[CHAPTER VII]
THE NATURE OF WAR
"It is necessary for us to commence with a glance at the nature of the whole, because it is particularly necessary that, in the consideration of any of the parts, the whole should be kept constantly in view. We shall not enter into any of the abstruse definitions of war used by Publicists. We shall keep to the element of the thing itself, to a duel. War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale. If we would conceive as a unit the countless numbers of duels which make up a war, we shall do so best by supposing two wrestlers. Each strives by physical force to throw his adversary, and thus to render him incapable of further resistance.
"Violence arms itself with the inventions of arts and science in order to contend against violence. Self-imposed restrictions, almost imperceptible, and hardly worth mentioning, termed usages of International Law, accompany it without essentially impairing its power.
"Violence, that is to say physical force, is therefore the Means; the compulsory submission of the enemy to our will is the ultimate object. In order to attain this object fully the enemy must first be disarmed: and this is, correctly speaking, the real aim of hostilities in theory."[17]
Now, "philanthropists may easily imagine that there is a skilful method of disarming and overcoming an adversary without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the art of war. However plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated, for in such dangerous things as war the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are just the worst. As the use of physical power to the utmost extent by no means excludes the co-operation of the intelligence, it follows that he who uses force unsparingly without reference to the quantity of bloodshed, MUST obtain a superiority if his adversary does not act likewise." "To introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity." "We therefore repeat our proposition, that War is an act of violence which in its application knows no bounds."
The Political Nature of War
In endeavouring briefly to describe Clausewitz's method of looking at war, one is continually confronted by the difficulty of selecting a few leading ideas out of so many profound thoughts and pregnant passages. However, a selection must be made.
I assign the first place to his conception of war as a part of policy, because that is fundamentally necessary to understand his practical way of looking at things. This point of view is as necessary for the strategist as for the statesman, indeed for every man who would understand the nature of war. For otherwise it is impossible to understand the military conduct of many campaigns and battles, in which the political outweighed the military influence, and led to action incomprehensible almost from a purely military point of view. History is full of such examples.
Clausewitz clearly lays down: "War is only a continuation of State policy by other means. This point of view being adhered to will introduce much more unity into the consideration of the subject, and things will be more easily disentangled from each other."[18] "It is only thus that we can obtain a clear conception of war, for the political view is the object, war is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception." "Each (nation or government) strives by physical force to compel the other to submit to its will."[19]
Owing to the great importance of this point of view, so little understood in this country, I have devoted the next chapter to it alone, so as to bring out Clausewitz's view more in detail. We can, therefore, pass on for the present.