Clausewitz Challeges and Context

thank you so much I'll try not to disappoint well what is the greatest challenge in in reading on war and the understanding on war for most of you that's my guess is the language it's heavy sometimes the text is overwritten Klaus reads also build his arguments in a way that it's kind of strange for more than readers what I'm trying to do today is to give you a little bit more context about the times Klaus if it's lived the way he wrote on war and how he created some of his most famous ideas it will not make on war gone with the wind it's still good it's still gonna be a text that you have to wrestle with it's still gonna be a text that you have to think about a lot but I hope that you after this lecture this lecture will give you more confidence more understanding about on war so close of it's this guy here he was born on July 1st 1780 in book by Magda book which is a small garrison town southwest from Berlin his father free drink Gabriel they came from a long line of Lutheran priests his grandfather was actually a famous scholar theologian but Clausewitz father wanted to be an officer in the Prussian army however he was middle class in back in those days people from the middle classes they could not be officers if you're officer you have found our nobility luckily from for Clausewitz the elder that was the Seven Years War and Prussia suffered enormous in our enormous losses and the king which was Frederick the Great he was forced to accept people from the men from the middle classes to become officers Friedrich gavrio kept the tie though he had tasted privilege he's gonna be now iPhone you know this this phone this little phone that says that you're from the nobility so actually the title was completely fake close which was not fun but friedrich gabriel was also incredibly ambitious and him found a way to get his three of his four sons to jail to join the the prussian army well it was the youngest son and his father took him to his regiment when he was not quite the age of twelve back then twelve was the the earliest age when you can join the the prussian army and the latest date was June first Clausewitz was born on her life on July 1st so what his father did was basically lied to him and lied to everybody else told him you born on June 1st Clausewitz till the end of his day he always thought he's born on June 1st this is why you're gonna see also this debate when was close if it's actually born we have the church books he was actually born on July 1st but he never knew that but back in those days if you want to be an officer you had to serve for several years as a NCO so all junior NCOs so all these boys had gonna be officers one day they had to leave and fight with the common soldiers they had to learn the business of war before they can become officers and clothes if it's this boy soldier he marched west to participate in his first war and that's the War of the first coalition against the revolutionary France in book one chapter four of on war that's the own danger in war which was it has been assigned to you cause if it speaks about what it is for a young soldier to be for the very first time on a battlefield this is Napoleonic was how it was horrendous experience he talks about himself in that chapter he's talking about his own experience what it was for him as this young boy to understand Clausewitz his life and his ideas we have to understand that he came of age in the midst of one of the greatest upheaval in human history is the French Revolution in 1789 every Frenchman was elevated to the status of citizen and that meant that every man could potentially serve in the army the revolutionary army it fought with remarkable alone and also had these remarkable reserves because everyone could serve then the rising tide it lifted many boats so you have this whole new generation of young young very young officers who were not really nobility or just not good families they finally they got their chance to be officers in command great armies and this is Napoleon Bernadotte moi you know those guys they finally got their chance part of it it was because the old aristocrats the real officers they were either executed or exiled you know but all these new guys that came this new generation they had the chip on their shoulder and they had something to prove and that's why there was so aggressive on the battlefield and so innovative on the battlefield the French Revolution also unleashed ferocity never seen before and he'd estado do all the regime's what just had happened the enemies of the French Revolution they believed this is this this is this ragtag army we need three days and these guys are done we're gonna we gonna defeat them so easily they don't even have real officers what is that army this revolutionary army and it was this great shock that they persevered and they actually started winning those Revolutionary Wars now Pasha got out of this first Revolutionary War really early relatively fast became a neutral State and observed from a safe distance the rise of a certain guy named Napoleon Bonaparte now in in 1801 Clausewitz was accepted at the prussian military academy in berlin and he almost failed to the first year luckily at the school the school at that time taught one of the greatest military minds one of the greatest performance of that era and this is this guy Gerhardt funshine host chant host was also an outsider he was from Houston ovarian he was from Hanover he was not born normal just like Klaus is that phone he gets it late in life but he was a famous military writing this time so the passion King took a move invited him to come to Berlin now shann hosts his spotted clothes which talent and he took him under his wing and mental mental him until he's definite in 13 so she sang host is always looking for krauser it's Clausewitz famously called him that's the father and the friend of my spirit so when we talk about when we think about how to have more people like Clausewitz then we need more like of though that those guys if you want to have more people that like clothes which then we have to have more people like Shan hose who were able to spot talent and mentor and needless to say Klaus was graduated on the top of his class like from the guy on the back he was the first over there he became adjutant age camp to Prince August who was a first grade cousin to the Prussian King reticulum in the third and this is the time and because Clausewitz now had the access he was part of this very elite group of officers of passion officers and he had the access to Berlin salons to Berlin literary salons to this incredible intellectual and cultural scene that it happens in Berlin that's when he meets his future wife Marie born contest from Peru and she will play very important role in his his life she is high nobility as they come and you have to give it to this guy Klaus he comes to Berlin he doesn't have real tight oh he doesn't have money he doesn't have connections but he decides that he's going to date this woman from the highest possible nobility and he's gonna marry her you know like go for it closer it's you know like you just he just gotta give you what sense of confidence he had so 1806 Napoleon came for Russia famously napoleon crushed the Russian troops Indiana our stud this is this this Battle of Indiana our stud it's not how the battle was do it is not that the battle was lost it was the way the Prussian passions lost it there was this huge psychological breakdown on a battlefield the portions basically there were people resigning their commission running from the battlefield there was a psychological break them it was impossible situation it wasn't even incredible what happened Indian hours that cause of its imprint August they actually fought in they fought in our stud that's the second there is two battle grounds they were actually from the few units that stood up and fought with honor and they they were not captured they were not killed they actually managed to escape the French they fought their insecurity but of course they were captured two weeks later and sent send its prisoners of war to France now this disastrous 1806 1807 for Prussia it forced finally the Prussian King Frederick William the third to embrace long long contemplated reforms Russian government realized that in order to fight and defeat the French they had to become a little bit like the French so they had to they had to adopt social and political reforms which would like to abandon serfdom grant more rights and economic freedoms to the middle classes give minorities like the Jews equal status thanks to these reforms people had to recognize the state as their own and to be able and to be ready to fight for it so you see from that Trinity the passion what they trying here is to start this passion in the people to fire that up that's what they trying to do and then the military reformist build upon those changes now the the the promotion was based on merit the corporal punishment was like almost abandoned only in most severe cases land where this is the Army Reserve he was created and the groundwork for universal service was laid then was also a new generation of leaders coming at the helm of the Prussian army it's Jean host Clausewitz mentor he was both chief of staff for the passion army and also head of the war ministry Clausewitz when he came back a year later from being prisoner of war in in France he actually got to work on the shampo so he's like a 2829 and he's he's the right hand of jean host and he's seeing how to do how to create military reforms how you build a new army an army from the ground up so he's like really interesting in great position really interesting position very early on now he was Marie dear old aristocrat of all people that actually understood better what was happening here and she wrote that despite the great misfortune and then certainty about the future they faced finally the old the old relations they were overthrown new blood was coming into the system and form the Reform Party was gaining momentum it's similar similarly ten years was also close with relationship with with Napoleon there was fear there was anger against the French expansionism against the French desire to dominate Europe but also there was there was admiration from the polio that Napoleon is so daring that held that he has all these talents and that he's so bold so you see constantly that tension and we see how the interaction between war and politics perpetually marked that generation the generation of Marie and Carol lack of sound political leadership initiative it bought an hour stab that disaster yeah our start but then the disaster yenna our start oh sheeeeeit long delayed reforms political reforms and then the political reforms became the base for military reforms and later the Prussian success in battle against Napoleon so for this generation the interaction between Warren politics is very very clear and it's all too natural that as a military tube is closed if it's will spend so much time thinking about this this was his life Warren politics constantly interacting now in German you know there is no separation there was there is only one word for policy and politics he uses the word politic in English we have two words we have politics which is the massive process and politics is the messy process and policy which is the set of sound decisions in German there is no true two words for that there is one word politic some some argue because of that that closed read somehow for that everything the the policy always has to be sound process of the sound decision making process I mean also many people say well Pasha was not a democracy Pasha was this authoritarian state where the king was supposedly making all the decisions not quite okay Pasha was authoritarian state but at the same time there were so many factions constantly fighting for influence and power and Murray was one of one of these women that were constantly into politics she was knee-deep into politics she was living for politics so and Clausewitz and I worked a lot with the private correspondence in papers Clausewitz never never ever had expectations that politics should be something rational that the political process should be always rational and straightforward he every nasty thing that you ever said about politicians in politics Clausewitz did it too he also used all these words so it's so this is this is this double meaning of politic it's the process when he says that voice continuation of politic with with other means it's messy and sometimes irrational process but sensible leader better know better follow a set of prudent decisions so it's like this this double meaning also it's important to understand the influence of the German Romanticism over clouds its worldview this is this famous painting Caspar David Friedrich the wanderer and it's used usually as a metaphor about the German Romanticism so close of its generation they go up during the Enlightenment era that was this old early well-organized world logical world where was think that there was solution for everything this was the great promise of the Enlightenment you study you work on yourself you do you follow the rules and you're gonna succeed and everything's gonna be fine well not quite the romanticism grue grue of this dissatisfaction in the realization that there is ambiguity in the world sometimes reality defies logic people are complicated any rational human beings and they do things that they don't supposed to do but they're humans everything is uncertain everything is in the middle of a fork as in these pictures so this this this is why clouds which does not like firm formulas and he also is doesn't like doctrinal thinking because the world is too complex and were voice too complex and you can control things only to a certain point if he cannot give you all-encompassing solutions what he can do is teach you how to think about what this is how he decides he's gonna teach you how to think about war now in 1810 Clausewitz finally had risen to the rank of major made a name for himself in the reform circle and had enough money to be considered equal or somewhat equal and able to marry Murray in 1812 and apollyon decided to march to Russia and the the Prussian King Friedrich vilem had only two choices either a Napoleon is gonna march to Prussia as an ally or as a foe so the passion King decided to you know I'll take I'll be ally as much as its it's the test for choice for me but that might be this is the link the lesser evil yet for proud of 1830 some other Prussian officers elite officers this was unthinkable idea that they have to fight and perhaps died to secure Napoleon's grip over Europe so they resigned their commission basically a post their commander in chief and left to fight for Russia Marie Marie was left in back in Berlin she had to face the music and he was not pretty you know close roots left she's the one who you know is being left behind so quality is pretty important though at the end of this campaign when he convinced the Prussian Corps a light with Napoleon that was sent to help Napoleon he convinced the commander of that Corps to abandon the French and let the Russian army cause into Russian territory this is called the convention of Tao again and ultimately it moved the theater of war from from Russia into Central Europe the original plan was like the Russian troops gonna follow Napoleon only to the border to the Russian border now we talk again they actually cost him to into Prussia thanks to to this convention and to closets now in 1813 Russia Prussia Austria Great Britain in Sweden alike to find to fight against Napoleon Clausewitz was a lieutenant colonel and then Colonel I've listed all the it's not all the positions he had in that time but those are the most important he was a chief chief of staff for various army corps and he was quite good in this position no matter what people thought about his politics about his character no one have a question that he was a really really good staff officer that he was great as chief of staff that he anticipated the needs of his men he anticipated the moves of the enemy and also helped advise his generals very well this is why I can also close with right so profoundly that chapter on military genius is so well written because close with head worked under many generals and under many commanders and he's he has seen up close what works well and what doesn't work military genius I like more to say it's like how to be a great command that this is this chapter and he had worked with many of them and this is why this chapter is so good he's he is taking his own experience he's talking about his own experience in that chapter in 1814 Napoleon was defeated and forced to abdicate and then he returned less than a year later 1815 back and marched to meet the Allies in Belgium that's that famous bellow in Waterloo Clausewitz was not in Waterloo he was there was a twin battle up north in Vava where actually the third army the third Prussian Army Corps where Clausewitz was chief of staff they had to keep Michele gooshie from going and helping Napoleon their job was like to go and keep him over there they faced an enemy Michele go she had twice as many men as the Third Army Corps third Amoco lost that battle but that was not the important part their job was like not to win or lose their job was to keep go she busy over there so he doesn't go and help Napoleon against Wellington so after the end of the Napoleonic Wars sometimes in the winter of 1859 1860 Clausewitz decided to capture his experience and knowledge about these wars on paper he did not set any timeframe for more space limit he just wanted to write meanwhile Prussia and the rest of Europe suffered a reactionary backlash so the old guard was trying to turn back the clock all these reforms they were passed during the reform time all these reforms to beat Napoleon they tried to take them back they did not succeed but all these hopes after 1815 that we will start the world anew that there was gonna be this bold and fast progress all these hopes they were slowly abandoned reformers like Clausewitz they felt marginalized and instead of actually continuing to implement reforms because they did not have any other choice they spend their time on riding like pouring their ideas in time and energy into writing instead of doing all these reforms Clausewitz wondered if all walls from now on gonna be just as ferocious as the one we is dissing the Napoleonic Wars or they will go back to the cabinet was from the 18th century which were very limited his his answer was that politics will decide it depends on on the politics yet to understand how time political conditions individuals shaped the cause of war cause of its next working on on war he studied and wrote incredible incredible variety of campaign campaign studies that's like he studied from the 30 Years War to the frederick the great campaigns campaigns against the ottoman turks chewed his own his own Wars the campaign's he lived to so he tried and then he plucked those ideas that if the ideas that he the inside he plugged it in on war now initially close reach throughout with the premise that the Napoleonic era this was the war has come to its absolute form to its most destructive form of warfare so he was thinking this is the it's it's a real thing yet the more he fought with the passing of time he realized that might not be the case not not all the resources of the society were used there was two pockets that were not use his dad's realized in war there is always resources that are never used so he started to think more and more in about absolute war in terms of of idea of say of philosophical construct something to be studied and understood but and to compare in war to it but to understand that one Navin never is never so perfectly devastating the real war is never so perfectly devastating yet because the way he wrote and rewrote the text without leaving a clear copy and final copy because he died without finishing the book it's so hard to follow this evolution of the term however in book 1 chapter 1 which is the most mature version he clearly did not think about absolute war as a real thing and to explain you so I'll show you some of the manuscripts of on water the preserved manuscripts that we have so graduates will to explain how these pulses goes white sometimes so hard to read that text he will write on on the first draft on the right side but then he will put the text aside debate his ideas further very often wind Murray we hit research desk his ideas and then go back to the manuscript so you see he will cross out paragraphs adding on the left side additional remarks and occasional notes for himself like here he's like this should go to book eight so you see this should go to book ain't and so on and then he will make a clear copy and then we'll start all over again yeah this one is like and this one is actually on a left on the on the white side is actually in Murray's handwriting so and then clauses will go and do this thing this is another manuscript these are the manuscripts of cha one of book one chapter one that you've been studying we don't know exactly anything so we don't know if that's the last version of these things but it's very close to the published version and as you can see on the right side it's close of its handwriting on the left side is actually Murray those headings headings that you've seen they actually written by Murray sometimes this is why the text sometimes does not align with these headings because the headings were if you read closely the headings in the text and read they're not always aligned it is because the text was written first and those then these things were written later to make it easier to read for everybody else now and then I want to show you the heading number 24 which is you can see it here and it says they their clique is an applause afford they assume they're politically thunder and me turn the warriors is merely the continuation of politics without a means it's actually written by Murray in Murray's handwriting now I'm saying now Qasim is exposed that idea in many in many other places you know noir if you read it he in different versions but it's only one time it comes in this simple and contains and so remarkable way it's only one time using this version I'm just saying and you know and but what I wanted to emphasize is how much debating testing and fine tuning went into that chapter one now this messy pouch makes on war a difficult a difficult but incredibly rich read now to caution you against the the notion that if Clausewitz only whetted was not such a massive mess right if he was a little bit more organized if he was like a little bit more sure than so on he might have been better I want to show you other chapter this is the chapter neglect anemia its intelligence in in whoa which is not the best chapter in on war like it's actually closer it's been attacked a lot about this chapter because it's not very good I and these are very early manuscript that that's from early 1820s and I went word by word comparing the published and this early manuscript and there is only one yeah you can see there is only only one change from this manuscripts to the published one in its where he says under intelligence I understand Marie changed it in the published version is and the intelligence we understand it's more because he used we in most of the text so he actually wrote that chapter very early and he never touched it for maybe 10 years and it's not the best chapter so close which is not good when he doesn't think a lot when he doesn't pound when he is not messy rider he needs his time to think when he tries to be short and concise and doesn't go rewriting his ideas he's not very good now it's a popular legend that Clausewitz worked in secret and no one knew that he was creating this all-encompassing theory not true he actually circulated different versions among friends his military fellow military reformers waited with impatience for Clausewitz to publish just as his wife Marie she was constantly come on publish this thing they wanted that they hope that that book is gonna invite the public debate and probably create some momentum for reforms why this anticipation it was also the time of Germany and his cookbooks and all this military professor all these all these professional soldiers did all these vitamins they were like no that's not how we have wars conducted this is not how we experienced it war is not a cookbook so they were like come on closer it's like you have to write the real book but he was taking his time now in 1830 there was another wave of popular discontent of this is this revolution the July revolution 1830 in France it was followed by rebellions in Belgium Italy and Poland Clausewitz was sent again its chief of staff for the Prussian Army in the East on the on the Polish border where there was this rebellion the Polish November prising against the Russian Empire but pressure itself had a lot had lots of Polish territory lots of Polish provinces and they wanted to stop prevent that uprising from crossing into into Prussia and then of course the cholera came in it was actually for the first time in Europe so cholera that was like a new disease knew was horrendous experience for the people who actually survived the epidemic on the border he and when the when the uprising was over he went back home with Marie and then several days after that he died from cholera so he survives on the border but then suddenly he dies in in the relatively safe city of Breslau it was left to marie to publish the manuscripts she had carried the manuscripts with her the manuscripts of own war whatever she traveled 1830 1831 Klaus would steal them and gave it to her she traveled around with these manuscripts she decided to publish on war the way it was found with the latest revisions incorporated now keeping those interventions minimal was not entirely clear cut or easy to do in every circumstance the the manuscripts they include outdated information in inconsistencies and arguments disavowing the prevailing attitudes of the day in fact Marie was aware that of these inconsistencies in these problems with the text but she knew she knew that if she started she edited heavily she might she might actually overstep because the text has so many problems and today you're reading supposed to discuss book 8 chapter 6 be and pay attention there is a footnote in that chapter where it he talks about how close Marie's brother freed from bro after Murray's death he publishes on war in 1850s he published the second edition of on war and he actually fixed many of the spelling mistakes and other mistakes he fixed them but then he went really heavy handedly and he changed he changed turned the civil military relations he turns it on its head because he felt like cause of its got it wrong you know and like let me fix it Clausewitz let me make you you know do you a favor I'm gonna fix it so this is like if you start anything you don't know how you're gonna and Marie understood that the who approach open the text too many to multiple and often conflicting interpretations there was like people criticizing after that came there was like a criticism why didn't you edit it a little bit better but she's still defended her pouch and she she fought that those discussions inevitably will they're good things those discussions are good things because they will force the readers to seek the truth which was actually Klaus if it's goal that people by discussing they will understand on war so she the way she in the Stute on war and the way she suggested that she should read it is a book of constant discourse the book that should be constantly debated it's not close of its own war it's not the Bible it's not st. Paul's letters to the Christians it's a book to be constantly debated and to be read and constantly debated [Applause]

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Keywords: clausewitz, bellinger, theories of war

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Length: 37min 37sec (2257 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 10 2017