poleon's methods, which had taken the
world by storm, had met with success in wars of a certain nature only, and
that when he tried to extend those methods to other natures of war he had
met with failure and even disaster. How was this to be explained? What
theory, for instance, would cover Napoleon's successes in Germany and
Italy, as well as his failures in Spain and Russia? If the whole conception
of war had changed, how could you account for the success of England, who
had not changed her methods? To us the answer to these questions is of
living and infinite importance. Our standpoint remains still unchanged. Is
there anything inherent in the conception of war that justifies that
attitude in our case? Are we entitled to expect from it again the same
success it met with in the past?

The first man to enunciate a theory which would explain the phenomena of
the Napoleonic era and co-ordinate them with previous history was General
Carl von Clausewitz, a man whose arduous service on the Staff and the
actual work of higher instruction had taught the necessity of systematising
the study of his profession. He was no mere professor, but a soldier bred
in the severest school of war. The pupil and friend of Sharnhorst and
Gneisenau, he had served on the Staff of Bluecher in 1813, he had been
Chief of the Staff to Wallmoden in his campaign against Davoust on the
Lower Elbe, and also to the Third Prussian Army Corps in the campaign of
1815. Thereafter for more than ten years he was Director of the General
Academy of War at Berlin, and died in 1831 as Chief of the Staff to Marshal
Gneisenau. For the fifty years that followed his death his theories and
system were, as he expected they would be, attacked from all sides. Yet
to-day his work is more firmly established than ever as the necessary basis
of all strategical thought, and above all in the "blood and iron" school of
Germany.

The process by which he reached his famous theory can be followed in his
classical work _On War_ and the _Notes_ regarding it which he left behind
him. In accordance with the philosophic fashion of his time he began by
trying to formulate an abstract idea of war. The definition he started with
was that "War is an act of violence to compel our opponent to do our will."
But that act of violence was not merely "the shock of armies," as
Montecuccoli had defined it a century and a half before. If the abstract
idea of war be followed to its logical conclusion