The Project Gutenberg EBook of On War, by Carl von Clausewitz

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Title: On War

Author: Carl von Clausewitz

Release Date: February 25, 2006 [EBook #1946]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON WAR ***

Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger

ON WAR

by General Carl von Clausewitz

ON WAR GENERAL CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ TRANSLATED BY COLONEL J.J. GRAHAM

_1874 was 1st edition of this translation. 1909 was the London
reprinting._

NEW AND REVISED EDITION WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY COLONEL F.N.
MAUDE C.B. (LATE R.E.)

EIGHTH IMPRESSION IN THREE VOLUMES

VOLUME I

INTRODUCTION

THE Germans interpret their new national colours--black, red, and
white--by the saying, "Durch Nacht und Blut zur licht." ("Through night
and blood to light"), and no work yet written conveys to the thinker a
clearer conception of all that the red streak in their flag stands for
than this deep and philosophical analysis of "War" by Clausewitz.

It reveals "War," stripped of all accessories, as the exercise of force
for the attainment of a political object, unrestrained by any law save
that of expediency, and thus gives the key to the interpretation
of German political aims, past, present, and future, which is
unconditionally necessary for every student of the modern conditions of
Europe. Step by step, every event since Waterloo follows with logical
consistency from the teachings of Napoleon, formulated for the first
time, some twenty years afterwards, by this remarkable thinker.

What Darwin accomplished for Biology generally Clausewitz did for the
Life-History of Nations nearly half a century before him, for both have
proved the existence of the same law in each case, viz., "The survival
of the fittest"--the "fittest," as Huxley long since pointed out, not
being necessarily synonymous with the ethically "best." Neither of
these thinkers was concerned with the ethics of the struggle which
each studied so exhaustively, but to both men the phase or condition
presented itself neither as moral nor immoral, any more than are famine,
disease, or other natural phenomena, but as emanating from