CORRESPONDENCE.
CLAUSEWITZ AND THE RIGHT WAY OF THINKING ABOUT WARS. Ire ran Evrron cc SUM ..SOniCI.T.0.1 Sin,--Nothing is so rare as a first-rate general except a first-rate statesman. Men of that stamp appear about once in each century, and as soon as they are dead their particular
quality, called while they are alive common-sense, which everybody thinks that he has, is rechristened genius, which every One is quite sure that no man of his acquaintance possesses. If you read the exponents of strategy—Jomini, Hawley, or Willisen—you will get the impression that nothing is easier than to follow the principles they expound, and so to be a good general, and you will be tempted to marvel at the in- competence of all the commanders whose defeats they describe. The principles are so clear, so simple, and so easily grasped that you can write a précis of the theory of any of these writers in the notebook you can buy for a penny; but you will fill a good many notebooks with the shortest possible analysis of Clausewitz, who makes it seem as hard to be a good general as the other writers make it seem easy. Clausewitz is nearer the truth than the others. The idea that a man can become a general by mastering a few principles is just as valuable as the idea that your boy will become a fine man if he will only acquaint himself with the principles of the con- duct of life as stated and codified for the guidance of youth by the author of The Sure Road to Success. In short, the supreme merit of Clausewitz is that he has the right way of looking at his subject, and that a reader who will take trouble enough can learn from him how to think about war.
If you want to understand a war, the first thing you have to do is to get to know the facts. That is very difficult and takes a long time, because the materials have to be collected and the evidence sifted, a process which is no easier in the case of was than of other events. The next thing is to trace the connexion between causes and effects. This again is not so easy as it seems. Generals are often much more anxious to conceal than to publish the motives of their action. For example, when the German armies were advancing into France at the beginning of September last it was popularly supposed that their purpose was to seize the city or entrenched camp of Paris, and their subsequent retreat has been described as the failure of that attempt. But it is improbable that any German general thought it possible or desirable to make an attack upon Paris until the French armies should have been crushed in the field. If they missed their aim, it MA because they failed to crush the French Army, and not because they did not attempt an assault on Paris, But what their intention really was we shall probably not know for certain until long after the conclusion of the war. When the facts have been ascer- tained and set forth as a sequence of causes and effects, the work of military criticism can begin. It consists in making an estimate of the aptitude of the means employed by the commander for the attainment on each occasion of the purpose that he then had in hand. When Sir Redress Buller in 1899 set sail for South Africa his plan was to advance from Cape Colony through the Orange Free State towards the Transvaal. But when he reached Cape Town and found that Sir George White was invested at Ladysmith he abandoned this plan, and took the bulk of his force to Natal for the relief of Ladysmith. Military criticism has to consider whether the new plan was better than the old one, and, if so, whether its execution fully met the peculiar conditions of the problem. The man who can give a convincing answer to questions of this kind gives proof of a sound judgment in regard to the operations of war, and the best way to form such a judgment is by attempting the solution of just such a set of problems as is provided by the examination of the successive decisions made by the commander in a war of which there is a full record. Clausewitz was the pioneer of this kind of military history. It was by studies of this kind, of which Clausewitz set the example, that Moltke and his disciples trained themselves. There is no other way of forming an independent judgment in regard to the conduct of ware.
The education of a general is made up of two dissimilar elements. He has to get to know the tools of his trade, with which of course he must be familiar. It takes him a long time to become really intimate with the nature, the constitution, and the modes of action of what are called the several arms— infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, and airmen. Then it takes him a certain amount of practice to be able to manipu- late one of the large units, such as a division, and to regulate without too much friction not only its activity, but its domestic economy. His twenty thousand men must be con- tinuously well fed and well clothed, and he must be able, without too much trouble to himself and them, to move them
from place to place and to change their order of march isle an order of battle. In proportion to the growth of the size of armies and to the improvement in weapons, this part of the general's work becomes more and more complex ; but it can be reduced to a system, and the art of carrying it on becomes a tradition, which any one can learn who has the opportunity. For this purpose text-books, regulations, and practice are adequate. But the moment the business is that of using the tools in conflict with an enemy, and the sphere of action is not that of one or more unite, but of the war as a whole, tradition loses its value. A commander who is familiar with what are called the principles of strategy knows the nature of the effects to be expected from each kind of movement or operation, and is very well aware of the risks attendant upon it. This knowledge will save him from a certain number of pitfalls, but no tradition can give him positive guidance, because the problem which he has to solve is always a new one. When Napoleon in 1796 took command of the Army of Italy his object was to separate the Sardinians free the Austrians, and to beat them one after the other. He perfectly understood how to handle his own army, for he had acquired an unusual technical skill in that partof the business; the direction and sequence of the blows he struck were suggested to him by what he knew of his adversaries. They succeeded because he had formed a true estimate of the situat ion and of the intentions of the commanders who were opposed to him. The question which a general has to ask himself is how to crush the particular enemy with whom he has to deal. It can never be answered out of the past alone. Accordingly Moltke, the greatest general of recent times, asserts that general principles, rules derived from them and systems built upon the rules, cannot possibly be of practical value to the strategist. The problem of the Japanese a few years ago was how to beat the Russians. The problem of the Allies to-day, how to beat the Germans, is totally different, even though the instruments available, a number of armies and navies, are much of the same kind. This is why Clansewitz, who laid comparatively little stress on what are commonly called the principles of strategy, but attached infinite importance to the right way of looking at a war as a whole, is more helpful to statesmen and generals than all the other theorists of war taken together, and this is also why when a great war comes the decisive factor is the strength of the will to conquer. For in war as in other concerns of life the fundamental truth is that where there is a will there is a way.
War is an affair of the spirit, and when nations are in conflict they are measuring each other's souls. One great truth which Clausewitz brought out is the meaning of national war. He had lived through the wars of the French Revolu- tion, when war for the first time became the affair of the whole nation, and when the French, although unprepared, had made the people their army and had beeten the standing armies of Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, and Spain. He had seen Napoleon at the head of France overthrowing in turn most of the monarchies of Europe; and, lastly, he had seen the national spirit aroused in Spain, in Russia, and in Freesia, and its result—the downfall of Napoleon. He bad some to the conclusion that the vital matter in war was the national spirit. No Clausewits is needed now to tell the people of England and her Empire that in the war in which we are engaged the spirit is everything. In this respect there seems to be a difference between the condition of the Germans and that of the Allies. In England, and, I believe, in France and in Russia also, the feeling that animates the nation is spontaneous, the driving-pow, is in the people. But in Germany the Government boa thought to mould the national spirit to its own design. And if, ae we hope, that design fails, there must be a reckoning between the people and the Government. The German Government has perhaps not fully digested the teaching of its great philosopher of war. The fundamental mistake made by the Governments of the Coalition against the French Revolution lay, according to Clausewitz, not in the region of strategy, but in that of policy. The statesmen of Austria and Prussia in 1792 would not have set out to invade France if they had realized that their action would ultimately bring the French Army to Vienna and to Berlin. They had not under- stood the spirit of France. In 1914 the Prussian Government thought that with millions of trained men and with all the guns manufactured by Krupp, it would be possible to ignore the spirit of the surrounding nations. It thought that demo- cratic institutions had destroyed the spirit of England, and possibly that of France also. It thought that Russia was paralysed by the tradition of bureaucracy. If the Prussian Government judged rightly, Germany will succeed in her great design. Perhaps once more the Prussian Government has
been mistaken.—I am, Sir, &O., Seauesxn Wnatriesoar.
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