Reading Clausewitz

by Beatrice Heuser

Clausewitz's On War, first published in 1832, remains the most famous study of the nature and conditions of warfare. Contemporaries found him 'endearing' or 'totally unpalatable', while later generations called him 'the father of modern strategical study', whose tenets have 'eternal relevance', or dismissed him as outdated. Was it really he who made the discovery that warfare is a continuation of politics? Was he the 'Mahdi of mass and mutual massacre', in part responsible for the mass slaughter of the First World War, as Liddell Hart contended? Can the idea of total war be traced back to him? Complex and often misunderstood, Clausewitz has fascinated and influenced generations of politicians and strategic thinkers. Beatrice Heuser's study is the first book, not only on how to read Clausewitz, but also on how others have read him - from the Prussian and German masters of warfare of the late nineteenth century through to the military commanders of the First World War, through Lenin and Mao Zedong to strategists in the nuclear age and of guerrilla warfare. The result is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the work and influence of the greatest classic on the art of war.

Genres: History

348 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 2, 2002

Reviews

[So · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction into Clausewitz‘s works that helps us to understand where he got his inspiration from and what people and their respective thoughts he inspired. It succinctly discusses his main concepts, their usefulness as well as the shortcomings of his work.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very surprised by how much in this book I found to disagree with. Heuser's analysis of Clausewitz hinges on an idealist/realist duality that she assigns to his writings pre- and post-1827, respectively, something that I'm not sure is entirely borne out by the record. The idea that Clausewitz turned on a dime and began to incorporate his later, more "realist" views about war into Book VIII and the rewrite of Book I just doesn't hold water for me, and doesn't account for the appearance of a number of "realist" insights elsewhere in the text. Heuser seems to be holding on to what I believe to be a misunderstanding of the absolute war-vs-limited war comparison on which much of "On War" turns; this is no crime on its own - many others have made the same error - but it torpedoes her thesis.

In her other writings, Heuser has shown a dogged determination to highlight Clausewitz's utter un-specialness as a strategic-/military-theoretical writer, and that determination shows through here. Yes, we know other people wrote similar things around the same time, and even before. But this book is about Clausewitz!

The real strength of this book is as a sort of literature review of the major commentaries on Clausewitz over the last two centuries, but Bassford's "Clausewitz in English" is both in some ways more thorough and, I'd hazard, more theoretically accurate (if certainly more boring for the lay reader). Heuser does a great job of opening up the untranslated German-language commentaries to the English-only reader, but I fear the really uninitiated would be led off track by her basic argument.

[Legens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pros:
- Reading this saves you the work of going through Clausewitz's seminal work yourself (which suffers from terrible hypotaxis and was not fully edited by the author yet when he died).
- Does a good job explaining the basic concepts of On War and the evolution in Clausewitz' thinking.

Cons:
- Somewhat inflated discussion of the reception of Clausewitz's concepts in strategic theory (mainly by people who did not understand or even read Clausewitz).
- Author's writing style is somewhat similar to Clausewitz's (see above).

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well done. According to Hauser, Clausewitz was only satisfied with Book I, and had only addressed his most highly developed realist views in Book VIII.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some interesting ideas here and I will need to reread certain sections again to fully understand the idealist/realist aspect of her work but there were insights into the Vietnam war in particular which reorientated the way I now look at that conflict.

I would suggest anyone reading this book gets some background on the main ideas of Clausewitzian theory before they attempt to read this otherwise you may become lost.

I also liked the chapter on guerilla warfare albeit a little short.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry reading, but interesting for its ideas on the philosophy of war.