On War

by Carl von Clausewitz

Moreover, it cannot be said that Buonaparte neglected his wings. A superior force remained fronting Wittgenstein, a proportionate siege-corps stood before Riga which at the same time was not needed there, and in the south Schwarzenberg had 50,000 men with which he was superior to Tormasoff and almost equal to Tschitschagow: in addition, there were 30,000 men under Victor, covering the rear of the centre. Even in the month of November, therefore, at the decisive moment when the Russian armies had been reinforced, and the French were very much reduced, the superiority of the Russians in rear of the Moscow army was not so very extraordinary. Wittgenstein, Tschitschagow, and Sacken, made up together a force of 100,000. Schwartzenberg, Regmer, Victor, Oudinot, and St. Cyr, had still 80,000 effective. The most cautious general in advancing would hardly devote a greater proportion of his force to the protection of his flanks.

If out of the 600,000 men who crossed the Niemen in 1812, Buonaparte had brought back 250,000 instead of the 50,000 who repassed it under Schwartzenberg, Regmer, and Macdonald, which was possible, by avoiding the mistakes with which he has been reproached, the campaign would still have been an unfortunate one, but theory would have had nothing to object to it, for the loss of half an army in such a case is not at all unusual, and only appears so to us in this instance on account of the enormous scale of the whole enterprize.

So much for the principal operation, its necessary tendency, and the unavoidable risks. As regards the subordinate operations, there must be, above all things, a common aim for all; but this aim must be so situated as not to paralyse the action of any of the individual parts. If we invade France from the upper and middle Rhine and Holland, with the intention of uniting at Paris, neither of the armies employed to risk anything on the advance, but to keep itself intact until the concentration is effected, that is what we call a ruinous plan. There must be necessarily a constant comparison of the state of this threefold movement causing delay, indecision, and timidity in the forward movement of each of the armies. It is better to assign to each part its mission, and only to place the point of union wherever these several activities become unity of themselves.

Therefore, when a military force advances to the attack on separate theatres of war, to each army should be assigned an object against which the force of its shock is to be directed. Here the point is that these shocks should be given from all sides simultaneously, but not that proportional advantages should result from all of them.

If the task assigned to one army is found too difficult because the enemy has made a disposition of his force different to that which was expected, if it sustains a defeat, this neither should, nor must have, any influence on the action of the others, or we should turn the probability of the general success against ourselves at the very outset. It is only the unsuccessful issue of the majority of enterprises or of the principal one, which can and must have an influence upon the others: for then it comes under the head of a plan which has miscarried.

This same rule applies to those armies and portions of them which have originally acted on the defensive, and, owing to the successes gained, have assumed the offensive, unless we prefer to attach such spare forces to the principal offensive, a point which will chiefly depend on the geographical situation of the theatre of war.

But under these circumstances, what becomes of the geometrical form and unity of the whole attack, what of the flanks and rear of corps when those corps next to them are beaten.

That is precisely what we wish chiefly to combat. This glueing down of a great offensive plan of attack on a geometrical square, is losing one’s way in the regions of fallacy.

In the fifteenth chapter of the Third Book we have shown that the geometrical element has less influence in strategy than in tactics; and we shall only here repeat the deduction there obtained, that in the attack especially, the actual results at the various points throughout deserve more attention than the geometrical figure, which may gradually be formed through the diversity of results.

But in any case, it is quite certain, that looking to the vast spaces with which strategy has to deal, the views and resolutions which the geometrical situation of the parts may create, should be left to the general-in-chief; that, therefore, no subordinate general has a right to ask what his neighbour is doing or leaving undone, but each is to be directed peremptorily to follow out his object. If any serious incongruity really arises from this, a remedy can always be applied in time by the supreme authority. Thus, then, may be obviated the chief evil of this separate mode of action, which is, that in the place of realities, a cloud of apprehensions and suppositions mix themselves up in the progress of an operation, that every accident affects not only the part it comes immediately in contact with, but also the whole, by the communication of impressions, and that a wide field of action is opened for the personal failings and personal animosities of subordinate commanders.