How have the theories of Carl Von Clausewitz and/or Henri Jomini influenced the birth of combined arms warfare? In your conclusion, suggest the significance to today’s military professional.

Excerpts from Introductory Material to Summary of the Art of War

by Baron de Jomini

It is extraordinary enough to accuse me of having said that the art of war did not exist before me, when in the chapter of Principles, published in 1807, of which I have before spoken, and which had a certain success in the military world, the first phase commenced with these words: “the art of war has existed from time immemorial.”

* * * What I have said is, that there were no books which proclaimed the existence of general principles, and made the application of them through strategy to all the combinations of the theatre of war: I have said that I was the first to attempt that demonstration, which others improved ten years after me, without, however, it being yet complete. Those who would deny this truth would not be candid.

As for the rest, I have never soiled my pen by attacking personally studious men who devote themselves to science, and if I have not shared their dogmas, I have expressed as much with moderation and impartiality; it were to be desired that it should ever be thus. Let us return to our subject.

The artillery, since Gribeauval and d’Urtubie has had its Aide-Memoire, and a mass of particular works, in the number of which are distinguished those of Decker, Paixhaus, Dedon, Hoyer, Ravichio and Bouvroy. The discussions of several authors, among others those of the Marquis de Chambray and of General Okounieff upon the fire of Infantry. Finally, the dissertations of a host of officers, recorded in the interesting military journals of Vienna, of Berlin, of Munich, of Stutgard [sic] and of Paris, have contributed also to the successive progress of the parts which they have discussed.

Some essays have been attempted towards a history of the art, from the ancients down to our time. Tranchant Laverne has done so with spirit and sagacity, but incompletely. Cario Nisas, too verbose with regard to the ancients, mediocre for the epoch from the revival to that of the Seven Years War, has completely failed on the modern system. Roquancourt has treated the same subjects with more success. The Prussian Major Ciriaci and his continuator have done still better. Finally, Captain Blanch, a Neapolitan officer, has made an interesting analysis of the different periods of the art as written and practised.

After this long list of modern writers, it will be judged that Marshal de Saxe, if he were to return among us, would be much surprised at the present wealth of our military literature, and would no longer complain of the darkness which shrouds the science. Henceforth good books will not be wanting to those who shall wish to study, for at this day we have principles, whereas they had in the 18th century only methods and systems.

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Meanwhile, it must be owned, to render theory as complete as possible, there is an important work wanting, which, according to all appearances, will be wanting yet a long time; it is a thoroughly profound examination of the four different systems followed within a century past: that of the Seven Years War; that of the first campaigns of the Revolution; that of the grand invasions of Napoleon; finally, that of Wellington. From this investigation it would be necessary to deduce a mixed system, proper for regular wars, which should participate of the methods of Frederick and of those of Napoleon; or, more properly speaking, it would be necessary to develop a double system for ordinary wars of power against power, and for grand invasions. I have sketched a view of this important labor, in article 24, chapter III: but as the subject would require whole volumes, I have been obliged to limit myself to indicating the task to him who should have the courage and the leisure to accomplish it well, and who should at the same time be fortunate enough to find the justification of those mixed doctrines, in new events which should serve him as tests.

In the meantime, I will terminate this rapid sketch by a profession of faith upon the polemics of which this compend and my first treatise have been the subject. In weighing all that has been said for or against, in comparing the immense progress made in the science for the last thirty years, with the incredulity of M. Clausewitz, I believe I am correct in concluding that the ensemble of my principles and of the maxims which are derived from them, has been badly comprehended by several writers; that some have made the most erroneous application of them; that others have drawn from them exaggerated consequences which have never been able to enter my head, for a general officer, after having assisted in a dozen campaigns, ought to know that war is a great drama, in which a thousand physical or moral causes operate more or less powerfully, and which cannot be reduced to mathematical calculations.

But, I ought equally to avow without circumlocution, that twenty years of experience have but fortified me in the following convictions:

“There exists a small number of fundamental principles of war, which could not be deviated from without danger, and the application of which, on the contrary, has been in almost all time crowned with success.

“The maxims of application which are derived from those principles are also small in number, and if they are found sometimes modified according to circumstances, they can nevertheless serve in general as a compass to the chief of an army to guide him in the task, always difficult and complicated, of conducting grand operations in the midst of the noise and tumult of combats.

“Natural genius will doubtless know how, by happy inspirations, to apply principles as well as the best studied theory could do it; but a simple theory, disengaged from all pedantry, ascending to causes without giving absolute systems, based in a word upon a few fundamental maxims, will often supply genius, and will even serve to extend its development by augmenting its confidence in its own inspirations.

“Of all theories on the art of war, the only 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 in the general conduct of a war without trammeling it with exclusive rules.

“On the contrary, nothing is better calculated to kill natural genius and to cause error to triumph, than those pedantic theories, based upon the false idea that war is a positive science, all the operations of which can be reduced to infallible calculations.

“Finally, the metaphysical and skeptical works of a few writers will not succeed, either, in causing it to be believed that there exists no rule for war, for their writings prove absolutely nothing against maxims

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supported upon the most brilliant modern feats of arms, and justified by the reasoning even of those who believe they are combatting them.”

I hope, that after these avowals, I could not be accused of wishing to make of this art a mechanism of determined wheelworks, nor of pretending on the contrary that the reading of a single chapter of principles is able to give, all at once, the talent of conducting an army. In all the arts, as in all the situations of life, knowledge and skill are two altogether different things, and if one often succeed through the latter alone, it is never but the union of the two that constitutes a superior man and assures complete success. Meanwhile, in order not to be accused of pedantry, I hasten to avow that, by knowledge, I do not mean a vast erudition; it is not the question to know a great deal but to know well; to know especially what relates to the mission appointed us.

I pray that my readers, well penetrated with these truths, may receive with kindness this new summary, which may now, I believe, be offered as the book most suitable for the instruction of a prince or a statesman.

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I have not thought it my duty to make mention, in the above notice, of the military historical works which have signalized our epoch, because they do not in reality enter into the subject which I have to treat. However, as those of our epoch have also contributed to the progress of the science, in seeking to explain causes of success, I shall be permitted to say a few words on them.

Purely military history is of a thankless and difficult kind, for, in order to be useful to men of the art, it requires details not less dry than minute, but necessary in order to cause positions and movements to be judged accurately. Therefore, until the imperfect sketch of the Seven Years War which Lloyd has given, none of the military writers had come out of the beaten track of official narratives or of panegyrics more or less fatiguing.

The military historians of the 18th century who had held the first rank were, Dumont, Quincy, Bourcet, Pezay, Grimoard, Retzow, and Tempelhoff; the latter especially had made of it a kind of school, although his work is a little overcharged with the details of marches and encampments: details very good, without doubt for fields of combat, but very useless in the history of a whole war, since they are represented almost every day under the same form.

Purely military history has furnished, in France as in Germany, writings so numerous since 1792, that their nomenclature alone would form a pamphlet. I shall, nevertheless, signalize here the first campaigns of the Revolution by Grimoard; those of General Gravert; the memoirs of Suchet and of Saint-Cyr; the fragments of Gourgaud and of Montholon; the great enterprise of victories and conquests under the direction of General Beauvais; the valuable collection of battles by Colonel Wagner and that of Major Kaussler; the Spanish War by Napier; that of Egypt by Reynier; the campaigns of Suwaroff by Laverne; the partial narratives of Stutterhein and of Labaume.*

Until the fall of Napoleon, politico-military history had had for many centuries but a single remarkable work; that of Frederick the Great, entitled History of my time.† This species, which demands at the same time an elegant style and a vast and profound knowledge of history and politics, requires also

* We might cite yet the interesting narratives of Saintine, of Mortonval, of Lapenne[,] Lenoble, Lafaille, as well as those of the Prussian Major Spahl upon Catalonia, of Baron V Iderndorf on the campaigns of the Bavarians, and a host of other writings of the same nature.

† Several political historians, like Ancillon, Segur the elder, Karamsin, Guichardin, Archenholz, Schiller, Daru, Michaud and Salvandy, have recounted also with talent many operations of war, but they cannot be counted in the number of military writers.

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a military genius sufficient for judging events accurately. It would be necessary to describe the relations or the interests of states like Ancillon, and recount battles like Napoleon or Frederick, to produce a chef- d’ouvre of this kind. If we still await this chef-d’ouvre, it must be owned that some good works have appeared within the last thirty years; in this number we must put the war in Spain of Foy; the summary of military events of Mathieu H. Dumas, and the manuscripts of Fain; although the second is wanting in firm points of view, and the last sins through too much partiality. Afterwards come the works of M. Segur the younger, a writer full of genius and of wise views, who has proved to us, by the history of Charles VIII, that with a little more nature in his style he might bear away from his predecessors the historic palm of the great age which yet awaits its Polybus. In the third rank we shall place the histories of Toulongeon and of Servan.*

Finally, there is a third kind, that of critical history, applied to the principles of the art, and more especially designed to develop the relations of events with those principles. Feuquieres and Lloyd had indicated the road without having had many imitators until the Revolution. This last species, less brilliant in its forms, is for that perhaps only the more useful in its results, especially where criticism is not pushed to the rigor which should often render it false and unjust.

Within the last twenty years, this half didactic, half critical history has made more progress than the others, or at least it has been cultivated with more success, and has produced incontestable results. The campaigns published by the Arch-Duke Charles, those anonymous ones of General Muffling, the partial relations of Generals Pelet, Boutourlin, Clausewitz,† Okounieff, Valentini, Ruhle; those of Messrs. de Laborde, Koch, de Chambrai, Napier; finally, the fragments published by Messrs. Wagner and Scheel, in the interesting journals of Berlin and Vienna, have all more or less assisted in the development of the science of war. Perhaps I may be permitted also to claim a small part in this result in favor of my long critical and military history of the wars of the Revolution, and of the other historical works which I have published, for, written especially to prove the permanent triumph of the application of principles, those works have never failed to bring all the facts to this dominant point of view, and in this respect at least, they have had some success; I invoke in support of this assertion, the piquante critical analysis of the war of the Spanish Succession, given by Captain Dumesnil.

Thanks to this concurrence of didactic works and of critical history, the teaching of the science is no longer so difficult, and the professors who would be embarrassed at this day, in making good courses with a thousand examples to support them, would be sad professors. It must not be concluded, however, that the art has arrived at that point that it cannot make another step towards perfection. There is nothing perfect under the sun!!! And if a committee were assembled under the presidency of the Arch Duke Charles or Wellington, composed of all the strategic and tactical notabilities of the age, together with the most skillful generals of engineers and artillery, this committee could not yet succeed in making a perfect, absolute and immutable theory on all the branches of war, especially on tactics!

* I do not speak of the political and military life of Napoleon recounted by himself because it has been said that I was the author of it; with regard to those of Norvins and of Tibaudeau, they are not military.

† The works of Clausewitz have been incontestably useful, although it is often less by the ideas of the author, than by the contrary ideas to which he gives birth. They would have been more useful still, if a pretentious and pedantic style did not frequently render them unintelligible. But if, as a didactic author, he has raised more doubts than he has discovered truths, as a critical historian, he has been an unscrupulous plaigerist [sic], pillaging his predecessors, copying their reflections, and saying evil afterwards of their works, after having travestied them under other forms. Those who shall have read my campaign of 1799, published ten years before his, will not deny my assertion, for there is not one of my reflections which he has not repeated.

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