| VON CLAUSEWITZ |
Carl Phillip Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a Prussian soldier and
intellectual. [Clausewitz's precise name is a source of some argument.] He came
from a middle-class social background, though his family claimed noble origins
and these claims eventually received official recognition. He served as a practical
field soldier (with extensive combat experience against the armies of the French
Revolution and Napoleon), as a staff officer with political/military
responsibilities at the very center of the Prussian state, and as a prominent military
educator. Clausewitz first entered combat as a cadet at the age of 13, rose to the
rank of Major-General at 38, married into the high nobility, moved in rarefied
intellectual cirles in Berlin, and wrote a book which has become the most
influential work of military philosophy in the Western world. That book, On War
(in the original German, Vom Kriege) has been translated into virtually every
major language and remains a living influence on modern strategists in many fields.
intellectual. [Clausewitz's precise name is a source of some argument.] He came
from a middle-class social background, though his family claimed noble origins
and these claims eventually received official recognition. He served as a practical
field soldier (with extensive combat experience against the armies of the French
Revolution and Napoleon), as a staff officer with political/military
responsibilities at the very center of the Prussian state, and as a prominent military
educator. Clausewitz first entered combat as a cadet at the age of 13, rose to the
rank of Major-General at 38, married into the high nobility, moved in rarefied
intellectual cirles in Berlin, and wrote a book which has become the most
influential work of military philosophy in the Western world. That book, On War
(in the original German, Vom Kriege) has been translated into virtually every
major language and remains a living influence on modern strategists in many fields.
