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Baron Antoine de Jomini was born in Switzerland in 1779 and, after working in a Paris bank, organized battalions in the Swiss army. His writings on tactics brought him fame and he was appointed aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney and a colonel by Napoleon. After accompanying Ney on the Jena and Eylau campaign and also to Spain, he resigned from the French service, but was recalled by Napoleon in 1810, at the age of twenty-eight, with the rank of general of brigade.
He became director of the historical section of the French general staff and then participated in the Russian campaign, acting as Ney's chief of staff. In 1813 he deserted, after largely winning the battle of Bautze but failing to receive promotion, and served as a lieutenant general in the Russian army for the rest of the war. He was present as aide-de-camp to the Emperor Alexander at the Battle of Leipzig.
He took part in the Congress of Vienna, became military tutor to the Russian Imperial family and accompanied his pupil, now the Emperor Nicholas I, on the Turkish campaign of 1828 with the rank of general in chief. He helped to found the Military Academy in Moscow in 1832. His most famous work, Precis de l'Art de la Guerre, was prepared for the Tsarevich Alexander and published in 1837. He retired in 1848, though he returned to advise the emperor during the Crimean War in 1854, and died in Paris in 1869.
One cannot deny to General Clausewitz great learning and a facile pen. But this pen, at times a little vagrant, is above all too pretentious for a didactic discussion, in which simplicity and clearness ought to come first. Besides that, the author shows himself by far too sceptical in point of military science; his first volume is but a declamation against all theory of war, whilst the two succeeding volumes, full of theoretic maxims, prove that the author believes in the efficacy of his own doctrines, if he does not believe in those of others. Of all theories on the art of war, the only
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reasonable one is that which, founded upon the study of military history, admits a certain number of regulating principles but leaves to natural genius the greatest part of the general conduct of a war without tramelling it with exclusive rules.
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The love of conquest, however, was not the only motive with Napoleon: his personal position and his contest with England urged him to enterprises calculated to make him supreme. One might say his victories teach us what may be accomplished by activity, boldness and skill; his disasters, what might have been avoided by prudence.
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As a soldier preferring loyal and chivalrous warfare to organized assassination if it be necessary to make a choice, I acknowledge that my prejudices are in favour of the good old times when the French and English Guards courteously invited each other to fire first—as at Fontenoy —preferring them to the frightful epoch when priests, women, and children through Spain plotted the murder of isolated soldiers.
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The action of a cabinet in reference to the control of armies influences the boldness of their operations. A general whose genius and hands are tied by an Aulic council five hundred miles distant cannot be a match for one who has liberty of action, other things being equal.
If the skill of a general is one of the surest elements of victory, it will readily be seen that the judicious selection of generals is one of the most delicate points in the science of government and one of the most essential parts of the military policy of a state. Unfortunately, this choice is influenced by so many petty passions that chance, rank, age, favour, party spirit, or jealousy will have as much to do with it as the public interest and justice.
Superiority of armament may increase the chances of success in war. It does not of itself gain battles, but it is a great element of success.
The new inventions of the last twenty years seem to threaten a great revolution in army organization, armament and tactics. Strategy alone will remain unaltered, with its principles the same as under the Scipios and Caesars, Frederick and Napoleon, since they are independent of the nature of arms and the organization of the troops.
In times of peace the general staff should plan for all possible contingencies of war. Its archives should contain the historical details of the past, and all statistical, geographical, topographical and strategic treatises and papers for the present and future.
The financial condition of a nation is to be weighed among the chances of war. Still it would be dangerous to constantly attribute to this condition
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the importance attached to it by Frederick the Great in the history of his times. ... If England has proved that money will procure soldiers and auxiliaries, France has shown that love of country and honour are equally productive and that, when necessary, war may be made to support war. . . . Still we must admit that a happy combination of wise military institutions, of patriotism, of well-regulated finances and of internal wealth and public credit imparts to a nation the greatest strength and makes it best capable of sustaining a long war.
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One great principle underlies all the operations of war—a principle which must be followed in all good combinations. It is embraced in the following maxims:
1. To throw by strategic movements the mass of an army, successively, upon the decisive points of a theatre of war, and also upon the communications of the enemy as much as possible without compromising one's own.
2. To manoeuvre the engaged fractions of the hostile army with the bulk of one's forces.
3. On the battlefield, to throw the mass of the forces upon the decisive point, or upon that portion of the hostile line which it is of the first importance to overthrow.
4. To so arrange that these masses shall not only be thrown upon the decisive point, but that they shall engage at the proper times and with ample energy.
Battles have been stated by some writers to be the chief and deciding features of war. This assertion is not strictly true, as armies have been destroyed by strategic operations without the occurrence of pitched battles, merely by a succession of inconsiderable affairs.
It is also true that a complete and decided victory may bring similar results even though there may have been no grand strategic combination. But it is the morale of the armies, as well as of nations, more than anything else, which makes victories and their results decisive. Clausewitz commits a grave error in asserting that a battle not characterised by a manoeuvre to turn the enemy cannot result in a complete victory.
At the battle of Zama, Hannibal in a few brief hours saw the fruits of twenty years of glory and success, vanish before his eyes, although Scipio never had a thought of turning his position. At Rivoli the turning-party was completely beaten. Nor was the manoeuvre more successful at Stochach in 1799 or at Austerlitz in 1805. I by no means intend to discourage the use of that manoeuvre, being on the contrary a constant advocate of it—but it is very important to know how to use it skillfully and opportunely. Moreover I am of the opinion that if it be a general's design to make himself master of
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his enemy's communications while at the same time holding his own, he should employ strategic rather than tactical combinations to accomplish it.
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Posterity will regret, as the loss of an example to all future generations, that this immense undertaking (Napoleon's invasion of Britain) was not carried through, or at least attempted. Doubtless many brave men would have met their deaths, but were not those men mowed down more uselessly on the plains of Swabia, of Moravia, and of Castile, in the mountains of Portugal and the forests of Lithuania? What man would not glory in taking part in the greatest trial of skill and strength ever seen between two great nations?
At any rate posterity will find in the preparation made for this descent one of the most valuable lessons the present century has furnished for the study of soldiers and of statesmen. The labours of every kind performed on the coasts of France from 1803 to 1805 will be among the most remarkable monuments of the activity, foresight, and skill of Napoleon. It is recommended to the careful attention of young officers.
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One of the surest ways of forming good combinations in war would be to order movements only after obtaining perfect information of the enemy's proceedings. In fact, how can any man say what he should do himself, if he is ignorant what his adversary is about? Even as it is unquestionably of the highest importance to gain this information, so it is a thing of the utmost difficulty, not to say impossibility. This is one of the chief causes of the great difference between the theory and the practice of war.
An attempt of another kind was made in 1794, at the battle of Fleurus, where General Jourdan made use of the services of a balloonist to observe and give notice of the movements of the Austrians. I am not aware that he found the method very useful, as it was not again used but it was claimed at the time that it assisted in gaining him the victory. Of this, however, I have great doubts.
It is probable that the difficulty of having a balloonist in readiness to make an ascension at the proper moment and of making careful observations upon what is going on below while floating at the mercy of the winds above, has led to the abandonment of this method of gaining information. By giving the balloon no great elevation, sending up with it an officer capable of forming correct opinions as to the enemy's movements, and perfecting a system of signals to be used in connection with the balloon, considerable advantages might be expected from its use. Sometimes the smoke of the battle and the difficulty of distinguishing the columns, that look like lilliputians, so as to know to which party they belong, will make the reports of the balloonists very unreliable. For example, a balloonist
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would have been greatly embarrassed in deciding, at the battle of Waterloo, whether it was Grouchy or Blucher who was seen coming up by the Saint Lambert road—but this uncertainty need not exist where the armies are not so much mixed.
I had ocular proof of the advantage to be derived from such observations when I was stationed in the spire of Gautsch, at the battle of Leipzig; and Prince Schwartzenberg's aide-de-camp, whom I had conducted to the same point, could not deny that it was at my solicitation that the Prince was prevailed upon to emerge from the marsh between the Pleisse and the Elster. An observer is doubtless more at his ease in a clock-tower than in a frail basket floating in mid-air, but steeples are not always at hand in the vicinity of battlefields and they cannot be transported at pleasure.
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The first result of this treatise should be to waken the attention of men who have the mission of influencing the destinies of armies, that is to say, of governments and generals. The second, will be, perhaps, the doubling of the material and personnel of the artillery and the adoption of all improvements capable of augmenting the destructive effect. As artillerists will be among the first victims, it will be very necessary to instruct in the infantry men chosen to serve in the ranks of the artillery. Finally it will be necessary to seek means of neutralizing the effects of this carnage; the first seems to be the modification of the armament and the equipment of troops, then the adoption of new tactics which will yield results as promptly as possible.
This task will be for the rising generation, when we shall have tested by experience all the inventions with which we are occupied in the schools of artillery. Happy will be those who, in the first encounters, shall have plenty of shrapnel howitzers, many guns charged at the breech and firing thirty shots a minute; many pieces ricocheting at the height of a man and never failing their mark; finally the most improved rockets—without counting even the famous steam guns of Perkins, reserved to the defence of ramparts but which (if the written statement of Lord Wellington is to be believed) will yet be able to make cruel ravages. What a beautiful text for preaching universal peace and the exclusive reign of railroads!