The Reality of War: A Companion to Clausewitz

by Stewart Lygon Murray

The Culminating Point of Victory

Secondly, I select his doctrine of the culminating point of victory, because that is essential in order to understand his division of all wars into two classes, according to how far the attack is likely to be able to extend into the hostile country before reaching its culminating point, where reaction may set in.[20]

"The conqueror in a war is not always in a condition to subdue his adversary completely. Often, in fact almost universally, there is a culminating point of victory. Experience shows this sufficiently."[21] As the attack or invasion progresses it becomes weaker even from its successes, from sieges or corps left to observe fortified places, from the troops required to guard the territory gained, and the lengthening line of communications, from the fact that we are removing further from our resource while the enemy is falling back upon and drawing nearer to his, from the danger of other States joining in to prevent the utter destruction of the defeated nation, from the rousing of the whole nation in extremity to save themselves by a people's war, from the slackening of effort in the victorious army itself, etc., etc. Leoben, Friedland, Austerlitz, Moscow, are instances of such a culminating point, and probably in the late Russo-Japanese war Harbin would have proved so, too, if peace had not intervened.

Clausewitz continues: "It is necessary to know how far it (our preponderance) will reach, in order not to go beyond that point and, instead of fresh advantage, reap disaster." He defines it as "The point at which the offensive changes into the defensive," and says, "to overstep this point is more than simply a useless expenditure of power yielding no further results, it is a destructive step which causes reaction, and the reaction is, according to all experience, productive of most disproportionate effects."[22] The reader will find it an interesting exercise to search for this culminating point of victory in historical campaigns, and mark the result where it has been overstepped and where it has not been overstepped.

The Two Classes of Wars

From this consideration of the culminating point of victory follow the two classes into which Clausewitz divides all wars.

"The two kinds of war are, first, those in which the object is the complete overthrow of the enemy, whether it be that we aim at his destruction politically, or merely at disarming him and forcing him to conclude peace on our terms; and, next, those in which our aim is merely to make some conquests on the frontiers of his country, either for the purpose of retaining them permanently, or of turning them to account as matters for exchange in the settlement of Peace."[23]

All wars, therefore, are wars for the complete destruction of the enemy, i.e. "unlimited object," or wars with a "limited object." In the plan of a war it is necessary to settle which it is to be in accordance with our powers and resources of attack compared with the enemy's resources for defence, and where our culminating point of victory is likely to be, on this side of the enemy's capital or beyond it. If the former​—​then the plan should be one with a "limited object," such as the Crimea, Manchuria, etc.; if the latter​—​then the plan should aim at the enemy's total destruction, such as most of Napoleon's campaigns, or the Allies in 1813, 1814, 1815, or as 1866, or 1870. As Clausewitz says: "Now, the first, the grandest, and most decisive act of judgment which the statesman and general exercises, is rightly to understand in this respect the war in which he engages, not to take it for something or to wish to make of it something which, by the nature of its relations, it is impossible for it to be. This, therefore, is the first and most comprehensive of all strategical questions."[24]

In Clausewitz's two plans for war with France in 1831,[25] this difference is plain. In the first plan, he considered Prussia, Austria, the German Confederation, and Great Britain united as allies against France,​—​and with this great superiority of numbers he plans an attack by two armies, each of 300,000 men, one marching on Paris from Belgium, one on Orleans from the Upper Rhine. In the second plan the political conditions had meanwhile changed; Austria and Great Britain were doubtful, and Clausewitz held it accordingly dubious if Prussia and the German Confederation alone could appear before Paris in sufficient strength to guarantee victory in a decisive battle, and with which it would be permissible to venture even beyond Paris. So he proposed to limit the object to the conquest of Belgium, and to attack the French vigorously the moment they entered that country.