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How to understand Book I. Chapter 1 of On War(written by Carl von Clausewitz)

Kim Tae Hyun 1

1국방대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to explain the logical structure of 'nature of war' in the Book I, Chapter 1 of On War written by Carl von Clausewitz, as an introduction for beginners who are going to study On War. This article does not try to take a critical approach about the previous literature, but try to give a contribution to help readers to understand this great book just more clearly and easily. As a result this article is trying to provide a profound basis for interpretation about the 'nature of war' on a deeper and reliable basis. This study follows two different approaches. First, this article was built on a interaction between a empirical 'history' and a conceptual 'theory'. On war is a classic literature about political science and military art and science whose main empirical case was about conducting of Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century. Accordingly, we need to analyze three main campaigns in the Napoleonic Wars in order to answer key questions raised in this book. In this background, I will introduce 'three campaigns' and 'two different types of war' conceptualized by the German scholar Andreas Herberg-rothe. Three campaigns include Jena/Auerstedt(1806), Moscow(1812), Waterloo(1815) and two types of war are consisted of a 'absolute war(Entgrenzung der Gewalt)' and 'real war(Begrenzung der Gewalt)'. Second, this article needs a closer look at a new architecture of the interaction between ‘the whole’ and ‘the part’ of On War which was proposed by Carl von Clausewitz himself. The author intended to provide a simple and systematic logic about the nature of war. He does not want to bring readers a confusion by letting various pieces of elements belonged to war untouched or unorganized one. This means, Clausewitz's efforts to analyze the campaigns from part to part needed to be integrated into a single work or a ‘one final product’ under the framework with ‘one perspective’ or ‘one single point of view’. The different perspective and changing character on three campaigns are kinds like a confused mixture, because this was published as a unfinished literature after Clausewitz died. Therefore, we have to study the whole publication process during twenty years. Finally, this study comes to a conclusion that Book I Chapter 1 of is a framework for the following whole part of On War. The main theme Clausewitz raised during twenty years was the dynamics of escalation and de-escalation of war(‘entgrenzung’ and ‘begrenzung’). Clausewitz intended to clarify why war comes to anescalation⟶mitigation⟶de-escalaton⟶suspension.The methodology used in this book to illuminate the cause of this question was the dialectical approach using the opposite concept of ‘ideal world and real world’, ‘duel and state war’, ‘absolute war and real war’. Book I Chapter 1 of On War is a conceptual framework for the whole book which provides a consistent perspective on the success and failure of Napoleon's conduct of war in the empirical cases. Jena/Auerstedt(1806) campaign was a empirical prototype for a absolute war, but Napoleon's failure in Moscow(1812) and Waterloo(1815) campaigns motivated Clausewitz to turn his early thought on nature of war to the real war paradigm. ‘Absolute war-paradigm’ of the Jena(1806) is ‘early Clausewitz’ and ‘real war-paradigm’ of the moscow/waterloo(1812/1815) is ‘later Clausewitz’. Clausewitz tried to integrate this different and opposite nature of two types of war into a single war theory based on a ‘wondrous trinity of war’. Clausewitz tried to clarify the dynamics of escalation and de-escalation of the war, and the relationship ‘wondrous trinity’(primordial violence-chance and probability - reason alone) and ‘dual nature of war(chameleon)’. According to Clausewitz, it does not exist a absolute war in the real world. The reason why Clausewitz provide a absolute war in the book was just to show a reference point for setting a theory, which never takes place in the reality. Lastly, this article implies that the nature of war(book I. chapter 1 of on war) is closely associated with a matter of military strategy. As explained clearly in the empirical cases of Jena, Moscow and Waterloo, ‘war and strategy’ cannot be separated. The most cause/motive of Clausewitz was “why Napoleon won or lost the war?”. Clausewitz dealt with the nature of war in the first chapter of his book just to answer his main question in the later part. Clausewitz' main interest was actually focused on a ‘strategy’ and ‘war planning’ in the following parts of his book. This is the reason why we have to read Book I Chapter 1 of On War carefully before we start to study ‘strategy’.

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