other will hesitate to confront a l io n; bu t once they know

other and feel they can trust one another they will do so without fear. That

than any clever evolutions which it might carry out was the secret of the

ient Greek and Macedonian phalanx in which men packed closely together in

ranks and files, sustained each other and if necessary, physically pushed

other into battle while preventing any escape. The phalanx was, however, if

too closely packed with the result that those in front had no way to

ak away and rest from their ordeal whereas those in the rea r were almost as

to thefury

of battleas their comrades in front

Muchbetter was the

querboard formation of the Roman legion. Made up of carefully placed

units and arrayed in three successive lines acies , i t enjoyed all the

of the phalanx while still enabling the majority of combatants to

tch their breath and recuperate between bouts of fighting.

Now to the really decisive question: how to ensure that men did no t break in

of the five rounds per minute which could be directed at them by

weapons? Du Picq s answer is that greater reliance should be

upon skirmishers, and that every officershould be reduced who does no t

them to some degree . Skirmishers, however, should be closely controlled;e is no point in sending them so fa r ahead that feeling isolated they will

hide or run Controlling the skirmishers is the job of the battalion

During the American Civil

War 1861-5), the

commanders on both sides

are said to have taken the

field with copies of ]omini

in their pockets The picture

shows how General

Sherman made Georgia

howl



THE ART OF WAR

commander since the battalion is the largest unit whose commander can still be

in direct touch with the rank and file during battle du Picq tends to disregard the

activities of more senior off icers . To enable him to do so, the size of the

battalions ought to be cut down by a third from six to four companies As one

battalion engages in skirmishing another should be left standing close y

sustaining its sister in the manner of the Roman maniples Accordingly, the

contemporary view of gaps in the line as dangerous is mistaken; on the contrary,

and still in the manner of the Roman maniples, such gaps should be deliberately

used in order to enable some battalions to advance towards the enemy and the

remainder to rest. Care should be taken that the supporting troops belong to the

128




units as the skirmishers, and vice versa. Any attempt to make troops fire on

mand should be discouraged.

During his lifetime the work of du Picq, whose professional career was

but extraordinary, drew little attention. This, however, changed during

late 1890s when the French, having recovered f rom the defeat of 1870-71,looking for a method by which they might one day attack and defeat the

German army so as to regain Alsace-Lorraine. attle Studies was

and its author turned into the patron saint of the furor alicus

of warfighting. Good organization, unit cohesion, thorough training, firm

patriotism and the alleged native qualities of the French soldier were

ROMAN LEGION DEPLOYED FOR BATTLE,

THIRD-SECOND CENTURY BC

The main strength of the

Roman legion was the

heavy infantry divided into

three lines according to age

and experience The

youngest hastati formed

the front line the more

mature men principes the

second and the veterans

triarii were in the rear

Each line was divided intoten maniples each led by

two centurions The

maniples of the three lines

deployed in a chequerboard

quincunx formation

staggered so that they

covered the intervals in the

line in front This allowed

the reserve lines to be fed

into the fighting line to

reinforce an attack or if

things went badly the

forward lines to retreat

behind the men to their

rear

Light infantry velitesoperated in front of the

main line withdrawing

through the intervals when

pressed



TH RT OF W R

The Union omm nder

General William Sherman

during the merican ivil

ar



turn h im i nt o an irresistible fighting a n im a l- h ad n ot Ammianus Marcellinus

n t he fourth century AD described his ancestors as tall of stature, fair an d ruddy,

rrible for th e fierceness of their eyes, fond of quarrelling, an d overbearing

olence ? In th e a ut um n o f 1914, that a pproac h, c omplete with t he f am ou s

lons rouges led straight into th e muzzles of th e waiting German machineuns. B ut for t hi s du Picq, wh o ha d always emphasized th e power of th e defence

d wh o ha d spent much of his professional career worrying lest modern soldiers

not b e ab le to c onfront modern fire, ca n scarcely be blamed.

Partly b ecau se h e n ev er ros e beyond colonel, partly because his main interest

th e hea rt of man and the fac tors which enabled it to function in battle, du

has v ery little to say about strategy. To t he m aj or it y of officers, however,

tegy was precisely th e key to large-scale war, an esoteric branch of knowledge

ich they alone possessed an d which was intellectually much more satisfying

an y mere p sy ch olog ical analysis of th e rank and file could ever be.throughout th e first half of t he n in et ee nt h century th e most

military theoretician by f ar was considered to be Jomini; and, indeed,

th e r um ou r t ha t generals in t he A m er ic an Civil War carried h im in their

ckets may be exaggerated, there is no doubt that his influence ca n be discerned

example in t he A nt ie ta m an d Chancellorsville campaigns, as well as in

march through Georgia to South Carolina. What was more, j us t as th e

rapid-firing arms began to transform combat from about 1830, strategy was

revolutionized by th e introduction of railways. Hitherto lines of

ha d been s om ew ha t n eb ul ou s concepts; no w they wereonstructed in a new, cast-iron form which anyone could trace on th e ground or

a map. C le ar ly h er e w as a novel instrument which ha d to be mastered if it was

be successfully harnessed to w ar and conquest.

This is no t th e place to o ut li ne t he im pa ct o f railways on strategy and

gistics, a topic that ha s been th e subject of several excellent monographs.

ffice it to say that, o ut si de t he which, however, produced n o m il it ar y

writings of an y importance , nobody was more closely associated

t he ir use fo r w ar a nd c on qu es t than the Prussian chief of staff, Helmut vo n

Born i n 1 800 , r is in g to promine nce through sheer intellectual qualities

T HE BREECH-LOADING REPEATER

RIFLE

The advent of the breech loading

repeating rifle enabled the soldier to

fire more aimed shots than the

previous muzzle loading single shot

weapon The weapon could also be

f ired from a concealed position

which influenced battlefield tactics

from the 1860s onwards.

TH E NINETEENTH CENTURY



rather than by way of practical experience he never commanded any unit larger

than a battalion , Moltke, though he possessed a well-educated pen, never wrote

a single definitive w or k. I nst ead his thought must be garnered from th e

campaigns he conducted so successfully and, to a n eq ual e xtent, the series of

great memoranda wh ic h, in his capacity as chief of General Staff he wrote

between about 1857 and 1873. At heart a practitioner rather than theoretician,

Moltke di d n ot bo th er to go into first principles no r does he mention any of his

p redeces so rs . But his m em or an da d o form a unified coherent whole which

justifies his inclusion in the present study.

To simplify Moltke s starting point was th e rise in th e size of armies that ha d

ta ke n pla ce as a result of growing population an d industrialization. Instead of

Austrians

450 000

French

500 000

French an d Austrianmobilization c. 1805

English

7 000

Normans

6 500

I Hastings 66

William the onqueror was one of the most powerful

medieval p r i n c e s ~ ye t at the Battle o f Hastings above he

was only able to muster about 6 ~ 5 From his time on the

size o f armies grew and g r e w ~ until by the end of the

eighteenth century the largest countries could mobilize

hundreds o f thousands o f men

I Gaugamela 331



SIZE OF RMIES

Between the battle of Hastings left and

the American Civil War below the size

of armed forces grew by about two orders

of magnitude. During the twentieth

century the growth continued, climaxingin the Second World War as the largest

conflict of all.

ing the nineteenth century, assisted

technological developments such as

and telegraphs, the size of

mies continued to grow. During the

rican Civil War above , million

n passed through the Union rmy

one. By the end of the Second World

ar the total number of persons in

including approximately 5

women stood at between 35

d 40 million.

Union

900 000

Confederate

600 000

Germany

9 000 000

USSR

15 000 000

Union and onfederate

mobilization 1863 Second World War 1943 4

I33



T H E ART OF WAR

OPPOSITE: The introduction

of railways revolutionized

strategy Here French

troops are seen entraining

late nineteenth century

During the nineteenth

century the General taff

became the repository of

military wisdom This

picture c. 1890 shows

graduates of the French

Ecole polytechnique on their

way to positions in that

august institution

tens of thousands, t hey n ow n um be re d h un dr ed s of thousands; even a single

corps, comprising some 30,000 men, was so large that its sub-units would take an

entire day to pass a single point - with th e result that t he t ra in s m ak in g up th e

r ea r w ou ld be unable to cat ch u p with th e front. Prussia, moreover, was th e

smallest of the five leading European powers. To compensate, alone among those

powers it ha d retained universal conscription the o th er s e it her relied on

volunteers o r a do pt ed some kind of selective service system . Having spent two,

later three, years under t he c ol ou rs t he conscripts were sent h om e b ut remained

on call in case of an e m e r g e n ~ The problem was how to mobilize them quickly

an d deploy them on th e frontier, an d i t was here that th e railways came in h n d ~Having been appointed chief of General Staff - at a time when that

institution was merely a department inside the War Ministry responsible for

training, preparation and armament - Moltke went to work. Extremely detailed

plans were drawn up for using th e railways in o rd er t o carry ou t mobilization an d

deployment; rehearsed in 1859 an d 1864, in 1866 they took th e world s breath

away as th e Prussian army mobilized w it h a n efficiency an d at a speed which ha d

previously been considered unattainable. What was more, and as M ol tk e h ad

expressly foreseen, attaining maximum speed in mobilization meant that as many

railways as possible had to be utilized s i m u l t n e o u s l ~ T og et he r w i th t he sheer

size of th e forces a concentrated army is a calamity: i t cannot subsist, it cannot



TH NIN T NTH NTURY



TH RT OF W R

arxsfriend FriedrichEngels specialized in

military history. Some of his

articles published

anonymously were

considered good enough to

have come from the pen

a Prussian general .

move, it ca n only fig ht ), t hi s meant that th e troops would be strung ou t along

much of th e fr on ti er . A strategy of interior lines of th e kind that ha d been

recommended by J om in i a nd regarded as perhaps the single most important

device of all would thereby become impossible.

To Moltke, therefore, stra te gy re ma ine d what it ha d been from Buelowt

onwards: a question of moving large forces about in two-dimensional s pa ce so as

to put them in th e most favourable position for combat as well as making use of

th e outcome of combat after it ha d taken p la ce ). L ik e du P ic q, however, he

realized that th e rise of quick-firing weapons ha d c au se d t he b al an ce between

offence an d defence to change. To attack frontally in th e face of rifles sighted to

1,200 yards 1,100 metres) an d capable of accurately firing six rounds a minute

such as th e French chassepots) was suicide; m uc h b et te r look for th e enemy s

flank an d envelop him. Thus the deployment in width, which others regarded as

m adn ess w hen it wa s carried out against A us tr ia i n 1866, was turned into a

virtue. Marx s companion Friedrich Engels, considered a noted military critic at

th e time, even wrote that the Prussian deployment could o nl y b e e xp la in ed by t he

fact that the king personally wa s in command, members of royal families being

notoriously feeble-minded.) The enemy would be caught between armies coming

from two, possibly three, directions, an d be crushed between them - t he highest

feat which s tr at eg y c an achieve , t o q uo te a letter which Moltke w ro te t o th e

historian Heinrich v on T re it sc hk e i n 1873. Thus,

strategically speaking, Moltke intended his armies

to take the offensive. Tactically t he t ro op s were

supposed to make use of their firepower an d

remain on th e defensive, although in practice that

order was not always obeyed.

To carry ou t th e mobilization an d co-ordinate

th e moves of his widely dispersed forces Moltke

made use of another new technical instrument, th e

telegraph. The railways themselves could only be

operated to maximum effect if th e trains

movements were carefully co-ordinated, therefore

wires and tracks te nd ed t o ru n i n p aral lel. This

enabled Moltke to i mp le men t his strategy of

external lines and remain in control, previously an

unheard-of feat. Th e contemporary telegraph was,

however, a slow instrument; with e ncryption a nd

decryption procedures necessary at both ends

wire-tapping ha d been practised both during th e

American Civil Wa r an d in th e u s t r i a n ~ r u s s i a nWar), th e pace at

which itcould transmit

messagesbecame even slower. Again turning necessity into a

virtue - th e m ar k o f a truly great general- Moltke




French chassepot

vised his system of directives or Weisungen insisting that orders be short and

only tell subordinate commanders what to do, bu t not how. The system

very good acquaintance and strong mutual trust between officers

nd thus was possible only thanks to that elite insti tution, the General Staff,had its representatives n every major unit . In time it spread from the top

own, unt il in 1936 the volume known as ruppenfiihrung Commanding

announced that war demands the free independent commitment of

ery soldier f rom the private to the general . The result was a uniquely flexible,

t cohesive, war machine that w as t he en vy of the world.

As already mentioned, unlike many of his eighteenth- and nineteenth-century A Prussian outpost 1866



TH E ART OF WAR

predecessors Moltke never produced a system and indeed went on record as

saying that strategy itself was bu t a system of expedients . Wa r ha s a penchant

for turning th e victor into a fool, however, an d post-1871 Imperial Germany was

no exception. As Moltke himself noted during his later years - he was to remain

in office until 1888, w he n h e could barely any longer mount a horse - t he yo un ger

generation at th e General Staff di d not possess their predecessors broad vision;

instead possibly because of the attention they p ai d t o th e railway s an instrument

regarded as th e key to victory an d requiring painstaking attention to detail), they

t en de d t o be technically inclined an d narrow-minded. Nobody exemplified these

tendencies more than t he n ex t w ri te r w it h w ho m we must concern ourselves here,

Alfred von Schlieffen. B or n i n 1833, in 1891 he wa s appointed chief of General

Staff - by that time no l on ge r a n o bs cu re department in th e ri gsminist rium

bu t t he m os t prestigious single institution in Germany, with overall responsibility

for p re pa ri ng t he l an d a rm y an d leading it into war.



From 1893, th e year in which G er ma ny a n d Russia c on cl ud ed a n alliance,

problem was to prepare his country fo r war on tw o fronts.

that Germany as t he s ma ll er p ow er could not afford to remain on

e defens ive as noted earl ier, t hi s l ed to a debate c on ce rn in g t he respective

of annihilation versus a ttrit ion), the question was, against which on e ofh e tw o enemies to concentrate first? Schlieffen decided on France, suggesting

its capacity for rapid mobilization made it into th e more da nge rous enemy

d also that geographical circumstances - compared with Russia, France wa s

mall - would permit th e delivery of a r ap id k no ck -o ut blow. Like his late

contemporaries, however, Schlieffen was well aware that

vancing technology - by no w including barbed wire, mines, machine-guns, an d

provided with recoil mechanisms - fa vo ur ed th e defence. Furthermore,

e Fr en ch border ha d been fortified. Hence he decided that a n o ut fl an k in g

ement was needed and, after considering a left h oo k a nd a rig ht o ne, finallysettled on an advance through Belgium.

Having ruminated on all t hi s f or y ea rs , an d

prepared t he g re at P la n w hi ch w il l b e forever

associated with his name, on 1 January 1906

Schlieffen stepped down from his post. He then

produced hi s theoretical masterpiece, a three

page article entitled Cannae a ft er t he battle

fought by Hannibal against the Rom ans in

216 e From this as well as other essays particularly The Warlord and War in th e

Modern Age ), i t is p os si bl e to form an idea of

th e way in wh ich he, as th e person in charge of

th e most powerful and most sophisticated

military machine th e world had ever seen,

understood war. Tactics an d logistics apart he

never showed much interest in either of them),

wa r wa s th e clash of l ar ge a rm ie s he never

showed any interest in navies) manoeuvring

against each other in two-dimensional space.

The objective of this manoeuvring was to

annihilate vernichten th e other side with th e

g reatest possible d isp atch; anything else,

t ho ug h p er ha ps admissible u nd er p a rt i cu l ar

circumstances, wa s considered to be a lesser

achievement. Now in order to a nn ih il at e t he

e ne my i t wa s not enough simply to push him

back by applying pressure to his front; given th e

superior power, u nd er m od er n conditions, of

both th e tactical an d th e strategic defence, such

T HE N IN E TE E NT H CENTURY

During the Franco Prussian

War ris became a bone of

contention between the

Prussian Chancellor Otto

von Bismarck and the Army

chief o f staff General

Helmut von Moltke.

Bismarck wanted to

capture the city quickly in

order to end the war

before Austria intervened;

Moltke, unwilling to incur

casualties wanted to wait

until he could bring up his

heavy artillery. The dispute

served to illustrate

Clausewitzs claim that

war is or ought to be the

continuation of politics.



T H E ART OF WAR

According to Helmut von

Moltke encirclement was

the highest that strategy

could achieve . At the battle

of Sedan, 187 that aim

was achieved, leading to the

surrender of the French

emperor and his army.

a procedure would merely result in an ordinary victory after which th e enemy

though forced to retreat would b e able to reorganize an d renew th e struggle. Th e

trick therefore was to ho ld t he e ne my in front while t ak in g h im on the flank

driving hi m of f his lines of communications and ideally forcing h im t o surrender

as Moltke for example had succeeded in doing at Sedan in 1870. To Schlieffen s

credit it should be said that he di d not b elieve it w as s im pl y a question of

o m t r ~ Since a n a le rt enemy would no t allow himself to be outflanked easily

he ha d to be enticed i nt o m ak in g t he w r on g moves. F or a great victory to be wo n

t he t wo o pp os in g c om m an de rs m us t co-operate each on e in his way [auf seiner

Art]. To a critic w ho o nce t ol d h im that th e ar t of war was a t b ot to m a s im pl e

one he responded: Yes all it turns on is this stupid question of winning.

With Schlieffen we have arrived at t he e nd of the long nineteenth n t u r ~ It

started auspiciously e no ug h w it h Buelow an d Berenhorst presenting their

o pp os in g i nt er pr et at io ns o f t he f ac to rs which made fo r v i t o r ~ Very soon

afterwards J om in i a n d Clausewitz each in his ow n way ri d themselves of the



an d tr ied to penetrate th e secret of Napoleonic warfare. Napoleon

m se lf o nl y l ef t behind a list of maxims which, though interesting, do not

ount to military t h o r ~ Philosopher that h e was , Claus ewitz als o sought to go

h deeper an d uncover th e fundamentals of warfare by asking what it was an d

it served for. To Jomini, th e secret wa s to be found in sophisticated

in accordance with a small number of fairly well-defined,

based, p ri nc ip le s. Less interested in eit her g eo met ry or

noeuvring, Clausewitz, before he started revising his work in 1827, put a much

ter emphasis on th e use of overwhelming force in order to smash the enemy s

forces, after which th e rest would be quite Until about 1870, although

usewitz s greatness was admitted an d admired, Jomini was probably the more

of th e two. Then, aft er t he vi cto rio us Moltke had point ed to

sewitz as th e greatest single influence on h im , t he wind shifted. Jomini wa s

d less, Claus ew it z more, o ft en . This was true not only in G er ma ny b ut in

ance, where the military revival which started in the 1890s a do pt ed h im in

T HE N IN E TE E NT H CENTURY



TH E ART OF WAR

German officers fell into

tw o types the wasp-waisted

and the bull-necked

Barbara Tuchmann .

Schlieffen belonged to the

former.

addition to du Picq in o rd er t o jus tify i ts emphasis on moral forces an d its

doctrine of th e offensive at all costs. Whether or no t these doctrines presented the

true Clausewitz has often been debated. It is a question to which we shall return.

Meanwhile it is p ro b ab ly c or re ct to say that ]omini s name was being

overlooked no t because he wa s outdated but on th e contrary because like Lipsius

before hi m he ha d become so successful that his ideas were being taken very much

fo r granted. Both M oltke an d Schlieffen were in on e sense his disciples

employing his terminology but doing no more than adapting it to their purposes.

Th e former s most important contributions were to make the switch from

internal to external lines an d to adapt th e Swiss writer s doctrines to th e ne w

THE SCHLIEFFEN PLAN 9

The Schlieffen Plan was the logical result o f forty years

o f development. In it the Germans tried to realize the

idea o f encir.clement which Schlieffen s predecessor

Helmut von Moltke the Elder ha d described as the

highest that strategy can aspire to.



hnologies represented by th e railway an d th e telegraph; in fact it was p recisely

e new technologies that forced hi m t o make t he switch. Schlieffen was even less

i gi na l. All h e di d was present a much simplified uni-dimensional version of

thought l im It in g i t to enveloping operations an d combining it with

or not h e s aw as Clau sewitz s unrelenting emphasis on th e need forsingle climactic annihilating battle. Nor as we shall see di d ]omini s career

d in 1914. An d in fact it could be argued that as long as large armies go to wa r

inst each other in two-dimensional space making use of communications of

sort and manoeuvring among all kinds of natural an d artificial obstacles

his work that will continue to provide th e best guide of all.

TH E N I N E T E E N T H CENTURY

Th e Schlieffen Plan1914

planned German attacks

German army concentrations ugust 9

actual German advance ugust September 9

furthest line of Germanadvance

French armies

British army





H PTER X

. . : : . . . : . . . . . : ~ = . ~ : = = = i : I

N V L W RF RE

THE L TE SIXTEENTH ENTURY ntwerp was the most

important commercial city in Europe. During its siege in

1585 lexander Farnese the Duke of Parma built a

boat bridge across the River Scheldt in order to cut the city

off from the sea. The besieged sent fire ships to demolish it

but ultimately to no avail. The capture of ntwerp on

17 ugust 585by the duke on behalf of the king of Spain

Philip was an extremely complex enterprise and marked

one o f the high points war during that period.



TH E AR T OF WA R

NAVAL WARF ARE

ommodore Stephen Luce

founder of the Naval War

College at ewport

Rhode Island

N OU R SURVEY so far, naval w ar fa re h as b arel y b een me ntione d. This is no t

because th e rol e w hi ch it played in war was unimportant; after all, f ro m th e

Peloponnesian and th e Punic wars to those of t he N ap o le on ic era, ships an d

navies ha d often figured prominently, sometimes even decisively: Yet even though

the a nc ie nt Greeks clearly recognized th e importance of thalassocratia literally,

crushing victory at sea ), and even though naval warfare ha d always been a

highly complex an d highly technical subject, navies were no t made th e subject of

major theoretical treatises. To be sure, several authors either appended chapters

on naval w ar fa re t o t he ir w or ks or ha d others do so, as in th e case of for example

Vegetius and Jomini. With Vegetius th e discussion of naval theory comprised a

single page about th e importance of having a navy always ready; to this were

appended eight short chapters on th e principles of building ships, navigating

them an d fighting them. To Jomini ships were merely an ai d to th e movements of

armies, a nd w ha t he has to say about them is completely unremarkable. As to Sun

Tz u an d Clausewitz, th e greatest writers of all, to judge by their published works

o ne w ou ld think they di d not even know that such a thing as th e sea existed.

In the study of history r oo m m ust be allowed for accident. Th e first staff

colleges had b ee n f ou nd ed in Prussia and France from about 1770. Having

discovered strategy as t he m os t important subject

which they could teach, they began to flourish after

1815 an d even more so after 1871 when every

important army in th e world felt impelled to have a

college. Navies, however, remained backward; it

was not until 1885 that an American, Commodore

Stephen Luce, was able to persuade his country s

Navy Department to set up a Naval Wa r College at

Newport, Rhode Island, bu t even then keeping

it open an d f un ct io ni ng c on st it ut ed a n uphill

struggle. After tw o officers ha d turned down th e

job, Luce chose a forty-five-year-old naval captain

of no great distinction, Alfred Mahan, to ac t as

chief instructor. Besides th e fact that he was th e

so n of Dennis Mahan, a well-known professor at

West Point, Alfred Mahan had also written a

volume called The Navy in the Civil Wa the ulf

and Inland Waters With that, though, his

qualifications ended.

If a death sentence is said to concentrate th e

mind wonderfully , so - in th e case of some people

at a ny r at e - does th e requirement to stand in front



a class an d teach. Mahan taught class from 1886

1889 an d in 1890 published his lectures in the

of a two-volume work The Influence

upon History 1660-1783. It was an

mense success, probably selling more copiesall its predecessors on military theory put

ther the first edition of Clausewitz comprised

ly 500 copies an d earning its author fame not

ly in th e U bu t i n Bri tain a nd G er ma ny where

e kaiser kept it at his bedside an d made every

val officer read it. This success in turn wa s due

the fact that in an age dominated by several

an d w ou ld -b e g re at w or ld powers Mahan

d succeeded in putting together a remarkablycase as to why s uch p ow ers should have

what having such navies entailed an d ho w

ought to be used.

The book s main theoretical message is

in th e first an d l as t c ha pt er s t he

serving to illustrate how naval power

d been successfully applied by th e most

naval country of all, Britain. Its main

was strategy: convinced that continuing technological progress must

render th e details of building ships, arming them sailing an d fighting them

Mahan chose no t to elaborate on those subjects. Strategy, on th e other

was concerned with such questions as t he proper function of th e navy in

r; its true objective; th e point or points upon which i t should be concentrated;

e e st ab li sh me nt of depots of coal and supplies; th e m ai nt en an ce of

between those depots an d th e home base; th e military value of

as a decisive or secondary operation of war; [and] th e

upon which commerce-destroying ca n be most efficiently conducted . In

with many other nineteenth-century theorists Mahan believed that it

be reduced to a small number of principles an d c on ce rn in g t ho se

history ha d a great deal to say

Describing his ow n intellectual development Mahan says that he ha d first

en led to reflect upon these questions while re ading the account o f T he od or

1817-1903 of th e critical role played by sea-power during t he Pun ic

Not having control of th e sea, the Carthaginian navy ha d been reduced to

mainly in home waters; beyond these i t could d o no more t ha n m o un t

asional raids an d forays. Specifically, C ar th ag e h ad b ee n u na bl e e it he r to

Hannibal s Italian campaign - which in spite of its commander s

nius, was thereby doomed to fail - or to help its principal ally in Sicily,

Rome on th e o th er h an d was able to use i ts command of th e sea in

NAVAL W ARF ARE

aptain lfred Mahanwaspicked by Luce to become

chief instructor at the newly

founded Naval War ollege

H book Th e Influence of

Seapower on History was

based on the lectures he

gave there and became the

most famous treatise on the

subject ever



TH RT OF W R

The works of Theodor

ommsenJNobel prize-

winning historian of ancient

RomeJ provided the impetus

to ahan s thought

L A N D VERSUS MARITIME

POWER C. 8

The rench Revolutionary

and Napoleonic Wars were

fought both on land and at

sea The map shows the

armies and navies of the

two sides as they were

around 8 2

o rd er to cu t Hannibal o ff f ro m his b ase s in A fri ca

and Spain th e overland route fr om the l at te r t o

Italy by way of th e Alps being perilous a nd , m os t

of th e time, b lo ck ed by th e Romans , s hip its ow n

legions to both Spain an d Sicily unhindered, keep

K in g P hi li p V o f M ac edo ni a out of the war

whether this part of Mahan s argument stands up

to scrutiny is doubtful , an d finally invade Africa

itself. Thus sea-power ha d helped shape th e

c on du ct o f th e war from beginning to end. It ha d

als o p layed a cru cial part in Rome s victor):

In this as in so m an y s ub se qu en t wars, th e

importance of th e sea w as that it served as a g re at

h ig hw ay acros s w hi ch could be transported men,

armies an d goods more efficiently, an d more

cheaply, than could be done on land. In both wa r

an d peace, th e s id e which was able to do so enjoyed

a critical advantage over t he o ne that could not; this was n ev er more so than in t he

la te nine tee nth century, when so much of every advanced na tion s wea lth ha d

c om e to depend on its ability to export its industrial products while importing

food and r aw m at er ia ls t o feed i ts p o pu l at io n a nd k ee p i ts f ac to ri es running.

During wartime, ensuring passage fo r o ne s o wn s id e while denying it to one s

opponent wa s the func tion of th e Pu t in other t er ms , t he navy of a great

power -l ike almost all nineteenth-century military theorists except for du Picq,

Mahan was interested in none bu t great powers - found itself confronted by a

double task: a negative on e an d a p os it iv e one. The negative part consisted of

halting an d destroying the enemy s c ommerce , the positive on e of making sure

that one s ow n ships g ot t hr ou g h t o their destinations. In carrying ou t this double

mission tw o strategies presented themselves. One was to protect one s own

shipping by providing it with escorts while simultaneously going after th e

enemy s cargo-bearing vessels, a strategy known as guerre de course an d often

re sorte d to by past belligerents. The other was to build up as p ow er fu l a b at tl efleet as possible and use it to seek out an d d ef ea t t he other side s With

command of th e sea thus achieved, protecting one s ow n commerce while

sweeping th e enemy s remaining ships o ff the sea an d blockading them in their

ports would be relatively eas):

In other words, not fo r Mahan either war on commerce or its converse,

escorted convoys, both of which constituted half-hearted solutions an d merely

led to th e dispersal of forces. Instead o ne s ho ul d seek an d achieve command of

th e sea, th e sea being trea te d a lmost as if i t w ere some piece of country capable

of being conquered and ruled over. At this point th e similarity between Mahanand Clausewitz - at l eas t t he early Clausewitz, b ef ore h e started thinking of

limited war - becomes obvious. Though he never m en ti on s t he Prussian, ou r



o ~ i

o hannelFleet

ork

Land versus maritime power

c 8 2

British territory

ruled directly by Napoleon

ruled by members ofNapoleon s family

D dependent state

D other state

naval base

o Barbary corsair port

commander-in-chief

subordinate flag officer

ship of the line

frigate

smaller vessel

~ amphibious assaults with date

all ships shown are British

AVAL WARFARE



T H E ART OF WAR

s Mahan saw things J sea-

power required no t merely

ships bu t an extensive naval

infrastructure as well

ritains hatham ocks J

c.1860.

American b or n- an d- br ed p r op h et o f sea -power might have said that th e best

naval strategy wa s always to be very strong, first i n g en er al an d then at th e

decisive p oi nt . O nc e created, th e battle-fleet should be kept as concentrated as

circumstances p e rm i tt ed a n d la unc he d stra ight at th e opposing fleet with th e

objective of annihilating it. Thus considered, Mahan s work represents on e long

diatribe against commerce-raiding as well as t he m in or vessels by which, on the

whole, it is carried out an d in favour of navies m ad e u p of t he m os t powerful

capital s hi ps w hi ch ca n be b uil t. Needless to say, this also entailed massive

i nv es tm en ts i n o t he r c om p on en ts of naval infrastructure such as q ua li fi ed

manpower, ports, depots, dr y docks, shipyards, plant for ma nufa cturing a rms

an d armour, an d communications like th e Suez C an al , t he P an am a C an al a nd the

Kiel Canal. All of this Mahan explains at some length, which in turn contributed

to his popularity not on ly in naval circles bu t

a m on g c er ta in segments of i nd us tr y a nd th e

political world as well.

As already mentioned, in setting forth his

views M ah an h ad drawn mainly on what he

interpreted as th e historical experience of th e

strongest modern naval power of all, Britain.

Always tending to be pragmatic, though, th e

British ha d never been among the great

p ro duc ers o f military t he or y, n av al theory

i nc lu de d. I t w as only a decade an d a half after

Luce had o pe ne d t he Naval Wa r College

that a simila r reform c ould be carried through

th e British navy; and even t he n m an y officers

c on ti nu ed t o argue that, especially in view of

th e navy s past record, a theoretical education

wa s not really needed. It is therefore not

surprising that t he n ex t important naval author

whom we must consider here, Julian Corbett

1854-1922), ha d much to say c onc e rning the

importance of theory as such. To h im , i t was a

process by which we co-ordinate our ideas,

define t he m ea ni ng of t he w or ds we us e, grasp

th e difference between essential an d unessential

factors, an d fix an d e xp os e t he fundamental

data on which everyone is agreed. In this

way we prepare th e apparatus of practical

discussion . .. W it ho ut such an apparatus no

tw o m en can even think on t he s am e line; muchless ca n they ever h op e to d etach t he real point

of difference that divides them an d isolate it for



t solution . Achieving c ommon ground was all th e more true in th e case of an

p ire su ch as th e British on e whose stra tegy would be made not by a single

or group at a single place bu t in innumerable conferences held at different

ces all around th e world.

To be taught their own trade by a civilian - by training Corbett was a lawy er,t being a ma n of inde pendent mea ns he di d no t practise hi s profession an d

full-time - was regarded by many n av al o ff ic er s as an affront. As on e

wrote C or be tt h ad p er mi tt ed h im se lf t he i nd ul ge nc e of offering his

ience his ow n views on the correctness or otherwise of the strategy adopted

p av al o ff ic er s in the past. His audience had usually treated his amateur

i nto th e subject good-naturedly; nevertheless his presumption ha s

n resented, an d he has apparently been deaf to t he p ol it e h in ts thrown out to

NAVAL W ARF ARE

OVERLEAF: oth ahan and

orbett considered

communications to be an

essential element in naval

power This shows the Suez

Canal as i t was in 864



TH RT OF W R



V W RF R



TH RT OF W R

Jean Baptiste Colbert

often considered the

founder of France s navy

here shown presenting

members of the French

cademy to ouis XlV.

him . Had they been able to foresee th e contents of his most important

theoretical work, Some Principles Maritime Strategy which came ou t in 1911,

no doubt they would h av e b een doubly o ff en de d. I f o nl y b ec au se h e ha d n o tr ue

forerunners, Mahan s heroes were figures such as Colbert who, working for

Louis ~ had c re at ed t he modern French navy) a nd N el so n who more than

anybody else had implemented the strategy of th e decisive battle). contrast,

Corbett followed good, approved late nineteenth-century practice in that he

harnessed Clausewitz an d Jomini to his cause. From th e former he took the idea

that naval warfare, like wa r as a whole, was merely a continuation of politics by

other means. Jomini, Clausewitz s great contemporary an d riv al , was said to

have entirely endorsed this v iew .

Having thus pulled naval warfare down a pe g - f oc usi ng on th e fleet, Mahan

ha d written almost as if policy di d not exist - Corbett proceeded to explain that,

on th e whole, th e fact that m en live upon l an d a nd no t upon the sea meant that

warfare on th e latter wa s less important, an d less decisive, than on th e former.

History could count m an y w ar s which ha d b een d ecid ed p urely on land without

an y reference to operations at sea. Th e reverse, however, was not true; an d indeed

this even a pp li ed t o t he s ec on d Punic war, which Mahan ha d u se d as his starting

p oi n t a nd case-study par excellence. I n t he ir m or e m at ur e days, both Clausewitz

a nd J om in i had concluded that offensive war Dutrance was only on e form of

w ar a nd that policy might dictate the use of other, more circumscribed methods;

15 4



e latter ha d also shown, in considerable detail, h ow m an oe uv re s by widely

rsed forces c ou ld l ea d t o i nt er es ti ng s tr at eg ic combinations an d r es ul t i n

A dd th e fact that at sea as on l an d t he defensive was t he m or e powerful

of war, a nd M ah an s prescription fo r using th e concentrated fleet fo r

out th e e ne my an d dealing a si ng le o ffe nsi ve blow turned out to bepletely wrong. Instead, an d other things being equal, a compelling case could

made in favour of a careful, an d necessarily prolonged, struggle of attrition

eguarding one s ow n commerce, disrupting t ha t o f th e enemy by every means

came to hand, and using th e navy to land forces at selected points in th e

rear so as to disrupt his plans an d throw hi m ou t of g ear. All t hi s w as

true if th e political entity waging t he w ar was not a country f ac in g a

bu t a far-flung empire dependent on its lines of communication.

much be tte r historia n than Mahan, Corbett was able to support his

by means of detailed case-studies. The most comprehensive of theseEngland in the Seven Years ~ published in 1907 specifically in order to

Mahan an d quickly getting into th e limitations of naval action . Acting on

design thought ou t by Pitt t he E ld er , m o st of th e time th e British ha d

t attempted to seek ou t t he m ai n French fleet an d bring it to battle. Instead they

d striven t o con tain the enemy an d limit his movements; all th e while protecting

own commerce an d using their superior sea -power to assist their allies an d

p ri ze s su ch as India an d Quebec that c am e t he ir ~ The result of this

NAVAL W ARF ARE

OVERLEAF: Mahan s vision

realized: America s

victorious fleet enters Ne w

York harbour following the

Spanish American ar

1898.

The way Mahan saw

Admiral Nelson was the

greatest practitioner of

naval power ever and

decisively proved his ow n

theories concerning the need

to sw ee p t he enemy fleet off

the seas. The picture shows

Nelson explaining his plan

of attack prior to the Battle

of Trafalgar.



TH RT OF W R



N V L W RF R



TH RT OF W R

Sic transit gloria; a poster

entitle I;Naval Heroes of

the United States pu lishe

in 864

combined strategy might no t b e d ecisive in th e sense aimed at

by Mahan. Though ma ny c omba ts took place, no general action

between th e tw o fleets was ever fought. When th e wa r ended, no t

only had th e British not achieved complete co mm an d o f th e

sea in so fa r as French commerce-raiding still continued bu t

t he m ai n French fleet remained in being. Though ach ieved b y

strangulation rather than by some smashing victory, th e Peace of

Paris wa s t he most triumphant we ever made . As such, it

marked a critical s tep on Britain s way to world empire.

Compared to those w ho c am e before an d after them, Mahan

a nd C o rb e tt were giants. Blunt and to th e point, th e former ca n

justly claim to have been the first writer wh o spelled out a

comprehensive theory of naval warfare, a s ub ject which hitherto

had either been treatedas

secondary or neglected altogether.

Highly sophisticated an d tending towards understatement, th e

latter served as a useful corrective by e mp ha si zi ng t he

limitations of maritime strategy and pointing out that

command of th e sea might be e xt re me ly u se fu l even i f i t w as no t

b ro u gh t a b ou t by a climactic battle be twe en the concentrated _

fleets of both sides an d even if, as a resul t, i t was not as absolute

as Mahan would have wished. Th e unique stature e nj oy ed by

both authors has much to do with the fact that, instead of

~ n t n t i n gthemselves with t he t ec hn ic al aspects of ports,

navigation, ships and weapons, they started from first

principles. Mahan looked i nt o t he objectives of naval warfare

per s Corbett linked it to policy, which might b e less limited or

more so.

With these tw o approaches to naval warfare in front of

them, it would almost be t rue t o say that subsequent theorists

w er e l ef t with little more than c ru mb s t o argue about. As ne w technological

devices such as th e submarine and th e a ir cr af t j oi ne d naval warfare, some

believed that Mahan ha d t he re by b ee n r en de re d o bs ol et e. As tw o world warsshowed, the introduction of submarines made commerce-raiding a m uc h m or e

formidable proposition, whereas aircraft threatened to take command of t he sea

away from ships, or at least to prevent fleets from approaching close to the land

a nd t hus m ak in g it much harder fo r t he m t o force their opponents into battle.

T h e M a ha n is t response, naturally enough, wa s to use aircraft in o rd er t o c om ba t

submarines and put at l ea st s om e of them on boa rd s hi ps. By doing so they

greatly increased the powe r of the capital ship an d th e range at w hi ch i t w as ab le

to bring its weapons to bear, and, as Mahan s followers claimed, turned

command of th e sea into a m uc h m or e viable proposition than h e h imself could

ever have dreamt of.

As th e twentieth century draws to its en d both s ch oo ls are alive an d well,



NAVAL WARFARE

it must be admitted that the debate has become somewhat academic.

of the sea in the grand style implying operations that stretch across

oceans now an objective sought after by one country only; over the last

years even that country has witnessed the number of its aircraft-carriers

e vital components in that command dwindle from just under one hundred

mere twelve. Whether for economic or geographical reasons virtually all

rest have given up the ir capital ships and seen their navies reduced to little

than coastguards which are incapable of independent operations far from

The age of global warfare which started in the final decades of the

century not accidentally the period in which both Mahan and

ett open their detailed historical studies appears to have ended in 1945 and

definitely buried in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed taking the Red

with it - leaving one fears n hopes precious little meat for naval theorists

nk their teeth into.





H PTER S V

4 . ~ : . . ; . . ; ; ; : = = : ~ ~ . : @ : = = ~ : i I

TH INT RW R

PERIOD

G S ING RELE SED from its cylinders on the Eastern

Front First World ar ompared to other weapons gas

was relatively humane: only a fraction of those exposed

to it died Fighting while wearing protective gear was

almost impossible however with the result that soldiers

hated it and gas has since been outlawed



T H E AR T OF WA R

T INT E RW AR PERIOD

TheGreat War was fought

with greater ferocity and

resulted in more dead and

injured than most its

predecessors pu t together

H ere erman soldiersprepare to bury British

dead 1918.

T ROUGHOUT HISTORY, all to o o ft en t he co ncl us io n of each armed

conflict ha s served as a p re lu de t o t he n ex t one. Never was this more

true than at th e en d of t he F ir st Wo rl d W ar k no wn t o c on te mp or ar ie s as th e

Great War which although it wa s sometimes described as t he wa r to end all

wars , only provide d a temporary respite. In fact scarcely ha d th e guns fallen

silent than people s t ar te d l oo ki ng i nt o t he f ut ur e on th e assumption that th e

great powers of this world h ad n ot yet finished fighting each other. Which gave

rise to th e question, ho w was this to be done?

To virtually all of t ho se w ho t ri ed , th e point of departure wa s th e need to

minimize casualties. True to its name, th e Great Wa r ha d b ee n f ou gh t with

greaterferocity

an d resulted in more dead and injured, than most ofits

predecessors put together. Confirming the predictions of some pre-war writers

such as th e Jewish-Polish banker Ivan B10ch th is w as th e direct result of th e

superiority of th e defence as b ro ug h t a b ou t by modern fire-power; hence th e

most pressing problem wa s to try to find

ways to bypass, or overcome that fire

power an d that defence. Failure to do so

might render th e next wa r as unprofitable

as in th e eyes of many t he s tr ug gl e of

1914-18 had been, to say nothing of th epossibility that th e dreadful losses an d

destruction suffered might cause it to en d

in revolution as ha d already happened in

Russia Austria-Hungary and e r m n ~In th e event th e first ser US

theoretical treatise designed to solve th e

problem wa s written by an Italian

general, Giulio Douhet. A n e ng in ee r by

trade, during th e early years of th ecentury D ou he t h ad become fascinated

with the military possibilities of th e

internal combustion engine. A lit tle later

he was also f ou nd d ab bl in g in futurist

ideas c on ce rn in g t he spiritua l qua lities

allegedly springing from those tw o speedy

ne w vehicles th e motor car and th e

aircraft, claiming that they possessed th e

ability to rejuvenate the world, an d Italy

in particular. As a staff officer in 1915-18

he was in a position to observe an d reflect



, no fewer than twelve Italian offensives directed a ga inst the Austrians across

e river I so nz o; a ll f ai le d, producing hundreds of t ho us an ds o f casualties fo r

or no te rritoria l gain. Surely there had to be a better way of doing things,

e w hi ch, i n f ac t, h e ha d already promoted d ur in g t he w ar itself, arguing in

of th e creation of a massive bomber force an d it s use against th eDouhet s masterpiece, l ommando del Aereo Th e Command

t he Ai r , w as published in 1921. Though it took t im e t o be translated,

su rv ey of the interwar military literature shows that its leading i de as w er e

studied an d debated.

To Douhet, then, t he form of an y wa r .. . depends upon th e technical means

war available . In t he p as t, firearms ha d revolutionized war; then it was th e

of small-calibre rapid-fire guns, barbed wire and, at sea, the submarine.

e m os t recent additions were t he a ir a rm a nd poison gas, b ot h o f them

ill in their infancy bu t possessing th e potential to completely upset allo f war so f ar known . In particular, as long as war w as f ou gh t o nl y on th e

of the earth, it was necessary fo r on e side to break through th e other s

in order to win. Those defences, however, t en de d t o become stronger

TH E I N TE R WA R P E RI O D

MAXIM, 1 9 0 8 M O D E L, G E R MA N

VICKERS, 9 MODEL, BRITISH

HOTCHKISS, 9 4 M O D EL , F R E NC H

MACHINE-GUNS

The machine gun was

arguably the most important

weapon of the First World

War long with the artillery

of the period it gave the

advantage to the defence and

thus helped bring about

stalemate and trench warfare.



THE ART OF WAR

ircraft offeredhope

avoiding scenes such as this

one a French attack

repulsed by the Germans at

Combres 1915

and stronger until in the conflict that had just ended they had extended over

practically the entire battlefield and barred all troops passage in either direction.

Behind the hard crusts presented by the fron ts the populations of the various

states carried on civilian life almost undisturbed Mobilizing those populations

the sta tes in question were able to produce what it took to wage t ota l war and

sustain the struggle for years on end

With the advent of the aircraft this situation was coming to an end. Capable

of overflying both fronts and natural obstacles and possessing a comparatively

long range aircraft would be used to a ttack civilian centres of population and

n u s t r ~ No effective defence against such attacks was possible; given that the air

could be t raversed in all directions with equal ease an d that there was no

predicting which target would be hi t next to counter each attacking aircraft it

would be necessary to have twenty defensive ones or if the job were entrusted to

guns hundreds if not thousands of them Extrapolating f rom the raids that had

taken place in 1916 18 Douhet showed that forty aircraft dropping eighty tons of



might have completely destroyed a city th e size of Treviso leaving alive

ry few of its inhabitants. A m er e t hr ee a ir cr af t could d eliv er as much fire

as could a modern battleship in a s in gl e broadside whereas a thousand

craft could deliver ten times as much fire-power as could the entire British navy

numbering thirty battleships - in ten broadsides. Yet th e price-tag of a s in gl ewas said to be abou t equal to that of a thousand aircraft. To use

terminology th e differential in cost/effectiveness between the tw o types

arms was little less than phenomenal. As Douhet pointed out moreover even

calculations failed to ta ke account of th e fact that t he c ar ee r of military

ha d just begun an d that aircraft capable of lifting as much as te n tons

ch might soon be constructed.

Under such circumstances investments in armies an d navies should come to

gradual halt. Th e resources made free i n t hi s way should b e d iverted to the air

regarded as th e decisive on e in any future conflict and on e which properlyc ou ld b ri ng about a quick decision - so quick indeed that there might

TH E INTERWAR PERIOD

n improvise anti aircraft

defence 1917.



TH RT OF W R

scarcely be sufficient time for t he t wo r em ai ni ng

ones to be mobilized an d deployed. Given that the

character of the new weapon was inherently

offensive most of th e aircraft ought to be no t

fighters bu t bombe rs. Instea d of forming part of

th e army and navy as was then the case in all

m aj or a rm ed forces except those of Britain they

should be assembled in an independent ai r force.

At th e outbreak of the next wa r that ai r force

should be launched like a shell from a cannon

engaging in an all-out attack against th e enemy s

ai r bases with th e objective of gaining command

of the air . Once command of the air ha d been

attained - meaning that th e enemy his bases

destroyed was no longer able to interfere with

operations - th e attack er s sh ou ld switch from

military objectives to civilian ones knocking them

out on e by one. Industrial plant as well as

o

A p ea l of church bells warns of

impending a i r r ai d

Fighter escorts defend bombers from

possible attack by defending

aircraft including six new Bf 109

fighters of the Condor Legion

B o mb ers arriv e o v er th e city in

several waves. Of the twenty-nine

bombers attacking the city

twenty-three are Junkers 52/3shown here

Figh ter esco rts are also ordered

d ow n t o l ow level a n d a t ta c k the

t o wn w i th machine-gun fire

As fin al waves of bombers complete

th eir mission th e force h as dropped

some 100 0001bs of bombs killing

approximately 1 000people and

wounding many more



TH E I NT E RW A R P E RI O D

centres o ug ht t o be attacked; the attackers principal we apon should

e gas th e a im no t merely to kill but to demoralize. Leaping over an d ignoring

usual forces that defend a country a war waged by such means might be over

before it ha d begun. In so fa r as it would minimize th e casualties o f b ot h

attacker an d the defender whose population, driven to th e p oi nt o f madness,force t he g ov er nm en t t o s ur re nd er , i t also represented a more humane

operandi than an endless struggle of attrition.

Like Mahan, to whom he owed much, Douhet has been accused of

rstating his case. When th e test came in th e Second World Wa r it was found

his calculations made in terms of a uniform bomb pattern dropping on an

of 500 by 500 metres had not allowed for t he p ra ct ic al difficulties of

landing ordnance on target; as a resu lt f ar m or e bombs and aircraft

re needed to obliterate a given objective than he ha d thought. Perhaps because

as was no t used by an d large th e populations which found themselves t th een d of those bombs proved m uc h m or e resilient than he ha d expected,

on e critic to quip t 4a t D ou he t could no t be blamed for th e fact that th e

whom he used as th e basis for his calculations were after all Italians. In

w orld w ars, as common w is do m h as it Italians proved themselves to be

OPPOSITE: The bomb rdment

of Guernica provided an

object lesson in wh t

modern air power could do

to civilians. This s an

anti-Fascist poster by theFrench artist Pierre Mail.

DOUHET S THEORY, GUERNICA

ith aircraft such s these military

planners during the interwar period

sought to realize Douhet s vision of

attaining comm nd of the air nd

achieving victory by bomb rding

civilian targets.



bombers route

• : : : ; • • • : •• Army barracks

- .. -. . . ............ . ............ ..

...

.

.

..... ............. . .. . . .

· _. ·:.. b W :e: j::n: ·:ti: ·to

c:J bombing areas

ball bearing factories planned approach flights

At 3.53 pm local time 198 bombers

begin to a rr ive in the target area

Only 194B 17 bombers return to

the UK of which eighty one are

damaged and have suffered crew

casualties. Thirty-six aircraft are

lost together with 361 casualties

The last bomb falls in the Schweinfurt

area at 4.11 pm local time; 184 aircraft

release bombs over the target area

dropping 265 tons of high explosive

and 115 tons of incendiary

17 August 1943: 230 B 17 bombers

leave the UK

2

4

inset

major German interceptions

I0 5 mile

0 5kmI

SCHWEINFURT BOMBING RESULTS

The raid on the German city of Schweinfurt;,

which was carried ou t by the US irForce in

October 1943; resulted in almost one-quarter of

the force being lost. It forced the suspension of

the bombing campaign until planners could

figure out what to do next

THE ART OF WAR

.

..............

.

village of

Obemdorf

THE PROJECTION OF

AIR POWER

Between 1918 and 1945 the

ordnance-carrying capacity of

the heaviest available bombers

increased approximately

fivefold. By the latter date

10 tons of ordnance could be

carried to a range of

1; 500 miles 2; 400 kilometres

at approximately 350 miles

560 kilometres per hour

and 30;,000 feet 9; 000 metres

altitude.

THE GERMAN GOTHA BOMBER 1917

JJ

=:::J=c=::J==== Jc:::::Jc::::::::Jc=:J=c:=:::J=c=:J THE B-29 BOMBER 1944

The warning siren sounds at 3.44 pm.

Most people disregard the warning

bu t eleven batteries of 88mm anti-

aircraft guns are manned and ready

The raid lasts twelve minutes with

most bombs falling away from the

intended targets. Approximately

2 275 people have been killed in the city

and surrounding area.The fighter

force attackingthe American

formations has lostsixteen aircraft

r68



THE INTERW R PERIO

wanted aircraft to

ck industrial plants as

population centres.

shows Woolwich

London in 1918.

ond World War type

radar 945



TH E ART OF WAR

By the Second World War

anti-aircraft defence looked

like this Salerno September

1943 .

lousy soldiers. Finally once radar had been introduced the air weapon turned

out to be much better adapted for defensive purposes than its original prophet

he died in 1930 - had foreseen. In the air as on land the Second World War

developed into a prolonged and extremely deadly struggle of attrition

Nevertheless given that it is with the evolution of military thought that

we are dealing here i t should immediately be said that no other treatise written

on the subject of air war fa re ha s ever presented near ly as coherent a picture

as did The Command of the ir nor has any other treatise ever been as

influential. In part the reasons for this were institutional Engaging in close air



CAS) and interdicting enemy lines of communication were missions

might conceivably be undertaken by an army ai r force; bu t gaining

mmand of the air and attacking the opposing side s homeland were clearly

missions which called for an equally independent air force. ethis

it may the mirage of dealing a rapid and all-powerful blow from the air - soand so powerful that the need for the remaining armed forces would b e all

t obviated - continued to fascinate airmen right through the Second World

r and into the nuclea r age when but for the fact that nuclear weapons were

o destructive to use, it might have been realized.

To carry out the air offensive he envisaged, Douhet

had proposed to rely on a comparatively small force

made up of elite warriors a vision which meshed

well with the anti-democratic Fascist ideas that he

also entertained. Much the same wa s true of the

great prophet of mechanized warfare on land

the British general John Frederick Fuller. Born

nine years after Douhet and destined to outlive

him by more than thirty years he died in

1966), Fuller was a self-taught intellectual

whose interests ranged from Greek philosophy

to Jewish mysticism or Cabbala. As a young

officer before the First World War he had been

much concerned to discover the principles of

war, fi nal ly settling on six. These were: the

objective the true objective was the point a t which

the enemy may be most decisively defeated mass, the

offensive, security, surprise and movement. From the

end of 1916 he found himself acting as chief of staff to

the Royal Tank Corps to whose organization and

operations he made a critical contribution.

This is not the place to engage in a detailed

examination of Fuller s intellectual development, a task

that has been successfully undertaken by several other

writers. Suffice it to say that like so many others he

was appalled by the loss of life which had resulted from

trench warfare during t he Firs t World War. Like so

many others he sought a solution bu t unlike so many

others he possessed one which had already been tried

and applied to some extent. As Bloch had foreseen, the

advent of magazine rifles, machine-guns and quick

firing artillery had saturated the battlefield in a storm

of steel, making offensive movement pract ical ly

impossible; what then wa s more natural than to put a

THE INTERWAR PERIOD

]. C. Fuller was chief of

st ff to the Royal nk

Corps during the First

World War nd later rose to

the rank of m jor general

Offered to comm nd theexperiment l rmoured

force th t was being set up

during the late 1920s he

re fused to do so except on

his own terms nd resigned

from the army






till in th e army became the principal exponent of

hanization. In numerous publications - he wa s a prolific

who however often tended to overstate his case - he

that war like every other field of human life was

cisively affected by th e progress of science. Like Douhet, hethat currently the most important fruits of science

re the internal combustion engine on which depe nde d the

an d th e tank and poison gas; whether armed

orces liked i t or not, these devices h d to be employed

ause failure to do so was to risk being left behind. Future

o n la nd w ou ld centre around th e tank an d be based

f » I @ =

BRITISH FIRST WORLD W A R T A N K , M A RK I, c. 1916-17

BRITISH VICKERS LIGHT TANK, c. 1935

GERMAN TIGER TANK, c. 1944

GERMAN LEOPARD TANK, c. 1965

TH E DEVELOPMENT OF

TH E TANK

From the time tanks were

invented in 1915 to the

introduction o f the latest

generation of battle tanks

during the late 1970s these

machines underwent several

metamorphoses From the

early 1930s however no

new principles were dded

nd each new t nk looked

mu h like a larger version of

the previous one

entirely on tracks as artillery recce units, engineers,

supply an d maintenance all became mechanized.

they ha d mechanized themselves a rm ie s w o ul d enjoy

as muc h fre edom of movement as di d ships at sea.

would use it in o rd er t o m an oe uv re a ga in st each o th er,

centrating against select sections of the enemy front,

through them an d bringing about victory at

paratively low cost.

While not alone in th e field Fuller di d as much as

to stimulate the debate about tanks an d

Coming as they di d from the ex-chief of staff

th e most advanced mechanized force in history his viewsparticular respect. Barring the most extreme ones

for example th e idea that armies should consist of tanks alone a nd t ha t every

ntryman should be provided with his individual tankette an d use i t to wage

warfare - many of his suggestions have come to pass; and, indeed, it

uld be argued that all modern mechanized armies stem from th e experimental

rce which was first assembled on Salisbury Plain in 1928 an d of which ha d he

could have been the commander. Th e problem was that, considering

no t merely a reformer bu t a philosophe r, Fulle r we nt on to s urr ou nd

w it h a n immensely complicated network of intellectual propositions on

e nature of war life an d histor T Combining all these different strands, many of

s historical writings were decidedly brilliant. However much of his theorizing

s decidedly half-baked: for example, his idea that all things fell naturally into

parts.

In particular, like Douhet, Fuller considered democracy an d th e mass armies

which it ha d given rise from t he t im e of th e French Revolution to be harmful

d degenerate. Also like Douhet, he h op ed t o replace t ho se m as s a rm ie s by a

all force of elite tank-riding, professional warriors. N ot only would war

ereby be conducted much more efficiently bu t the e xa mple set by such a force

d have a regenerating impact on , an d serve as a model for society as a whole.

whereas Douhet was in line with majority opinion in his ow n c o un tr y a nd



TH E AR T OF WA R

uring the1920s Britain

developed the w o r ~ s most

advanced armoured forces

embers of Parliament

watching army tank

manoeuvres on Salisbury

Plain 1928.

enjoyed th e friendship of Benito Mussolini, Fuller having resigned from the army

in 1928 did himself a lo t of harm by joining the British Union of Fascists an d

writing art icles i n a Fascist vein. Later h e even went t o G er ma ny as an official

guest of Hitler s in order to attend the Wehrmacht s manoeuvres.

In the history of twentieth-century military thought, Fuller s name almost

always associated with t ha t o f his contemporary and friend Basil Liddell Hart.

Born in 1895 unlike Fuller Liddell Hart was not a professional soldier b ut h ad

studied history at Cambridge for on e ye ar be fore e nli sti ng receiving a

commission and b ei ng s en t to f ig ht in France. Gassed at t he S om me , Captain

throughout his life he enjoyed e mpha siz ing the milita ry rank he ha d attained)

Liddell Hart spent th e rest of th e wa r in Britain training volunteer infantry an d it

was in this capacity that he first started thinking seriously and writing, about

armed conflict. W he n th e war ended, an d having been invalided o ut o f the army

he made his living as a sports journalist.

Concerning his intellectual development, two points are worth noting. First

like so many of his generation who, along with him, were educated in public

schools, Liddell Hart was brought up on th e notion that wa r was ak in t o sport

an d games. In his memoirs he relates proudly that he was rather good at



no t because his co-ordination an d technique were

any way outstanding bu t because he could e ng ag e i n

combinations and foresee where th e ball was likely

en d up. S eco nd an d again like so many of his

Liddell Hart ended the war as a ferventof th e British military establishment which after

ha d just fought an d w on t he greatest armed conflict in

until th en . W it hi n a few years h e c om pl et el y

versed his view joining the then fashionable trend an d

ing disillusioned with th e war in general an d with

conduct at th e hand of th e British High Command

particular. In criticizing that conduct his experience as

popular journalist and interest in games were to come

handy:Like Fuller Liddell Hart arrived at th e conclusion that

me n to a tta ck frontally in th e face of th e machine

ns wh ic h we re trained a t them ha d been th e height of

an d only led to masses of unnecessary casualties.

M or e t ha n Fuller he took care to

trace this folly to its origin which according to him was

to be found not in simple bloody-mindedness bu t in th e

writings of th e greatest of all military philosophers Karl

von Clausewitz. As he interpreted Clausewitz - and

whether this interpretation is in fact correct has been

much debated since - the la tte r was th e Mahdi o f M as s ;

th e prophet whose clarion call ha d misled generations of

officers into th e belief that th e best indeed almost th e

only way to wage war wa s to f o rm t he g re at es t p os si bl e

concentration of me n an d weapons an d launch it stra ight

ahead against th e enemy: In 1914-18 this Prussian

Marsellaise had borne its horrible fruit. Th e results

could be seen on literally thousands of war memorials

erected not only i n Brit ai n bu t all over th e British Empire

and indeed th e world.

Although like Fuller Liddell Hart wa s largely self

taught he enjoyed several advantages over t he o ld er m an .

Fo r on e thing he wa s less i nt er es te d i n t he non-military

aspects of history and philosophy: Th is caused his

historical writings to be somewhat one-dimensional; not

for h im t he scintillating synthesis of politics economics

sociology an d culture that often marks Fuller s work at its

best. However it also saved hi m from engaging in the

kind of mystic flights that sometimes made Fuller appear

T H E I NT E RW A R P E RI O D

Basil Liddell Hart he

look in 1953







T H E ART OF WAR

on , he ha d to be weakened f ir st by having his limbs cu t off , his organization

disrupted an d th e mind of his commander unbalanced. As he sought to show at

th e hand of historical studies - in reality, little more than thumbnail sketches

this could be a chieved by combining rapidity of movement with secrecy an d

surprise, resulting in strokes carried ou t by d is pe rs ed forces so as to conceal the

true centre of gravity for as long as possible), coming from unexpected directions,

and following th e route of least expectation even if this meant tackling an d

overcoming topographical obstacles. Above all , every plan had to possess t wo

branches , i.e. should be drawn up in such a way as to kee p r ed gue ssing

concerning blue s true objectives. It should also be sufficiently flexible to enable

that objective to be changed if, by some mishap, th e first one turne d ou t to be to o

strongly defended.

All these manoeuvres were to be carried out in two-dimensional space, along

lines of communication, among all kinds of natural an d artificial obstacles, while

trailing a n umbilical cord of supply , an d against an enemy wh o presumably was

also capable of manoeuvring. To t hi s extent he owed a l ot t o ] o mi ni , a lt ho ug h it

wa s characteristic of Liddell Hart that, in his chef-d oeuvre his great

predecessor s name is never mentioned. Consisting essentially of movement an d

characterized by means of coloured a rrows stretching a cr os s a map, wa r was

presented almost as if it were some kind of sophisticated game played between

opposing teams. This was particularly true of his mature work. Having started

his career as a trainer of infantry, th e older he b ec am e, t he m or e p ro no u nc ed

Liddell Hart s tendency to give tactics short shrift. Mobilization, logistics,

command, communication an d control, an d those twin unimportant questions of

killing an d dying were also lightly skipped over as he once wrote: could on e bu t

remove th e horrible suffering and mutilation i t w ou ld be th e finest purifier of

nations ever known . Rea ding his last book, istory of the Second World War

1970), o ne m ig ht be excused for thinking it wa s all about operational movement

and very little else.

Having once overcome his early admiration for th e British performance in th e

First World War, d u ri ng t he early 1920s Liddell Hart ha d also become interested

in mechanization. I n t hi s field his mentor was Fuller, whom he ha d known since

1920; an d indeed so m uch d id t he y ou ng er ma n l ift - no t to s y steal - from the

works of th e o ld er o ne that their friendship almost went to the dogs. Liddell

Hart s vision of mechanized armed forces was set forth in aris or the Future of

War 1925) as well as The Remaking of Modern rmies 1927). In these small but

extremely well-written studies he talked about th e usual combination of tanks,

aircraft an d poison ga s as weapons with which th e defence could be skipped over

or overcome, stalemate broken within a few hours, or at most days an d the wa r

brought to a s wi ft an d cheap, if violent, end.

Given that th e main characteristic o f bo th land-based mechanized vehiclesand aircraft wa s speed an d flexibility, it might be thought that Liddell Hart

should have seized u po n t he m as th e ideal tools with which to implement the



of indirect a pproac h a gainst opposing e qually mobile armed forces.

stead, however, he was enticed by a Douhet-like vision of London Manchester

an d half a dozen other great centres simultaneously attacked the

ness localities an d Fleet Street wrecked, Whitehall a heap of ruins t he s lu m

madde ne d into the impulse t o b re ak loose and maraud th e railways cutdestroyed . As a result, he never q ui te c am e a rou nd to forging th e

link between the two halves of his vis io n, t he s tr at eg ic an d th e

Though ris does contain a few brilliant lines on this problem in

e Decisive Wars o History th e entire question of mechanization is barely

What prevented Liddell Hart from making a detailed forecast of th e

with its characteristic combination of armoured divisions an d tanks

s his abiding revulsion with th e horrors of th e Firs t World War and his

which he shared with so many of his generation that they shouldt be repeated. From about 1931 this caused him to switch from a tt em p ts t o

more effective ways to win towards thinking about less costly means to

oid defeat. Following Corbett - o nce again without mentioning him by name

e no w claimed that th e British Way in Warfare ha d always been to stay out of

continental commitments. Instead Britain ha d relied on its navy to keep

e enemy at bay a nd harass an d weaken hi m by means of well-directed strokes

selected points), a nd on c ontine ntal allies to deliver th e coup de main 1939

ha d convinced himself that the dominant lesson from th e experience of land

fare, for more than a generation past has been the superiority of th e defenceattack ; even in th e air, as experiences in Spain ha d shown th e prospects of

e defence are improving . Therefore, instead of Britain repeating its First World

error which ha d led to so many casualties, it could safely trust the da untle ss

to stop the Germans. Britain itself, its armed forces thoroughly

an d mechanized should revert to its traditional strategy, relying

on blockade on th e on e h an d a nd ai r power on th e other. This ha d th e

tional advantage that it would make universal conscription an d mas s armi es

n ec es sa ry - a p re fe re nc e f or small professional forces being o ne t hi ng which

Hart wh o unlike Douhe t a nd Fuller was no t a Fascist bu t a liberal, shared

them.

Followed, as they w er e, by th e outstanding success of th e early Blitzkrieg

fensives, these predictions all bu t discredited Liddell Hart. By th e middle of th e

ond World Wa r he was regarded almost as passe; th e means kosher and not

kosher, by which he revived his reputation after 1945 an d presented himself as

p ers on w ho ha d taught the Germans all they knew need no t concern us here.

ffice it to say that all three thinkers discussed in this chapter so fa r started from

e i de a that t he F ir st World Wa r ha d provided an example of ho w ot to do

ings. All three were shocked by th e number of casualties which had been

about by th e power of th e defence. To all three, that p ow er w as not th e

result of modern technology including logistics, a subject to which none

TH E I NT E RW A R P E RI O D



TH RT OF W R

of t he m p ai d much attention) but, on th e contrary, of a failure to make use of its

most recent possibilities, whether in th e air or on th e ground or both. Each in his

ow n way, all three s o ug ht t o discover ways by which comparatively small bu t

modern a rme d forces could overcome that defence so as to make it once again

possible to wage war quickly an d decisively - although, as has just been

explained, Liddell Hart e nd ed u p by retreating from that proposition.

Compared with Douhet, Fuller an d Liddell Hart, Erich Ludendorff was a

towering figure. Much more than th e former tw o he unde rstood what modern

war was like at th e top. Unlike the last-named he di d no t r eg ar d i t as some

kind of field game - as he wrote, having lost tw o sons, t he w ar has spared

me nothing . On th e other hand, and again unlike Liddell Hart in

particular, neither did he shrink from its horrors. Ludendorff s post-war

dabbling with anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism an d anti-Freemasonry

he could never make up his mind which of th e three international

forces posed the greatest danger to Germany) bordered on th e

p a ra n oi d a n d h as b een rightly condemned. However, this should no t

be allowed t o o bs cu re t he fact that his vision of future armed conflict

w as aweso me and, what is more important, more nearly correct than

an y of th e rest.

H a vi ng s pe nt over tw o years i n c ha rg e of the w ar effort of th e

most powerful belligerent in h is to ry u nt il t he n, L ud en do rf f d id no t

believe that a first-class modern state could be brought to its knees

rapidly and cheaplyby

aircraftdropping

bombson its civilian

population. Nor could this be achieved by fleets of tanks engaging

in mobile operations, however indirect an d however brilliant. In

part, Ludendorff merely c on ti nu ed t he w or k of some pre-1914

militarist writers, such as Colmar von d er G ol tz an d Friedrich von

Bernhardi, wh o ha d advocated total mobilization an d mass armies.

Up to a point, too, er totale rieg the English translation called

The ation at War both recounted his ow n experience, an d also, by

attacking many of his less co-operative colleagues, sought to explain

wh y Germany w i th h im se lf at it s head ha d los t th e war. Whatever thebook s precise origins a n d p ur po se , Ludendorff s ma in thesis was that th e

developing technologies of p ro du ct io n, t ra n sp o rt a ti o n a nd communication

ad e m odern w ar into much more than merely a question of armed forces

manoeuvring against each other for mastery of some battlefield. Instead it was

total - th e title of his book - basing itself on all th e forces of t he n at io n, a nd

requiring that the la tte r be mobilized t o the last person an d th e last screw.

To be sure, t he n ex t war w ou ld m ak e use of all available modern weapons,

including poison gas. Civilians as well as th e armed forces would be

targeted, and th e resulting n um be r o f casualties, the destruction a ndsuffering would be i mm en se . T he re fo re , i t w o ul d be all th e more

important to mobilize not only all material resources but also th e




OPPOSITE: Ludendorff who

like Atlas had the strength

to hold a world on his

shoulders:J General von

Blomberg 1935 , as he

appeared in 1918 a t the peakof his power.

Friedrich von Bernhardi was

a Prussian general who at

one t ime served as head of

the Historical Department

the General Staff. In 9

his book How Germany

Makes War, established him

as the country:Js leading

militarist.

eople s spIrIt, a point on which, th e wa y L ud en do rf f a nd many of hi s

saw it, Imperial Germany with it s old-fashioned, authoritarian

of government an d its neglect of t he w or ki ng classes had b ee n s ad ly

Th e implication of such mobilization was an e nd t o democracy an d th e

b er ti es i t ent ai led, i nclu di ng no t only freedom of th e press bu t capitalistas well. Fo r either industrialists or union leaders during th e war

had. ha d his troubles with both) to insist on t he ir o wn privilege was

tolerable ; they, as well a s th e entire financial apparatus available to t he s ta te ,

to be subjected to a military dictatorship. N or was Ludendorff under an y

that th e nation s spiritual an d material mobilization could be quickly

H en ce t he d ic ta to rs hi p w hic h h e demanded, an d for which he no

regard ed h imself as th e most suitable candidate, wa s to be set up in

a nd made pe rma ne nt.

Th e next wa r would no t be a gentlemanly fight for limited stakes to be wo nt he si de with the swiftest an d sharpest sword. I ns te ad i t w ou ld be a life and

struggle won by th e belligerent with t he g rea te st resources and th e

ongest will-power - which incidentally disposed of an y childish illusions

small, professional an d highly mo bi le, l et alone chivalrous, armed

Anything no t serving th e war effort would have to be ruthlessly discarded,

d this specifically included playing at politics. Politics would, in effect, be

up by th e war; th e t wo w ou ld b ecom e

nguishable. All th e theories of Clausewitz

be t hr ow n o ve rb oa rd .. . Both wa r an dcy serve th e existence of the nation. However,

r th e highest expression of the people s will to

Therefore politics must be made subordinate

war. Or, to the extent that it was not, it wa s

and, indeed, treasonable.

After 1945 Ludendorff s military thought was

attacked by featherweight commentators. In

to taking a justifie d dislike to his racism

d his early support for Hitle r, the y mistook theirrld - in which nuclear weapons ha d m ad e t o ta l

as he understood it impossible - for his.

these years it was Liddell Hart an d

who, rightly or not, were celebrated as th e

of th e Blitzkrieg whether Liddell Hart

particular ha d as much influence on it s

as he later claimed ha s recently

the subject of an e nt ir e l it er at ur e) .

th e fact remains that i t was no t theirof t he Secon d W orld Wa r bu t Ludendorff s

turned ou t to be o nl y to o horribly true.



TH RT OF W R

fulfilment of o u h t ~ sv i s i o n ~ cities were bombed

to the point th t they were

deserted even by i r s ~ yeteasy victory did not follow.

These photographs show

uremberg after its

devastation in the Second

World War nd below

after the w r following its

reconstruction.



To be sure, fleets of aircraft di d overfly

fronts an d bombed cities on a scale which, ha d

he only been able to envisage it, might have

made even Ludendorff blanch. Other aircraft,

c o- op er at in g m or e closely with th e tanks,

helped carry out-spectacular mobile operations

on t he g ro un d. T h e c om b in at io n of armour,

mobility and wireless restored operational

bility, laying th e groundwork for some spectacular victories in which countries

e size of Poland an d France were knocked dow n a t a single blow. It also di d

to re-establish the balanc e betwe en defence and offence, although events

to show t ha t b ot h tanks an d aircraft the latter, t ha nk s t o th e introduction

radar were as capable o f o pe rat in g on th e defence, an d preventing a

as they were of helping it to take place.

Where Ludendorff proved most correct, however, was in insisting that

e Second World Wa r - a term, of course, which he di d not use - would be

like th e first . As with its predecessor, would develop into a gigantic

an d a prolonged one. It would bo th de mand and make possible th e

of all resources under a regime which, even in democratic countries,

pretty close to doing away with politics while putting everybody an d

under its o wn c on tr ol in 1945 th e British M in is tr y o f F oo d a lo ne

d no fewer than 30,000 employees . Ludendorff s p os th um ou s t ri um ph

y indeed, be seen in th e fact that, by t he t ime t he w ar was over, a continent had

devastated an d between forty and sixty million pe ople lay dead. As th e

decades were to prove, th e history of conventional military theory

d ru n its course.

T HE INTERWAR PERIOD

The w r led to a vast

exp nsion of bureaucracy:

King George on a visit to

the newly established

inistry of Food 194









for that steel as well as fuel; with the result that the objective of

remained as it had been from the days of Buelow and ]omini to cut

se lines. To be sure the forces were festooned with a great many other

and as fashionable modern parlance has it weapons systems. Missiles

d cruise missiles and remotely piloted vehicles and helicopters computers andand satellites and global positioning systems: all these and more were

When everything was said and done however none proved capable of

king the campaign very different f rom what say the German invasion of

land in 1939 had been.

Between 1945 and 1991 faced with what was usua lly understood as

recedented technological progress many perhaps the majority of writers

sed their efforts on the ways in which new weapons would be integrated into

war and influence its shape. Thus in the 1950s and 1960s it was often a

of coming to terms with the short- and medium-range missiles theninto service intercontinental missiles with their nuclear warheads are a

story and will be dealt with below . Later the 1973 Arab-Israeli war

at the time was the most modern of its kind led to a lively debate

erning the relative merits of a rmour and anti-tank missiles ai r power and

defences attack and defence and quality versus q u n t t ~ Spurred on

FROM 1945 TO THE PRESENT

fter1945 large scale

conventional war could

only be fought between or

against third rate military

powers: Israeli troops on

the Golan Heights October

1973.



TH E ART OF WAR

A det chment of the

legendary Russian First ed

Cavalry on the move 1919

r8 8

by America s failure i n V ietn am w hi ch w as blamed on th e strategy of attrition

adopted by th e U armed forces th e 1980s saw a revival of conventional warfare

theory centring around such ideas as manoeuvre warfare an d air-land battle .

As these terms imply both focused on strategy an d th e operational art while all

bu t ignoring grand s t r t g ~ Manoeuvre warfare took th e German campaigns of

th e Second World Wa r as its model so much so that for s ome t en years German

and excellent were considered synonymous an d ex Wehrmacht generals were

treated to free lunches at t he P en tag on . Air-land b at tl e c ou ld barely be

distinguished from say what Pa tton an d his supporting Vllth Tactical Air Force

ha d d on e t o th e Wehrmacht at Falaise in 1944.

Throughout this period very great attention was naturally devoted to Soviet

military theory an d doctrine. As both they an d their opponents in th e C ol d W ar

never tired of pointing out from Karl Marx th e Soviets had inherited th e idea

that war was not just a military struggle. Instead it was a socio-economic

phenomenon to be considered i n its entirety though just what this meant when

it ca me t o w or kin g out th e d etai ls w as not always clear. During th e 1920s an d

1930s Soviet authors such as Tukhachevsky seem to have drawn on their ow n

experience in the Civil Wa r an d Soviet Polish war both of which ha d witnessed

plenty of operational movement carried out by cavalry corps. With Fuller acting

as the stimulant mobility wa s married to mec haniza tion. Th e outcome was

something known as t he battle in de pth : mea ning a highly offensive campaign



FROM 1945 TO TH E PRESENT

would be launched not merely along th e front bu t against t he e ne my s

depots an d command centres as well. Moreover as Marxists

Soviets professed to have as much faith in t he people as Fuller a nd D o uh e t

been sceptical of them. If only for that reason unlike their Western

they never surrendered t o t he siren-song of small elite armed forces.

Shortly after the battle of Moscow in 1941-2 i.e. at a time in which the Soviet

ha d just gathered itself u p f ro m its initial defeats an d begun to wage total

r like no other country in history Stalin promulgated th e five permanently

factors . Not surprisingly they bore a strong family resemblance to th e

painted by Ludendorff six years previously - even to th e point where on e

claimed that th e German general s doctrine wa s also capable of

summed up in five points. The most important factor w as t he p ol it ic al

of th e homeland a phrase which coming from under that particular

tache might well make one shudder. This was followed by the morale of th e

forces t he q ua li ty a n d q ua nt it y of their divisions armament and th e

for organizing the resources at their disposal. F rom then

l the en d of t he C ol d War it was claimed that th e best way to annihilate the

y wa s by means of massive armoured offensives - much like say th e ones

the Red Army had mounted against the Germans in 1943-5 only deeper

e powerful an d better.

Over th e decades these debates provided a living for thousands if not tens of

The battle of oscow

formed the turning point of

the Second World arSoon

after it was over Stalin

promulgated his doctrine of

thefive permanently

operating principles .



TH RT OF W R

ot everybody agreed that

better dead thanr e ~ the

philosopher ertrand

Russell addressing an anti-

nuclear rally in ondonJ

196

thousands of analysts in an d out of uniform. More important on both sides of

the Iron Curtain they fed vast military-industrial complexes w hi ch gave

employment to millions and were not without influence b ot h on th e economies

and o n th e political systems of th e countries w hi ch t he y we re suppose d to serve.

Overshadowing them all however was the question of nuclear weapons. Th e first

atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was some fifteen hundred times as powerful

as th e largest weapon in existence u nt il t hen. W it h th e advent of hydrogen bombs

th e g ap w id en ed still further; bu t even when much smaller t acti cal n uclear

weapons appeared on th e scene th e discrepancy

between t he t wo k in ds of arms remained immense.

In an y a t te m pt t o u nd er st an d th e n at ur e o f future

w ar a nd th e way in w hi ch i t should be conducted

the a ltogether unpre ce dented challenges posed by

nuclear weapons have to be addressed first. Failureto do so wa s like discussing th e activities of

toddlers throwing pebbles at each other while th e

adults machine-guns at th e ready stood by an d

watched.

In th e event th e true significance of nuclear

weapons wa s not u nd e rs to od a t first. In part this

wa s b ec au se t he re were not to o many of them

around; nor wa s it certain that th e relatively few

an d slow bombers capable of c arrying them wouldnecessarily reach their targets. Hence it wa s

excusable that many - although not all - senior

politicians an d military me n in th e West believed

that t he n ex t wa r would be much like th e l as t o ne

give or take a number of cities t urne d into

radioactive wastes. In 1947 Stalin s previously

mentioned picture of total war wa s reissued

specifically with this mes sage i n mind. In th e face

of the America n nuclear monopoly of th e time ithad to be shown that adventurist ideas could not

succeed since other factors were even more

. decisive.

Previou ly in history whenever s om e n ew an d

powerful w ea po n a pp ea re d on th e scene it had

only b een a question of time before it became fully

incorporated into military d oc tr in e a nd as had

happened in th e case of th e tank and th e aircraft

carrier was t urn ed into th e m ai nsta y of that

d oc tr in e. F ro m t he l at e 1940s strenuous attempts

were made to treat nuclear arms in the same



er i .e. d ev is e way s for using them in war. First it was th e Air Force

with its ow n interests as th e sole organization capable of delivering th e

to ta rge t very much in mind demanded that nuclear bombardment be

the mains tay of American an d Western defence coming up with such aptly

ed operations as Bushwhacker Dropshot an d Br oi le r . L at er t he i de a ofRetaliation was adopted by the incoming Eisenhower administration.

retary of State John Foster Dulles d ec la re d i n a famous speech th e

n ot p er mi t th e other side to d ic ta te t he site an d mode of the next war.




TH RT OF W R

Instead, any attempt by th e Communists to e ngage in a ggre ssion a nywhere in the

world mi t be instantly me t with means, an d at a pla ce , of America s choosing.

By th e t im e i t was m ad e, t he credibility of this threat w as already in some

doubt. In September 1949 th e Soviet Union ha d exploded its first atomic bomb

and by th e e ar ly 1 95 0s i ts arsenal, though still smaller than that of th e US, was

growing. Given that th e wa s th e first to develop opera tiona l H-bombs,

possessed far more delivery vehicles and had ploy these delivery vehicles

across a worldwide c ha in of bases, it cou ld p ro ba bl y have won a nuclear

exchange; still this di d no t address the question as t o w ha t would happen if, in t he

face of an all-out offensive launched by th e air force an d navy which was a lso

acquiring nuclear-capable aircraft , a few Soviet b om b s s om eh ow survived in

t he ir h id eo ut s a nd , l oa de d aboard equally few b om be rs , f ou nd their way to

North American targets such as Ne w York an d Washington DC. Then, as now,

th e Dr Strangeloves of thisworld tried

to exorcize th e bugaboo of radiation andreassure th e public that recovery from a nuclear war was possible. An d then, as

now, th e question proved unanswerable.

In the late 1950s th e situation changed again. Soviet n uclear p ow er was

. growing, an d s o were t he r an ge and effectiveness of its delivery vehicles in th e

form of th e first intercontinental ballistic missiles. The de ba te surrounding

massive retaliation was replaced, or supplemented, by the question as to ho w the

itself could be protected against nuclear attack, leading to emergence of

terms s uch as c it y busting an d counter force , first strike an d second strike . A

broad consensus wa s formed that precisely because cities could no t be protectedagainst a nuclear offe nsive it was vital to have forc es in pla ce which could survive

such an attack an d still retaliate with sufficient force to w ip e t he other side off the

map. The outcome wa s th e famous Triad, a vast array of air-borne, sea-borne

and land-based nuclear-strike forces linked together by an electronic command

system and supposedly capable of riding out anything that th e Soviet Union

c ould throw at them. Perhaps because th e 1962 Missile Crisis ha d given people a

fright, over time th e T ri ad s r ol e i n f ig ht in g a wa r tended to be de-emphasized an d

it s deterrent function was given greater prominence. Projected on to th e other

side, which in spite of its occasional p ro te st s t o th e contrary wa s supposed toshare the same objective, this doctrine became known as Mutually Assured

Destruction or MAD.

A point to be made about these a nd o th er Western theories of nuclear power

an d its use in war is that, unlike th e vast majority of their predecessors, they were

produced neither by serving commanders nor by retired ones. To be sure, it was

th e generals who were left in charge of th e armed forces themselves; building

them, organizing an d training them for act io n. From t ime to t ime o ne u ni fo rmed

figure or another would also put his voice into the debate by penning a n article

or, more rarely, a book. Still, it was no t they bu t civilian analysts - working eitherin th e universities or, increasingly, in so-called think-tanks especially created for

the purpose - w ho p ro du ce d t he m os t important strategic volumes of the Cold




r era: s uc h as, to name but a few, Albert Wholstetter s Selection and Use

ir Bases 1954, with S Hoffman R. J Lutz and H. S Rowen),

Kaufman s Military Policy and National Security 1956), Henry

Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy 1957), Robert Osgood s LimitedHerman Kahn s On Thermonuclear War 1960) and Thomas Schelling s

ms and Influence 1966). Though ostensibly dealing with strategy all these

ks were concerned at lea st as much with deterring war as with devising better

to fi ght it. As th e title suggests, th e l as t i n particular all bu t renounced the

o f a rm ed force as suicidal; instead it explained ho w a state might avail itself

a nuc le ar arsenal to exercise diplomatic pressure on its opponent while itself

similar pressure. It was as if war itself had been cut down to size. To

se a phrase coined by an earlier head of state in th e face of weapons literally

of destroying th e earth war had become t oo d an ge ro us t o leave to th e

From time to tim e, the question was raise d as to whether the balance of terror

uring the 195 s; the public

was offered d o i t y o u r s e l f ~nuclear shelters; like this one



TH RT OF W R

might no t be upset and a capability for at least limited war-fighting restored by

devising some kind of defensive umbrella. As e ar ly as October 1945 a Canadian

general went on record as saying that the means for countering the atomic bomb

were clearly in sight - a premature statement no doubt but one which has since

then been repeated countless t ime s. I n the late 1950s communities and people

were encouraged to provide themselves with anti-nuclear shelters and

advertisements for such shelters looking just like the typical American living

room magically transported underground were circulated. The late 1960s

SOVIET AND AMERICAN BLOCS 1957-67

Between 1945 and 1991 the two superpowers confronted each other deploying an

aweso ne array of nuclear weapons capable of being launched from the

land the air and the sea As the range of the delivery vehicles grew

ultimately no place in either the U or the USSR remained safe

from them

strategic US fleets

air counter-offensive plan

US heavy bomber bases

route of air attack

beyond range ofUS bombers

beyond range of US heavybombers

•

principal Soviet militaryairfield

Soviet and American

blocs 1957-1967

US nuclear and othermajor bases

US ICBM bases15 500 mile rangel

1957

1967

ounterforce VMAD IMutuallyAssumed estructionl

• US and allies

USSR and allies

1 Soviet missile sites





TH RT OF W R

the face o f we pons

literally capable o f

destroying the earth war

h d become too dangerous

to leave to the generals : an

underwater tomictest

957

A nuclear delivery vehicle

th t gained prominence

during the 1970s was the

cruise missile. So f r

though they have only been

used to carry conventional

warheads.



FROM 9 5 TO THE PRESENT

So f r all attempts to render

nuclear weapons impotent

and obsolete President

Reagan;, referring to the

Strategic efenseInitiative

have failed. Instead;, the

balance terror led to

arms reduction agreements;,

such as t he one here being

signed by Reagan and

Gorbachev in 1987.



TH RT OF W R

In 1961, eneral okolovsky

provided the most

comprehensive statement

ever of Soviet nuclear

doctrine

out that anything even resembling reliable protection

was ou t o f reach. Not perhaps because it could no t be

done from a technical p oi nt o f view, bu t because set in

the c onte xt of nuclear weapons which are quite capable

of annihilating entire societies in a second protection

an d reliable c onstitute d a n oxymoron.

Running in parallel with th e a tt em pt s t o design a

defence was th e progressive i nt ro du ct io n o f smaller

tactical nuclear weapons. Capable of being carried by

a variety of delivery vehicles - from fighter-bombers

down t o a to mi c b az oo ka s - they raised t he q ue st io n

whether they might not be used against at least some

targets without running th e risk of blowing up the

world; whether in other words nuclear warfare once it

ha d broken out could no t be contained within a single

theatre. Towards t he l at e 1960s t he s am e q ue st io n wa s

raised < with even greater urgency by th e near

simulta neous a ppea ranc e of tw o ne w technologies

MIRV an d cruise missiles. Besides putting a n

end to any hope that incoming missiles

mi gh t b e i nt ercep ted - given that each

missile wa s no w made to carry as

many as ten wa rhe ads - both MIRVand cruise missiles w er e c ap ab le of

delivering those warheads with

unprecedented accuracy, straight

through M r Brezhnev s window .

Both therefore gave rise to hopes if

that is t he w or d that a nuclear wa r

might be fought without necessarily lea ding to escalation. On

p ap er a t an y rate the outcome was a shift away from deterrence

towards p os si bl e u se of nuclear weapons in war; from the early1970s to th e mid-1980s there wa s much talk of flexible response

selected options escalation dominance decapitation and even

something known as nuclear shots across th e bow .

Since th e Korean wa r t he r at io na le b eh in d th e various American

a tt em pt s t o find ways for using nuc le ar we apons in war was th e

considerable ga p in conventional forces believed to exist between

th e US an d th e USSR. From at least t he t im e of the publication of

V D Sokolovsky s oviet ilitary Strategy 1961), th e standard

Soviet response was that the Americans were deluding themselves.An y war between th e superpowers would be full-scale f rom t he

beginning; it would involve th e use of all available nuclear





TH RT OF W R

Before 1914 Lawrence of

Arabia had been a student

of archaeology at xford

During the war he became aguerrilla leader. His book

about the experience The

Seven Pillars of Wisdom,

became a best seller. Here he

shown on a camel with a

companion

As additional countries joined the nuclear club - by 1998 there were at least

eight, p lu s a ny number which were capable of building th e b om b h ad they felt

th e need to do so - th e logic of deterrence began to work for them too.

C o nt ra ry t o th e fears expressed by many Western strategists, this turned out

to be true regardless of whether they were democratic West Europeans,

or Communist Chinese or Indians claiming to have inherited

Mahatma Gandhi s doctrine of ahimsa non-violence , or

Pakistanis seeking an Islamic bomb or Jews allegedly possessed

by a Holocaust complex ; regardless also whether th e nuclear

arsenals in question were small or large,

primitive or sophisticated balanced by those

of th e enemy or not. For a country to wage

large-scale war against a nuclear enemy

without the aid of n uc le ar w ea po ns was

madness; to do so with nuclear weapons, greater

madness still. Fr om t he la te 1960s, any country

in possession of the industrial an d technological

resources nec essar y for waging large-scale

conventional wa r wa s also able to build nuclear

weapons. Hence an d no t surprisingly, there was a growing tendency for

such w ar t o be fought solely y or against third- an d fourth-rate military powers

- the latest case in point being, as of t he t im e of writing Ethiopia an d Eritrea.

This is no t to say that nuclear weapons were capable of deterring all sorts of

war. In particular the post-1945 er a has witnessed a great many wars which

were fought no t by states against each other but inside them at th e h an d o f non

state actors variously known as militias guerrillas or terrorists. Waged no t by

regular forces invading across some b or de r b ut at extremely close quarters by

people who could barely be di stin gu ish ed f ro m th e surrounding civilian

populations these wars were impervious to n uc le ar t hr ea ts . Moreover, as

experience in Vietnam Afghanistan an d countless other places was to show, they

could be waged even in th e teeth of th e most powerful conventional forces in

h i s t o r ~ Considering that entire continents an d hundreds of millions if no t

billions of people came to live under different political regimes as a direct result

of such wars there could be no doubt about their effectiveness; no wonder that

they multiplied p r o m s u o u s l ~Guerrilla warfare of course is nothing new. Throughout history, people too

weak to meet their opponents in open battle have resorted to attacking them by

stealth sometimes winning th e struggle but more often losing it as ruthless

countermeasures including turning entire districts into deserts were taken.

Nevertheless, th e first attempts to formulate a guerrilla theory had to wait until

th e second half of the eighteenth n t u r ~ An d even t he n t he term referred no t to

a people s war as we understand it bu t to w hat was also known as Kleinkrieg or

petite guerre meaning the operations of small groups of troops wh o engaged on



e sidelines, so to speak, an d were beneath the notice of th at novel, mysterious

d august doctrine, s t r t g ~A coherent theory of guerrilla warfare was, perhaps, put together for th e first

by Lawrence of Arabia in he even illars o f isdom 1926). A typical

e nt ri c - w he n u se d to describe th e products of Britain s public school system

e t wo t er ms are no t as contradictory as might be thought at fi rs t s ig ht - b efo re

14 he ha d studied archaeology at Oxford. During th e war he found himself

for British Intelligence in Cairo an d it wa s in this capacity that he wa s

sent to what is t od ay Sa ud i A ra bi a in order t o foment a revolt against

rul e. I n his book he sought to recapitulate his experiences as one of th e

of that revolt in 1916-18, though whether his contribution to i t w as re al ly

great as he an d his adoring followers tried to make out has subsequently been

To Lawrence, then, the guerrillas ought t o o pe ra te l ik e a cloud of gas . Most

t he t im e t he y should be inactive an d invisible, hiding in places to o remote and

to be r ea ch ed by their larger an d more cumbersome opponents and

on dispersion an d mobility in order to escape such punitive expeditions as

be s en t a ga in st t he m. Such expeditions, however, might a ls o p ro vi de

for action, given that regular forces would inevitably rely on lines

communication which could be subjected t o a tt ac k. I n g en er al , g ue rr il la s

ght to avoid head-on clashes with th e enemy s main Instead they were to

against hi s f la nk s, h is foraging parties, th e garrisons w hi ch h e put into

places an d th e like, all th e w hi le r el yi ng on speed an d surprise to

nc en tra te the ir o wn forces, do their worst and d is ap pe ar a ga in before

could be brought up an d retaliatory action taken. Logistically

t he y w er e to be sustained partly from th e countryside a nd p ar tl y by

ing arms an d equipment away f ro m t he enemy, thus making it unnecessary to

permanent, an d vulnerable, bases. So far, the theory; however, i t s ho ul d by

means be overlooked that throughout th e revolt Lawrence an d his ally, Shariff

of Mecca, received both money and w ea po ns f ro m British Military

in Egypt.

As will be evident f ro m t he above account, Lawrence was concerned above all

the tactical an d operational- assuming the latter term is applicable at all

of guerrilla warfare. In this respect, subsequent authors have added little

his w or k; a ft er all, t he re a re only so many ways of saying that when the enemy

vances, we retreat . What the other important writer on guerrilla warfare, M ao

di d ad d was, first, an analysis of the relationship between the guerrillas

d the people at large and, second, his famous three-stage theory of th e way in

the campaign o ug ht t o proceed. Dependent as th e guerrillas were on th e

ople for shelter an d supply, th e indispensable condition fo r obtaining success

of g ai ni ng t he support of that people. This might be done by

by deliberately provoking th e enemy into reprisals or by main force

ower grows f rom the ba rre l of a gun ; in th e case of main force, good care




TH RT OF W R

he fghan guerrillas here

shown may not have

belonged to any regular

army but they did defeat the

strongest military power

ever to bestride the planet

Ultimately the defeat in

fghanistan even

contributed to the

disintegration o f the USSR






TH E ART OF WAR

OPPOSITE: A Chinese

propaganda poster 1949. To

o J guerrilla warfare was

primarily a question of

drawing the masses to one s

side.

should be taken not to allow th e guerrillas to become simply a group of

marauders. Whatever the me thod or methods used, th e essential p o in t t o grasp is

that th e struggle is primarily political by nature.

Drawing on his ow n experiences as leader of China s civil war, Mao followed

by his Vie tnam esestudent

Giap, believedthat th e

first phaseo ug ht t o

consistof

isolated hit-and-run attacks against enemy forces, with t he a im of weakening an d

de moralizing them. The second phase would witness t he c on so li da ti on o f

guerrilla p ow er i n some remote outlying an d difficult area to access; from there

they would continue their work of propaganda harassment and sabotage. Once

t he e ne my ha d been sufficiently weakened an d started to retreat th e guerrillas,

embarking on t he t hi rd p ha se of t he ir c am pa ig n w ou ld r es or t t o o pe n warfare.

The real trick was to select carefully th e moment for this phase to b eg in . If

launched to o e arly it might lead to disaster as a st il l p ow er fu l e ne my hi t bac k; if

delayed fo r to o long th e seeming endlessness of th e struggle might c au se t heguerrillas themselves to become demoralized.

To Lawrence then guerrilla warfare was mainly another form of military

action. To Mao by contrast it was above all a question of drawing t he masses

to one s ow n side and mobilizing them. Given that there a re c le ar lim its to bo th

indoctrination an d forc e, this in turn meant th e implementation of economic an d

social reforms amounting to revolution or, to call it by another frequently used

name people s war. Wa r an d politics thus became inseparable; though in practice

Communist-led guerrilla movements in particular always took very good c are to

ensure that th e will of th e Party, an d not that of t he m il it ar y cadres, shouldprevail. Meanwhile th e fact that social, economic an d military means were no t so

much used as a tool of politic s a s fused with it made i t very h ar d to fit guerrilla

warfare and its smaller offshoot te rrorism into the a cc epte d Clausewitzian

framework - as Mao to judge by his remark referred to on page 123) may have

realized. Nor di d guerrilla warfare o ffer n earl y as much scope for powerful

concentrations of troops an d decisive b at tl es ag ai ns t t he enemy s main forces as

th e Prussian writer would have liked to have see n. As a result, since 1945 general

works which tried to ge t to grips with th e nature of war have very often devoted a

separate chapter to guerrilla warfare as if it stood in no relation to anything else.Ludendorff excepted since th e 1830s the most important theoretical

framework by fa r ha d been t he o ne presented by Clausewitz. Moltke Schlieffen,

vo n Bernhardi von d er G ol tz and Foch, Fuller an d Liddell Hart in so fa r as he

accepted that th e purpose of war wa s to serve th e political objectives of the state),

and th e Marxists and many of th e advocates of limited nuclear war: all t hese

c ou ld t ra ce t he ir i nt el le ct ua l origins to t he g re at P ru ss ia n a nd in many cases,

were all t he m or e p re pa re d to acknowledge their debt th e less the y rea d hi m an d

understood his views. However, by 1990 at th e latest th e Clausewitzian

framework wa s beginning to show serious cracks. As has just bee n said, it provedincapable of incorporating warfare y or against non-state actors an d indeed

Clausewitz himself, in th e five pages which he devotes to th e subject, had treated



FROM 9 5 TO THE PRESENT



TH RT OF W R



BAC VIETNAM

battle of pBac

1963 set the

tern for the Vietnam

arA South Vietnamese

rmyformation hit upon

Vietcong but instead of

fighting it out acted in the

most incompetent manner

possible and allowed the

enemy to escape The battle

set the stage for the infus ion

of many more us troops into

Vietnam It was typical

of most of its successors in

that the Vietcong guerrillas

always proved much more

nimble than their heavily

armed opponents


7th South Vietnamese infantry

division approaching from the north are unable to co operate with

dispersed and pinned down airborne

troops

Original Vietcong positions

1st Battalion of civil guard arrives

Concealed Vietcong open fire

Civil guard falls back in disorder

their commanding officer among the

killed

U advisor flying overhead in

spotter plane orders helicopter-

borne infantry reinforcements

These reinforcements land too closeto the Vietcong positions Many are

wounded and survivors withdraw

Sky raider fighter bombers launch

napalm attack bu t hit villages and

miss Vietcong positions

In an a tt empt to rescue the downed

helicopter crews armoured

personnel carriers are ordered

forward. Thought invulnerable to

small arms fire the carriers

approach the eastern tree line At

point blank range the Vietcong open

fire killing machine gunners riding

on the vehicles The Vietcong then

rush forward throwing grenades and

the carriers withdraw

Th e senior American advisor still

flying overhead persuades the South

Vietnamese commander to order a

parachute drop to seal in the

Vietcong The drop is badly handled

and the troops land in front of the

Vietcong positions an d come under

heavy fire They are therefore

unable to launch an attack

During the night the Vietcong

withdraw having tied down a force

many times their size and vastlybetter equipped. In the process only

eighteen of their ow n men were

killed



T H E AR T OF WA R

During the Vietnam War

the U employed all the

most modern we pons

available t the time The

million tonso f om s

dropped proved no more

effective in halting the

Vietcong th n the om ing

o f Kosovo could prevent

ethnic cleansing there thirty

years later

guerrilla wa rfa re solely as an extension of th e

struggle be twe en states. At the same time the

q uestion co uld not be avoided whether his

insistence on th e in her en t t en den cy of war to

escalate m ad e h im i nt o a fit gu ide to nuclear-armed

military establishments on e of whose objectives, if

not th e most important one ha d always been

deterrence rather than war-fighting. So long as th e

Cold Wa r lasted a nd w it h it at least th e possibility

of large-scale conventional hostilities between th e

superpowers these doubts w er e su pp re ss ed .

Interpreted as th e prophet of limited war, al l to o

often Clausewitz wa s presented almost as if he

were a tweed-clad slipper-wearing pipe-smoking

Western analyst. It was no accident that none

was more enthusiastic about hi m than precisely th e

so-called military reformers who throughout

th e 1980s, sought to bring about a revival of

manoeuvre war theory:

As th e millennium comes to an end two

opposing visions of future war seem to be receiving

widespread support. One of these still sticks to th e

framework first created by Clausewitz. Along withth e master it starts from the a ssumption that war

will continue to be used mainly as an instrument of

policy at th e hand of o ne s ta te against another.

Since reliable defences against nuclear weapons are

still not on th e horizon tacitly or explicitly this

school finds itself compelled to pretend that they

do not exist. Thus at on e 1997 conference which

dealt with th e so-called RMA revolution in military affairs , a videotape of an

imaginary future news broadcast wa s shown. Cast a ga in st t he b ac kg ro un d o fT ow er Bri dg e London th e a nn ou nc er p re te nd ed t o be sp eak in g in the year

AD 2020; he started by saying that nuclear weapons ha d just been abolished.

Th e danger of nuclear annihilation having been swept away by th e stroke of

t he p en A me ri ca n a na ly st s i n p a rt ic u la r t al k happily about physical warfare

being supplemented by or even abolished in favour of, information warfare . Just

as th e introduction of aircraft during th e early years of the twentie th c entury

added a third dimension to warfare it is argued so future hostilities will extend

into a fourth dimension known as cyberspace . The electronic circuitry needed

fo r waging i nf or ma ti on w ar will be taken straight off the shelves of anyelectronics store a proposition which, incidentally, ignores th e fact that a single

nuclear weapon by virtue of generating an electro-magnetic pulse EMP is quite




of wiping out the communications and data-processing systems of an

countr : The actual conduct of the war will be entrusted to uniformed

ckers. Sitting behind screens and hit ting buttons instead of targeting the

emy s men and weapons in the field , they will s eek to spoof or jam or saturate

enemy s sensors disrupt his communications and infiltrate hi s computers

rendering him blind, deaf and mute.

The o ther school to which the present author belongs argues that the

of nuclear weapons has all but brought large-scale interstate warfare

an end. If nuc lea r weapons a re not used then large-scale conventional

warfare appears to be finished; i f they r used, then i t will already be

ished.) Therefore, although isolated attempts to break into the C 3 or C-cube:

systems of military establishments around

world cannot be excluded and in fact have already been made large-scale



TH RT OF W R

The Grand ot l in

righton southern England

after a terrorist bombing

2





THE RT OF W R

SM RT OM ING

By the t ime the Kosovo air

campaign was launched in

1999 only a single country

still possessed bombers.

Their place had been taken

War by television

n v l forces

se l unch missiles irstrikes from ses in t ly

m jor t rgets

by smaller more agile

fighter bombers such as the

F 16 here shown which

were armed with precision

guided weapons.

W R BY TELEVISION

A ma p of Serbia showing

the main characteristics of

the N TO air campaign in

the spring of 999

88

8

o



Hence the fact that nuclear weapons are

pushing large-scale inter-state

under th e carpet so to speak

ould in no way be mistaken for th e en d of

r as such; as Fuller wrote in a footnote to

e p refa ce of rmaments and History

o ne does no t eradicate the causes of

r by obliterating cities . As Afghanistan

d Algeria, Bosnia an d Rwanda an d

other places prove, Warre in its

Hobbesian sense is no t only alive

d well bu t as deadly as ever. Nor should

e succumb to th e fashionable assumption

which itself is n ot w it ho ut its historical

from Edward Gibbon to

Angel - that s uch st ruggles are

confined to less civilized read

veloping ) countries: Britain for example

st more people to th e IRA than during th e

campaign the Falklands War an d th e

u lf War pu t together. Breaking out no w

no w there, l im it ed in geographical

b ut of te n extremely bloody, future

r wi ll be waged overwhelmingly y an d

organizations that are no t states.

d since they do no t ow n sovereign

an d consequently cannot be

eatened with nuclear annihilation they

ll be able to fight each other, an d th e state t o t he ir h ea rt s content.

At th e ti me of writing which of t he t wo visions will prove correct remains to

seen. E ac h one bu t particularly the first, which enjoys the institutionalized

of th e armed forces of th e sole superpower left o n e ar th h as a lr ea dym ad e i nt o th e subject of a vast body of literature. H ow ev er l ar ge th e

rature, it is perhaps true to say that with th e exception of th e present author s

of War 1991), so fa r neither school has attempted t o p re se nt a

theory that w il l go b ac k t o first principles while at th e same time

fering a practical guide to the future. An d yet, as th e countless failures of th e

rld s state-owned, regular armed forces to put down guerrillas an d insurgents

ow, such a theory is urgently needed. T he en d of history is no t in sight, an d

ed Francis Fukuyama the a ut ho r o f that thesis) would be th e first to agree

eternal peace might no t satisfy those specimens of th e human race wh o arefected by what h e ca ll s megalotimia a hankering for great t hi ng s. As Plato

ote long ago, th e only people who will no longer see war are th e dead.

FR OM 1945 TO T H E P RE SE N T

f\s Plato wrote long ago the

only people who will no

longer see war are the dead :

Latin translation of the

dialogues dedicated to

Lorenzo de Medici Italy

148



BIOGRAPHIE S

S O M E L E ADING MILITARY T H I N K E R S

AENEAS T H E TACTICIAN fourth century BC )

Wrote an extremely comprehensive, if somewhat

pedestrian, guide t o t he c on du ct of wa r at th e technical

an d tactical levels.

ASCLEPIODOTUS first century BC )

Wrote an essay on tactics that may have originated as a

philosophical exercise. It contains an extremely pedantic

discussion of the structure of t he G re ek p h al an x .

B E R E N H O R S T , G E OR G H E IN R IC H 1733-1814)

Prussian author who reacted against the Enlightenment

view of wa r as a rational activity, emphasizing the

importance of moral factors.

B O N E T , H O N O R E c 14

The representative par excellence of th e chivalric tradition

whose Tree Battles tries to lay down a comprehensive

system as t o w ha t is, an d is not, permissible in war.

BUELOW, A D A M H E I N RI CH V O N 1752-1807)

German w rit er w ho was th e first to describe strategy in

terms of bases an d lines of communication. Though he

w en t t o o fa r i n his use of geometry, he was on e of th e

most original military thinkers ever.

CLAUSEWITZ, C AR L V ON 1780-1831)

Prussian General who combined Buelow s thoughts on

strategy with Berenhorst s emphasis on wa r as a

question of chracter above all. Th e result, On War is

p ro ba bl y t he mo st famou s ever on th e subject.

CORBETT, JULIAN 1854-1922)

English writer on naval affairs. Hi s Some Principles of

Naval Strategy emphasized the political uses of sea

power an d served as a useful corrective to Mahan s

famous Influence

D O U H E T , G I UL I O 1869-1930)

Italian general an d writer on ai r s t r t g ~ Hi s 1921 book

o n t ha t subject, The Command the ir is certainly

th e most famous on e ever written. Some would argue

that its vision was fully realized for th e first time during

th e 1991 Gulf War.

DU P I CQ , A R D A N T 1819-70)

French officer w ho s tu di ed t he b eh av io ur of me n in

I

battle. Published as Combat Studies his work became

th e intellectual basis for late nineteenth-century Frenchmilitary doctrine.

E N G EL S , F R IE D R IC H 1820-95)

Marx s good friend an d fellow-worker, Engels

specialized in military history an d t h o r ~ He published

numerous articles which are taken as th e basis of the

Marxist doctrine of war.

FOLARD, J E A N CHARLES 1669-1752)

French soldier a n d w rit er on military affairs. Sought to

show that, in th e age of muskets an d linear tactics, a

phalanx based on th e Macedonian on e was still viable.

FREDERICK II, OF PRUSSIA reigned 1740-86)

King of Prussia a nd o ne of the greatest commanders in

h i s t o r ~ Wrote several works on th e ar t of war, with the

emphasis on th e relationship a mon g t he various arms.

FRONTINUS, SEXTUS JULIUS late first century AD)

Roman administrator an d soldier. Hi s Strategemata a

collection of ruses used by various commanders at

various times an d places, was famous throughout the

Middle Ages.

FULLER, J O H N FREDERICK 1878-1964)

British soldier. In th e First World Wa r he served as chief

of s ta ff t o t he Royal Tank Corps. In th e 1920s an d 1930s

he popularized th e idea that tanks would f or m t he wave

of th e future.

GUIBERT, JACQUES A N T O I N E 1743-90)

French w rit er o n military aff ai rs w ho se w or ks i n s ome

ways foreshadowed the revolution in warfare brought

about by Napoleon.

J O M IN I , A N TO I NE H E N R I 1779-1869)

French soldier of Swiss origin. During th e first h al f o f

the nineteenth century his writings were considered to

be the guide to th e conduct of wa r in general a nd t o

strategy in particular.

L E O , CALLED T H E W I S E , E M P ER O R reigned 890-912)

Supposed au th or o f th e Tacticon a Byzantine militaryhandbook. It is based o n t he Strategikon an d also

contains entire passages lifted straight o ut o f Onasander.



H A R T , BASIL H E N R Y 1895-1970)

pundit. Author of Strategy originally published

probably th e most famous twentieth-century

on conventional warfare. Claimed to be, an d was

rded by some as, th e father of th e German

in the Second World War.

ERICH 1865-1937)

soldier wh o w as i n charg e of his country s army

ing the First World War. After the wa r he founded a

house which, along with assorted anti

mitic tracts, published his The Nation at War in

ich he set forth his vision of future total war.

N I CCO L O 1469-1527)

lian Renaissance writer, in)famous au th o r o f The

Hi s work The rt War was famous i n hi sbut probably does no t deserve to be included

the true classics.

ALFRED 1840-1914)

can naval officer a n d w ri t er on naval affairs. Hi s

book, The Influence of Seapower upon

is the most famous naval treatise ever.

EMPEROR reigned 582-602)

a u th o r o f th e Strategikon a comprehensive

to military affairs. Very good on organization,

training an d equipment, as well as stratagems

every kind.

T K E, H E L M UT V ON 1800-91)

soldier. As chief of th e General Staff, he

terminded the campaigns against Austria 1866) an d

e 1871). Hi s theoretical writings on wa r consist of

memoranda in which he emphasized th e

of railways, telegraphs, firepower, external

an d the need to improvise; in his ow n words,

a system of expedients .

RA I M O N D O 1609-80)

nobleman an d soldier wh o served th e Habsburgs

an d after th e Thirty Years War. Probably th e first

t o t re at wa r as th e continuation of state policy.

first century AD

who like Asclepiodotus seems to have be en a

of philosophy, wrote a treatise on th e qualities

ich a general should have a nd h ow he should exercise

s office. On the whole it is sensible an d well balanced,

t intellectually unexciting an d totally lacking in

BIOGRAPHIES

PI SA N, C H R I S T I N E DE 1364-1430)

French medieval writer who, among other things,

composed a work called th e rt Chivalry

PUYSEGUR, FRAN<;OIS DE C H A S T E N E T 1655-1743)

French soldier; served as quartermaster t o t he a rm yof L ouis X IV W rote a book whose purpose was to

pu t field warfare on t he s ame scientific basis as

siege warfare.

SAXE, M A U R I C E DE 1696-1750)

French commander-in-chief during t he W ar of th e

Austrian Succession. In 1732 he wrote - allegedly

within thirteen feverish nights - a book which soon

became famous an d which in many ways epitomizes

eighteenth-century warfare.

SCHELLING, T H O M A S 1918-)

American professor of political science, Harvard

University. Hi s 1966 work, rmsand Influence is th e

best ever published on nuclear strategy.

S C H LI E FF E N , A L F R E D V O N 1833-1913)

Chief of th e German General Staff from 1893 to 1905.

Hi s writings, all of which were meant to justify th e plan

he conceived for defeating France, emphasized the

importance of outflanking movements.

SOKOLOVSKY, VASILY DANILOVICH 1897-1968)

Soviet field marsh al w ho g ai ne d his spurs in th e Second

World War. I n 1962 h e headed a group of officers wh o

published t he m os t comprehensive statement of Soviet

military doctrine ever.

SU N z first half of fifth century B e

Chinese commander an d au th o r o f The rt War

Based on th e premise that wa r is an evil an d

emphasizing deceit, this is th e best work on wa r ever.

V A UB A N, S E BA S TI E N L E P RE S TR E D E 1633-1707)

French soldier. An expert on fortification an d siegecraft,

he wrote The ttackand Defense Places which,

besides being a model of its kind, a ls o se rve d as a

starting point for Enlightenment military thought in

general.

V E G E T IU S , R E N AT U S FLAVIUS late fourth century AD

Roman officer, au th o r o f an essay called Things ilitary

that emphasizes organization an d tactics. Alhough it

does no t present t he R om an a rm y as it was at an y

particular time, th e book became a classic an d remained

i n use throughout th e Middle Ages an d th e Renaissance.



F U RT H ER R E AD I NG

F U R T H E R R E A D I N G

G E N E R A L

Up to now, t he re h as b ee n n o a tt em pt t o cover th e whole of military theory in asingle volume; moreover, existing accou nt s t en d t o distinguish between Western,

Chinese an d Byzantine military theory as if they existed on different planets.

What are available are several good volumes on Western military theory,

beginning approximately with th e Renaissance an d ending almost at the present

Still, even of those, only on e ha s been written by a single author the rest are

collective works an d that on e only covers th e period from 1790.

Earle, E. M. ed. , Makers of Modern Strategy Princeton, NJ , 1943 .

Howard, M. ed. , The Theory and Practice of War Bloomington, Ind., 1965 .

Paret, ed. , Makers of

ModernStrategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age

Princeton, NJ , 1986 .

Semmel, B., Marxism and the Science o f War New York, 1981 .

Wallach, J. L., Kriegstheorien ihre ntwicklung im 19. und 20 ]ahrhundert

Frankfurt a m M ai n, 1972 .

C H A P T E R I C H IN E S E MILITARY T H O U G H T

In recent years, th e spread of low-intensity warfare an d the consequent problems

that face a Clausewitzian understanding of wa r have caused the Chinese classics

to make a comeback. There are currently at least four different translations of

S un T zu on t he market; o th ers have been translated for th e first time. Th e

growing interest in Chinese military theory has also led to s ome att empt s t o

compare S un T zu with the greatest Western theorist, Karl von Clausewitz.

Grinter, L. E., Cultura l a nd Historical Influences on Conflict in Sinic Asia:

China, J ap an , a nd Vietnam , in J. Blank an d others eds. , Conflict and

Culture in History Washington DC, 1993 , pp. 117-92.

Handel, M., Masters of War: Sun Tzu Clausewitz and ]omini London, 1992 .

Sun Pin, Military Methods Boulder, Colo., 1995 .

The Seven Military Classics of ncient China Boulder, Colo., 1993 .

C H A P T E R 2 F R O M A N T IQ U IT Y T O T H E M I DD LE AGES

As will be evi dent from t he fact that almost all th e sources for this chapter are

primary, very few modern scholars have paid serious attention to ancient,

Byzantine, or medieval military thought. I find it h ar d t o t hi nk why this is the

case; on th e other hand, these are fields in which students who are ou t to make

their name may well be able to do so.

Aeneas, Tacticus London, 1948 .

Asclepiodotus, Tactics London, 1948 .

Bonet, H., The Tree of Battles Liverpool, 1949 .

Contamine, Ph., War in the Middle Ages Oxford, 1984 .

2 6



tinus, Julius Sextus, Strategemata London, 1950 .

Emperor, Strategikon Philadelphia, Pa., 1984 .

The General London, 1948 .

e Byzantine Military Treatises Washington DC, 1985 .

Renatus Flavius, Epitoma Rei Militaris Liverpool, 1993 .

3 FROM 15 TO 763

the time of the Renaissance, and following the introduction of print, the

of essays on military theory that saw the light of day grew by leaps and

nds. As to the secondary literature, it is extremely scattered, being contained

articles and consequently reaching only the specialist; its quantity,

is overwhelming. It is because of the surfeit of material, rather than its

that the items listed below are all p r i m r ~T M., The Military Intellectual an d Battle Albany, 1975 .

vaas ed. , Frederick the Great on the rto f War NewYork, 1966 .

chiavelli, N., The rto f War in c h i v e l l i ~ The Chief Works and Others

. 2 Durham,NC, 1965 .

egur, J. F de Chastenet, L rt de guerre par des principes et des regles

is, 1748 .

Saxe, M., Reveries or Memoirs upon the rto f War Westport, Conn., 1971 .

4. FROM GUIBERT TO CLAUSEWITZ

e West, and for reasons that are still no t entirely clear, the period between

and 1830 saw military thought climb to heights never reached before or

e. An entire new plane of war, known as strategy, was invented; particularly

the philosophical level which was often entirely absent from previous works,

Chinese excepted , much of what was written at that time remains directly

to the present The following is but a small selection of the primary

secondary literature.

w, A. H. D von, The Spirit o f the Modern System o f War London, 1806 .

K von, On War M. Howard and Paret eds. Princeton, NJ, 1976 .

A., Clausewitz and the Enlightenment the Origins o f Modern Military

Oxford, 1988 .

ndel, M. ed. , Clausewitz and Modern Strategy London, 1986 .

ini, A. H. , Summary o f the rto f War NewYork, 1854 .

P Clausewitz and the State Princeton, NJ , 1976 .

5 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

pared with the period before 1830, the long nineteenth century which

d in 1914 produced few first-class works on military t h e o r ~ This was no

most writers considered themselves disciples first of Jomini and then,

1870 or so, of Clausewitz. In one respect, however, nineteenth-century

theory was distinctly modern and entirely different from its

FURTHER READING



BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

2 1 8

predecessors. Aga inst the ba ckground of the Industrial Revolution, it h ad to

concern itself - an d often di d concern itself - no t just with individual

technological devices bu t with technological change This concern in turn

reflected a new understanding of history that was born around 1790 and, except

for those of us wh o are postmodernist , is still th e dominant on e today.

A rd an t d u Picq, C. J. J., Battle Studies: ncient and Modern Battle New York,

1921 .

Bernhardi, Th . von, Germany and the Next War New York, 1914 .

Bloch, H., The Future of War Boston, Mass., 1903 .

Foch, F De conduite de guerre Paris, 1903 .

Goltz, C. von der, The Nation in rms London, 1913 .

Gat, A., The Development of Military Thought: the Nineteenth Century

Oxford, 1992 .

Hughes, D M. ed. , Moltke on the rt of War Novato, Calif., 1993 .

Schlieffen, A. von, Cannae Berlin, 1936 .

C H A P T E R 6. NAVAL W A R F A R E

Th e study of naval warfare ha s rarely attracted any first-class minds; perhaps

this was because, for most of history, i t was seen primarily as a n a dj un ct t o

operations on land. In an y case it was only at t he e nd of the nineteenth century

that i t found its first great theorist in the person of Captain Alfred T Mahan.

Mahan s vision was challenged by Julian Corbett, whose work puts more

emphasis on th e political uses of seapower. Since then, though there exist a huge

n um be r o f specialized studies, nothing comparable has emerged; perhaps the

most significant single contribution was Gorshkov s The Seapower of the State

bu t even that is merely a collection of articles an d owed m or e t o its author s

position as chief of th e Soviet navy t ha n t o an y inherent intellectual qualities.

Corbett, ]., Some Principles of Maritime Strategy New York, 1972 .

Gorshkov, S G., The Seapower of the State Oxford, 1979 .

Mahan, A. T., The Influence o f Seapower upon History Boston, Mass., 1940 .

Schurman, D M Julian S Corbett 1854-1922 London, 1981 .

C H A P T E R 7. T INTERWAR P E R IO D

Perhaps because of the unprecedented pace of technological change, th e

interwar period was exceptionally fertile in terms of th e n um be r a nd quality of

works on military theory that it produced. It was necessary to come to terms

with such unprecedented devices as th e aeroplane, tank, aircraft-carrier,

submarine an d landing-craft; what is more, war as waged unde r mode rn

industrial circumstances ha d to be studied an d mastered.

Bialer, D., The Shadow of the omber London, 1980 .

Douhet,G.,

Command ofthe

ir Ne wYork, 1942 .

Fuller,]. F C The Reformation of War London, 1923 .

Gat, A., Fascist and Liberal Visions of War Oxford, 1989 .



Hart H. The Decisive Wars of History London 1929; expanded as

1954 .

Hart H. The Defence of Britain London 1939 .

Hart H. The Ghost of Napoleon London 1933 .

ndorff, E., The Nation at War London 1937 .

8. FROM 1945 TO THE PRESENT

e 1945 there has been an explosion of writings on military t h o r ~ In part

was because, with major interstate wars becoming fewer and further

en, soldiers had more time to write; in part because the field was invaded

civilians who for the first time turned i t into a university s t u ~ Some fine

was done on conventional war, particularly in the US and the USSR. The

significant studies were those that dealt with nuclear strategy and various

of low-intensity conflict. As of the t ime of writing nuclear strategy is alldead, given that the main issues have been thrashed out decades ago and that

everybody agrees that a nuclear war would be tantamount to suicide.

tensity conflict is spreading and is threatening to render all bu t a handful

vious military thinkers irrelevant.

die, B., The Absolute Weapon New York, 1946 .

S B., Mao Tse Tung on Guerrilla Warfare New York, 1961 .

edman, L., The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy New York, 1981 .

H. On Thermonuclear War Princeton, N] 1960 .

W ed. , Military Policy and National Security Princeton, N] 1956 .

H. A., Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy New York, 1957 .

, W., The Guerrilla Reader New York, 1977 .

T E., Seven Pillars o f Wisdom London 1990 .

E. N., Strategy the Logic of War and Peace Cambridge Mass. 1986 .

H. S., The Evolution of Soviet Operational Art 1927-1991 London

T C., Arms and Influence New Haven Conn. 1966 .

pkin, R., Race to the Swift London 1985 .

G., Maritime Strategy in the Nuclear Age London 1982 .

Creveld, M The Transformation o f War New York, 1991 .

A., III, The Air Campaign Planning for Combat Washington DC

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS













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