On War

by Carl von Clausewitz

His campaign did not miscarry because he advanced too swiftly, or too far, as is commonly believed, but because the only means of success failed. The Russian Empire is no country which can be regularly conquered, that is to say, which can be held in possession, at least not by the forces of the present States of Europe, nor by the 500,000 men with which Buonaparte invaded the country. Such a country can only be subdued by its own weakness, and by the effects of internal dissension. In order to strike these vulnerable points in its political existence, the country must be agitated to its very centre. It was only by reaching Moscow with the force of his blow that Buonaparte could hope to shake the courage of the Government, the loyalty and steadfastness of the people. In Moscow he expected to find peace, and this was the only rational object which he could set before himself in undertaking such a war.

He therefore led his main body against that of the Russians, which fell back before him, trudged past the camp at Drissa, and did not stop until it reached Smolensk. He carried Bagration along in his movement, beat the principal Russia army, and took Moscow.

He acted on this occasion as he had always done: it was only in that way that he made himself the arbiter of Europe, and only in that way was it possible for him to do so.

He, therefore, who admires Buonaparte in all his earlier campaigns as the greatest of generals, ought not to censure him in this instance.

It is quite allowable to judge an event according to the result, as that is the best criticism upon it (see fifth chapter, 2nd book), but this judgment derived merely from the result, must not then be passed off as evidence of superior understanding. To seek out the causes of the failure of a campaign, is not going the length of making a criticism upon it; it is only if we show that these causes should neither have been overlooked nor disregarded that we make a criticism and place ourselves above the General.

Now we maintain that any one who pronounces the campaign of 1812 an absurdity merely on account of the tremendous reaction in it, and who, if it had been successful, would look upon it as a most splendid combination, shows an utter incapacity of judgment.

If Buonaparte had remained in Lithuania, as most of his critics think he should, in order first to get possession of the fortresses, of which, moreover, except Riga, situated quite at one side, there is hardly one, because Bobruisk is a small insignificant place of arms, he would have involved himself for the winter in a miserable defensive system: then the same people would have been the first to exclaim, This is not the old Buonaparte! How is it, he has not got even as far as a first great battle? he who used to put the final seal to his conquests on the last ramparts of the enemy’s states, by victories such as Austerlitz and Friedland. Has his heart failed him that he has not taken the enemy’s capital, the defenceless Moscow, ready to open its gates, and thus left a nucleus round which new elements of resistance may gather themselves? He had the singular luck to take this far-off and enormous colossus by surprise, as easily as one would surprise a neighbouring town, or as Frederick the Great entered the little state of Silesia, lying at his door, and he makes no use of his good fortune, halts in the middle of his victorious career, as if some evil spirit laid at his heels! This is the way in which he would have been judged of after the result, for this is the fashion of critics’ judgments in general.

In opposition to this, we say, the campaign of 1812 did not succeed because the government remained firm, the people loyal and steadfast, because it therefore could not succeed. Buonaparte may have made a mistake in undertaking such an expedition; at all events, the result has shown that he deceived himself in his calculations, but we maintain that, supposing it necessary to seek the attainment of this object, it could not have been done in any other way upon the whole.

Instead of burthening himself with an interminable costly defensive war in the east, such as he had on his hands in the west, Buonaparte attempted the only means to gain his object: by one bold stroke to extort a peace from his astonished adversary. The destruction of his army was the danger to which he exposed himself in the venture; it was the stake in the game, the price of great expectations. If this destruction of his army was more complete than it need have been through his own fault, this fault was not in his having penetrated too far into the heart of the country, for that was his object, and unavoidable; but in the late period at which the campaign opened, the sacrifice of life occasioned by his tactics, the want of due care for the supply of his army, and for his line of retreat, and lastly, in his having too long delayed his march from Moscow.

That the Russians were able to reach the Beresina before him, intending regularly to cut off his retreat, is no strong argument against us. For in the first place, the failure of that attempt just shows how difficult it is really to cut off an army, as the army which was intercepted in this case under the most unfavourable circumstances that can be conceived, still managed at last to cut its way through; and although this act upon the whole contributed certainly to increase its catastrophe, still it was not essentially the cause of it. Secondly, it was only the very peculiar nature of the country which afforded the means to carry things as far as the Russians did; for if it had not been for the marshes of the Beresina, with its wooded impassable borders lying across the great road, the cutting off would have been still less possible. Thirdly, there is generally no means of guarding against such an eventuality except by making the forward movement with the front of the army of such a width as we have already disapproved; for if we proceed on the plan of pushing on in advance with the centre and covering the wings by armies detached right and left, then if either of these detached armies meets with a check, we must fall back with the centre, and then very little can be gained by the attack.