Carl von Clausewitz

Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz ( 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."

Name

Clausewitz's Christian names are variously given in English-language sources as "Karl", "Carl Philipp Gottlieb", or "Carl Maria." He spelled his own given name with a "C" to identify with the classical Western tradition; writers who use "Karl" are often seeking to emphasize his German (rather than European) identity. "Carl Philipp Gottfried" appears on Clausewitz's tombstone. Encyclopædia Britannica continues to use Gottlieb instead of Gottfried based on older sources, such as military historian Peter Paret, and historian Sir Michael Howard originated the use of "Carl Maria." However, more modern scholars like Christopher Bassford (editor of ClausewitzStudies.org) and Vanya Eftimova Bellinger (who wrote the 2016 biography of Carl's wife Marie von Clausewitz) consider his tombstone a more reliable source than the hand-written birth records used by Paret.

Early life and education

Clausewitz was born on 1 July 1780 in Burg bei Magdeburg in the Prussian Duchy of Magdeburg as the fourth and youngest son of a family that made claims to a noble status which Carl accepted. Clausewitz's family claimed descent from the Barons of Clausewitz in Upper Silesia, though scholars question the connection.