No single writer has had more influence on the professional militaries of our age than Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz – nor has any writer been so often quoted while so rarely read.
The grandson of a Lutheran pastor and son of a minor functionary in the Prussian revenue service, Clausewitz enlisted in the Prussian army at the age of 12. Captured by Napoleon’s forces after the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, he later left the Prussian army (largely in opposition to the enforced alliance with Napoleon) and served in the Russian army during Napoleon’s Russian campaign. His personal experiences from the battlefields – as an opponent of Napoleon – helped Clausewitz distill the Corsican’s genius into theory.
What is most significant about his magnum opus, On War, is that this volume of eight books was never finished – yet its influence runs deep in the intermediate service schools and war colleges of most developed nations’ militaries. Only Book I was considered truly complete by Clausewitz before his death in 1831 at the age of 51.
