War Is A Racket

Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

Smedley Butler

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."

Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.

Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.

Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.

Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.

But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?

What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?

Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.

CHAPTER TWO

WHO MAKES THE PROFITS?

The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child. And we haven't paid the debt yet. We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our children's children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.

The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! that is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.

Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket – and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples:

Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people – didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.

Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump – or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!

Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.

There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's look at something else. A little copper, perhaps. That always does well in war times.

Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to $34,000,000 per year.

Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the 1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the war period.

Let's group these five, with three smaller companies. The total yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000.

A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.

Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There are still others. Let's take leather.

For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all. The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.

International Nickel Company – and you can't have a war without nickel – showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.

American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three years before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.

Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.

And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public – even before a Senate investigatory body.

But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.

Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought – and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.

There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there wasn't any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it – so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.

Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle Sam 20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried to sleep in muddy trenches – one hand scratching cooties on their backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got to France!

Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would be without his mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional yards of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.

There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even if there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war had lasted just a little longer, the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France so that more mosquito netting would be in order.

Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So $1,000,000,000 – count them if you live long enough – was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never left the ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion dollars worth ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100, or perhaps 300 per cent.

Undershirts for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam paid 30¢ to 40¢ each for them – a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturer and the uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers – all got theirs.

Why, when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment – knapsacks and the things that go to fill them – crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents. But the manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them – and they will do it all over again the next time.

There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.

One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches. Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was only one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches. That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. Well, after Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit, the wrenches were put on freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort to find a use for them. When the Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches. Then he planned to sell these, too, to your Uncle Sam.

Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.

The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But $635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float! The seams opened up – and they sank. We paid for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.

It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.

The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.

Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying "for some time" methods of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a committee – with the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator – to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn't suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some smaller figure.

Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses – that is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or three. Or to limit the loss of life.

There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per cent in a division shall be killed.

Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.

CHAPTER THREE

WHO PAYS THE BILLS?

Who provides the profits – these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them – in taxation. We paid the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100.00 and sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected $100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The bankers control the security marts. It was easy for them to depress the price of these bonds. Then all of us – the people – got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought them. Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par – and above. Then the bankers collected their profits.

But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.

If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men – men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.

Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.

Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face" ! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we scattered them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.

In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.

There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more are coming in all the time. The tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement – the young boys couldn't stand it.

That's a part of the bill. So much for the dead – they have paid their part of the war profits. So much for the mentally and physically wounded – they are paying now their share of the war profits. But the others paid, too – they paid with heartbreaks when they tore themselves away from their firesides and their families to don the uniform of Uncle Sam – on which a profit had been made. They paid another part in the training camps where they were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs and their places in the lives of their communities. The paid for it in the trenches where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry for days at a time; where they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain – with the moans and shrieks of the dying for a horrible lullaby.

But don't forget – the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill too.

Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the Civil War they were paid bonuses, in many instances, before they went into service. The government, or states, paid as high as $1,200 for an enlistment. In the Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any vessels, the soldiers all got their share – at least, they were supposed to. Then it was found that we could reduce the cost of wars by taking all the prize money and keeping it, but conscripting [drafting] the soldier anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor, Everyone else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't.

Napoleon once said,

"All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger for them."

So by developing the Napoleonic system – the medal business – the government learned it could get soldiers for less money, because the boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American War.

In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army.

So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side...it is His will that the Germans be killed.

And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the allies...to please the same God. That was a part of the general propaganda, built up to make people war conscious and murder conscious.

Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."

Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.

All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed.

But wait!

Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly taken from him to support his dependents, so that they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what amounted to accident insurance – something the employer pays for in an enlightened state – and that cost him $6 a month. He had less than $9 a month left.

Then, the most crowning insolence of all – he was virtually blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days.

We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back – when they came back from the war and couldn't find work – at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds!

Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too. They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly – his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.

When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered too – as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond prices.

And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying.

CHAPTER FOUR

HOW TO SMASH THIS RACKET!

WELL, it's a racket, all right.

A few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation – it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Let the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers –

yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!

Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.

Why shouldn't they?

They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!

Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket – that and nothing else.

Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people – those who do the suffering and still pay the price – make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.

Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn't be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant – all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war – voting on whether the nation should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms – to sleep in a trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.

There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most, it is necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to register in their communities as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to have the power to decide – and not a Congress few of whose members are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear arms. Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.

A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.

At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.

Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.

The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.

The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.

The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't go further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.

To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.

We must take the profit out of war.

We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.

We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.

CHAPTER FIVE

TO HELL WITH WAR!

I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past. I know the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we cannot be pushed into another war.

Looking back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had "kept us out of war" and on the implied promise that he would "keep us out of war." Yet, five months later he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.

In that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether they had changed their minds. The 4,000,000 young men who put on uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked whether they wanted to go forth to suffer and die.

Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?

Money.

An allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before the war declaration and called on the President. The President summoned a group of advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its diplomatic language, this is what he told the President and his group:



"There is no use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the allies is lost. We now owe you (American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers, American speculators, American exporters) five or six billion dollars.

If we lose (and without the help of the United States we must lose) we, England, France and Italy, cannot pay back this money...and Germany won't.

So..."

Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had the press been invited to be present at that conference, or had radio been available to broadcast the proceedings, America never would have entered the World War. But this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were sent off to war they were told it was a "war to make the world safe for democracy" and a "war to end all wars."

Well, eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than it had then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.

And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all wars.

Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified. We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences. And what happens?

The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.

The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been to achieve disarmament to prevent war but rather to get more armament for itself and less for any potential foe.

There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability. That is for all nations to get together and scrap every ship, every gun, every rifle, every tank, every war plane. Even this, if it were possible, would not be enough.

The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships, not by artillery, not with rifles and not with machine guns. It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.

Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to be built, for the shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still will be manufactured and powder and rifles will be made, for the munitions makers must make their huge profits. And the soldiers, of course, must wear uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war profits too.

But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.

If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can out of war – even the munitions makers.

So...I say, TO HELL WITH WAR.

 

I liked "Bonfire of the Vanities" by Tom Wolf / the book was great, and pointed out excellently how the general public can be manipulated. The movie was made actually to confuse and counter the scenario that the book was written on. Hold on I will see if I can get the complete text of the book on limewire so that I can post it for your reading enjoyment on fuglyforums wait right here I'll be right back.

 

Until then feel free to read this :

1.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.


2.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.


3.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.


4.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.


5.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.


6.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

 

The Hell Bound Train

A Texas cowboy lay down on a barroom floor,
Having drunk so much he could drink no more;
So he fell asleep with a troubled brain
To dream that he rode on a hell-bound train.

The engine with murderous blood was damp
And was brilliantly lit with a brimstone lamp;
An imp, for fuel, was shoveling bones,
While the furnace rang with a thousand groans.

The boiler was filled with lager beer
And the devil himself was the engineer;
The passengers were a most motly crew--
Church member, atheist, Gentile, and Jew,

Rich men in broadcloth, beggers in rags,
Handsome young ladies, and withered old hags,
Yellow and black men, red, brown, and white,
All chained together--O God, what a site!

While the train rushed on at an awful pace--
The sulphurous fumes scorched their hands and face;
Wider and wider the country grew,
As faster and faster the engine flew.

Louder and louder the thunder crashed
And brighter and brighter the lightning flashed;
Hotter and hotter the air became
Till the clothes were burned from each quivering frame.

And out of the distance there arose a yell,
"Ha, ha," said the devil, "we're nearing hell!"
Then oh, how the passengers all shrieked with pain
And begged the devil to stop the train.

But he capered about and danced for glee,
And laughed and joked at their misery.
"My faithful friends, you have done the work
And the devil never can a payday shirk.

"You've bullied the weak, you've robbed the poor,
The starving brother you've turned from the door;
You've laid up gold where the canker rust,
And have given free vent to your beastly lust.

"You've justice scorned, and corruption sown,
And trampled the laws of nature down.
You have drunk, rioted, cheated, plundered, and lied,
And mocked at God in your hell-born pride.

"You have paid full fair, so I'll carry you through,
For it's only right you should have your due.
Why, the laborer always expects his hire,
So I'll land you safe in the lake of fire,

"Where your flesh will waste in the flames that roar,
And my imps torment you forevermore."
Then the cowboy awoke with an anguished cry,
His clothes wet with sweat and his hair standing high

Then he prayed as he never had prayed till that hour
To be saved from his sin and the demon's power;
And his prayers and his vows were not in vain,
For he never road the hell-bound train.


--Unknown

 

No doubt war is a horrible and wasteful thing. Saying that it is a racket doesn't do that justice. Those who profit off the efforts of others are merely the model for the new society, one that puts in minimum effort for maximum gain. Just because they profit from war makes them no less ethical, no less moral, and no less efficient than those others who make money. Marx spoke of this in "Das Kapital" and it led directly into his next publication "The Communist Manifesto." Society rises above it's own condition through advancement, and efficiency is part of that advancement. In the future it will be machines that shoulder that burden, not men. And it will be so in war. It will be the machines that fight, not the men. Progress, it is a beautiful thing. As for books I think should be posted, "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu is excellent, I've read it about 10 times, and it's only about 90 pages, so I think you could post it here.

 

i think a cross-referenced dissertation on your theory would be a much more riveting read

 

Wow people start wars for money and power, I would never have guessed thank you again Captain Obvious.

 

I'm willing to bet this forum was nothing but Joe and Diogenes bait. Mostly Joe.

 

On War

by General Carl von Clausewitz




VOLUME I



INTRODUCTION

THE Germans interpret their new national colours--black,
red, and white-by the saying, "Durch Nacht und Blut zur
licht." ("Through night and blood to light"), and no work
yet written conveys to the thinker a clearer conception
of all that the red streak in their flag stands for than this
deep and philosophical analysis of "War" by Clausewitz.

It reveals "War," stripped of all accessories, as the
exercise of force for the attainment of a political object,
unrestrained by any law save that of expediency, and
thus gives the key to the interpretation of German political
aims, past, present, and future, which is unconditionally
necessary for every student of the modern conditions
of Europe. Step by step, every event since
Waterloo follows with logical consistency from the
teachings of Napoleon, formulated for the first time,
some twenty years afterwards, by this remarkable
thinker.

What Darwin accomplished for Biology generally
Clausewitz did for the Life-History of Nations nearly half
a century before him, for both have proved the existence
of the same law in each case, viz., "The survival of the
fittest"--the "fittest," as Huxley long since pointed out,
not being necessarily synonymous with the ethically
"best." Neither of these thinkers was concerned with
the ethics of the struggle which each studied so exhaustively,
but to both men the phase or condition presented
itself neither as moral nor immoral, any more than
are famine, disease, or other natural phenomena, but as
emanating from a force inherent in all living organisms
which can only be mastered by understanding its nature.
It is in that spirit that, one after the other, all the
Nations of the Continent, taught by such drastic lessons as
Koniggr<a:>tz and Sedan, have accepted the lesson, with the
result that to-day Europe is an armed camp, and peace is
maintained by the equilibrium of forces, and will continue
just as long as this equilibrium exists, and no longer.

Whether this state of equilibrium is in itself a good or
desirable thing may be open to argument. I have discussed
it at length in my "War and the World's Life";
but I venture to suggest that to no one would a renewal
of the era of warfare be a change for the better, as far
as existing humanity is concerned. Meanwhile, however,
with every year that elapses the forces at present in
equilibrium are changing in magnitude--the pressure of
populations which have to be fed is rising, and an explosion
along the line of least resistance is, sooner or later,
inevitable.

As I read the teaching of the recent Hague Conference,
no responsible Government on the Continent is anxious
to form in themselves that line of least resistance; they
know only too well what War would mean; and we alone,
absolutely unconscious of the trend of the dominant
thought of Europe, are pulling down the dam which may
at any moment let in on us the flood of invasion.

Now no responsible man in Europe, perhaps least of
all in Germany, thanks us for this voluntary destruction
of our defences, for all who are of any importance would
very much rather end their days in peace than incur the
burden of responsibility which War would entail. But
they realise that the gradual dissemination of the principles
taught by Clausewitz has created a condition of
molecular tension in the minds of the Nations they
govern analogous to the "critical temperature of water
heated above boiling-point under pressure," which may at
any moment bring about an explosion which they will be
powerless to control.

The case is identical with that of an ordinary steam
boiler, delivering so and so many pounds of steam to its
engines as long as the envelope can contain the pressure;
but let a breach in its continuity arise--relieving the
boiling water of all restraint--and in a moment the whole
mass flashes into vapour, developing a power no work of
man can oppose.

The ultimate consequences of defeat no man can foretell.
The only way to avert them is to ensure victory;
and, again following out the principles of Clausewitz,
victory can only be ensured by the creation in
peace of an organisation which will bring every available
man, horse, and gun (or ship and gun, if the war be on
the sea) in the shortest possible time, and with the utmost
possible momentum, upon the decisive field of action--
which in turn leads to the final doctrine formulated by
Von der Goltz in excuse for the action of the late President
Kruger in 1899:

"The Statesman who, knowing his instrument to be
ready, and seeing War inevitable, hesitates to strike first
is guilty of a crime against his country."

It is because this sequence of cause and effect is absolutely
unknown to our Members of Parliament, elected
by popular representation, that all our efforts to ensure a
lasting peace by securing efficiency with economy in our
National Defences have been rendered nugatory.

This estimate of the influence of Clausewitz's sentiments
on contemporary thought in Continental Europe
may appear exaggerated to those who have not familiarised
themselves with M. Gustav de Bon's exposition of
the laws governing the formation and conduct of crowds
I do not wish for one minute to be understood as asserting
that Clausewitz has been conscientiously studied and
understood in any Army, not even in the Prussian, but
his work has been the ultimate foundation on which every
drill regulation in Europe, except our own, has been
reared. It is this ceaseless repetition of his fundamental
ideas to which one-half of the male population of every
Continental Nation has been subjected for two to three
years of their lives, which has tuned their minds to
vibrate in harmony with his precepts, and those who
know and appreciate this fact at its true value have
only to strike the necessary chords in order to evoke a
response sufficient to overpower any other ethical conception
which those who have not organised their forces
beforehand can appeal to.

The recent set-back experienced by the Socialists in
Germany is an illustration of my position. The Socialist
leaders of that country are far behind the responsible
Governors in their knowledge of the management of
crowds. The latter had long before (in 1893, in fact)
made their arrangements to prevent the spread of Socialistic
propaganda beyond certain useful limits. As long
as the Socialists only threatened capital they were not
seriously interfered with, for the Government knew quite
well that the undisputed sway of the employer was not
for the ultimate good of the State. The standard of
comfort must not be pitched too low if men are to he
ready to die for their country. But the moment the
Socialists began to interfere seriously with the discipline
of the Army the word went round, and the Socialists
lost heavily at the polls.

If this power of predetermined reaction to acquired
ideas can be evoked successfully in a matter of internal
interest only, in which the "obvious interest" of the
vast majority of the population is so clearly on the side
of the Socialist, it must be evident how enormously greater
it will prove when set in motion against an external
enemy, where the "obvious interest" of the people is,
from the very nature of things, as manifestly on the side
of the Government; and the Statesman who failed to
take into account the force of the "resultant thought
wave" of a crowd of some seven million men, all trained
to respond to their ruler's call, would be guilty of treachery
as grave as one who failed to strike when he knew the
Army to be ready for immediate action.

As already pointed out, it is to the spread of Clausewitz's
ideas that the present state of more or less immediate
readiness for war of all European Armies is due,
and since the organisation of these forces is uniform this
"more or less" of readiness exists in precise proportion
to the sense of duty which animates the several Armies.
Where the spirit of duty and self-sacrifice is low the
troops are unready and inefficient; where, as in Prussia,
these qualities, by the training of a whole century, have
become instinctive, troops really are ready to the last
button, and might be poured down upon any one of her
neighbours with such rapidity that the very first collision
must suffice to ensure ultimate success--a success by no
means certain if the enemy, whoever he may be, is
allowed breathing-time in which to set his house in order.

An example will make this clearer. In 1887 Germany
was on the very verge of War with France and Russia.
At that moment her superior efficiency, the consequence
of this inborn sense of duty--surely one of the highest
qualities of humanity--was so great that it is more than
probable that less than six weeks would have sufficed to
bring the French to their knees. Indeed, after the first
fortnight it would have been possible to begin transferring
troops from the Rhine to the Niemen; and the same
case may arise again. But if France and Russia had
been allowed even ten days' warning the German plan
would have been completely defeated. France alone
might then have claimed all the efforts that Germany
could have put forth to defeat her.

Yet there are politicians in England so grossly ignorant
of the German reading of the Napoleonic lessons that
they expect that Nation to sacrifice the enormous advantage
they have prepared by a whole century of self-
sacrifice and practical patriotism by an appeal to a
Court of Arbitration, and the further delays which must
arise by going through the medieaeval formalities of recalling
Ambassadors and exchanging ultimatums.

Most of our present-day politicians have made their
money in business--a "form of human competition
greatly resembling War," to paraphrase Clausewitz.
Did they, when in the throes of such competition, send
formal notice to their rivals of their plans to get the better
of them in commerce? Did Mr. Carnegie, the arch-
priest of Peace at any price, when he built up the Steel
Trust, notify his competitors when and how he proposed
to strike the blows which successively made him master
of millions? Surely the Directors of a Great Nation
may consider the interests of their shareholders--i.e., the
people they govern--as sufficiently serious not to be
endangered by the deliberate sacrifice of the preponderant
position of readiness which generations of self-devotion,
patriotism and wise forethought have won for them?

As regards the strictly military side of this work,
though the recent researches of the French General Staff
into the records and documents of the Napoleonic period
have shown conclusively that Clausewitz had never
grasped the essential point of the Great Emperor's strategic
method, yet it is admitted that he has completely fathomed
the spirit which gave life to the form; and notwithstandingthe
variations in
application which have
resulted from the progress of invention in every field of
national activity (not in the technical improvements in
armament alone), this spirit still remains the essential
factor in the whole matter. Indeed, if anything, modern
appliances have intensified its importance, for though,
with equal armaments on both sides, the form of battles
must always remain the same, the facility and certainty
of combination which better methods of communicating
orders and intelligence have conferred upon the Commanders
has rendered the control of great masses immeasurably
more certain than it was in the past.

Men kill each other at greater distances, it is true--
but killing is a constant factor in all battles. The difference
between "now and then" lies in this, that, thanks
to the enormous increase in range (the essential feature
in modern armaments), it is possible to concentrate by
surprise, on any chosen spot, a man-killing power fully
twentyfold greater than was conceivable in the days of
Waterloo; and whereas in Napoleon's time this concentration
of man-killing power (which in his hands took the
form of the great case-shot attack) depended almost
entirely on the shape and condition of the ground, which
might or might not be favourable, nowadays such concentration
of fire-power is almost independent of the
country altogether.

Thus, at Waterloo, Napoleon was compelled to wait till
the ground became firm enough for his guns to gallop
over; nowadays every gun at his disposal, and five times
that number had he possessed them, might have opened
on any point in the British position he had selected, as
soon as it became light enough to see.

Or, to take a more modern instance, viz., the battle
of St. Privat-Gravelotte, August 18, 1870, where the
Germans were able to concentrate on both wings batteries
of two hundred guns and upwards, it would have been
practically impossible, owing to the section of the slopes
of the French position, to carry out the old-fashioned
case-shot attack at all. Nowadays there would be no
difficulty in turning on the fire of two thousand guns on
any point of the position, and switching this fire up and
down the line like water from a fire-engine hose, if the
occasion demanded such concentration.

But these alterations in method make no difference
in the truth of the picture of War which Clausewitz
presents, with which every soldier, and above all every
Leader, should be saturated.

Death, wounds, suffering, and privation remain the
same, whatever the weapons employed, and their reaction
on the ultimate nature of man is the same now as
in the struggle a century ago. It is this reaction that
the Great Commander has to understand and prepare
himself to control; and the task becomes ever greater as,
fortunately for humanity, the opportunities for gathering
experience become more rare.

In the end, and with every improvement in science,
the result depends more and more on the character of
the Leader and his power of resisting "the sensuous
impressions of the battlefield." Finally, for those who
would fit themselves in advance for such responsibility,
I know of no more inspiring advice than that given by
Krishna to Arjuna ages ago, when the latter trembled
before the awful responsibility of launching his Army
against the hosts of the Pandav's:

This Life within all living things, my Prince,
Hides beyond harm. Scorn thou to suffer, then,
For that which cannot suffer. Do thy part!
Be mindful of thy name, and tremble not.
Nought better can betide a martial soul
Than lawful war. Happy the warrior
To whom comes joy of battle....
. . . But if thou shunn'st
This honourable field--a Kshittriya--
If, knowing thy duty and thy task, thou bidd'st
Duty and task go by--that shall be sin!
And those to come shall speak thee infamy
From age to age. But infamy is worse
For men of noble blood to bear than death!
. . . . . .
Therefore arise, thou Son of Kunti! Brace
Thine arm for conflict; nerve thy heart to meet,
As things alike to thee, pleasure or pain,
Profit or ruin, victory or defeat.
So minded, gird thee to the fight, for so
Thou shalt not sin!
COL. F. N. MAUDE, C.B., late R.E.



CONTENTS

BOOK I ON THE NATURE OF WAR

I WHAT IS WAR? page 1
II END AND MEANS IN WAR 27
III THE GENIUS FOR WAR 46
IV OF DANGER IN WAR 71
V OF BODILY EXERTION IN WAR 73
VI INFORMATION IN WAR 75
VII FRICTION IN WAR 77
VIII CONCLUDING REMARKS 81

BOOK II ON THE THEORY OF WAR
I BRANCHES OF THE ART OF WAR 84
II ON THE THEORY OF WAR 95
III ART OR SCIENCE OF WAR 119
IV METHODICISM 122V CRITICISM 130
VI ON EXAMPLES 156

BOOK III OF STRATEGY IN GENERAL
I STRATEGY 165
II ELEMENTS OF STRATEGY 175
III MORAL FORCES 177
IV THE CHIEF MORAL POWERS 179
V MILITARY VIRTUE OF AN ARMY 180
VI BOLDNESS 186
VII PERSEVERANCE 191
VIII SUPERIORITY OF NUMBERS 192
IX THE SURPRISE 199
X STRATAGEM 205
XI ASSEMBLY OF FORCES IN SPACE 207
XII ASSEMBLY OF FORCES IN TIME 208
XIII STRATEGIC RESERVE 217
XIV ECONOMY OF FORCES 221
XV GEOMETRICAL ELEMENT 222
XVI ON THE SUSPENSION OF THE ACT IN WAR page 224
XVII ON THE CHARACTER OF MODERN WAR 230
XVIII TENSION AND REST 231

BOOK IV THE COMBAT
I INTRODUCTORY 235
II CHARACTER OF THE MODERN BATTLE 236
III THE COMBAT IN GENERAL 238
IV THE COMBAT IN GENERAL (continuation) 243
V ON THE SIGNIFICATION OF THE COMBAT 253
VI DURATION OF THE COMBAT 256
VII DECISION OF THE COMBAT 257
VIII MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING AS TO A BATTLE 266
IX THE BATTLE 270
X EFFECTS OF VICTORY 277
XI THE USE OF THE BATTLE 284
XII STRATEGIC MEANS OF UTILISING VICTORY 292
XIII RETREAT AFTER A LOST BATTLE 305
XIV NIGHT FIGHTING 308



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

IT will naturally excite surprise that a preface by a
female hand should accompany a work on such a subject
as the present. For my friends no explanation of the
circumstance is required; but I hope by a simple relation
of the cause to clear myself of the appearance of presumption
in the eyes also of those to whom I am not
known.

The work to which these lines serve as a preface
occupied almost entirely the last twelve years of the life
of my inexpressibly beloved husband, who has unfortunately
been torn too soon from myself and his
country. To complete it was his most earnest desire;
but it was not his intention that it should be published
during his life; and if I tried to persuade him to alter
that intention, he often answered, half in jest, but also,
perhaps, half in a foreboding of early death: "Thou
shalt publish it." These words (which in those happy
days often drew tears from me, little as I was inclined to
attach a serious meaning to them) make it now, in the
opinion of my friends, a duty incumbent on me to introduce
the posthumous works of my beloved husband,
with a few prefatory lines from myself; and although
here may be a difference of opinion on this point, still
I am sure there will be no mistake as to the feeling which
has prompted me to overcome the timidity which makes
any such appearance, even in a subordinate part, so
difficult for a woman.

It will be understood, as a matter of course, that I
cannot have the most remote intention of considering
myself as the real editress of a work which is far above
the scope of my capacity: I only stand at its side as an
affectionate companion on its entrance into the world.
This position I may well claim, as a similar one was
allowed me during its formation and progress. Those
who are acquainted with our happy married life, and
know how we shared everything with each other--not
only joy and sorrow, but also every occupation, every
interest of daily life--will understand that my beloved
husband could not be occupied on a work of this kind
without its being known to me. Therefore, no one can
like me bear testimony to the zeal, to the love with which
he laboured on it, to the hopes which he bound up with
it, as well as the manner and time of its elaboration.
His richly gifted mind had from his early youth longed
for light and truth, and, varied as were his talents, still
he had chiefly directed his reflections to the science of
war, to which the duties of his profession called him, and
which are of such importance for the benefit of States.
Scharnhorst was the first to lead him into the right road,
and his subsequent appointment in 1810 as Instructor
at the General War School, as well as the honour conferred
on him at the same time of giving military instruction
to H.R.H. the Crown Prince, tended further to give his
investigations and studies that direction, and to lead
him to put down in writing whatever conclusions he
arrived at. A paper with which he finished the instruction
of H.R.H. the Crown Prince contains the germ of his
subsequent works. But it was in the year 1816, at
Coblentz, that he first devoted himself again to scientific
labours, and to collecting the fruits which his rich experience
in those four eventful years had brought to
maturity. He wrote down his views, in the first place,
in short essays, only loosely connected with each other.
The following, without date, which has been found
amongst his papers, seems to belong to those early days.

"In the principles here committed to paper, in my
opinion, the chief things which compose Strategy, as it
is called, are touched upon. I looked upon them only
as materials, and had just got to such a length towards
the moulding them into a whole.

"These materials have been amassed without any
regularly preconceived plan. My view was at first,
without regard to system and strict connection, to put
down the results of my reflections upon the most important
points in quite brief, precise, compact propositions.
The manner in which Montesquieu has treated his subject
floated before me in idea. I thought that concise,
sententious chapters, which I proposed at first to call
grains, would attract the attention of the intelligent just
as much by that which was to be developed from them,
as by that which they contained in themselves. I had,
therefore, before me in idea, intelligent readers already
acquainted with the subject. But my nature, which
always impels me to development and systematising, at
last worked its way out also in this instance. For some
time I was able to confine myself to extracting only the
most important results from the essays, which, to attain
clearness and conviction in my own mind, I wrote upon
different subjects, to concentrating in that manner their
spirit in a small compass; but afterwards my peculiarity
gained ascendency completely--I have developed what
I could, and thus naturally have supposed a reader not
yet acquainted with the subject.

"The more I advanced with the work, and the more
I yielded to the spirit of investigation, so much the more
I was also led to system; and thus, then, chapter after
chapter has been inserted.

"My ultimate view has now been to go through the
whole once more, to establish by further explanation
much of the earlier treatises, and perhaps to condense
into results many analyses on the later ones, and thus to
make a moderate whole out of it, forming a small octavo
volume. But it was my wish also in this to avoid
everything common, everything that is plain of itself,
that has been said a hundred times, and is generally
accepted; for my ambition was to write a book that
would not be forgotten in two or three years, and which
any one interested in the subject would at all events
take up more than once."

In Coblentz, where he was much occupied with duty,
he could only give occasional hours to his private studies.
It was not until 1818, after his appointment as Director
of the General Academy of War at Berlin, that he had
the leisure to expand his work, and enrich it from the
history of modern wars. This leisure also reconciled
him to his new avocation, which, in other respects, was
not satisfactory to him, as, according to the existing
organisation of the Academy, the scientific part of the
course is not under the Director, but conducted by a
Board of Studies. Free as he was from all petty vanity,
from every feeling of restless, egotistical ambition, still
he felt a desire to be really useful, and not to leave
inactive the abilities with which God had endowed him.
In active life he was not in a position in which this longing
could be satisfied, and he had little hope of attaining to
any such position: his whole energies were therefore
directed upon the domain of science, and the benefit
which he hoped to lay the foundation of by his work was
the object of his life. That, notwithstanding this, the
resolution not to let the work appear until after his
death became more confirmed is the best proof that
no vain, paltry longing for praise and distinction, no
particle of egotistical views, was mixed up with this
noble aspiration for great and lasting usefulness.

Thus he worked diligently on, until, in the spring of
1830, he was appointed to the artillery, and his energies
were called into activity in such a different sphere, and
to such a high degree, that he was obliged, for the moment
at least, to give up all literary work. He then put his
papers in order, sealed up the separate packets, labelled
them, and took sorrowful leave of this employment which
he loved so much. He was sent to Breslau in August of
the same year, as Chief of the Second Artillery District,
but in December recalled to Berlin, and appointed Chief
of the Staff to Field-Marshal Count Gneisenau (for the
term of his command). In March 1831, he accompanied
his revered Commander to Posen. When he returned
from there to Breslau in November after the melancholy
event which had taken place, he hoped to resume his
work and perhaps complete it in the course of the winter.
The Almighty has willed it should be otherwise. On
the 7th November he returned to Breslau; on the 16th
he was no more; and the packets sealed by himself were
not opened until after his death.

The papers thus left are those now made public in
the following volumes, exactly in the condition in which
they were found, without a word being added or erased.
Still, however, there was much to do before publication,
in the way of putting them in order and consulting about
them; and I am deeply indebted to several sincere
friends for the assistance they have afforded me, particularly
Major O'Etzel, who kindly undertook the
correction of the Press, as well as the preparation of the
maps to accompany the historical parts of the work. I
must also mention my much-loved brother, who was my
support in the hour of my misfortune, and who has also
done much for me in respect of these papers; amongst
other things, by carefully examining and putting them in
order, he found the commencement of the revision which
my dear husband wrote in the year 1827, and mentions
in the Notice hereafter annexed as a work he had in view.
This revision has been inserted in the place intended for
it in the first book (for it does not go any further).

There are still many other friends to whom I might
offer my thanks for their advice, for the sympathy and
friendship which they have shown me; but if I do not
name them all, they will, I am sure, not have any doubts
of my sincere gratitude. It is all the greater, from my
firm conviction that all they have done was not only on
my own account, but for the friend whom God has thus
called away from them so soon.

If I have been highly blessed as the wife of such a
man during one and twenty years, so am I still,
notwithstanding my irreparable loss, by the treasure of
my recollections and of my hopes, by the rich legacy of
sympathy and friendship which I owe the beloved
departed, by the elevating feeling which I experience
at seeing his rare worth so generally and honourably
acknowledged.

The trust confided to me by a Royal Couple is a fresh
benefit for which I have to thank the Almighty, as it
opens to me an honourable occupation, to which Idevote myself.
May this
occupation be
blessed, and may the dear little Prince who is now
entrusted to my care, some day read this book, and
be animated by it to deeds like those of his glorious
ancestors.


Written at the Marble Palace, Potsdam, 30th June, 1832.

MARIE VON CLAUSEWITZ,
Born Countess Bruhl,
Oberhofmeisterinn to H.R.H. the Princess William.



NOTICE

I LOOK upon the first six books, of which a fair copy has
now been made, as only a mass which is still in a manner
without form, and which has yet to be again revised.
In this revision the two kinds of War will be everywhere
kept more distinctly in view, by which all ideas will
acquire a clearer meaning, a more precise direction, and
a closer application. The two kinds of War are, first,
those in which the object is the OVERTHROW OF THE ENEMY,
whether it be that we aim at his destruction, politically,
or merely at disarming him and forcing him to conclude
peace on our terms; and next, those in which our object
is MERELY TO MAKE SOME CONQUESTS ON THE FRONTIERS OF HIS
COUNTRY, either for the purpose of retaining them permanently,
or of turning them to account as matter of
exchange in the settlement of a peace. Transition from
one kind to the other must certainly continue to exist,
but the completely different nature of the tendencies of
the two must everywhere appear, and must separate
from each other things which are incompatible.

Besides establishing this real difference in Wars,
another practically necessary point of view must at the
same time be established, which is, that WAR IS ONLY A
CONTINUATION OF STATE POLICY BY OTHER MEANS. This point of
view being adhered to everywhere, will introduce much
more unity into the consideration of the subject, and
things will be more easily disentangled from each other.
Although the chief application of this point of view does
not commence until we get to the eighth book, still it
must be completely developed in the first book, and also
lend assistance throughout the revision of the first six
books. Through such a revision the first six books will
get rid of a good deal of dross, many rents and chasms
will be closed up, and much that is of a general nature
will be transformed into distinct conceptions and forms.

The seventh book--on attack--for the different
chapters of which sketches are already made, is to be
considered as a reflection of the sixth, and must be
completed at once, according to the above-mentioned
more distinct points of view, so that it will require no
fresh revision, but rather may serve as a model in the
revision of the first six books.

For the eighth book--on the Plan of a War, that is,
of the organisation of a whole War in general--several
chapters are designed, but they are not at all to be regarded
as real materials, they are merely a track, roughly cleared,
as it were, through the mass, in order by that means to
ascertain the points of most importance. They have
answered this object, and I propose, on finishing the seventh
book, to proceed at once to the working out of the eighth,
where the two points of view above mentioned will be
chiefly affirmed, by which everything will be simplified,
and at the same time have a spirit breathed into it. I
hope in this book to iron out many creases in the heads of
strategists and statesmen, and at least to show the object
of action, and the real point to be considered in War.

Now, when I have brought my ideas clearly out by
finishing this eighth book, and have properly established
the leading features of War, it will be easier for me to
carry the spirit of these ideas in to the first six books, and
to make these same features show themselves everywhere.
Therefore I shall defer till then the revision of the first
six books.

Should the work be interrupted by my death, then
what is found can only be called a mass of conceptions
not brought into form; but as these are open to endless
misconceptions, they will doubtless give rise to a number
of crude criticisms: for in these things, every one thinks,
when he takes up his pen, that whatever comes into his
head is worth saying and printing, and quite as incontrovertible
as that twice two make four. If such a one
would take the pains, as I have done, to think over the
subject, for years, and to compare his ideas with military
history, he would certainly be a little more guarded in
his criticism.

Still, notwithstanding this imperfect form, I believe
that an impartial reader thirsting for truth and conviction
will rightly appreciate in the first six books the
fruits of several years' reflection and a diligent study of
War, and that, perhaps, he will find in them some
leading ideas which may bring about a revolution in the
theory of War.

Berlin, 10th July, 1827.


Besides this notice, amongst the papers left the
following unfinished memorandum was found, which
appears of very recent date:

The manuscript on the conduct of the Grande Guerre,
which will be found after my death, in its present state
can only be regarded as a collection of materials from
which it is intended to construct a theory of War. With
the greater part I am not yet satisfied; and the sixth
book is to be looked at as a mere essay: I should have
completely remodelled it, and have tried a different line.

But the ruling principles which pervade these materials
I hold to be the right ones: they are the result of a
very varied reflection, keeping always in view the reality,
and always bearing in mind what I have learnt by experience
and by my intercourse with distinguished soldiers.

The seventh book is to contain the attack, the
subjects of which are thrown together in a hasty manner:
the eighth, the plan for a War, in which I would have
examined War more especially in its political and human
aspects.

The first chapter of the first book is the only one
which I consider as completed; it will at least serve to
show the manner in which I proposed to treat the subject
throughout.

The theory of the Grande Guerre, or Strategy, as it is
called, is beset with extraordinary difficulties, and we
may affirm that very few men have clear conceptions of
the separate subjects, that is, conceptions carried up to
their full logical conclusions. In real action most men
are guided merely by the tact of judgment which hits
the object more or less accurately, according as they possess
more or less genius.

This is the way in which all great Generals have
acted, and therein partly lay their greatness and their
genius, that they always hit upon what was right by
this tact. Thus also it will always be in action, and so
far this tact is amply sufficient. But when it is a question,
not of acting oneself, but of convincing others in a
consultation, then all depends on clear conceptions and
demonstration of the inherent relations, and so little
progress has been made in this respect that most deliberations
are merely a contention of words, resting on no
firm basis, and ending either in every one retaining his own
opinion, or in a compromise from mutual considerations
of respect, a middle course really without any value.[*]

[*] Herr Clausewitz evidently had before his mind the endless
consultations
at the Headquarters of the Bohemian Army in the Leipsic
Campaign 1813.

Clear ideas on these matters are therefore not wholly
useless; besides, the human mind has a general tendency
to clearness, and always wants to be consistent
with the necessary order of things.

Owing to the great difficulties attending a philosophical
construction of the Art of War, and the many
attempts at it that have failed, most people have come
to the conclusion that such a theory is impossible, because
it concerns things which no standing law can embrace.
We should also join in this opinion and give up any
attempt at a theory, were it not that a great number of
propositions make themselves evident without any
difficulty, as, for instance, that the defensive form, with
a negative object, is the stronger form, the attack, with the
positive object, the weaker--that great results carry the
little ones with them--that, therefore, strategic effects
may be referred to certain centres of gravity--that a
demonstration is a weaker application of force than a
real attack, that, therefore, there must be some special
reason for resorting to the former--that victory consists
not merely in the conquest on the field of battle, but in
the destruction of armed forces, physically and morally,
which can in general only be effected by a pursuit after
the battle is gained--that successes are always greatest
at the point where the victory has been gained, that,
therefore, the change from one line and object to another
can only be regarded as a necessary evil--that a turning
movement is only justified by a superiority of numbers
generally or by the advantage of our lines of communication
and retreat over those of the enemy--that flank
positions are only justifiable on similar grounds--that
every attack becomes weaker as it progresses.


THE INTRODUCTION OF THE AUTHOR

THAT the conception of the scientific does not consist
alone, or chiefly, in system, and its finished theoretical
constructions, requires nowadays no exposition. System
in this treatise is not to be found on the surface, and
instead of a finished building of theory, there are only
materials.

The scientific form lies here in the endeavour to
explore the nature of military phenomena to show their
affinity with the nature of the things of which they are
composed. Nowhere has the philosophical argument
been evaded, but where it runs out into too thin a thread
the Author has preferred to cut it short, and fall back
upon the corresponding results of experience; for in
the same way as many plants only bear fruit when they
do not shoot too high, so in the practical arts the theoretical
leaves and flowers must not be made to sprout
too far, but kept near to experience, which is their proper
soil.

Unquestionably it would be a mistake to try to
discover from the chemical ingredients of a grain of corn
the form of the ear of corn which it bears, as we have only
to go to the field to see the ears ripe. Investigation and
observation, philosophy and experience, must neither
despise nor exclude one another; they mutually afford
each other the rights of citizenship. Consequently,
the propositions of this book, with their arch of inherent
necessity, are supported either by experience or by the
conception of War itself as external points, so that they
are not without abutments.[*]

[*] That this is not the case in the works of many military
writers
especially of those who have aimed at treating of War itself in a
scientific manner, is shown in many instances, in which by their
reasoning,
the pro and contra swallow each other up so effectually that
there
is no vestige of the tails even which were left in the case of
the two
lions.


It is, perhaps, not impossible to write a systematic
theory of War full of spirit and substance, but ours.
hitherto, have been very much the reverse. To say
nothing of their unscientific spirit, in their striving after
coherence and completeness of system, they overflow
with commonplaces, truisms, and twaddle of every kind.
If we want a striking picture of them we have only to
read Lichtenberg's extract from a code of regulations
in case of fire.

If a house takes fire, we must seek, above all things,
to protect the right side of the house standing on the left,
and, on the other hand, the left side of the house on the
right; for if we, for example, should protect the left side
of the house on the left, then the right side of the house
lies to the right of the left, and consequently as the fire
lies to the right of this side, and of the right side (for we
have assumed that the house is situated to the left of
the fire), therefore the right side is situated nearer to
the fire than the left, and the right side of the house might
catch fire if it was not protected before it came to the
left, which is protected. Consequently, something might
be burnt that is not protected, and that sooner than
something else would be burnt, even if it was not protected;
consequently we must let alone the latter and
protect the former. In order to impress the thing on
one's mind, we have only to note if the house is situated
to the right of the fire, then it is the left side, and if the
house is to the left it is the right side.

In order not to frighten the intelligent reader by
such commonplaces, and to make the little good that
there is distasteful by pouring water upon it, the Author
has preferred to give in small ingots of fine metal his
impressions and convictions, the result of many years'
reflection on War, of his intercourse with men of ability,
and of much personal experience. Thus the seemingly
weakly bound-together chapters of this book have
arisen, but it is hoped they will not be found wanting
in logical connection. Perhaps soon a greater head may
appear, and instead of these single grains, give the whole
in a casting of pure metal without dross.



BRIEF MEMOIR OF GENERAL
CLAUSEWITZ

(BY TRANSLATOR)

THE Author of the work here translated, General Carl
Von Clausewitz, was born at Burg, near Magdeburg, in
1780, and entered the Prussian Army as Fahnenjunker
(i.e., ensign) in 1792. He served in the campaigns of
1793-94 on the Rhine, after which he seems to have
devoted some time to the study of the scientific branches
of his profession. In 1801 he entered the Military School
at Berlin, and remained there till 1803. During his
residence there he attracted the notice of General
Scharnhorst, then at the head of the establishment; and
the patronage of this distinguished officer had immense
influence on his future career, and we may gather
from his writings that he ever afterwards continued
to entertain a high esteem for Scharnhorst. In the
campaign of 1806 he served as Aide-de-camp to Prince
Augustus of Prussia; and being wounded and taken
prisoner, he was sent into France until the close of that
war. On his return, he was placed on General Scharnhorst's
Staff, and employed in the work then going on
for the reorganisation of the Army. He was also at this
time selected as military instructor to the late King of
Prussia, then Crown Prince. In 1812 Clausewitz, with
several other Prussian officers, having entered the
Russian service, his first appointment was as Aide-de-camp
to General Phul. Afterwards, while serving with Wittgenstein's
army, he assisted in negotiating the famous convention
of Tauroggen with York. Of the part he took in
that affair he has left an interesting account in his work
on the "Russian Campaign." It is there stated that,
in order to bring the correspondence which had been
carried on with York to a termination in one way or
another, the Author was despatched to York's headquarters
with two letters, one was from General d'Auvray,
the Chief of the Staff of Wittgenstein's army, to General
Diebitsch, showing the arrangements made to cut off
York's corps from Macdonald (this was necessary in order
to give York a plausible excuse for seceding from the
French); the other was an intercepted letter from
Macdonald to the Duke of Bassano. With regard to
the former of these, the Author says, "it would not have
had weight with a man like York, but for a military
justification, if the Prussian Court should require one
as against the French, it was important."

The second letter was calculated at the least to call
up in General York's mind all the feelings of bitterness
which perhaps for some days past bad been diminished by
the consciousness of his own behaviour towards the writer.

As the Author entered General York's chamber, the
latter called out to him, "Keep off from me; I will have
nothing more to do with you; your d----d Cossacks
have let a letter of Macdonald's pass through them,
which brings me an order to march on Piktrepohnen, in
order there to effect our junction. All doubt is now at
an end; your troops do not come up; you are too
weak; march I must, and I must excuse myself from
further negotiation, which may cost me my head."
The Author said that be would make no opposition to
all this, but begged for a candle, as he had letters to show
the General, and, as the latter seemed still to hesitate,
the Author added, "Your Excellency will not surely
place me in the embarrassment of departing without
having executed my commission." The General ordered
candles, and called in Colonel von Roeder, the chief of his
staff, from the ante-chamber. The letters were read.
After a pause of an instant, the General said, "Clausewitz,
you are a Prussian, do you believe that the letter of
General d'Auvray is sincere, and that Wittgenstein's
troops will really be at the points he mentioned on the
31st?" The Author replied, "I pledge myself for the
sincerity of this letter upon the knowledge I have of
General d'Auvray and the other men of Wittgenstein's
headquarters; whether the dispositions he announces
can be accomplished as he lays down I certainly cannot
pledge myself; for your Excellency knows that in war
we must often fall short of the line we have drawn for
ourselves." The General was silent for a few minutes
of earnest reflection; then he held out his hand to the
Author, and said, "You have me. Tell General Diebitsch
that we must confer early to-morrow at the mill of
Poschenen, and that I am now firmly determined to
separate myself from the French and their cause." The
hour was fixed for 8 A.M. After this was settled, the
General added, "But I will not do the thing by halves,
I will get you Massenbach also." He called in an officer
who was of Massenbach's cavalry, and who had just left
them. Much like Schiller's Wallenstein, he asked, walking
up and down the room the while, "What say your
regiments?" The officer broke out with enthusiasm at
the idea of a riddance from the French alliance, and said
that every man of the troops in question felt the same.

"You young ones may talk; but my older head is
shaking on my shoulders," replied the General.[*]

[*] "Campaign in Russia in 1812"; translated from the German of
General Von Clausewitz (by Lord Ellesmere).

After the close of the Russian campaign Clausewitz
remained in the service of that country, but was attached
as a Russian staff officer to Blucher's headquarters till
the Armistice in 1813.

In 1814, he became Chief of the Staff of General
Walmoden's Russo-German Corps, which formed part
of the Army of the North under Bernadotte. His
name is frequently mentioned with distinction in that
campaign, particularly in connection with the affair
of Goehrde.

Clausewitz re-entered the Prussian service in 1815,
and served as Chief of the Staff to Thielman's corps,
which was engaged with Grouchy at Wavre, on the 18th
of June.

After the Peace, he was employed in a command on
the Rhine. In 1818, he became Major-General, and
Director of the Military School at which he had been
previously educated.

In 1830, he was appointed Inspector of Artillery at
Breslau, but soon after nominated Chief of the Staff to
the Army of Observation, under Marshal Gneisenau on
the Polish frontier.

The latest notices of his life and services are probably
to be found in the memoirs of General Brandt, who,
from being on the staff of Gneisenau's army, was brought
into daily intercourse with Clausewitz in matters of
duty, and also frequently met him at the table of Marshal
Gneisenau, at Posen.

Amongst other anecdotes, General Brandt relates
that, upon one occasion, the conversation at the Marshal's
table turned upon a sermon preached by a priest, in
which some great absurdities were introduced, and a
discussion arose as to whether the Bishop should not be
made responsible for what the priest had said. This
led to the topic of theology in general, when General
Brandt, speaking of himself, says, "I expressed an
opinion that theology is only to be regarded as an historical
process, as a MOMENT in the gradual development of the
human race. This brought upon me an attack from all
quarters, but more especially from Clausewitz, who ought
to have been on my side, he having been an adherent
and pupil of Kiesewetter's, who had indoctrinated him
in the philosophy of Kant, certainly diluted--I
might even say in homoeopathic doses." This anecdote
is only interesting as the mention of Kiesewetter points
to a circumstance in the life of Clausewitz that may have
had an influence in forming those habits of thought
which distinguish his writings.

"The way," says General Brandt, "in which General
Clausewitz judged of things, drew conclusions from movements
and marches, calculated the times of the marches,
and the points where decisions would take place, was extremely
interesting. Fate has unfortunately denied him
an opportunity of showing his talents in high command,
but I have a firm persuasion that as a strategist he would
have greatly distinguished himself. As a leader on the
field of battle, on the other hand, he would not have been
so much in his right place, from a manque d'habitude
du commandement, he wanted the art d'enlever les
troupes."

After the Prussian Army of Observation was dissolved,
Clausewitz returned to Breslau, and a few days after his
arrival was seized with cholera, the seeds of which
he must have brought with him from the army on the
Polish frontier. His death took place in November
1831.

His writings are contained in nine volumes, published
after his death, but his fame rests most upon the three
volumes forming his treatise on "War." In the present
attempt to render into English this portion of the works
of Clausewitz, the translator is sensible of many deficiencies,
but he hopes at all events to succeed in making this
celebrated treatise better known in England, believing,
as he does, that so far as the work concerns the interests
of this country, it has lost none of the importance it
possessed at the time of its first publication.

J. J. GRAHAM (Col.)



BOOK I. ON THE NATURE OF WAR

CHAPTER I. WHAT IS WAR?

1. INTRODUCTION.

WE propose to consider first the single elements of our
subject, then each branch or part, and, last of all, the
whole, in all its relations--therefore to advance from the
simple to the complex. But it is necessary for us to commence
with a glance at the nature of the whole, because
it is particularly necessary that in the consideration of
any of the parts their relation to the whole should be
kept constantly in view.

2. DEFINITION.

We shall not enter into any of the abstruse definitions
of War used by publicists. We shall keep to the element
of the thing itself, to a duel. War is nothing but a duel
on an extensive scale. If we would conceive as a unit
the countless number of duels which make up a War, we
shall do so best by supposing to ourselves two wrestlers.
Each strives by physical force to compel the other to
submit to his will: each endeavours to throw his adversary,
and thus render him incapable of further resistance.

WAR THEREFORE IS AN ACT OF VIOLENCE INTENDED TO COMPEL OUR
OPPONENT TO FULFIL OUR WILL.

Violence arms itself with the inventions of Art and
Science in order to contend against violence. Self-
imposed restrictions, almost imperceptible and hardly
worth mentioning, termed usages of International Law,
accompany it without essentially impairing its power.
Violence, that is to say, physical force (for there is no moral
force without the conception of States and Law), is therefore
the MEANS; the compulsory submission of the enemy
to our will is the ultimate object. In order to attain
this object fully, the enemy must be disarmed, and
disarmament becomes therefore the immediate OBJECT of
hostilities in theory. It takes the place of the final object,
and puts it aside as something we can eliminate from
our calculations.

3. UTMOST USE OF FORCE.

Now, philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skilful
method of disarming and overcoming an enemy withoutgreat
bloodshed, and that
this is the proper
tendency of the Art of War. However plausible this may
appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated;
for in such dangerous things as War, the errors which
proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.
As the use of physical power to the utmost extent by no
means excludes the co-operation of the intelligence, it
follows that he who uses force unsparingly, without
reference to the bloodshed involved, must obtain a
superiority if his adversary uses less vigour in its application.
The former then dictates the law to the latter,
and both proceed to extremities to which the only
limitations are those imposed by the amount of counter-
acting force on each side.

This is the way in which the matter must be viewed
and it is to no purpose, it is even against one's own
interest, to turn away from the consideration of the real
nature of the affair because the horror of its elements
excites repugnance.

If the Wars of civilised people are less cruel and destructive
than those of savages, the difference arises from the
social condition both of States in themselves and in their
relations to each other. Out of this social condition and
its relations War arises, and by it War is subjected to
conditions, is controlled and modified. But these things
do not belong to War itself; they are only given conditions;
and to introduce into the philosophy of War itself
a principle of moderation would be an absurdity.

Two motives lead men to War: instinctive hostility
and hostile intention. In our definition of War, we
have chosen as its characteristic the latter of these
elements, because it is the most general. It is
impossible to conceive the passion of hatred of the
wildest description, bordering on mere instinct, without
combining with it the idea of a hostile intention. On
the other hand, hostile intentions may often exist without
being accompanied by any, or at all events by any
extreme, hostility of feeling. Amongst savages views
emanating from the feelings, amongst civilised nations
those emanating from the understanding, have the
predominance; but this difference arises from attendant
circumstances, existing institutions, &c., and, therefore,
is not to be found necessarily in all cases, although
it prevails in the majority. In short, even the most
civilised nations may burn with passionate hatred of each
other.

We may see from this what a fallacy it would be to
refer the War of a civilised nation entirely to an intelligent
act on the part of the Government, and to imagine it as
continually freeing itself more and more from all feeling
of passion in such a way that at last the physical masses
of combatants would no longer be required; in reality,
their mere relations would suffice--a kind of algebraic
action.

Theory was beginning to drift in this direction until
the facts of the last War[*] taught it better. If War is an
ACT of force, it belongs necessarily also to the feelings.
If it does not originate in the feelings, it REACTS, more or
less, upon them, and the extent of this reaction depends
not on the degree of civilisation, but upon the importance
and duration of the interests involved.

[*] Clausewitz alludes here to the "Wars of Liberation,"
1813,14,15.


Therefore, if we find civilised nations do not put their
prisoners to death, do not devastate towns and countries,
this is because their intelligence exercises greater influence
on their mode of carrying on War, and has taught them
more effectual means of applying force than these rude
acts of mere instinct. The invention of gunpowder, the
constant progress of improvements in the construction
of firearms, are sufficient proofs that the tendency to
destroy the adversary which lies at the bottom of the conception
of War is in no way changed or modified through
the progress of civilisation.

We therefore repeat our proposition, that War is an
act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds; as one
side dictates the law to the other, there arises a sort
of reciprocal action, which logically must lead to an
extreme. This is the first reciprocal action, and the
first extreme with which we meet (FIRST RECIPROCAL ACTION).

4. THE AIM IS TO DISARM THE ENEMY.

We have already said that the aim of all action in
War is to disarm the enemy, and we shall now show that
this, theoretically at least, is indispensable.

If our opponent is to be made to comply with our will,
we must place him in a situation which is more oppressive
to him than the sacrifice which we demand; but the
disadvantages of this position must naturally not be of a
transitory nature, at least in appearance, otherwise the
enemy, instead of yielding, will hold out, in the prospect
of a change for the better. Every change in this position
which is produced by a continuation of the War should
therefore be a change for the worse. The worst condition
in which a belligerent can be placed is that of
being completely disarmed. If, therefore, the enemy is
to be reduced to submission by an act of War, he must
either be positively disarmed or placed in such a
position that he is threatened with it. From this it
follows that the disarming or overthrow of the
enemy, whichever we call it, must always be the aim
of Warfare. Now War is always the shock of two
hostile bodies in collision, not the action of a living
power upon an inanimate mass, because an absolute
state of endurance would not be making War; therefore,
what we have just said as to the aim of action in
War applies to both parties. Here, then, is another
case of reciprocal action. As long as the enemy is not
de

 

On War

by General Carl von Clausewitz




VOLUME I



INTRODUCTION

THE Germans interpret their new national colours--black,
red, and white-by the saying, "Durch Nacht und Blut zur
licht." ("Through night and blood to light"), and no work
yet written conveys to the thinker a clearer conception
of all that the red streak in their flag stands for than this
deep and philosophical analysis of "War" by Clausewitz.

It reveals "War," stripped of all accessories, as the
exercise of force for the attainment of a political object,
unrestrained by any law save that of expediency, and
thus gives the key to the interpretation of German political
aims, past, present, and future, which is unconditionally
necessary for every student of the modern conditions
of Europe. Step by step, every event since
Waterloo follows with logical consistency from the
teachings of Napoleon, formulated for the first time,
some twenty years afterwards, by this remarkable
thinker.

What Darwin accomplished for Biology generally
Clausewitz did for the Life-History of Nations nearly half
a century before him, for both have proved the existence
of the same law in each case, viz., "The survival of the
fittest"--the "fittest," as Huxley long since pointed out,
not being necessarily synonymous with the ethically
"best." Neither of these thinkers was concerned with
the ethics of the struggle which each studied so exhaustively,
but to both men the phase or condition presented
itself neither as moral nor immoral, any more than
are famine, disease, or other natural phenomena, but as
emanating from a force inherent in all living organisms
which can only be mastered by understanding its nature.
It is in that spirit that, one after the other, all the
Nations of the Continent, taught by such drastic lessons as
Koniggr<a:>tz and Sedan, have accepted the lesson, with the
result that to-day Europe is an armed camp, and peace is
maintained by the equilibrium of forces, and will continue
just as long as this equilibrium exists, and no longer.

Whether this state of equilibrium is in itself a good or
desirable thing may be open to argument. I have discussed
it at length in my "War and the World's Life";
but I venture to suggest that to no one would a renewal
of the era of warfare be a change for the better, as far
as existing humanity is concerned. Meanwhile, however,
with every year that elapses the forces at present in
equilibrium are changing in magnitude--the pressure of
populations which have to be fed is rising, and an explosion
along the line of least resistance is, sooner or later,
inevitable.

As I read the teaching of the recent Hague Conference,
no responsible Government on the Continent is anxious
to form in themselves that line of least resistance; they
know only too well what War would mean; and we alone,
absolutely unconscious of the trend of the dominant
thought of Europe, are pulling down the dam which may
at any moment let in on us the flood of invasion.

Now no responsible man in Europe, perhaps least of
all in Germany, thanks us for this voluntary destruction
of our defences, for all who are of any importance would
very much rather end their days in peace than incur the
burden of responsibility which War would entail. But
they realise that the gradual dissemination of the principles
taught by Clausewitz has created a condition of
molecular tension in the minds of the Nations they
govern analogous to the "critical temperature of water
heated above boiling-point under pressure," which may at
any moment bring about an explosion which they will be
powerless to control.

The case is identical with that of an ordinary steam
boiler, delivering so and so many pounds of steam to its
engines as long as the envelope can contain the pressure;
but let a breach in its continuity arise--relieving the
boiling water of all restraint--and in a moment the whole
mass flashes into vapour, developing a power no work of
man can oppose.

The ultimate consequences of defeat no man can foretell.
The only way to avert them is to ensure victory;
and, again following out the principles of Clausewitz,
victory can only be ensured by the creation in
peace of an organisation which will bring every available
man, horse, and gun (or ship and gun, if the war be on
the sea) in the shortest possible time, and with the utmost
possible momentum, upon the decisive field of action--
which in turn leads to the final doctrine formulated by
Von der Goltz in excuse for the action of the late President
Kruger in 1899:

"The Statesman who, knowing his instrument to be
ready, and seeing War inevitable, hesitates to strike first
is guilty of a crime against his country."

It is because this sequence of cause and effect is absolutely
unknown to our Members of Parliament, elected
by popular representation, that all our efforts to ensure a
lasting peace by securing efficiency with economy in our
National Defences have been rendered nugatory.

This estimate of the influence of Clausewitz's sentiments
on contemporary thought in Continental Europe
may appear exaggerated to those who have not familiarised
themselves with M. Gustav de Bon's exposition of
the laws governing the formation and conduct of crowds
I do not wish for one minute to be understood as asserting
that Clausewitz has been conscientiously studied and
understood in any Army, not even in the Prussian, but
his work has been the ultimate foundation on which every
drill regulation in Europe, except our own, has been
reared. It is this ceaseless repetition of his fundamental
ideas to which one-half of the male population of every
Continental Nation has been subjected for two to three
years of their lives, which has tuned their minds to
vibrate in harmony with his precepts, and those who
know and appreciate this fact at its true value have
only to strike the necessary chords in order to evoke a
response sufficient to overpower any other ethical conception
which those who have not organised their forces
beforehand can appeal to.

The recent set-back experienced by the Socialists in
Germany is an illustration of my position. The Socialist
leaders of that country are far behind the responsible
Governors in their knowledge of the management of
crowds. The latter had long before (in 1893, in fact)
made their arrangements to prevent the spread of Socialistic
propaganda beyond certain useful limits. As long
as the Socialists only threatened capital they were not
seriously interfered with, for the Government knew quite
well that the undisputed sway of the employer was not
for the ultimate good of the State. The standard of
comfort must not be pitched too low if men are to he
ready to die for their country. But the moment the
Socialists began to interfere seriously with the discipline
of the Army the word went round, and the Socialists
lost heavily at the polls.

If this power of predetermined reaction to acquired
ideas can be evoked successfully in a matter of internal
interest only, in which the "obvious interest" of the
vast majority of the population is so clearly on the side
of the Socialist, it must be evident how enormously greater
it will prove when set in motion against an external
enemy, where the "obvious interest" of the people is,
from the very nature of things, as manifestly on the side
of the Government; and the Statesman who failed to
take into account the force of the "resultant thought
wave" of a crowd of some seven million men, all trained
to respond to their ruler's call, would be guilty of treachery
as grave as one who failed to strike when he knew the
Army to be ready for immediate action.

As already pointed out, it is to the spread of Clausewitz's
ideas that the present state of more or less immediate
readiness for war of all European Armies is due,
and since the organisation of these forces is uniform this
"more or less" of readiness exists in precise proportion
to the sense of duty which animates the several Armies.
Where the spirit of duty and self-sacrifice is low the
troops are unready and inefficient; where, as in Prussia,
these qualities, by the training of a whole century, have
become instinctive, troops really are ready to the last
button, and might be poured down upon any one of her
neighbours with such rapidity that the very first collision
must suffice to ensure ultimate success--a success by no
means certain if the enemy, whoever he may be, is
allowed breathing-time in which to set his house in order.

An example will make this clearer. In 1887 Germany
was on the very verge of War with France and Russia.
At that moment her superior efficiency, the consequence
of this inborn sense of duty--surely one of the highest
qualities of humanity--was so great that it is more than
probable that less than six weeks would have sufficed to
bring the French to their knees. Indeed, after the first
fortnight it would have been possible to begin transferring
troops from the Rhine to the Niemen; and the same
case may arise again. But if France and Russia had
been allowed even ten days' warning the German plan
would have been completely defeated. France alone
might then have claimed all the efforts that Germany
could have put forth to defeat her.

Yet there are politicians in England so grossly ignorant
of the German reading of the Napoleonic lessons that
they expect that Nation to sacrifice the enormous advantage
they have prepared by a whole century of self-
sacrifice and practical patriotism by an appeal to a
Court of Arbitration, and the further delays which must
arise by going through the medieaeval formalities of recalling
Ambassadors and exchanging ultimatums.

Most of our present-day politicians have made their
money in business--a "form of human competition
greatly resembling War," to paraphrase Clausewitz.
Did they, when in the throes of such competition, send
formal notice to their rivals of their plans to get the better
of them in commerce? Did Mr. Carnegie, the arch-
priest of Peace at any price, when he built up the Steel
Trust, notify his competitors when and how he proposed
to strike the blows which successively made him master
of millions? Surely the Directors of a Great Nation
may consider the interests of their shareholders--i.e., the
people they govern--as sufficiently serious not to be
endangered by the deliberate sacrifice of the preponderant
position of readiness which generations of self-devotion,
patriotism and wise forethought have won for them?

As regards the strictly military side of this work,
though the recent researches of the French General Staff
into the records and documents of the Napoleonic period
have shown conclusively that Clausewitz had never
grasped the essential point of the Great Emperor's strategic
method, yet it is admitted that he has completely fathomed
the spirit which gave life to the form; and notwithstandingthe
variations in
application which have
resulted from the progress of invention in every field of
national activity (not in the technical improvements in
armament alone), this spirit still remains the essential
factor in the whole matter. Indeed, if anything, modern
appliances have intensified its importance, for though,
with equal armaments on both sides, the form of battles
must always remain the same, the facility and certainty
of combination which better methods of communicating
orders and intelligence have conferred upon the Commanders
has rendered the control of great masses immeasurably
more certain than it was in the past.

Men kill each other at greater distances, it is true--
but killing is a constant factor in all battles. The difference
between "now and then" lies in this, that, thanks
to the enormous increase in range (the essential feature
in modern armaments), it is possible to concentrate by
surprise, on any chosen spot, a man-killing power fully
twentyfold greater than was conceivable in the days of
Waterloo; and whereas in Napoleon's time this concentration
of man-killing power (which in his hands took the
form of the great case-shot attack) depended almost
entirely on the shape and condition of the ground, which
might or might not be favourable, nowadays such concentration
of fire-power is almost independent of the
country altogether.

Thus, at Waterloo, Napoleon was compelled to wait till
the ground became firm enough for his guns to gallop
over; nowadays every gun at his disposal, and five times
that number had he possessed them, might have opened
on any point in the British position he had selected, as
soon as it became light enough to see.

Or, to take a more modern instance, viz., the battle
of St. Privat-Gravelotte, August 18, 1870, where the
Germans were able to concentrate on both wings batteries
of two hundred guns and upwards, it would have been
practically impossible, owing to the section of the slopes
of the French position, to carry out the old-fashioned
case-shot attack at all. Nowadays there would be no
difficulty in turning on the fire of two thousand guns on
any point of the position, and switching this fire up and
down the line like water from a fire-engine hose, if the
occasion demanded such concentration.

But these alterations in method make no difference
in the truth of the picture of War which Clausewitz
presents, with which every soldier, and above all every
Leader, should be saturated.

Death, wounds, suffering, and privation remain the
same, whatever the weapons employed, and their reaction
on the ultimate nature of man is the same now as
in the struggle a century ago. It is this reaction that
the Great Commander has to understand and prepare
himself to control; and the task becomes ever greater as,
fortunately for humanity, the opportunities for gathering
experience become more rare.

In the end, and with every improvement in science,
the result depends more and more on the character of
the Leader and his power of resisting "the sensuous
impressions of the battlefield." Finally, for those who
would fit themselves in advance for such responsibility,
I know of no more inspiring advice than that given by
Krishna to Arjuna ages ago, when the latter trembled
before the awful responsibility of launching his Army
against the hosts of the Pandav's:

This Life within all living things, my Prince,
Hides beyond harm. Scorn thou to suffer, then,
For that which cannot suffer. Do thy part!
Be mindful of thy name, and tremble not.
Nought better can betide a martial soul
Than lawful war. Happy the warrior
To whom comes joy of battle....
. . . But if thou shunn'st
This honourable field--a Kshittriya--
If, knowing thy duty and thy task, thou bidd'st
Duty and task go by--that shall be sin!
And those to come shall speak thee infamy
From age to age. But infamy is worse
For men of noble blood to bear than death!
. . . . . .
Therefore arise, thou Son of Kunti! Brace
Thine arm for conflict; nerve thy heart to meet,
As things alike to thee, pleasure or pain,
Profit or ruin, victory or defeat.
So minded, gird thee to the fight, for so
Thou shalt not sin!
COL. F. N. MAUDE, C.B., late R.E.



CONTENTS

BOOK I ON THE NATURE OF WAR

I WHAT IS WAR? page 1
II END AND MEANS IN WAR 27
III THE GENIUS FOR WAR 46
IV OF DANGER IN WAR 71
V OF BODILY EXERTION IN WAR 73
VI INFORMATION IN WAR 75
VII FRICTION IN WAR 77
VIII CONCLUDING REMARKS 81

BOOK II ON THE THEORY OF WAR
I BRANCHES OF THE ART OF WAR 84
II ON THE THEORY OF WAR 95
III ART OR SCIENCE OF WAR 119
IV METHODICISM 122V CRITICISM 130
VI ON EXAMPLES 156

BOOK III OF STRATEGY IN GENERAL
I STRATEGY 165
II ELEMENTS OF STRATEGY 175
III MORAL FORCES 177
IV THE CHIEF MORAL POWERS 179
V MILITARY VIRTUE OF AN ARMY 180
VI BOLDNESS 186
VII PERSEVERANCE 191
VIII SUPERIORITY OF NUMBERS 192
IX THE SURPRISE 199
X STRATAGEM 205
XI ASSEMBLY OF FORCES IN SPACE 207
XII ASSEMBLY OF FORCES IN TIME 208
XIII STRATEGIC RESERVE 217
XIV ECONOMY OF FORCES 221
XV GEOMETRICAL ELEMENT 222
XVI ON THE SUSPENSION OF THE ACT IN WAR page 224
XVII ON THE CHARACTER OF MODERN WAR 230
XVIII TENSION AND REST 231

BOOK IV THE COMBAT
I INTRODUCTORY 235
II CHARACTER OF THE MODERN BATTLE 236
III THE COMBAT IN GENERAL 238
IV THE COMBAT IN GENERAL (continuation) 243
V ON THE SIGNIFICATION OF THE COMBAT 253
VI DURATION OF THE COMBAT 256
VII DECISION OF THE COMBAT 257
VIII MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING AS TO A BATTLE 266
IX THE BATTLE 270
X EFFECTS OF VICTORY 277
XI THE USE OF THE BATTLE 284
XII STRATEGIC MEANS OF UTILISING VICTORY 292
XIII RETREAT AFTER A LOST BATTLE 305
XIV NIGHT FIGHTING 308



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

IT will naturally excite surprise that a preface by a
female hand should accompany a work on such a subject
as the present. For my friends no explanation of the
circumstance is required; but I hope by a simple relation
of the cause to clear myself of the appearance of presumption
in the eyes also of those to whom I am not
known.

The work to which these lines serve as a preface
occupied almost entirely the last twelve years of the life
of my inexpressibly beloved husband, who has unfortunately
been torn too soon from myself and his
country. To complete it was his most earnest desire;
but it was not his intention that it should be published
during his life; and if I tried to persuade him to alter
that intention, he often answered, half in jest, but also,
perhaps, half in a foreboding of early death: "Thou
shalt publish it." These words (which in those happy
days often drew tears from me, little as I was inclined to
attach a serious meaning to them) make it now, in the
opinion of my friends, a duty incumbent on me to introduce
the posthumous works of my beloved husband,
with a few prefatory lines from myself; and although
here may be a difference of opinion on this point, still
I am sure there will be no mistake as to the feeling which
has prompted me to overcome the timidity which makes
any such appearance, even in a subordinate part, so
difficult for a woman.

It will be understood, as a matter of course, that I
cannot have the most remote intention of considering
myself as the real editress of a work which is far above
the scope of my capacity: I only stand at its side as an
affectionate companion on its entrance into the world.
This position I may well claim, as a similar one was
allowed me during its formation and progress. Those
who are acquainted with our happy married life, and
know how we shared everything with each other--not
only joy and sorrow, but also every occupation, every
interest of daily life--will understand that my beloved
husband could not be occupied on a work of this kind
without its being known to me. Therefore, no one can
like me bear testimony to the zeal, to the love with which
he laboured on it, to the hopes which he bound up with
it, as well as the manner and time of its elaboration.
His richly gifted mind had from his early youth longed
for light and truth, and, varied as were his talents, still
he had chiefly directed his reflections to the science of
war, to which the duties of his profession called him, and
which are of such importance for the benefit of States.
Scharnhorst was the first to lead him into the right road,
and his subsequent appointment in 1810 as Instructor
at the General War School, as well as the honour conferred
on him at the same time of giving military instruction
to H.R.H. the Crown Prince, tended further to give his
investigations and studies that direction, and to lead
him to put down in writing whatever conclusions he
arrived at. A paper with which he finished the instruction
of H.R.H. the Crown Prince contains the germ of his
subsequent works. But it was in the year 1816, at
Coblentz, that he first devoted himself again to scientific
labours, and to collecting the fruits which his rich experience
in those four eventful years had brought to
maturity. He wrote down his views, in the first place,
in short essays, only loosely connected with each other.
The following, without date, which has been found
amongst his papers, seems to belong to those early days.

"In the principles here committed to paper, in my
opinion, the chief things which compose Strategy, as it
is called, are touched upon. I looked upon them only
as materials, and had just got to such a length towards
the moulding them into a whole.

"These materials have been amassed without any
regularly preconceived plan. My view was at first,
without regard to system and strict connection, to put
down the results of my reflections upon the most important
points in quite brief, precise, compact propositions.
The manner in which Montesquieu has treated his subject
floated before me in idea. I thought that concise,
sententious chapters, which I proposed at first to call
grains, would attract the attention of the intelligent just
as much by that which was to be developed from them,
as by that which they contained in themselves. I had,
therefore, before me in idea, intelligent readers already
acquainted with the subject. But my nature, which
always impels me to development and systematising, at
last worked its way out also in this instance. For some
time I was able to confine myself to extracting only the
most important results from the essays, which, to attain
clearness and conviction in my own mind, I wrote upon
different subjects, to concentrating in that manner their
spirit in a small compass; but afterwards my peculiarity
gained ascendency completely--I have developed what
I could, and thus naturally have supposed a reader not
yet acquainted with the subject.

"The more I advanced with the work, and the more
I yielded to the spirit of investigation, so much the more
I was also led to system; and thus, then, chapter after
chapter has been inserted.

"My ultimate view has now been to go through the
whole once more, to establish by further explanation
much of the earlier treatises, and perhaps to condense
into results many analyses on the later ones, and thus to
make a moderate whole out of it, forming a small octavo
volume. But it was my wish also in this to avoid
everything common, everything that is plain of itself,
that has been said a hundred times, and is generally
accepted; for my ambition was to write a book that
would not be forgotten in two or three years, and which
any one interested in the subject would at all events
take up more than once."

In Coblentz, where he was much occupied with duty,
he could only give occasional hours to his private studies.
It was not until 1818, after his appointment as Director
of the General Academy of War at Berlin, that he had
the leisure to expand his work, and enrich it from the
history of modern wars. This leisure also reconciled
him to his new avocation, which, in other respects, was
not satisfactory to him, as, according to the existing
organisation of the Academy, the scientific part of the
course is not under the Director, but conducted by a
Board of Studies. Free as he was from all petty vanity,
from every feeling of restless, egotistical ambition, still
he felt a desire to be really useful, and not to leave
inactive the abilities with which God had endowed him.
In active life he was not in a position in which this longing
could be satisfied, and he had little hope of attaining to
any such position: his whole energies were therefore
directed upon the domain of science, and the benefit
which he hoped to lay the foundation of by his work was
the object of his life. That, notwithstanding this, the
resolution not to let the work appear until after his
death became more confirmed is the best proof that
no vain, paltry longing for praise and distinction, no
particle of egotistical views, was mixed up with this
noble aspiration for great and lasting usefulness.

Thus he worked diligently on, until, in the spring of
1830, he was appointed to the artillery, and his energies
were called into activity in such a different sphere, and
to such a high degree, that he was obliged, for the moment
at least, to give up all literary work. He then put his
papers in order, sealed up the separate packets, labelled
them, and took sorrowful leave of this employment which
he loved so much. He was sent to Breslau in August of
the same year, as Chief of the Second Artillery District,
but in December recalled to Berlin, and appointed Chief
of the Staff to Field-Marshal Count Gneisenau (for the
term of his command). In March 1831, he accompanied
his revered Commander to Posen. When he returned
from there to Breslau in November after the melancholy
event which had taken place, he hoped to resume his
work and perhaps complete it in the course of the winter.
The Almighty has willed it should be otherwise. On
the 7th November he returned to Breslau; on the 16th
he was no more; and the packets sealed by himself were
not opened until after his death.

The papers thus left are those now made public in
the following volumes, exactly in the condition in which
they were found, without a word being added or erased.
Still, however, there was much to do before publication,
in the way of putting them in order and consulting about
them; and I am deeply indebted to several sincere
friends for the assistance they have afforded me, particularly
Major O'Etzel, who kindly undertook the
correction of the Press, as well as the preparation of the
maps to accompany the historical parts of the work. I
must also mention my much-loved brother, who was my
support in the hour of my misfortune, and who has also
done much for me in respect of these papers; amongst
other things, by carefully examining and putting them in
order, he found the commencement of the revision which
my dear husband wrote in the year 1827, and mentions
in the Notice hereafter annexed as a work he had in view.
This revision has been inserted in the place intended for
it in the first book (for it does not go any further).

There are still many other friends to whom I might
offer my thanks for their advice, for the sympathy and
friendship which they have shown me; but if I do not
name them all, they will, I am sure, not have any doubts
of my sincere gratitude. It is all the greater, from my
firm conviction that all they have done was not only on
my own account, but for the friend whom God has thus
called away from them so soon.

If I have been highly blessed as the wife of such a
man during one and twenty years, so am I still,
notwithstanding my irreparable loss, by the treasure of
my recollections and of my hopes, by the rich legacy of
sympathy and friendship which I owe the beloved
departed, by the elevating feeling which I experience
at seeing his rare worth so generally and honourably
acknowledged.

The trust confided to me by a Royal Couple is a fresh
benefit for which I have to thank the Almighty, as it
opens to me an honourable occupation, to which Idevote myself.
May this
occupation be
blessed, and may the dear little Prince who is now
entrusted to my care, some day read this book, and
be animated by it to deeds like those of his glorious
ancestors.


Written at the Marble Palace, Potsdam, 30th June, 1832.

MARIE VON CLAUSEWITZ,
Born Countess Bruhl,
Oberhofmeisterinn to H.R.H. the Princess William.



NOTICE

I LOOK upon the first six books, of which a fair copy has
now been made, as only a mass which is still in a manner
without form, and which has yet to be again revised.
In this revision the two kinds of War will be everywhere
kept more distinctly in view, by which all ideas will
acquire a clearer meaning, a more precise direction, and
a closer application. The two kinds of War are, first,
those in which the object is the OVERTHROW OF THE ENEMY,
whether it be that we aim at his destruction, politically,
or merely at disarming him and forcing him to conclude
peace on our terms; and next, those in which our object
is MERELY TO MAKE SOME CONQUESTS ON THE FRONTIERS OF HIS
COUNTRY, either for the purpose of retaining them permanently,
or of turning them to account as matter of
exchange in the settlement of a peace. Transition from
one kind to the other must certainly continue to exist,
but the completely different nature of the tendencies of
the two must everywhere appear, and must separate
from each other things which are incompatible.

Besides establishing this real difference in Wars,
another practically necessary point of view must at the
same time be established, which is, that WAR IS ONLY A
CONTINUATION OF STATE POLICY BY OTHER MEANS. This point of
view being adhered to everywhere, will introduce much
more unity into the consideration of the subject, and
things will be more easily disentangled from each other.
Although the chief application of this point of view does
not commence until we get to the eighth book, still it
must be completely developed in the first book, and also
lend assistance throughout the revision of the first six
books. Through such a revision the first six books will
get rid of a good deal of dross, many rents and chasms
will be closed up, and much that is of a general nature
will be transformed into distinct conceptions and forms.

The seventh book--on attack--for the different
chapters of which sketches are already made, is to be
considered as a reflection of the sixth, and must be
completed at once, according to the above-mentioned
more distinct points of view, so that it will require no
fresh revision, but rather may serve as a model in the
revision of the first six books.

For the eighth book--on the Plan of a War, that is,
of the organisation of a whole War in general--several
chapters are designed, but they are not at all to be regarded
as real materials, they are merely a track, roughly cleared,
as it were, through the mass, in order by that means to
ascertain the points of most importance. They have
answered this object, and I propose, on finishing the seventh
book, to proceed at once to the working out of the eighth,
where the two points of view above mentioned will be
chiefly affirmed, by which everything will be simplified,
and at the same time have a spirit breathed into it. I
hope in this book to iron out many creases in the heads of
strategists and statesmen, and at least to show the object
of action, and the real point to be considered in War.

Now, when I have brought my ideas clearly out by
finishing this eighth book, and have properly established
the leading features of War, it will be easier for me to
carry the spirit of these ideas in to the first six books, and
to make these same features show themselves everywhere.
Therefore I shall defer till then the revision of the first
six books.

Should the work be interrupted by my death, then
what is found can only be called a mass of conceptions
not brought into form; but as these are open to endless
misconceptions, they will doubtless give rise to a number
of crude criticisms: for in these things, every one thinks,
when he takes up his pen, that whatever comes into his
head is worth saying and printing, and quite as incontrovertible
as that twice two make four. If such a one
would take the pains, as I have done, to think over the
subject, for years, and to compare his ideas with military
history, he would certainly be a little more guarded in
his criticism.

Still, notwithstanding this imperfect form, I believe
that an impartial reader thirsting for truth and conviction
will rightly appreciate in the first six books the
fruits of several years' reflection and a diligent study of
War, and that, perhaps, he will find in them some
leading ideas which may bring about a revolution in the
theory of War.

Berlin, 10th July, 1827.


Besides this notice, amongst the papers left the
following unfinished memorandum was found, which
appears of very recent date:

The manuscript on the conduct of the Grande Guerre,
which will be found after my death, in its present state
can only be regarded as a collection of materials from
which it is intended to construct a theory of War. With
the greater part I am not yet satisfied; and the sixth
book is to be looked at as a mere essay: I should have
completely remodelled it, and have tried a different line.

But the ruling principles which pervade these materials
I hold to be the right ones: they are the result of a
very varied reflection, keeping always in view the reality,
and always bearing in mind what I have learnt by experience
and by my intercourse with distinguished soldiers.

The seventh book is to contain the attack, the
subjects of which are thrown together in a hasty manner:
the eighth, the plan for a War, in which I would have
examined War more especially in its political and human
aspects.

The first chapter of the first book is the only one
which I consider as completed; it will at least serve to
show the manner in which I proposed to treat the subject
throughout.

The theory of the Grande Guerre, or Strategy, as it is
called, is beset with extraordinary difficulties, and we
may affirm that very few men have clear conceptions of
the separate subjects, that is, conceptions carried up to
their full logical conclusions. In real action most men
are guided merely by the tact of judgment which hits
the object more or less accurately, according as they possess
more or less genius.

This is the way in which all great Generals have
acted, and therein partly lay their greatness and their
genius, that they always hit upon what was right by
this tact. Thus also it will always be in action, and so
far this tact is amply sufficient. But when it is a question,
not of acting oneself, but of convincing others in a
consultation, then all depends on clear conceptions and
demonstration of the inherent relations, and so little
progress has been made in this respect that most deliberations
are merely a contention of words, resting on no
firm basis, and ending either in every one retaining his own
opinion, or in a compromise from mutual considerations
of respect, a middle course really without any value.[*]

[*] Herr Clausewitz evidently had before his mind the endless
consultations
at the Headquarters of the Bohemian Army in the Leipsic
Campaign 1813.

Clear ideas on these matters are therefore not wholly
useless; besides, the human mind has a general tendency
to clearness, and always wants to be consistent
with the necessary order of things.

Owing to the great difficulties attending a philosophical
construction of the Art of War, and the many
attempts at it that have failed, most people have come
to the conclusion that such a theory is impossible, because
it concerns things which no standing law can embrace.
We should also join in this opinion and give up any
attempt at a theory, were it not that a great number of
propositions make themselves evident without any
difficulty, as, for instance, that the defensive form, with
a negative object, is the stronger form, the attack, with the
positive object, the weaker--that great results carry the
little ones with them--that, therefore, strategic effects
may be referred to certain centres of gravity--that a
demonstration is a weaker application of force than a
real attack, that, therefore, there must be some special
reason for resorting to the former--that victory consists
not merely in the conquest on the field of battle, but in
the destruction of armed forces, physically and morally,
which can in general only be effected by a pursuit after
the battle is gained--that successes are always greatest
at the point where the victory has been gained, that,
therefore, the change from one line and object to another
can only be regarded as a necessary evil--that a turning
movement is only justified by a superiority of numbers
generally or by the advantage of our lines of communication
and retreat over those of the enemy--that flank
positions are only justifiable on similar grounds--that
every attack becomes weaker as it progresses.


THE INTRODUCTION OF THE AUTHOR

THAT the conception of the scientific does not consist
alone, or chiefly, in system, and its finished theoretical
constructions, requires nowadays no exposition. System
in this treatise is not to be found on the surface, and
instead of a finished building of theory, there are only
materials.

The scientific form lies here in the endeavour to
explore the nature of military phenomena to show their
affinity with the nature of the things of which they are
composed. Nowhere has the philosophical argument
been evaded, but where it runs out into too thin a thread
the Author has preferred to cut it short, and fall back
upon the corresponding results of experience; for in
the same way as many plants only bear fruit when they
do not shoot too high, so in the practical arts the theoretical
leaves and flowers must not be made to sprout
too far, but kept near to experience, which is their proper
soil.

Unquestionably it would be a mistake to try to
discover from the chemical ingredients of a grain of corn
the form of the ear of corn which it bears, as we have only
to go to the field to see the ears ripe. Investigation and
observation, philosophy and experience, must neither
despise nor exclude one another; they mutually afford
each other the rights of citizenship. Consequently,
the propositions of this book, with their arch of inherent
necessity, are supported either by experience or by the
conception of War itself as external points, so that they
are not without abutments.[*]

[*] That this is not the case in the works of many military
writers
especially of those who have aimed at treating of War itself in a
scientific manner, is shown in many instances, in which by their
reasoning,
the pro and contra swallow each other up so effectually that
there
is no vestige of the tails even which were left in the case of
the two
lions.


It is, perhaps, not impossible to write a systematic
theory of War full of spirit and substance, but ours.
hitherto, have been very much the reverse. To say
nothing of their unscientific spirit, in their striving after
coherence and completeness of system, they overflow
with commonplaces, truisms, and twaddle of every kind.
If we want a striking picture of them we have only to
read Lichtenberg's extract from a code of regulations
in case of fire.

If a house takes fire, we must seek, above all things,
to protect the right side of the house standing on the left,
and, on the other hand, the left side of the house on the
right; for if we, for example, should protect the left side
of the house on the left, then the right side of the house
lies to the right of the left, and consequently as the fire
lies to the right of this side, and of the right side (for we
have assumed that the house is situated to the left of
the fire), therefore the right side is situated nearer to
the fire than the left, and the right side of the house might
catch fire if it was not protected before it came to the
left, which is protected. Consequently, something might
be burnt that is not protected, and that sooner than
something else would be burnt, even if it was not protected;
consequently we must let alone the latter and
protect the former. In order to impress the thing on
one's mind, we have only to note if the house is situated
to the right of the fire, then it is the left side, and if the
house is to the left it is the right side.

In order not to frighten the intelligent reader by
such commonplaces, and to make the little good that
there is distasteful by pouring water upon it, the Author
has preferred to give in small ingots of fine metal his
impressions and convictions, the result of many years'
reflection on War, of his intercourse with men of ability,
and of much personal experience. Thus the seemingly
weakly bound-together chapters of this book have
arisen, but it is hoped they will not be found wanting
in logical connection. Perhaps soon a greater head may
appear, and instead of these single grains, give the whole
in a casting of pure metal without dross.



BRIEF MEMOIR OF GENERAL
CLAUSEWITZ

(BY TRANSLATOR)

THE Author of the work here translated, General Carl
Von Clausewitz, was born at Burg, near Magdeburg, in
1780, and entered the Prussian Army as Fahnenjunker
(i.e., ensign) in 1792. He served in the campaigns of
1793-94 on the Rhine, after which he seems to have
devoted some time to the study of the scientific branches
of his profession. In 1801 he entered the Military School
at Berlin, and remained there till 1803. During his
residence there he attracted the notice of General
Scharnhorst, then at the head of the establishment; and
the patronage of this distinguished officer had immense
influence on his future career, and we may gather
from his writings that he ever afterwards continued
to entertain a high esteem for Scharnhorst. In the
campaign of 1806 he served as Aide-de-camp to Prince
Augustus of Prussia; and being wounded and taken
prisoner, he was sent into France until the close of that
war. On his return, he was placed on General Scharnhorst's
Staff, and employed in the work then going on
for the reorganisation of the Army. He was also at this
time selected as military instructor to the late King of
Prussia, then Crown Prince. In 1812 Clausewitz, with
several other Prussian officers, having entered the
Russian service, his first appointment was as Aide-de-camp
to General Phul. Afterwards, while serving with Wittgenstein's
army, he assisted in negotiating the famous convention
of Tauroggen with York. Of the part he took in
that affair he has left an interesting account in his work
on the "Russian Campaign." It is there stated that,
in order to bring the correspondence which had been
carried on with York to a termination in one way or
another, the Author was despatched to York's headquarters
with two letters, one was from General d'Auvray,
the Chief of the Staff of Wittgenstein's army, to General
Diebitsch, showing the arrangements made to cut off
York's corps from Macdonald (this was necessary in order
to give York a plausible excuse for seceding from the
French); the other was an intercepted letter from
Macdonald to the Duke of Bassano. With regard to
the former of these, the Author says, "it would not have
had weight with a man like York, but for a military
justification, if the Prussian Court should require one
as against the French, it was important."

The second letter was calculated at the least to call
up in General York's mind all the feelings of bitterness
which perhaps for some days past bad been diminished by
the consciousness of his own behaviour towards the writer.

As the Author entered General York's chamber, the
latter called out to him, "Keep off from me; I will have
nothing more to do with you; your d----d Cossacks
have let a letter of Macdonald's pass through them,
which brings me an order to march on Piktrepohnen, in
order there to effect our junction. All doubt is now at
an end; your troops do not come up; you are too
weak; march I must, and I must excuse myself from
further negotiation, which may cost me my head."
The Author said that be would make no opposition to
all this, but begged for a candle, as he had letters to show
the General, and, as the latter seemed still to hesitate,
the Author added, "Your Excellency will not surely
place me in the embarrassment of departing without
having executed my commission." The General ordered
candles, and called in Colonel von Roeder, the chief of his
staff, from the ante-chamber. The letters were read.
After a pause of an instant, the General said, "Clausewitz,
you are a Prussian, do you believe that the letter of
General d'Auvray is sincere, and that Wittgenstein's
troops will really be at the points he mentioned on the
31st?" The Author replied, "I pledge myself for the
sincerity of this letter upon the knowledge I have of
General d'Auvray and the other men of Wittgenstein's
headquarters; whether the dispositions he announces
can be accomplished as he lays down I certainly cannot
pledge myself; for your Excellency knows that in war
we must often fall short of the line we have drawn for
ourselves." The General was silent for a few minutes
of earnest reflection; then he held out his hand to the
Author, and said, "You have me. Tell General Diebitsch
that we must confer early to-morrow at the mill of
Poschenen, and that I am now firmly determined to
separate myself from the French and their cause." The
hour was fixed for 8 A.M. After this was settled, the
General added, "But I will not do the thing by halves,
I will get you Massenbach also." He called in an officer
who was of Massenbach's cavalry, and who had just left
them. Much like Schiller's Wallenstein, he asked, walking
up and down the room the while, "What say your
regiments?" The officer broke out with enthusiasm at
the idea of a riddance from the French alliance, and said
that every man of the troops in question felt the same.

"You young ones may talk; but my older head is
shaking on my shoulders," replied the General.[*]

[*] "Campaign in Russia in 1812"; translated from the German of
General Von Clausewitz (by Lord Ellesmere).

After the close of the Russian campaign Clausewitz
remained in the service of that country, but was attached
as a Russian staff officer to Blucher's headquarters till
the Armistice in 1813.

In 1814, he became Chief of the Staff of General
Walmoden's Russo-German Corps, which formed part
of the Army of the North under Bernadotte. His
name is frequently mentioned with distinction in that
campaign, particularly in connection with the affair
of Goehrde.

Clausewitz re-entered the Prussian service in 1815,
and served as Chief of the Staff to Thielman's corps,
which was engaged with Grouchy at Wavre, on the 18th
of June.

After the Peace, he was employed in a command on
the Rhine. In 1818, he became Major-General, and
Director of the Military School at which he had been
previously educated.

In 1830, he was appointed Inspector of Artillery at
Breslau, but soon after nominated Chief of the Staff to
the Army of Observation, under Marshal Gneisenau on
the Polish frontier.

The latest notices of his life and services are probably
to be found in the memoirs of General Brandt, who,
from being on the staff of Gneisenau's army, was brought
into daily intercourse with Clausewitz in matters of
duty, and also frequently met him at the table of Marshal
Gneisenau, at Posen.

Amongst other anecdotes, General Brandt relates
that, upon one occasion, the conversation at the Marshal's
table turned upon a sermon preached by a priest, in
which some great absurdities were introduced, and a
discussion arose as to whether the Bishop should not be
made responsible for what the priest had said. This
led to the topic of theology in general, when General
Brandt, speaking of himself, says, "I expressed an
opinion that theology is only to be regarded as an historical
process, as a MOMENT in the gradual development of the
human race. This brought upon me an attack from all
quarters, but more especially from Clausewitz, who ought
to have been on my side, he having been an adherent
and pupil of Kiesewetter's, who had indoctrinated him
in the philosophy of Kant, certainly diluted--I
might even say in homoeopathic doses." This anecdote
is only interesting as the mention of Kiesewetter points
to a circumstance in the life of Clausewitz that may have
had an influence in forming those habits of thought
which distinguish his writings.

"The way," says General Brandt, "in which General
Clausewitz judged of things, drew conclusions from movements
and marches, calculated the times of the marches,
and the points where decisions would take place, was extremely
interesting. Fate has unfortunately denied him
an opportunity of showing his talents in high command,
but I have a firm persuasion that as a strategist he would
have greatly distinguished himself. As a leader on the
field of battle, on the other hand, he would not have been
so much in his right place, from a manque d'habitude
du commandement, he wanted the art d'enlever les
troupes."

After the Prussian Army of Observation was dissolved,
Clausewitz returned to Breslau, and a few days after his
arrival was seized with cholera, the seeds of which
he must have brought with him from the army on the
Polish frontier. His death took place in November
1831.

His writings are contained in nine volumes, published
after his death, but his fame rests most upon the three
volumes forming his treatise on "War." In the present
attempt to render into English this portion of the works
of Clausewitz, the translator is sensible of many deficiencies,
but he hopes at all events to succeed in making this
celebrated treatise better known in England, believing,
as he does, that so far as the work concerns the interests
of this country, it has lost none of the importance it
possessed at the time of its first publication.

J. J. GRAHAM (Col.)



BOOK I. ON THE NATURE OF WAR

CHAPTER I. WHAT IS WAR?

1. INTRODUCTION.

WE propose to consider first the single elements of our
subject, then each branch or part, and, last of all, the
whole, in all its relations--therefore to advance from the
simple to the complex. But it is necessary for us to commence
with a glance at the nature of the whole, because
it is particularly necessary that in the consideration of
any of the parts their relation to the whole should be
kept constantly in view.

2. DEFINITION.

We shall not enter into any of the abstruse definitions
of War used by publicists. We shall keep to the element
of the thing itself, to a duel. War is nothing but a duel
on an extensive scale. If we would conceive as a unit
the countless number of duels which make up a War, we
shall do so best by supposing to ourselves two wrestlers.
Each strives by physical force to compel the other to
submit to his will: each endeavours to throw his adversary,
and thus render him incapable of further resistance.

WAR THEREFORE IS AN ACT OF VIOLENCE INTENDED TO COMPEL OUR
OPPONENT TO FULFIL OUR WILL.

Violence arms itself with the inventions of Art and
Science in order to contend against violence. Self-
imposed restrictions, almost imperceptible and hardly
worth mentioning, termed usages of International Law,
accompany it without essentially impairing its power.
Violence, that is to say, physical force (for there is no moral
force without the conception of States and Law), is therefore
the MEANS; the compulsory submission of the enemy
to our will is the ultimate object. In order to attain
this object fully, the enemy must be disarmed, and
disarmament becomes therefore the immediate OBJECT of
hostilities in theory. It takes the place of the final object,
and puts it aside as something we can eliminate from
our calculations.

3. UTMOST USE OF FORCE.

Now, philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skilful
method of disarming and overcoming an enemy withoutgreat
bloodshed, and that
this is the proper
tendency of the Art of War. However plausible this may
appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated;
for in such dangerous things as War, the errors which
proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.
As the use of physical power to the utmost extent by no
means excludes the co-operation of the intelligence, it
follows that he who uses force unsparingly, without
reference to the bloodshed involved, must obtain a
superiority if his adversary uses less vigour in its application.
The former then dictates the law to the latter,
and both proceed to extremities to which the only
limitations are those imposed by the amount of counter-
acting force on each side.

This is the way in which the matter must be viewed
and it is to no purpose, it is even against one's own
interest, to turn away from the consideration of the real
nature of the affair because the horror of its elements
excites repugnance.

If the Wars of civilised people are less cruel and destructive
than those of savages, the difference arises from the
social condition both of States in themselves and in their
relations to each other. Out of this social condition and
its relations War arises, and by it War is subjected to
conditions, is controlled and modified. But these things
do not belong to War itself; they are only given conditions;
and to introduce into the philosophy of War itself
a principle of moderation would be an absurdity.

Two motives lead men to War: instinctive hostility
and hostile intention. In our definition of War, we
have chosen as its characteristic the latter of these
elements, because it is the most general. It is
impossible to conceive the passion of hatred of the
wildest description, bordering on mere instinct, without
combining with it the idea of a hostile intention. On
the other hand, hostile intentions may often exist without
being accompanied by any, or at all events by any
extreme, hostility of feeling. Amongst savages views
emanating from the feelings, amongst civilised nations
those emanating from the understanding, have the
predominance; but this difference arises from attendant
circumstances, existing institutions, &c., and, therefore,
is not to be found necessarily in all cases, although
it prevails in the majority. In short, even the most
civilised nations may burn with passionate hatred of each
other.

We may see from this what a fallacy it would be to
refer the War of a civilised nation entirely to an intelligent
act on the part of the Government, and to imagine it as
continually freeing itself more and more from all feeling
of passion in such a way that at last the physical masses
of combatants would no longer be required; in reality,
their mere relations would suffice--a kind of algebraic
action.

Theory was beginning to drift in this direction until
the facts of the last War[*] taught it better. If War is an
ACT of force, it belongs necessarily also to the feelings.
If it does not originate in the feelings, it REACTS, more or
less, upon them, and the extent of this reaction depends
not on the degree of civilisation, but upon the importance
and duration of the interests involved.

[*] Clausewitz alludes here to the "Wars of Liberation,"
1813,14,15.


Therefore, if we find civilised nations do not put their
prisoners to death, do not devastate towns and countries,
this is because their intelligence exercises greater influence
on their mode of carrying on War, and has taught them
more effectual means of applying force than these rude
acts of mere instinct. The invention of gunpowder, the
constant progress of improvements in the construction
of firearms, are sufficient proofs that the tendency to
destroy the adversary which lies at the bottom of the conception
of War is in no way changed or modified through
the progress of civilisation.

We therefore repeat our proposition, that War is an
act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds; as one
side dictates the law to the other, there arises a sort
of reciprocal action, which logically must lead to an
extreme. This is the first reciprocal action, and the
first extreme with which we meet (FIRST RECIPROCAL ACTION).

4. THE AIM IS TO DISARM THE ENEMY.

We have already said that the aim of all action in
War is to disarm the enemy, and we shall now show that
this, theoretically at least, is indispensable.

If our opponent is to be made to comply with our will,
we must place him in a situation which is more oppressive
to him than the sacrifice which we demand; but the
disadvantages of this position must naturally not be of a
transitory nature, at least in appearance, otherwise the
enemy, instead of yielding, will hold out, in the prospect
of a change for the better. Every change in this position
which is produced by a continuation of the War should
therefore be a change for the worse. The worst condition
in which a belligerent can be placed is that of
being completely disarmed. If, therefore, the enemy is
to be reduced to submission by an act of War, he must
either be positively disarmed or placed in such a
position that he is threatened with it. From this it
follows that the disarming or overthrow of the
enemy, whichever we call it, must always be the aim
of Warfare. Now War is always the shock of two
hostile bodies in collision, not the action of a living
power upon an inanimate mass, because an absolute
state of endurance would not be making War; therefore,
what we have just said as to the aim of action in
War applies to both parties. Here, then, is another
case of reciprocal action. As long as the enemy is not
defeated, he may defeat me; then I shall be no
longer my own master; he will dictate the law to me
as I did to him. This is the second reciprocal action,
and leads to a second extreme (SECOND RECIPROCAL ACTION).

5. UTMOST EXERTION OF POWERS.

If we desire to defeat the enemy, we must proportion
our efforts to his powers of resistance. This is expressed
by the product of two factors which cannot be separated,
namely, the sum of available means and the strength of the
Will. The sum of the available means may be estimated
in a measure, as it depends (although not entirely) upon
numbers; but the strength of volition is more difficult
to determine, and can only be estimated to a certain

 

Zzz... Zzz... Zzz... :!: Wuh? :shock: Did somebody say something interesting or new? Oh... :? guess not... Zzz... Zzz... Zzz...

Ass moment for the day brought to you by: nappy black hair in my whopper.

 

Oh yes, I remember that Joe. Oldest trick in the book.

 

I'm one tricky dude so look out.

 

War aint all that profitable, but its good for scientific advance.

Developement of armies by civilised nations and citystates
( Excluding the nomadic tradition )

1 ca 1500bc-1500ad introduction of training and spearformations.
2 ca 1500ad-1865ad introduction of servable guns.
3 ca 1865ad-1945ad introduction of barbed wire and repeating fire.
4 ca 1945ad-1992ad introduction of mutual nuclear annihilation
5 ca ?abcd-!abcd (re)introduction of magic

Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics,
Great Russia has welded forever to stand.
Created in struggle by will of the people,
United and mighty, our Soviet land!
CHORUS:
Sing to the Motherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!
Through tempests the sunrays of freedom have cheered us,
Along the new path where great Lenin did lead.
To a righteous cause he raised up the peoples,
Inspired them to labour and valourous deed.
CHORUS
In the vict'ry of Communism's deathless ideal,
We see the future of our dear land.
And to her fluttering scarlet banner,
Selflessly true we always shall stand!
CHORUS

 

This forum is worthless. Can we just start ignoring Nursey the way we ignore Smurf? On a serious note, I don't know any old ultra-nationalist songs, but I like Ray Charles' rendition of "America the Beautiful".

 

Ray the movie, now that was an awesome movie saw it a few times. Did you see it Dio? Cause if you liked the singer you should see that movie. That .... aw shit what was his name? Wayman? dude did an awesome job should have got an award if he didn't. I pretty much boycott the stupid award shows.

 

I haven't seen it, but I'll probably rent it in the next month or so, I'm way behind on films right now, since I've been working nights. Are you refering to the guy who played Ray Charles, Jamie Fox?

 

Not what I meant, unless you're gay, in which case I'm a little too old to fall for it.

 

smurf:

Not gay and not turning a trick for you either! You freak!

:shock: