Carl von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz | |
|---|---|
 Portrait by Wilhelm Wach, c. 1830 | |
| Born | Carl Philipp Gottlieb Clauswitz 1 July 1780 |
| Died | 16 November 1831 (aged 51) Breslau, Province of Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia |
| Spouse | |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | |
Branch | Prussian Army Imperial Russian Army |
Service years | 1792–1831 (Prussia) 1812–1813 (Russia) |
Rank | Major general (Prussian Army) |
| Unit | Russian–German Legion |
| Commands | Prussian Military Academy |
Conflicts | |
Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz (/ˈklaʊzəvɪts/ KLOW-zə-vits; German: [ˈkaʁl fɔn ˈklaʊzəvɪts] ⓘ; born Carl Philipp Gottlieb Clauswitz; 1 July 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian army officer and military theorist who stressed the "moral" (in modern terms meaning psychological) and political aspects of waging war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege (On War), though unfinished at his death, is considered a seminal treatise on military strategy and science.
Clausewitz stressed the multiple interactions of diverse factors in war, noting how unexpected developments unfolding under the "fog of war" (i.e., in the face of incomplete, dubious, and often erroneous information and great fear, doubt, and excitement) call for rapid decisions by alert commanders. He saw history as a vital check on erudite abstractions that did not accord with experience. In contrast to the early work of Antoine-Henri Jomini, he argued that war could not be quantified or reduced to mapwork, geometry, and graphs. Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which one of the most famous is, "War is the continuation of policy with other means."