In the realm of Clausewitzian scholarship, the 1820s represent a conundrum. On the one hand, this was when Carl von Clausewitz wrote most of his treatise On War. On the other hand, despite the period's undoubted significance for the military theorist’s legacy, we know relatively little about his life, career, and writing process. For modern national security professionals, this knowledge gap is particularly unfortunate, as it tends to, first, reinforce the mistaken impression that Clausewitz's efforts to write a theory of war were an exoteric process separated from his experience in war or his performance as a senior officer. As a result, it is also easier to brush aside the need for reflection and the continuous study of war, politics, and society Clausewitz thought central for the business of war.
The reasons for this decade-long knowledge gap are manifold. First and foremost is the lack of correspondence between Clausewitz and his wife Marie as they lived together; although other letters are preserved, their number is not as great nor their content as candid and detailed as their correspondence as a couple. Furthermore, the military theorist spent most of this period drafting On War, and the prolonged and secluded nature of that writing process offers a less compelling narrative to scholars and audiences. Following the riveting accounts of the Napoleonic Wars, the realities of peace and the Restoration Era's stifling climate additionally constrain interest in the period. Thus, biographies tend to describe the 1820s in broad strokes, often squeezing the decade Clausewitz dedicated to writing On War into a single chapter.
A newly discovered drawing, now in the collection of the German History Museum in Berlin, promises to shed new light on Clausewitz's life. Furthermore, its connection to real-life events provides a better understanding of the decade’s influence over Clausewitz's thought and the realities surrounding the creation of On War. The find highlights an overlooked memorandum Clausewitz wrote in 1825 that, for its part, reveals Clausewitz as a thoughtful and consummate military professional. In fact, the ideas expressed in this memorandum matured on the pages of his general theory, On War, reinforcing the notion of his theory as a product of complex reflection on the realities military professionals encounter.
A New Image of Clausewitz
Johann Jakob Kirchhoff, Carl von Clausewitz, 1825. (Copyright: German Historical Museum/Deutsches Historisches Museum/I. Desnica. All rights reserved.)
The newly discovered drawing comes from the collection of the German Historical Museum in Berlin. Several years ago, the institution acquired the partial estate of the artist Johann Jakob Kirchhoff (1796-1848). Among the sketches and studies found was an aquarelle representing Carl von Clausewitz. The drawing was part of a series of portraits of Prussian officers and statesmen who played a significant role in the 1813-1815 campaigns against Napoleon (or the Wars of German Liberation, as the period is also known in German historiography). The portraits were bundled together with Kirchhoff's work Royal Parade on the Tempelhof Field (Königsparade auf dem Tempelhofer Feld). Also an aquarelle, the Royal Parade represented a gathering of the elite of the Prussian army, with the famous cast iron monument dedicated to the Prussian victories in 1813-1815 as a background. Although the intention and immediate purpose of this work and the additional portraits remain unclear, the iconography evoking the Wars of German Liberation suggests Kirchhoff probably envisioned the sequence as a jubilee celebration of the Allied victories against Napoleon. As the faces on the Royal Parade are hard to distinguish while the individual sketches are rich in detail, it is also possible the artist might have had another, more monumental work in mind; thus, the sequence may have constituted a preliminary study for it. Alternatively, Kirchhoff's illustrator work could also suggest he intended the Royal Parade and the drawings for a book or a luxury album.[1]
Kirchhoff's portrait of Clausewitz unmistakably reminds us of the military theorist's popular image by Wilhelm Wach. There is a possible explanation for that—after Clausewitz's death, Marie wished to commission a portrait of her beloved husband that could be turned into lithograph and then printed and gifted to close friends. She, however, was dissatisfied with a recent official portrait done by the famous German artist Franz Krüger, a work that is now lost. As she shared in a letter, Marie intended to commission another painting, an amalgam of Krüger's work and a drawing she possessed that, according to Marie, truly captured her beloved Carl's facial expression.[2] The similarity between Kirchhoff's image and Wach's famous portrait of Clausewitz suggest the former might have been that drawing. This also implies Wach's work was created posthumously by combining Clausewitz's figure from Krüger's portrait with the facial expression from Kirchhoff's.
“Carl von Clausewitz” by Wilhelm Wach (Wikimedia)
Kirchhoff's image emphasizes Clausewitz's penetrating blue eyes, a feature the work shares with another recently discovered drawing of the military theorist, the so-called “young Clausewitz.”[3] Yet compared to that work's confident and energetic look, Clausewitz's gaze in 1825 is solemn. Not only the fifteen-year difference and the burdens of several wars separate the two images. In 1825, Clausewitz's health was at a low point. His letters from that time describe prolonged and severe pain in the throat that made it impossible for him to swallow and enjoy food and drink.[4] Hence the unhealthy complexion and weariness evident in his face.
Kirchhoff's drawing provides one additional insight. The larger aquarelle was called Royal Parade on the Tempelhof Field, but no known source mentions a prodigious parade in 1825. In that year, however, the Prussian army conducted military exercises in Potsdam and Berlin with the additional purpose of creating a modern field manual. The indications in Kirchhoff's papers that the series was made both in Berlin and Potsdam also suggest the maneuvers may have served as the real-life basis for the artist's work.[5]
In his position as a director of the Prussian Military Academy, Clausewitz also performed duties as associate to the General Staff (aggregirtier Officer des General Stabes), occasionally called to support the evaluation of maneuvers and training.[6] However, his particular involvement in the 1825 maneuvers remains unclear. A memorandum he wrote ahead of the event suggests Clausewitz was not included in the committee working on the field manual. Kirchhoff's aquarelle, however, indicates that even if the military theorist did not belong to the Prussian General Staff's leading figures, he still enjoyed recognition for his role in the Napoleonic Wars and, most likely, did observe the maneuvers up close. Otherwise, the artist would have not included him in the series.
Clausewitz as a General Staff officer, circa 1809-1810, author unknown.(Forschungsgemeinschaft Clausewitz-Burg, Burg bei Magdeburg)
Clausewitz's Thoughts on Creating Guidelines for Military Conduct
Even if the committee working on a new field manual omitted Clausewitz, the short memorandum captured his thoughts on the ways to create guidelines for conduct in the field. Although published in the 1990 volume containing Clausewitz’s manuscripts and correspondence, the document has never been extensively studied, nor translated into English. This article offers its first English translation.
Clausewitz's memorandum was sent to his close friend and former commander, Field Marshall August Neidhardt von Gneisenau.[7] Serving as the chief of staff for Blücher, Gneisenau was largely responsible for the planning of the Allied campaigns against Napoleon in 1813-1815. In the post-1819 period, the so-called Restoration Era, when Prussian politics took a reactionary turn, Gneisenau was awarded many honors but, as a suspected liberal, was kept away from active service. He and Clausewitz continuously exchanged ideas, and Gneisenau encouraged Clausewitz's work on a general theory of war. It remains unclear whether Clausewitz expected that his friend would pass along the 1825 memorandum to other leading features in the Prussian military or used the occasion to simply clarify his thoughts on the subject.
A booklet capturing the conduct of armies in the field, a Feldmanual or field manual, was called to close a gap in Prussia's military documentation. As part of the efforts to restructure and modernize the Prussian army after its disastrous defeat at the hands of Napoleon in the Jena-Auerstedt Campaign (1806), the reform circle led by Gerhard von Scharnhorst created an exercise manual in 1812.[8] The document aimed at introducing contemporary tactics, unifying the Prussian army's conduct, and rebuilding it as a force able to face Napoleon's troops. Following his mentor Scharnhorst's instructions, as a General Staff major, Clausewitz served on the committee that compiled the infantry exercise manual. The booklet was considered a comprehensive guide for training troops that, with some changes, remained in use until 1843.[9]
Yet the realities of prolonged campaigning and mass warfare in the 1813-1815 period also revealed its limits. The exercise manual required extensive periods of training and long and systematic development of officers and non-commissioned officers able to lead troops. However, in the Wars of German Liberation, Prussia increasingly relied on newly drafted soldiers and the Landwehr (territorial reserve). For its officer corps, the Landwehr selected schoolteachers, civil servants, and prominent members of the society; although enthusiastic, they were far from military professionals. In general, the drafted Prussian troops and their leadership arrived at the war theater with four months of service on average. Without extensive training, newly commissioned and non-commissioned officers often lacked knowledge and experience leading to poor performance in the field.[10] They needed practical guidance for their conduct in combat.
As a reaction to this experience in the Wars of German Liberation, Clausewitz considered writing a field manual in 1816. His request for institutional support for the project was met with little enthusiasm from the war ministry; instead, Clausewitz devoted his energy to writing war theory.[11] Nonetheless, the need for a new manual guiding and unifying the army's conduct on the field became hard to overlook, leading the Prussian military to plan the maneuvers of 1825 as the basis for the creation of such document.
Clausewitz's memorandum displays his disdain for habitual committee work. As he stated, the emphasis on consensus from early on and attempts to please every expectation tended to steer the process in the wrong direction: "From the very first moment, everything is taken into account and agreement is sought too early." Instead, Clausewitz suggested a group of experienced and knowledgeable officers with diverse expertise should reflect and write their proposals separately; only after these rough drafts were prepared should the committee meet and discuss which requirements and ideas should be captured in the manual. This process, Clausewitz implied, would "safeguard against one-sidedness" and could produce a valuable product.
This careful reflection on military instructions promised to also bridge the gap between theory and practice. Clausewitz criticized the notion that a field manual should be based on the experience from such a limited event as a fourteen-day exercise: “It seems to me implausible that we will learn in a fourteen-day-long exercise what has not been learned while experiencing a four-year-long war.” Instead, the creation of a manual had to be a deliberate and thoughtful process: "It is more a question of capturing, through careful and persistent reflection, what needs to be prescribed and can be prescribed."
A military manual, Clausewitz argued, should be written in clear language and aim to capture the majority of cases. Arguing that no guide could offer instructions for every occasion—nor should it attempt to do it—Clausewitz emphasized the need for reliance on "common sense." He also took a jab at the military profession and its love for elaborate paperwork, "which some find the service's particular dignity."
The practical field manual, he concluded, had to unify the force's performance. Clausewitz argued further that practical guidance for combat, military education, and war theory ought to be in constant dialog. To describe this theoretical and normative unification of conduct, Clausewitz used the term Methodismus or mode of procedure. The latter, not coincidently, was also a chapter in his treatise On War.
The Consequences for On War
In the 1990s, the eminent German scholar Werner Hahlweg briefly commented on the similarities between the 1825 Memorandum and the chapter in Book II, Chapter 4 (translated by Peter Paret and Michael Howard as "Method and Routine").[12] Contrary to the popular perception that the entirety of Clausewitz's manuscripts had been lost in World War II, some of the early drafts are preserved in the German archives and provide clues on the development of his thought. The early version of Methodismus is one of those preserved.[13] Famously, as captured in the Note of 1827 published as the preface of On War, Clausewitz envisioned comprehensive revisions in the drafts, a plan never to be fulfilled due to his unexpected death in 1831.[14] The preservation of the earlier manuscripts allow us to study the development of Clausewitz's thought and particularly the influence of the 1825 events and the memorandum on his revisions of On War.
In its early version, the chapter offered a rather short discussion, merely two pages in print, on the place of guidance in the study of war and the role routine and patterns could play in military conduct. As Clausewitz wrote in the draft, with its complex enactment and ever-changing conditions, war may appear as a human activity the least amendable to rules, guidance, and routine. However, when considering that commanders usually worked with imperfect information and without the ability to oversee and control the execution of every order, basing disposition “on the general and probable” was often the case. (The paragraph was partially preserved in the mature version of On War).[15] Thus, the question Clausewitz raised in the early draft—but failed to answer—was how this methodical procedure should be devised to facilitate military performance on the field without becoming a stiff routine that shackled conduct and blinded commanders to the singular challenges they faced in combat.
The 1825 Memorandum helped Clausewitz to refine his thinking on the matter. The chapter in On War we read today is an extended meditation on the role guidance, regulations, and routine should and could play in the conduct of war. Echoing the memorandum, Clausewitz argued that a "method" or "mode of procedure" is a constantly recurring procedure "that has been selected from several possibilities." Despite its seeming uniformity, it could not describe all eventualities but "should be designed to meet the most probable cases. Routine is not based on definite individual premises, but rather on the average probability of analogous cases. Its aim is to postulate an average truth, which, when applied evenly and constantly, will soon acquire some of the nature of a mechanical skill."[16] Clausewitz also found an answer to the question he posed in the early draft, namely, how to create practical but undogmatic guidance for conduct on the field: "As such [routines] may well have a place in the theory of the conduct of war, provided they are not falsely represented as absolute, binding frameworks for action (systems); rather they are the best of the general forms, short cuts, and options that may be substituted for individual decisions."[17] In other words, they had to be understood for what they are—general guidelines and heuristics; thus, if keeping in mind their limitations, modes of procedure had their place. However, if they were seen as rules to be continuously followed, the guidelines would become counterproductive and even dangerous.
Additionally, as in the memorandum, Clausewitz saw procedures and routines in perpetual discourse with war theory; the latter, as he stated in the same chapter, was the "intelligent analysis of conduct of war."[18] While unified methods and routines are typical and acceptable on a tactical level, Clausewitz commented that, at the higher levels of war, some imitation of previously successful approaches, application of ready-made solutions, or preferences dictated by the fashion of the day was also unavoidable. The danger came, however, when people failed to recognize these routines on an operational and strategic level for what they were, a "style, developed out of a single case." As an antidote, war theory and its study, according to Clausewitz, are called to provide context and reveal when a method had outlived its time while simultaneously empowering leaders to seek and develop new approaches.[19]
Understanding Clausewitz's Experience
The discovery of the 1825 portrait and an understanding of its larger context reveals how little we still know about the military theorist's life and writing process. Although his war experience is extensively studied, Clausewitz's tangible achievements as a military reformer on the eve of the Wars of German Liberation and afterwards are not yet fully appreciated.[20] The process of creation of On War remains, too, largely unexplored, a circumstance particularly vexing given the treatise's unfinished nature. In fact, due to its complex language, the chapter on Methodismus discussed in this article is seldom read or debated in professional military seminars, despite its valuable insight into the business of war. By studying the roots of Clausewitz's ideas and their gradual development, we can better understand their meaning while broadening our modern interpretation of his thought.
Most of all, for today's national security practitioners exploring Clausewitz's thought process brings reassurance and encouragement. The Prussian general continuously reflected on practical challenges he encountered in war and peace—and strove to capture these reflections in a general theory transcending the constraints of early nineteenth-century warfare. Thus, his treatise is an homage and empowerment of those enlightened professionals who constantly study the business of war and strive to conduct it in an informed and effective manner.
Royal Parade on the Tempelhof Field" (Königsparade auf dem Tempelhofer Feld)” by Johann Jakob Kirchhoff, (Wikipedia)
Carl von Clausewitz to August Neidhardt von Gneisenau on Creating a Field Manual, 9 October 1825[21]
These days here and in Potsdam small-scale field exercises are starting, carried out mostly by light troops, namely Jäger {light elite infantry}, Schützen {marksmen}, Fusiliers {skirmishers}, hussars {light cavalry}, dragoons {mounted infantry}, and horse artillery, to continue for several weeks. Their purpose is to produce practical suggestions for field-duty regulations. In Potsdam, Colonel {August Wilhelm von} Neumann is going to be the commander, and Colonels {Eugen Maximilian von} Roeder and {Karl Friedrich Adolph von} Malachowski will be the observers and arbitrators. Here {in Berlin}, Lieutenant Colonel {Ulrich Friedrich Johann Gottlieb von} Barner will command and General {Adolf Eduard von} Thiele will be the second observer and arbitrator. I know too little about the matter to be able to judge the practicability of this measure. Still, it seems to me implausible that we will learn in a fourteen-day-long exercise what has not been learned while experiencing a four-year-long war. And it is more a question of capturing, through careful and persistent reflection, what needs to be prescribed and can be prescribed. When such a task is done tenfold in the office, it surely would be more practical than these meditations and observations made with reins in the hand. What I have in mind are five to six individuals with different backgrounds: a couple of capable drill instructors from the infantry and the cavalry, a couple of capable soldiers from the frontline of both branches, a couple of academically educated ones, meaning such who are already acquainted and understand the existing {body of knowledge} and know what a professional handbook should say.[22] They are tasked to create the first draft of a field manual and independently explore in detail their specific areas. These differing and in their biases surely very varying works would then provide the materials, from which a commission could draw ideas. This process would safeguard against one-sidedness and raise all concerns and complexities. However, if we begin, as it always happens, with a commission, then from the onset we will attain an artificial half-baked product {Halbding} divorced from any originality because in such a commission no member has an opportunity to express themself completely. From the very first moment, everyone holds back, and agreement is sought too early. In my opinion, a field manual, just as in war so in peace, should:
1. Capture only the most essential and useful matters, subsequently leaving out all immaterial or impractical forms; for the useful and needed is so much that it is even more unwarranted to clutter military service with paperwork, in which some find the service’s particular dignity.
2. To capture only what covers a majority of cases, for an instruction that includes points that cannot be applied in hundreds of cases, on the one hand, loses influence and gravitas; and on the other ceases to be among the required readings to which a practitioner adheres and, combined with one’s common sense, to belong among what amounts to everything a practitioner needs. If these rules are to be followed, then the regulations would also not be overshadowed by one component (for the whole text must be divided in such), and this is crucial.
3. As the main requirement for field regulations, I believe that the provisions concerning the engagement of the enemy amount to an elementary war study {Kriegslehre}, which covers topics from the whole so-called small war up to the positioning and application of a brigade. This way, a specific mode of procedure {Methodismus} in command of troops is created, which safeguards against too much ignorance and going astray while following some false ingenuity. This methodological procedure, when keeping up with military theory’s {Kriegskunst} development and not too outdated, is the best that an army could receive. The provisions captured in the military regulations should represent it {this methodological procedure}, and these provisions should serve at professional and advanced schools as the base for the curriculum, from which the art of fighting wars will be further developed; thereby, in this aspect too, we are safeguarded from going astray and, at the same time, the teacher can rely on a textbook, which is not divorced of authority.
However, all of this is just wishful thinking, for it is very difficult to implement. I beg Your Excellency all the more for forgiveness for having diverted your attention with it for so long.
Vanya Eftimova Bellinger is the author of Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War. She currently teaches at the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed are her own and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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Header Image: “Royal Parade on the Tempelhof Field" (Königsparade auf dem Tempelhofer Feld)” by Johann Jakob Kirchhoff, (Wikipedia)
Notes:
[1] See Kirchhoff’s biography in Neuer Nekrolog der Deutschen 1848 (Weimar: Voigt Verlag, 1850), 799-803. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=LEzuCFYkFjsC&pg=GBS.PA536&hl=en
[2] Unpublished letter, Marie von Clausewitz to Karl von der Gröben, 8 December 1831, Prussian Privy State Archives, Berlin, HA VI, NL Karl von der Groeben, Uncatalogued Box Nr.56.
[3] Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, “A Portrait of Clausewitz as a Young Officer,” War on the Rocks, 23 October 2015. https://warontherocks.com/2015/10/a-portrait-of-clausewitz-as-a-young-officer/
[4] Clausewitz to Gneisenau, 9 and 25 October 1825, in Carl von Clausewitz, Schriften-Aufsätze-Studien-Briefe, Dokumente aus dem Clausewitz-, Scharnhorst- und Gneisenau-Nachlaß sowie aus öffentlichen und privaten Sammlungen, ed. by Werner Hahlweg (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1990), Vol. 2-1, 475 and 481.
[5] See the provenance on https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/YUNMXRUJPUJWRN5DACFC4FJ5HPZLEPSH.
[6] Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 307.
[7] Clausewitz to Gneisenau, 9 October 1825, in Clausewitz, Schriften-Aufsätze-Briefe, Vol. 2-1, 477-479.
[8] On Scharnhorst and the reform circle, see Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, “Introducing #Scharnhorst: The Vision of an Enlightened Soldier ‘On Experience and Theory’,” The Strategy Bridge, 1 April 2019. https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2019/4/1/introducing-scharnhorst-the-vision-of-an-enlightened-soldier-on-experience-and-theory
[9] Peter Paret, Yorck and The Era of Prussian Reform, 1807-1815 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), 179-181; Jürgen Angelow, Von Wien nach Königgrätz: Die Sicherheitspolitik des Deutschen Bundes im europäischen Gleichgewicht 1815–1866 (München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1996), 76.
[10] Dennis E. Showalter, "The Prussian Landwehr and Its Critics, 1813-1819," Central European History 4, no. 1 (1971): 16-17.
[11] August Neidhardt von Gneisenau to War Minister Boyen, 5 August 1816, in G.H. Pertz and Hans Delbrück, Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von Gneisenau, Vol.5 (Berlin: Reimer Verlag, 1880), 132-133.
[12] Clausewitz, Schriften-Aufsätze-Briefe, Vol. 2-1, 478, n.21.
[13] Clausewitz, Schriften-Aufsätze-Briefe, Vol.2-2, 659-661.
[14] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. by Peter Paret and Michael Howard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 69.
[15] Clausewitz, Schriften-Aufsätze-Briefe, Vol. 2-2, 659-660, and Clausewitz, On War, 153.
[16] Clausewitz, On War, 151-152.
[17] Clausewitz, On War, 153.
[18] Clausewitz, On War, 154.
[19] Clausewitz, On War, 154-155.
[20] On Clausewitz's experiences as a soldier, see Donald Stoker, Clausewitz: His Life and Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
[21] Carl von Clausewitz, Schriften-Aufsätze-Studien-Briefe, Dokumente aus dem Clausewitz-, Scharnhorst- und Gneisenau-Nachlaß sowie aus öffentlichen und privaten Sammlungen, ed. by Werner Hahlweg (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1990), Vol. 2-1, pp.477-479. Translated by Vanya Eftimova Bellinger. Dr. Christopher Bassford provided initial comments and corrections.
[22] Emphasis in the original. In his manuscripts and letters, Clausewitz frequently underlined sentences and key words he thought important. Unfortunately, later editions and English translations do not always reflect Clausewitz’s preferences. This translation reproduces the emphases as published in Clausewitz, Schriften-Aufsätze-Studien-Briefe, 477-479.