Clausewitz, Carl von

Clausewitz, Carl (Philipp Gottlieb) von

Carl von Clausewitz, lithograph by Franz Michelis after an oil painting by Wilhelm Wach, 1830.

(credit: Courtesy of the Staatsbibliothek, West Berlin)

(born June 1, 1780, Burg, near Magdeburg, Prussia—died Nov. 16, 1831, Breslau, Silesia) Prussian general and author. Born to a poor middle-class professional family, he joined the Prussian army at age 12 and entered the War College in Berlin in 1801. After serving with distinction in the Napoleonic Wars, he became a general and was appointed director of the War College (1818). His major work on strategy, On War (1832–37), analyzed the workings of military genius by isolating the factors that decide success in war. Rather than producing a rigid system of strategy, he emphasized the necessity of a critical approach to strategic problems. He asserted that war is a tool for achieving political aims rather than an end in itself (“merely the continuation of policy by other means”) and argued that defensive warfare is both militarily and politically the stronger position. He also advocated the concept of total war. Published posthumously, On War had a profound influence on modern military strategy.