understanding of strategy with a Berenhorst-like emphasis on moral factors. Philosopher as he was, he also sought to go much deeper and uncover the fundamentals of warfare by asking what it was and what it served for.
To Jomini, the secret was to be found in sophisticated maneuvering in accordance with a small number of fairly well defined, geometrically based, principles. Less interested in either geometry or maneuvering, Clausewitz before he started revising his work in 1827 put a much greater emphasis on the use of overwhelming force in order to smash the enemy main forces, after which the rest would be quite easy. Until about 1870, although Clausewitz’s greatness was admitted and admired, Jomini was the more influential of the two. Then, after the victorious Moltke had pointed to Clausewitz as the greatest single influence on him, the wind shifted. Jomini was studied less, Clausewitz more often. This was true not only in Germany but in France where the military revival that started in the 1890s adopted him and du Picq to justify its emphasis on moral forces and its doctrine of the offensive at all costs. Whether or not these doctrines presented the “true” Clausewitz has often been debated. It is a question to which we shall return.
Meanwhile, it is probably correct to say that Jomini’s name was not overlooked because he was outdated. To the contrary, it was because, like Lipsius before him, he had become so successful that his ideas on large-scale conventional warfare were considered the core business of strategy and taken very much for granted. Both Moltke and Schlieffen were, in one sense, his disciples. They employed his terminology but did no more than adapt it to their purposes. Moltke's most important contributions were to make the switch from internal to external lines and to adapt the Swiss general’s doctrines to the new technologies represented by the railway and the telegraph. In fact, if my understanding of Moltke is correct, it was the introduction of those new technologies that forced him to make the switch.
Schlieffen was even less original. In essence all he did was to present a much simplified, uni-dimensional version of Jomini’s thought. He limited it to enveloping operations and combined it with what, rightly or not, he saw as Clausewitz’s unrelenting emphasis on the need for a single, climactic, annihilating battle.
Jomini’s influence did not end in 1914. And it could be reasonably argued that as long as large armies go to war against each other in two-dimensional space, utilizing communications of every sort, and maneuvering among all kinds of natural and artificial obstacles, it is his work which will continue to provide the best guide of all.
6. War at Sea
In our survey so far, naval warfare has barely been mentioned. This is not because the role it played in war was unimportant. After all, from the Peloponnesian and the Punic Wars to the wars of the Napoleonic era, ships and navies had often figured prominently, sometimes even decisively. Not only had naval warfare always been a highly complex and technical subject, but the ancient Greeks clearly recognized the importance of
thessalocratia
(command of the sea). Nevertheless, navies were never made the subject of any major theoretical treatises.
To be sure, several authors either appended chapters on naval warfare to their works or had others do so, as Vegetius and Jomini e.g. did. With Vegetius the discussion of naval theory consists of a single page about the importance of having a navy always ready. To this were appended eight short chapters on the principles of building ships, navigating them, and fighting them. To Jomini ships were merely an aid to the movements of armies. What he has to say about them is completely unremarkable. As to Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, the greatest writers of all, judging by their published works one would think they did not even know that such a thing as the sea existed.
In the study of history,
To Jomini, the secret was to be found in sophisticated maneuvering in accordance with a small number of fairly well defined, geometrically based, principles. Less interested in either geometry or maneuvering, Clausewitz before he started revising his work in 1827 put a much greater emphasis on the use of overwhelming force in order to smash the enemy main forces, after which the rest would be quite easy. Until about 1870, although Clausewitz’s greatness was admitted and admired, Jomini was the more influential of the two. Then, after the victorious Moltke had pointed to Clausewitz as the greatest single influence on him, the wind shifted. Jomini was studied less, Clausewitz more often. This was true not only in Germany but in France where the military revival that started in the 1890s adopted him and du Picq to justify its emphasis on moral forces and its doctrine of the offensive at all costs. Whether or not these doctrines presented the “true” Clausewitz has often been debated. It is a question to which we shall return.
Meanwhile, it is probably correct to say that Jomini’s name was not overlooked because he was outdated. To the contrary, it was because, like Lipsius before him, he had become so successful that his ideas on large-scale conventional warfare were considered the core business of strategy and taken very much for granted. Both Moltke and Schlieffen were, in one sense, his disciples. They employed his terminology but did no more than adapt it to their purposes. Moltke's most important contributions were to make the switch from internal to external lines and to adapt the Swiss general’s doctrines to the new technologies represented by the railway and the telegraph. In fact, if my understanding of Moltke is correct, it was the introduction of those new technologies that forced him to make the switch.
Schlieffen was even less original. In essence all he did was to present a much simplified, uni-dimensional version of Jomini’s thought. He limited it to enveloping operations and combined it with what, rightly or not, he saw as Clausewitz’s unrelenting emphasis on the need for a single, climactic, annihilating battle.
Jomini’s influence did not end in 1914. And it could be reasonably argued that as long as large armies go to war against each other in two-dimensional space, utilizing communications of every sort, and maneuvering among all kinds of natural and artificial obstacles, it is his work which will continue to provide the best guide of all.
6. War at Sea
In our survey so far, naval warfare has barely been mentioned. This is not because the role it played in war was unimportant. After all, from the Peloponnesian and the Punic Wars to the wars of the Napoleonic era, ships and navies had often figured prominently, sometimes even decisively. Not only had naval warfare always been a highly complex and technical subject, but the ancient Greeks clearly recognized the importance of
thessalocratia
(command of the sea). Nevertheless, navies were never made the subject of any major theoretical treatises.
To be sure, several authors either appended chapters on naval warfare to their works or had others do so, as Vegetius and Jomini e.g. did. With Vegetius the discussion of naval theory consists of a single page about the importance of having a navy always ready. To this were appended eight short chapters on the principles of building ships, navigating them, and fighting them. To Jomini ships were merely an aid to the movements of armies. What he has to say about them is completely unremarkable. As to Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, the greatest writers of all, judging by their published works one would think they did not even know that such a thing as the sea existed.
In the study of history,
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