Karl von Clausewitz

Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), Prussian soldier and military theorist, born in Burg, near Magdeburg. In 1793-1794, during the French Revolution, Clausewitz served in the campaigns in the Rhineland. He afterward attended a military academy for young officers in Berlin. In 1806, during the Napoleonic Wars, Clausewitz was captured by the French in the Jena campaign. After being exchanged as a prisoner two years later, he returned to Prussia, where he became the military instructor of the crown prince and departmental chief in the ministry of war; he also assisted in reorganizing the army. Clausewitz served from 1812 to 1814 in the Russian army against Napoleon and, after reentering the Prussian army, fought at Waterloo. In 1818 Clausewitz was made a major general, and from 1818 to 1830 he was director of the War College in Berlin. Clausewitz gained international fame as a military theorist with his posthumously published three-volume masterpiece On War (1833; trans. 1873). In these volumes he related war to politics, stating that war is a political act that should be directed by the political leaders of a nation; and he reduced military operations to a science.