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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Campaign of 1812," Carl Von Clausewitz meticulously analyzes the military strategies, political decisions, and societal impacts surrounding Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Written in a style that intertwines rigorous military analysis with philosophical insights, this work exemplifies Clausewitz's famous dictum that war is merely the continuation of politics by other means. He delves deep into the strategic blunders and operational failures of the campaign, illustrating the interplay between logistics and larger geopolitical consequences, all while contextualizing his observations within the wider framework of Napoleonic warfare. Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and military theorist, drew upon his extensive experience in the Napoleonic Wars to craft this incisive account. His background as a soldier and a theorist provided him with a unique vantage point to scrutinize warfare's complexities, making this work not only reflective of his scholarly pursuits but also a product of firsthand experience in the crucible of battle. His theories on the fog of war and the nature of conflict were profoundly shaped by the tumultuous events of 1812. "The Campaign of 1812" is essential reading for historians, military strategists, and anyone intrigued by the complexities of war and politics. Its analytical depth and philosophical underpinnings provide valuable insights into the nature of military command and strategy, making it a timeless resource for understanding both historical and contemporary warfare. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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The Campaign of 1812
Table of Contents
Introduction
Across the vast Russian plain, Clausewitz tracks ambition colliding with reality, where plans fracture under the combined pressures of will, distance, climate, and politics in the unforgiving arithmetic of war.
The Campaign of 1812 by Carl von Clausewitz is a rigorous study of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, written in German in the years after the events it examines and published posthumously among the author’s historical works. Far from a simple chronicle, it is a sustained inquiry into how strategy is made, tested, and found wanting under the strain of real conditions. Clausewitz lays out the political context, the operational choices, and the moral forces that shaped the march into Russia, keeping the reader’s attention on causes and consequences rather than on spectacle.
Clausewitz brings to this account the rare authority of a participant who also became the preeminent theorist of modern war. A Prussian officer with extensive experience in the Napoleonic era, he served with Russian forces during the 1812 campaign, giving him an intimate view of coalition warfare, staff deliberations, and the fog that surrounds high command. Yet the book is not a memoir; it is an analysis that subjects memory to scrutiny. He weighs intentions against outcomes and asks why reasonable plans falter, treating evidence with restraint and allowing the logic of events to speak through considered judgment.
Composed in the mature phase of Clausewitz’s intellectual life, the study reflects the same critical temperament that informs his broader theoretical work. Its posthumous publication placed it within a corpus that his contemporaries and successors recognized as foundational to military thought. The prose is disciplined, the structure methodical, and the reasoning cumulative, showing how an inquiry can move from concrete situations to general insight without forcing neat formulas. Readers encounter a nineteenth-century voice alive to the complexity of its subject, skeptical of simple answers, and intent on preserving the integrity of historical particulars.
It endures as a classic because it shaped the very idea of what a campaign history can be: not a string of episodes, but a coherent analysis of purpose, means, and circumstance. Clausewitz’s approach—balancing narrative with evaluation, empathy with critique—set a benchmark for later studies of war. The book’s themes of uncertainty, friction, and the limits of control have influenced scholarly methods and literary portrayals of conflict alike. Its measured tone and insistence on causality invite serious readers from beyond military circles, making it a touchstone for anyone interested in how events acquire meaning through disciplined inquiry.
The work’s influence extends through generations of strategists and historians who found in its pages a model for thinking about large-scale operations. Staff colleges and professional readers adopted its case-based reasoning as a means to bridge theory and practice. It refined debates about decision-making, logistics, morale, and the relationship between political aims and military instruments. By examining a campaign where ambition confronted vast geography and complex alliances, the book broadened the conceptual vocabulary used to describe war at the operational level, encouraging subsequent authors to measure grand designs against the stubborn particulars of space, time, and human endurance.
Key facts inform the clarity of the narrative without overwhelming it. Clausewitz identifies principal actors and their objectives, situates movements within a continental war, and tracks the interplay of intelligence, timing, and supply. He examines command decisions at critical junctures and assesses how assumptions about the enemy and the environment shaped choices. While attentive to battles, he treats them as expressions of deeper currents rather than isolated spectacles. The book offers readers an architecture for understanding the invasion as a connected sequence of plans and adaptations, with attention to what was known, what was guessed, and what could never be fully controlled.
At the heart of the study are themes that define Clausewitz’s thinking: the primacy of political purpose, the pervasive influence of chance, and the moral forces that animate armies and nations. He shows how friction—those countless small impediments—accumulates into decisive weight. Terrain and climate are not scenery but actors, altering tempo, shaping perceptions, and narrowing feasible options. The text explores leadership’s burdens, coalition dynamics, and the tension between speed and sustainment. Throughout, he resists the temptation to reduce outcomes to single causes, insisting instead on the interdependence of factors that together produce the shape of a campaign.
Clausewitz’s intention is to test ideas against reality rather than to enshrine rules. He uses the 1812 campaign as a proving ground for examining how planners match ends to means, how optimism can distort judgment, and how adversaries adapt. His method is comparative and cumulative: he presents alternatives considered at the time, weighs their plausibility, and traces their likely consequences. This sustained argumentation fosters a habit of mind—critical, provisional, and alert to context—that remains one of the book’s enduring gifts. The result is a work that clarifies without simplifying, encouraging readers to reason as practitioners must.
As literature, the book’s appeal lies in its clarity and fairness. Clausewitz writes with economy, framing disputes honestly and granting intelligence to all sides. He acknowledges the allure of decisive shortcuts while showing why they are rare. The pace is steady, the analysis layered, and the judgments earned rather than asserted. By integrating movement and meaning, he avoids both pedantry and melodrama, making complexity legible without sacrificing depth. Readers come away with a sense of disciplined witnessing: an author close enough to feel the heat of events, yet distant enough to let evidence, not temperament, guide his conclusions.
For contemporary audiences, its relevance is immediate. The book speaks to coalition politics, the costs of strategic overreach, and the centrality of logistics and information—concerns that recur in modern policy and planning. It models how to think under uncertainty, to balance audacity with prudence, and to anticipate how adversaries and environments impose limits. Professionals find a framework for evaluating choices; general readers gain a lens for interpreting large events without surrendering nuance. Its lessons are not prescriptions but perspectives, cultivating skepticism toward easy triumphs and appreciation for the slow, exacting work that strategy demands.
The Campaign of 1812 continues to engage because it embodies the qualities it praises: intellectual honesty, respect for reality, and discipline under pressure. It reveals how ambition meets resistance, how plans evolve in contact with the world, and how endurance and judgment matter as much as force. By uniting precise history with durable insight, Clausewitz offers a study that remains fresh in each new strategic and cultural moment. This enduring relevance, paired with rigorous method and humane understanding, explains why the book stands among the classics: a sober, compelling companion for readers seeking clarity about war and its limits.
Synopsis
Carl von Clausewitz’s The Campaign of 1812 is a detailed military history of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, written by a participant who served with the Russian army. Combining documentary sources and firsthand observation, Clausewitz reconstructs the political aims, strategic designs, and operational events that shaped the campaign’s outcome. He presents the chronology from prewar tensions through the invasion, the major battles, the occupation of Moscow, and the catastrophic retreat. Throughout, he emphasizes the interaction of policy and war, the limits of military power, and the decisive role of logistics and morale. The work seeks to explain, rather than condemn, how decisions produced cumulative effects.
He traces the breakdown of the Franco-Russian relationship after Tilsit, highlighting the Continental System, the Polish question, and competing security guarantees. Napoleon sought to compel Russian compliance with his European order; Russia aimed to preserve autonomy and strategic depth while avoiding a decisive battle under unfavorable terms. Diplomatic exchanges failed to resolve tariff disputes and military postures on the frontier. Clausewitz outlines the coalition possibilities on both sides and the mobilization timelines that followed. He identifies each belligerent’s political objective as the guide for military plans, framing the invasion as an attempt to achieve a swift decision before broader opposition coalesced.
He describes the composition and deployment of the Grande Armée, a multinational force assembled along the Niemen with multiple corps intended for converging advances. Operational plans prioritized rapid marches to envelop Russian armies and force battle near the frontier. On the Russian side, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration commanded separate armies with orders that balanced covering key routes and preserving forces. Clausewitz details logistics, magazines, and lines of communication, stressing the difficulty of sustaining large forces across poor infrastructure. He notes how Russian geography and depth favored a strategy of trading space for time, complicating Napoleon’s need for a decisive engagement.
The narrative begins with the crossing of the Niemen and the swift advance through Lithuania. French corps seized forward positions, but irregular supply and heat affected men and animals. Russian commanders executed controlled retreats, avoiding encirclement and pulling Napoleon deeper. Clausewitz recounts engagements at Ostrovno, Mohilev, and Vitebsk, where limited actions failed to produce a decisive result. He assesses marching schedules, intelligence, and the dispersion of forces, showing how the tempo slowed as distances grew. The French pursuit strained communications, while Russian concentration gathered pace. By late summer, both sides gravitated toward Smolensk, where the prospect of a larger decision emerged.
At Smolensk, Russian armies combined to defend a key crossing and supply node. Clausewitz describes the assaults, the fires that consumed parts of the city, and the organized Russian withdrawal that denied Napoleon the destruction he sought. The engagement yielded significant losses without strategic resolution. He underscores the choices confronting Napoleon: to halt and consolidate along the Dnieper, or to continue toward Moscow in search of political leverage. Russian leadership evaluated whether to risk a general battle or prolong attrition. The episode marks, in Clausewitz’s account, a turning point where the operational pursuit began to diverge from the political objective.
After command passed to Kutuzov, the armies maneuvered toward the field of Borodino. Clausewitz outlines the terrain, fortifications, and deployment of forces, then narrates the intense, largely frontal battle that produced enormous casualties. He notes the commitment of French corps against strongpoints and the limited use of the Imperial Guard. The result was tactically indecisive and strategically ambiguous: the Russians withdrew in good order, and the French remained nominal masters of the field without annihilating the opposing army. This outcome preserved Russian military power and left the political question unresolved, compelling Napoleon to continue advancing to seize a tangible prize.
Clausewitz recounts the approach to and occupation of Moscow, emphasizing its symbolic weight and limited logistical value. The city’s evacuation and fires deprived the French of supplies and administrative leverage. Efforts to open negotiations failed, and the absence of a Russian capitulation left the campaign’s political aim unmet. Meanwhile, Russian forces recovered strength east and south of the city, while Cossacks and partisans intensified interdiction of French foragers and messengers. The French position in Moscow, isolated at the end of a devastated corridor, deteriorated as resources dwindled. Clausewitz presents Napoleon’s deliberations over wintering, withdrawal, or seeking battle on alternative lines.
The decision to leave Moscow led to maneuvers toward Kaluga and the clash at Maloyaroslavets, after which the French reverted to the ravaged Smolensk road. Clausewitz details the steady erosion of cohesion under supply scarcity, harassment, and falling temperatures, without attributing causation solely to the weather. He describes rearguard actions that preserved remnants of the army, culminating in the difficult crossings at the Berezina. Russian pursuit was persistent but cautious, aiming to wear down rather than annihilate. By the frontier, the invading force had largely disintegrated. Clausewitz presents the retreat as the predictable consequence of strategic overextension and exhausted logistics.
In his concluding analysis, Clausewitz synthesizes lessons on the relation of policy to strategy, the hazards of overreaching the culminating point, and the decisive influence of logistics, morale, and national resistance. He evaluates leadership on both sides, attributing Russian success to strategic patience and preservation of the army, and French failure to mismatched means and ends. The campaign illustrates how space, time, and uncertainty can frustrate operational brilliance. Clausewitz links these findings to subsequent coalitions and the 1813 campaigns, noting how 1812 transformed the European balance. The work’s central message is disciplined realism: strategy must respect political purpose and material limits.
Historical Context
The book is set in the vast northeastern European theater of 1812, when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the Russian Empire. The campaign unfolded across Lithuanian-Polish borderlands, the Niemen River, the highways to Smolensk and Moscow, and the wintry retreats toward the Berezina and Vilna. It examines the geography that governed operations: sandy soils and thin harvests in Lithuania, long distances between depots, and a road network funneling movement along the Smolensk-Moscow axis. The time was the high tide of the Napoleonic Wars, with France dominating continental politics after 1805–1809, while Russia—under Emperor Alexander I—balanced imperial aims with strategic depth and mobilization capacity.
Carl von Clausewitz writes as both participant and analyst. A Prussian officer who opposed Napoleon’s domination, he entered Russian service in 1812 when Prussia, coerced by the Treaties of Tilsit (1807), had to support the French. His perspective combines eyewitness staff experience, knowledge of coalition politics, and archival rigor. Composed in the 1820s and published posthumously by his widow Marie von Brh1l in the 1830s, the study leverages orders of battle, dispatches, and field observations. The time and place thus emerge not only as a military landscape but as a political crucible for modern strategic thought, emphasizing the interplay of war, policy, and national survival.
The Treaties of Tilsit (July 78, 1807) forced Prussia into a humiliating alliance with Napoleon after defeats at Jena-Auerstedt (1806). Under this coercion, Prussia supplied an auxiliary corps to the Grande Arme9e. Clausewitz—attached to reformers like Gerhard von Scharnhorst—resigned his Prussian commission in early 1812 rather than serve French designs, entering the Russian army instead. This act situates the book within the fractured loyalties of German princes and the coercive structure of Napoleonic hegemony. In the work, Clausewitz’s attention to Prussian dilemmas and coalition pressures reflects both the treaty-imposed subservience and his personal defection to the anti-Napoleonic camp.
Russo-French tensions escalated after Russia’s partial withdrawal from the Continental System in late 1810, when Alexander I issued tariff measures undermining Napoleon’s economic blockade of Britain. Napoleon’s creation of the Duchy of Warsaw (1807) and hints of expanding Polish borders threatened Russia’s western interests. Between 1811 and 1812, both empires mobilized; French depots formed in East Prussia, the Duchy of Warsaw, and along the Niemen, while Russia assembled First and Second Armies under M. B. Barclay de Tolly and P. I. Bagration. The book links these political-economic frictions to the military outbreak in June 1812, framing war as policy pursued by other means.
On 24 June 1812, Napoleon crossed the Niemen near Kovno (Kaunas), launching one of history’s largest invasions. The Grande Arme9e fielded roughly 450,000 in the main thrust and over 600,000 across the theater, including French corps under Davout, Ney, Oudinot, and Euge8ne de Beauharnais; allied contingents under Poniatowski (Poles), Yorck (Prussians), and Schwarzenberg (Austrians); and Murat’s massed cavalry. Russia countered with Barclay’s First Army in the Vilna area and Bagration’s Second Army to the south. The book traces these opening operations through Lithuania, emphasizing initial French speed, supply strain, and the Russian attempt to avoid encirclement and unite their armies.
Russian strategy under War Minister Barclay de Tolly emphasized trading space for time, preserving the army, and drawing the French deeper. Magazines were evacuated and scorched-earth measures adopted to deny supplies. Political opposition to Barclay’s withdrawals led Alexander I to appoint M. I. Kutuzov commander-in-chief in August 1812, while still adhering to the core defensive approach. Clausewitz presents this strategy as a rational adaptation to operational realities—inferiority in mobility and logistics against Napoleon—rather than mere timidity. The decision to accept a major battle only when conditions favored attrition and coalition formation is treated as central to the campaign’s eventual outcome.
The Battle of Smolensk (16–18 August 1812) occurred as Napoleon sought to split Barclay and Bagration before they could fully unite. The city’s medieval walls and the Dnieper crossings made it a strategic node. After fierce combat and fires, Russian forces withdrew in good order, denying decisive victory to the French. Casualties were heavy on both sides, estimated in the tens of thousands. Clausewitz underscores Smolensk as an attritional, delaying action that preserved the Russian field army, exhausted French supplies, and compelled Napoleon toward a further advance along a single operational line toward Moscow—thereby exacerbating his logistic exposure.
The Battle of Borodino (7 September 1812) was the campaign’s bloodiest day, with roughly 250,000 engaged—about 130,000–135,000 French and allies against 120,000–130,000 Russians. Fighting developed around key fortifications: the Shevardino redoubt (skirmished over on 5 September), the Bagration fleches on the Russian left-center, and the Raevsky (Great) Redoubt in the center. Marshal Ney, Davout, and Murat hurled repeated assaults; Euge8ne attacked the center; the Russian line bent but did not break. Casualties likely exceeded 70,000–80,000 combined. The book presents Borodino as a tactical French success but a strategic failure to annihilate the Russian army, marking Napoleon’s approach to a culminating point.
Napoleon entered Moscow on 14 September 1812, finding it largely abandoned. Fires raged from 14–18 September, destroying much of the city’s wooden districts—contemporaries blamed arson and the policies of Governor-General Count Rostopchin, though the exact causes remain debated. Alexander I refused negotiations, insisting that no peace would be signed while the enemy occupied Russian soil. Clausewitz reads Moscow’s destruction and the Tsar’s political resolve as depriving Napoleon of the war’s policy objective: a quick, coercive treaty. Occupation without decisive political effect left the Grande Arme9e exposed, short of supplies, and compelled to retreat as winter and Russian pressure mounted.
The retreat pivoted on battles that foreclosed Napoleon’s attempts to maneuver south. At Tarutino (18 October 1812), Kutuzov struck Murat’s cavalry screen, signalling renewed Russian offensive spirit. At Maloyaroslavets (24 October), Euge8ne de Beauharnais’s IV Corps fought Dokhturov and Raevsky in brutal street combat; the Russians blocked the Kaluga road, forcing Napoleon back onto the devastated Smolensk route. Subsequent actions at Viazma (3 November) and Krasnoi (15–18 November) shredded French stragglers and rear guards. Clausewitz emphasizes how these engagements, coupled with dwindling supplies and mounting partisan pressure, transformed an organized withdrawal into a harrowing, attritional catastrophe.
The Berezina crossing (26–29 November 1812) near Studienka, close to Borisov, was the campaign’s climactic escape. Russian forces under Chichagov (from the south), Wittgenstein (from the north), and Kutuzov’s main army aimed to trap Napoleon. French engineers under General Jean-Baptiste Eble9 threw pontoon bridges across the icy river. Bitter fighting and chaos ensued; thousands of noncombatants and soldiers perished by fire, ice, and Russian assault. The French rearguards—Marshal Ney prominent—held off encirclement, but the army was broken. Clausewitz treats Berezina as a narrow operational success masking strategic ruin, illustrating the interplay of initiative, terrain, engineering, and the exhaustion of a force beyond its culminating point.
Partisan warfare and Cossack operations intensified throughout autumn 1812. Leaders like Denis Davydov, Alexander Figner, and Aleksandr Seslavin targeted convoys, couriers, and isolated detachments, compounding French supply crises and morale collapse. The imperial militia (opolchenie), decreed in July 1812, mobilized hundreds of thousands—though not all were armed or deployed—freeing regulars for field operations and stiffening local defense. Clausewitz highlights these irregular pressures as strategically meaningful: they denied foraging, forced larger guards on columns, and turned retreat routes into hostile corridors. The book thus integrates regular battles with the social mobilization of war, showing how national resistance multiplies the effects of formal operations.
Logistics and disease undermined the Grande Arme9e before winter’s worst. The magazine system could not keep pace across 600–800 kilometers of hostile territory; Lithuanian districts lacked surplus fodder, and horse attrition crippled cavalry and artillery. Typhus and dysentery ravaged troops from summer onward. The first frosts struck in late October; severe cold set in mid-November. Clausewitz insists that operational miscalculation—overextended lines, inadequate depots at Minsk and Smolensk, and reliance on foraging—did more damage than climate alone. His analysis of “friction” explains why numerical strength dissolved: dispersed columns, broken staff work, and the compounding delays that turned calculated marches into fatal drift.
The Convention of Tauroggen (30 December 1812) marked a diplomatic-military turning point. General Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg, commanding the Prussian auxiliary I Corps attached to Marshal Macdonald, declared neutrality with Russian General Hans Karl von Diebitsch at Tauroggen (Taurag17). Clausewitz, serving with the Russians, acted as an intermediary urging this course. The convention isolated Napoleon’s northern flank, catalyzed the Prussian uprising, and led to the Treaty of Kalisch (28 February 1813), aligning Prussia with Russia. The book treats Tauroggen as the campaign’s political harvest: the destruction of French power in Russia reshaped German politics and enabled the War of Liberation in 1813.
The Prussian reform movement (1807–1812) contextualizes Clausewitz’s strategic lens. After the disasters of 1806, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau introduced merit-based promotion, the Krfcmpersystem (rotational training to expand reserves), and staff reorganization; Stein and Hardenberg advanced civic reforms that eroded estates privileges. Though the Landwehr would be formalized in 1813, its conceptual roots predated 1812. Clausewitz, a disciple of Scharnhorst, absorbed reformist ideas on national mobilization, professionalism, and the nexus of army and state. The book reflects these principles by evaluating Russian and French institutions—how administrative capacity, officer quality, and public spirit conditioned operational endurance and strategic decision-making.
As a social and political critique, the book exposes the perils of imperial overreach and the divorce of military aims from political purpose. Napoleon’s bid to coerce Russia into Continental System compliance is shown as disproportionate to the resources required for sustained occupation. Clausewitz scrutinizes court politics—Barclay’s scapegoating, Kutuzov’s careful statecraft—and the coerced alliances of Prussia and Austria, where dynastic calculations eclipsed national interest. He underscores the human cost: conscription levies, civilian displacement, and the deliberate devastation of towns and fields. The analysis indicts governance that gambles national welfare on prestige, while praising policies that align means, morale, and realistic objectives.
The narrative also critiques social hierarchies and administrative systems that determined who bore the war’s burdens. Russian serfs, Polish peasants, and townspeople suffered requisitions and reprisals, while elite decision-makers pursued honor and power. French operational failure is tied to institutional brittleness: centralized command without resilient logistics, and allies bound by fear rather than conviction. The Russian response, integrating regular forces, militia, and partisans, illustrates the political potency of broad social mobilization. Clausewitz thus offers not only military diagnosis but a warning about the ethics of statecraft: strategic success depends on legitimate political aims, competent administration, and respect for the populations through which armies move.
Author Biography
Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist whose work On War became a cornerstone of modern strategic thought. Formed by the upheavals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, he sought to explain war as a complex human and political phenomenon rather than a set of fixed rules. His analyses of uncertainty, moral forces, and the relation of violence to policy reshaped the study of strategy for soldiers and statesmen alike. Although he wrote in the early nineteenth century, his arguments continue to inform debates about decision-making in conflict, the limits of military power, and the responsibilities of political leadership.
Raised in late eighteenth-century Prussia, Clausewitz entered the army as a youth and gained early combat experience against Revolutionary France. Recognized for his intellect, he attended the Prussian War College in Berlin, where Gerhard von Scharnhorst became a decisive mentor. There he embraced rigorous historical study and a method of critical analysis that emphasized questioning received maxims. The intellectual climate of the German Enlightenment and the reforms stirring in Prussia encouraged him to link military practice to broader social and political change. His early lectures, staff work, and reading across history and philosophy laid the foundation for a lifelong inquiry into the nature of war.
Clausewitz’s practical education deepened during the catastrophic Prussian defeat of 1806. Serving on staff, he experienced the collapse of old routines, captivity, and the arduous reconstruction that followed. Returning to service, he joined reformers around Scharnhorst and August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, advocating merit-based promotion, systematic officer education, and a citizen reserve to broaden national defense. These efforts sought to adapt a rigid military system to the realities revealed by Napoleon’s campaigns. His analytical memoranda from this period probed the interplay of organization, morale, and leadership, and they cultivated the habit of treating war as an intrinsically variable enterprise shaped by political purpose and national will.
In 1812 Clausewitz left Prussian service when his government aligned with Napoleon, entering Russian service to continue the struggle against French expansion. He participated as a liaison and planner during the campaign that led to the Convention of Tauroggen, a turning point that helped bring Prussia back into the coalition. Rejoining his army, he served through the Wars of Liberation and the Waterloo campaign, notably as chief of staff to a Prussian corps that delayed French forces at Wavre. These campaigns reinforced his conviction that strategy must account for chance, friction, and the irreducible uncertainty that confronts commanders in real operations.
After the wars, Clausewitz held senior staff posts and became director of the Prussian War College in the late 1810s, where he lectured and wrote intensively. He drafted the unfinished treatise later published as On War, alongside historical studies of the 1812 and 1815 campaigns and a compact set of instructional principles for a crown prince. His marriage to Marie von Brühl proved consequential for his legacy; after his death she organized, edited, and published his manuscripts. Clausewitz revised On War repeatedly, and its fragmentary nature reflects both the ambition of the project and his insistence on open-ended inquiry rather than a manual of fixed prescriptions.
On War advances several enduring concepts. Clausewitz argues that war is inseparable from politics, warning that military action must remain subordinate to policy. He explores friction, the fog of war, and the culminating point of victory, urging commanders to identify a center of gravity while recognizing the limits of calculation. His famous trinity highlights the interaction of passion, chance, and reason, often linked respectively to the people, the army and its commanders, and the government. He contrasts abstract models of absolute war with the real wars shaped by constraints, emphasizing strategic judgment, historical study, and the moral forces that animate combat and decision.
Clausewitz died during a cholera epidemic in the early 1830s, leaving his magnum opus incomplete. On War appeared posthumously and was read within the Prussian General Staff, influencing planners such as Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. Reception broadened over time, with translations and commentaries in the twentieth century consolidating his status as a central theorist of war. Militaries across the world study his arguments, and scholars debate their implications for modern conflicts, from industrial warfare to insurgency. His insistence on the primacy of political purpose and his analysis of uncertainty remain touchstones for strategic thought, ensuring a durable and often contested legacy.
The Campaign of 1812
CHAPTER I.
ARRIVAL AT WILNA. PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. CAMP OF DRISSA.
In February of 1812, the alliance between France and Prussia against Russia was concluded. The party in Prussia, which still felt courage to resist, and refused to acknowledge the necessity of a junction with France, might properly be called the Scharnhorst party[1]; for in the capital, besides himself and his near friends, there was hardly a man who did not set down this temper of mind for a semi-madness. In the rest of the monarchy nothing but a few scattered indications of such a spirit were to be found.
So soon as this alliance was an ascertained fact, Scharnhorst quitted the centre of government, and betook himself to Silesia, where, as inspector of fortresses, he reserved to himself a sort of official activity. He wished at once to withdraw himself from the observation of the French, and from an active co-operation with them, utterly uncongenial to his nature, without entirely giving up his relations to the Prussian service. This half measure was one of eminent prudence. He was able, in his present position, to prevent much mischief, particularly as regarded concessions to France in the matter of the Prussian fortresses, and he kept his foot in the stirrup, ready to swing himself into the saddle at the favourable moment. He was a foreigner, without possessions or footing in Prussia, had always remained a little estranged from the King, and more so from the leading personages of the capital ; and the merit of his operations was generally at this time much exposed to question. If he had now entirely abandoned the service, it may be questioned whether he would have been recalled to it in 1813.
The Major Von Boyen[2], his intimate friend, who had held the function of personal communication with the King on military affairs, now obtained his congé, carrying with him the rank of Colonel and a small donation. It was his intention to go to Russia. The Colonel Von Gneisenau, lately made state councillor, left the service at the same time, with a like intention.
Several others among the warmest adherents of Scharnhorst, and of his political views, but who were of small importance in the state, did the same ; among whom was the Author. The King granted their congé to all.
The Author, provided with some letters of recommendation, went to Wilna, then the headquarters of the Emperor Alexander, as also of the General Barclay, who commanded the 1st army of the West.
On the Author’s arrival at Wilna, he found several Prussian officers already there assembled. Among those of consequence were Gneisenau and Count Chasot, who had made the journey from Vienna in company. The former had already however resolved on a journey to England. He had indeed been well received by the Emperor, but had come to the conclusion, from the whole appearance of things, that he could find in Russia no fitting theatre for the active exercise of his profession. He understood no Russian, and could therefore fill no independent command : he was too far advanced in years and rank to allow of his being introduced into some subordinate station on the staff of any general or any corps, like the Author or other officers ; he could therefore only have made the campaign in the suite of the Emperor. He knew well what this involved, or rather did not involve, and he felt that it opened no prospect worthy of his talents. The head-quarters of the Emperor were already overrun with distinguished idlers. To attain either distinction or usefulness in such a crowd would have required the dexterity of an accomplished intriguer, and an entire familiarity with the French language : in both he was deficient. He was therefore justly averse to the seeking a position in Russia ; and he hoped in England1, where he had already travelled, and had been well received by the Prince Regent, to do much more for the good cause.
As he had soon convinced himself in Wilna that the measures of Russia were anything but adequate to the emergency, he justly entertained the greatest apprehensions for the consequences, and believed that his only hope lay in the difficulty of the entire enterprise on the part of France, but that every thing should be done to effect on the side of England, Sweden, and Germany, a diversion on the rear of the French. This view derived force from his visit to England.
The whole force of Russia, on the western frontier, consisted of the 1st and 2d armies of the West, and an army of reserve. The first might be 90,000 strong, the second 50,000, and the third 30,000. The whole therefore amounted to some 170.000 men, to whom may be added 10,000 Cossacks[3].
The 1st army, under General Barclay, who at the same time was war minister, was placed along the Niemen; the second, commanded by Bagration, in south Lithuania, the reserve under Tormasow, in Volhynia. On the second line there were about 30,000 men of depôts and recruits, on the Dnieper and Dwina.
The Emperor wished to take the command of the whole : he had never served in the field, still less commanded. For several years past he had taken lessons in the art of war from Lieutenant-General Von Phull[4] in Petersburgh.
