Makers of Modern Strategy PDF

COVER SHEET Source Editors: Peter Paret with Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert Source Title: Makers of modern strategy : from Machiavelli to the nuclear age Imprint: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1986. Pp 143-185 Im...

COVER SHEET Source Editors: Peter Paret with Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert Source Title: Makers of modern strategy : from Machiavelli to the nuclear age Imprint: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1986. Pp 143-185 Important Copyright Information WARNING CONCERNING COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research". If a person later uses a reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use", that person may be liable for copyright infringement.  6. Jomlol JOHN SHY T H R E E N A M E S stand out in the formative period of modern military thought: Napoleon, Clausewitz, and Jomini. Napoleon and Clausewitz are names known even to those ignorant of his­ tory, but Jomini is familiar only to military specialists, although his influence on both military theory and popular conceptions of warfare has been enormous. No book-length study of his ideas and their influence, -no adequate biography based on his unpublished papers, has rescued him from the obscurity into which his reputation has slowly sunk.' The great disparity berween his influence and our general unawareness of it is one key to understanding his important place in Western history since the French Revolution.~ Like his contemporaries Napoleon and Clausewitz, Antoine-Henri Jomini was a product of the great Revolution that shook France and the whole Western world from 1789 on. He was Swiss, born in 1779. At nineteen he was clearly-if reluctantly-headed for a career in banking or commerce. But from the age of ten he had been excited by news of the French Revolution. As a banker's apprentice of seventeen in Basel, on the French frontier, he had seen French troops at close range. During the next rwo years, in Paris, he had witnessed the coup d'itat of Fructidor and had studied reports from Italy of General Bonaparte's spectacular military victories. Then, in 1798, the Swiss had their own revolution, assisted by French military intervention, and young Jomini gave up what might have been a brilliant career in banking to devote the next seventy years of his life to war and its study. War and revolution were closely connected in the great upheaval of 1789-1815; the nature of the French Revolution powerfully shaped its NOTE: In preparing this essay, I have had the valuable criticism of John Bowditch, Robert Cummins, Jonathan Marwil, and members of the Military Studies Group at the University of Michigan. , The most valuable account of Jomini remains the essay by Crane Brinton, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert published more than forty years ago in the original Makers of Modern Strategy. More recent essays on Jomini are listed in the bibliographical note. 'The basic biography remains that of Jomini's disciple, Ferdinand Lecomte, who drew on long conversatiol)s with Jomini as well as his voluminous papers: Le gbtl!ral Jamini, $a "ie at st$ ~crits (Paris, J860; 3d ed., Lausanne, 1888). 143  -'­ EXPANSION OF WAR JOMINI Napoleonic sequel. But it would be Jomini's life work, begun when still be brought to the public squa res to arouse the courage of the soldiers, in- his teens, to divorce Western theories of warfare, so strongly shaped while preaching the unity of the Republic and hatred against kings. 4 _by the Napoleonic experience, from the actual historical situations in which those theories operate. In the name of making warfare "scientific," Not all Frenchmen sprang to arms, of course, but within a year French he reduced its study to a preoccupation with "strategy"-a set of pre­ armies of more than a million men (in a population.of about twenty-five scriptive techniques for military analysis and planning that has continued million), an armed force of unprecedented size, had stopped the counter­ to dominate thinking on the subject, and he did it by effectively breaking Revolutionary coalition and had gone over to the offensive. the obvious link between Napoleon and the French Revolution. Many Within this gigantic mass of improvised military power, there was ofJomini's specific ideas-on "interior lines" of operation. for example­ also a solid core of military professionalism represented by men like are now of only historical interest, but his general approach to the prob­ Lazare Carnot, Alexander Berthier, and Napoleon Bonaparte-the mil­ lem of war, abstracting it from its political and social context, empha­ itary legacy of the Old Regime. Historians still disagree about the relative sizing decision-making rules and operational results, turning warfare into importance to French survival and eventual victory of this professional a huge game of chess, has been surprisingly durable. Jomini, more than legacy on the one hand, and about the sheer size and enthusiasm of the Clausewitz, deserves the dubious title of founder of modern strategy. new Revolutionary army on the other. From the old army most junior Historians are in general agreement that the remarkable success of and noncommissioned officers joined the Revolution, as did much of the Revolutionary armies against the allied forces of much of the rest of rank and file; support from the "technical" arms--engineers and artil­ Europe during the later I790S depended on the equally remarkable mo­ lery-was especially important. But only a great rise in numbers and new bilization of French society. Growing resistance to the Revolution after levels of motivation, both results of the Revolution, can fully explain the 1789 by the royal court, by most aristocrats and churchmen. and by ama7ing military results. s What is not disputed is that the French achieved many ordinary people in large areas of southern and western France a breakthrough in warfare; using their new forces with daring and in­ brought with it efforts to gain foreign support for a counterrevolution. creasing skill, French generals repeatedly left their enemies beaten and By I792. there was open war. In the eyes of the Revolutionary leadership, demoralized. From 1794 on, in the years when the adolescent Jomini war soon became a desperate, ideological struggle for survival, and their was seeking a career, French armies shattered the anti-French coalition, efforts to fight it almost inevitably led to the overthrow of the monarchy, began to transform the political structure of Europe, and brought to the execution of the royal family, and the Reign of Terror against "in­ supreme power in France itself one of their own leaders-Napoleon ternal enemies." War also brought military chaos. Entire regiments de­ Bonaparte. fected to the enemy.and many royal officers--nobles and therefore sus­ pected of treason-emigrated. Successive calls from Paris for volunteers How had they done it? Answering this question, persuasively and to defend the Revolution were partially obeyed, but the Allied advance influentially, would be Jomini's great achievement. The wars of the French continued and the Revolution turned to conscription.} The famous levee Revolution and Napoleon generated a vast, receptive audience for the en masse of August 1793 simply dramatized a move already well under kind of dear, simple, reassuring explanation that he would offer. Drawing way: overtly on the prestige of "science" and yet almost religious in its insistent evangelical appeal to timeless verities, Jomini's answer to this troubling From this moment until our enemies have been driven from the question seemed to dispel the confusion and allay much of the fear created territory of the Republic: all Frenchmen are permanently requisi­ by French military victories. After Waterloo, Napoleon defeated and the tioned for military service. military power of the Revolution humbled, his answer was aU the more Young men will go forth to battle; married men will forge persuasive, confirmed by the self-evident historical outcome. And the weapons and transport munitions; women will make tents and cloth­ lmderlying premise of his answer changed little through the decades; he ing; children will make bandages from old linen; and old men will claimed that it had corne to him when he was eighteen, and he died at , The effects of the Revolution on the army are described in I.ouis Hartmann, Les officias Archives Parlementaires de 1787 a 1860, 1st ser., uom (paris, 19(7), 688'90. de /'armee royale et la R!i!volutiorl (Paris, 1910). R. R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled (Prince­ , Samuel F. Scotf, The Response of the Royal Army to the French Revolution (Oxford, ton, 194 I) contains a graphic account of the Revolution at war_ 1978) and Jean·Paul Bert;- ud, La Revolution annee (Paris, 1979). 144 145  EXPANSION OF WAR JOMINI ninety insisting on the validity of the same basic ideas, first set down in and later chef de bataillon, survived several political coups, and in 1802 1803: returned to Paris, presumably to seek wider scope for his talent and That strategy is the key to warfare; ambition. The surviving evidence for these early years evokes a superheated That all strategy is controlled by invariable scientific principles; and political atmosphere and a youthful intoxication with revolutionary ex­ That these principles prescribe offensive action to mass forces against citement not unlike that described by Stendhal in his autobiography; weaker enemy forces at some decisive point if strategy is to lead there is the same boyish fear felt by Henry "Brulard" in Grenoble that to victOry.6 a "golden moment in the great world" will have passed before he can Jomini's answer, then, was that for almost two decades Napoleon and escape his provincial prison. s Late in life, jomini would remember the the French had grasped and applied these principles better than had their story his own way. He claimed to have been one of the first, despite his opponents. This was the core of jomini's theory of warfare. To under­ youth, to have signed LaHarpe's petition in 1798 to the French Directory, stand the ramifications and influence of these deceptively simple ideas, which called for a French guarantee of the rights of the Vaud against we can begin by examining how they were formulated and promulgated. Bernese oppression_ In fact his signature is not on the petition. Again, jomini seems to have forgotten that it was in the aftermath of scandal, arising from his request for a bribe from a military supplier to pay his The Jominis were an old Swiss family, closely tied by marriage to gambling debts in Berne, that he resigned from the Swiss war ministry other old families, important people in a small place: the town of Payerne and returned to Paris. But he could not conceal his petition in 1804 to in the pays of Vaud, between Geneva and Berne.' The Vaud is French­ Napoleon for outright French annexation of Switzerland. A furious Swiss speaking, but before 1798 it was constitutionally subordinated to the government demanded the expulsion of jomini-described as a "rogue" German-speaking canton of Berne, which had led the fourteenth-century and a "notorious jacobin." Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, did "liberation" of the Vaud from Burgundian rule. During the 1790S the nothing-perhaps because jomini, at twenty-five already reputed to be Vaud was understandably pro-French, but it was also for the Revolution a slippery and presumptuous character, had been taken under the pro­ in its desire to end its "feudal" relationship with Berne. jomini's father, tective wing of General Ney, commander of the Sixth Corps.' Benjamin, like his father before him, had served as mayor of Payerne. In In 1803 Ney subsidized publication of jomini's first book. Soon to the Swiss Revolution of 1798 Benjamin Jomini became a deputy in the be legendary as "the bravest of the brave," Ney was hardly a bookish provincial assembly of the Vaud, and later served on the Grand Council soldier, but he had been French viceroy in Switzerland during the anti­ of the new Helvetian Republic. But Jomini's maternal grandfather, who French uprising of 1802, when the Vaud had solidly supported France, had important financial ties to Berne, strongly opposed the Swiss "patriot and it was this Swiss connection that brought the bright, diligent, am­ movement." Although this political split in the family foreshadows later bitious young man to Ney's attention. jomini remembered that it was aspects of jomini's life, in 1798 he himself was an eager revolutionary. the exploits of the French Army of Italy under General Bonaparte in In Paris he associated with emigre Swiss radicals, notably LaHarpe, and 179 6 - 1797 that had made him a military theorist. In a single year, Bona­ when news arrived of the Swiss Revolution he hurried home to find parte had forced Piedmont to make peace, driven the Austrians out of employment in the new regime. For about three years he served as sec­ the Po Valley, held the rest of Italy to ransom, defeated four massive retary to the Swiss minister of :war, acquired the military rank of captain Austrian counteroffensives, and ended by advancing through the moun­ Antoine-Henri Jomini, Traitl des grandes oplrations militaires, con tenant l'bistoire des tain passes on Vienna itself. In this case, there is no reason to question campagnes de FrMtric II, camparees a celles de I'empereur Napolton; avec un recueil des jomini's memory, because somehow in the five or six years before 1803 principes generau:c de rart de ta guerre, 2-d ed., 4 vols. (Paris, r8H), 2.:3I2n. This is the first complete edition, and will be cited throughour as Traite. Jomini did not always give Stendhal, four years younger than Jomin;, remembered hearing of Bonaparte's victories the same date for the writing of his first essay on principles, but 1803 seems best supported at Lodi and Arcola in 1796 and of his return from Egypt in 1799, and hoping that the by other evidence. handsome young general would make himself king of France (Vie de Henry Brulard, ed. - Jean-Pierre Chu3rd, "Les annees d'enfance er de jeunesse," in Le general Antollle-Henri Henri Martineau, 2. vols. [Paris, 1949)), I: 388-89. Jomilli (1779- I 86 9): Contrtl1lltions a sa bioJ(raphie, Blbliotheque Historique Vaudoise, IlO. Jean-Charles Biaudet, "Jomini ella Suisse," in Le genhal Antoine-Henri Jomin; (1779­ 41 (Lausanne, 1969), 11 -24; R. R. Palmer, Age of the Democratic Revolution, 1760- r 800, 1869): Contributions Ii sa biograph/e, Bibliolheque Hislorique Vaudoise, no. 41 (Lausanne, 2 vols. (princeton, t959, 1964), t:358-64, 1:395-421. 19 69),2.5-P.· 146 147..., "':l>'.--':rJl. EXPANSION OF WAR jOMINI he had found time to read and write a great deal about war. Not only to a single point: only an undivided army, moving on a single line of was he obsessed by visions of military glory, with himself imitating the operations kept as short and safe as possible, can hope to avoid defeat. incredible rise of Bonaparte who was only ten years his senior, but in a It can win, of course, only if the enemy is rash enough to divide his forces telling phrase Jomini remembered being possessed, even then, by "Ie and extend them on a long and vulnerable line. Lloyd, in his search for sentiment des principes"-the Platonic faith that reality lies beneath the principles, produced a rationalization-almost a parody-of the cautious, superficial chaos of the historical moment in enduring and invariable defensive-minded maneuver strategy that characterized much of Euro­ principles, like those of gravitation and probability, to To grasp those pean warfare before the French Revolution, Jomini found in Lloyd the principles, as well as to satisfy the more primitive emotional needs of clear expression of his own still inchoate "ideal" of war as a science, but ambition and youthful impatience, was what impelled him to the study he could have found little or nothing to explain how the Army of Italy, of war. Voracious reading of military history and theorizing from it would at the end of a long and vulnerable line of operations, had not only won reveal the secret of French victory, victories but had upset the military balance of Europe. Lloyd's appeal to According to lomini, he owed his greatest intellectual debt to General the Enlightenment is easy to see; his science of war, if understood and Henry L1oyd. I1 A Welshman, Lloyd had been implicated in the 1745 observed by all, made battle virtually impossible and even promised an Rebellion, fled England, and served in several armies on the Continent end to war. But it is more difficult to see how Lloyd could offer anything before making peace with the British government sometime before his to an age of revolution and dramatic military innovation. Napoleon death in 1783. He may, indeed, have been a British spy or a double agent. himself read and annotated Lloyd; his marginalia deserve to be quoted: He held an important field command in the Austrian army during the "Ignorance. ,. Ignorance... Absurd ,.. Absurd. , Impossible... Seven Years' War and he wrote, among other works, a history of the False... Bad... Very Bad.. How absurd... What absurdity!"t4 And German campaigns of that war. His criticism of Frederick II as a strategist yet it was in the intellectual mold created by Lloyd that Jomini would excited considerable interest, as did his so-called Military Memoirs, pub­ recast, more or less definitively, the military legend of Napoleon. lished in 1781, in which he offered a systematic discussion of warfare There is an obvious contradiction: Jomini admired Lloyd for his and its underlying principles. t1 These memoirs were translated into work as a military critic and theorist, and used Lloyd as a model for his French and republished in Basel in 1798. Almost certainly it was in this own work on Revolutionary and Napoleonic warfare; but Napoleon form that they made their strong impression on the young Jomini. Lloyd clearly regarded Lloyd's theorizing as a pathetic joke, and indeed nothing provided both a model and a challenge in the young man's efforts to in Lloyd's critical study of the Seven Years' War suggests that anything reduce the fantastic world of war at the end of the eighteenth century to like the French military breakthrough of the 1790S is possible. It is too some kind of intellectual order. easy simply to say that Jomini used the military categories of the Old The art of war is founded on "certain and fixed principles, which Regime in his interpretation of Napoleon; too many intelligent and ex­ are by their nature invariable.... "11 The words are Lloyd's, but words perienced soldiers, including Napoleon himself, admired Jomin.i's work, like them were repeated again and again by Jomini and his disciples. which in fact repeatedly emphasized the profound differences between When we tum to Lloyd's books for the specific content of these "invar­ European warfare before and after 1789.'S More is involved here than iable principles," there is surprisingly little. It all seems to come down an intellectual puzzle. By resolving the apparent contradiction we can take an important step toward understanding exactly what Jomini was ,. Antoine-Henri jomini, Tableau anal-ytique des principales combinaisons tit! la guerre saying and why, then and later, his message was influential. (Paris, 1830), vii... Michael Howard (see n. 37) first emphasized the inl1uence of Lloyd on Jomini; see Lloyd's search for principles of war was inextricably linked to his "Jomini and the Classical Tradition." The fullest account of Lloyd, based on much new evidence, is Franco Venturi, uLe avventure del Generale Henry Lloyd," Rivista storlca "Notes ;n~d;tt!S de I'Empereur Napoleon I" sur Ie! m~moires mi/itaire! du G~nt!rQI italuma 91 (1979), 369-"33. Max Jahns, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften, J vols. Lloyd, ed. Ariste Ducaunnes-Duval (Bordeaux, 1901). ' I "In the last analysis, the great wars for a man like jomini were those of the eighteenth (Munich, 1889-91),3:2.102-2114. is also valuable for Lloyd's military writing, " What is often cited as Lloyd's Military Memoirs was published originally as Contin­ century..." (Brinton et aI., "Jomini," 9 2) is fairly typical of historical judgments that uation of the History of the Late War in Germany.,. (London, 1781). It purported to Slress his empathy with the Old Regime. Writing this essay has persuaded me that this he Part II 01 The History of the Late War ;'1 Germany, but is in fact an essay of about emphasis is one-sided and neglects the degree to which he himself was a product of 'h~ two hundred pages on "the General PrinCIples of War" (vi). Revolution, a lervent admirer of Napoleon, and an experienced veteran of the NapolcOl' "lIoyd, ConllmMtion of the' History of the Late War in Germany, vi. Wars. 14& 149  ~--.-:~ -~-~ --_.-,,- -< --~. EXPANSION Of WAR JOMINI history of the Seven Years' War and to his critique of Frederick as a would have violated the basic principle of keeping the line of operations commander; his criticism was purportedly based on the application of shon and safe. scientific principles to the historical event. Before Lloyd, almost all serious The young Jomini criticized both his predecessors for their timidity. writing on war during the Enlightenment was in French or German­ Lloyd had a good idea in moving directly against Vienna, but weakened the English had contributed virtually nothing of value to the discussion. it by his concern for the Saxon threat. Rather than alienate the Saxons Not only was Lloyd's work in that sense novel, but his criticism of by invading their country, as Frederick had actually done, or weakening Frederick produced an extended German rebuttal by Colonel Georg the main army by detaching a force to cover Saxony, as Lloyd had friedrich Tempelhof of the Prussian army.'6 Their controversy aroused proposed, Jomini argued that a united Prussian army should have driven interest in france, where the bitter lessons of the Seven Years' War were at maximum speed for Olmiitz on the road to Vienna. The Saxons, a subject of intense debate, and thus Lloyd's work came to be widely relieved at being spared the horrors of Prussian invasion, would have known in Europe. When the young Jomini began his military studies to been too frightened to move. Clearly, Jomini argued, this is what Napo­ find the secret of how the Revolution waged war, the works of Lloyd leon would have done in 1756, as he had repeatedly done in Italy forty and T empelhof came readily to hand. They were recent, detailed, and years later. As for Tempelhof's critique, based on logistical calculations controversial accounts of the most relevant military experience by two and the principles of war, Jomini was scathing. The habit of tying all veteran officers. He also found in both Lloyd and his chief critic the faith military plans and operations to supply trains and fortified magazines in "general principles" that attracted him so strongly. And, finally, in simply proved that during the eighteenth century "the art of war had their debate on the strategic possibilities of 1756-1761., neither Lloyd nor taken a step backwards." Caesar had said that war could feed war, and Tempelhof had imagined anything like the astonishing military events of he was right. The eight to ten million people of Bohemia and Moravia 1793-1801. Standing on the shoulders of Lloyd and Tempelhof, Jomini could have easily supplied a Prussian army of ninety thousand men. In could extend their limited vision of the true nature of warfare. the 18u edition of the Treatise, Jomini cited the "immortal campaign A single case can serve to illustrate his method. Jomini discussed the of the Emperor Napoleon in 1809" as positive proof that it might have campaign of 1756 at length in his first book, the Treatise on Major been done in 1756 and that Napoleon was a better strategist than Fred­ Military Operations of the Seven Years' War, whose first two volumes erick. In response to Tempelhof's invocation of the principle of keeping appeared in 1805.'7 He summarized Lloyd's account of each operation the line of operations short and safe, Jomini called for better judgment and Tempelhof's response to provide a basis for his own version of the and more daring. Tempelhof's literal-minded application of the principle Seven Years' War, as well as for his own vision of the timeless principles would mean that no army would ever cross its own frontier. "In all of war and their correct application. Of course the campaigns of 1756­ military operations," Jomini wrote, "there is always some imperfection 1761.-like all warfare-revealed these principles, but Jomini also drew or weak point; but in judging operations we must apply principles with on the campaigns of the french Revolutionary Wars to correct the im­ the objective in mind, and ask whether a given operation offers the best perfect efforts of Lloyd and Tempelhof to discern and apply the principles chance for victory."'s correctly. For the campaign of 1756, Lloyd had approved of frederick's Nothing in Jomini's first book, which was quickly translated and invasion of Saxony as a prudent operation to protect his flank at the widely discussed, suggests that he failed to recognize the new face of outset of a war with Austria. But Lloyd had also suggested that an warfare in the 1790S or that by some sleight of hand he was conflating invasion of Bohemia or Moravia, which would have threatened Vienna the campaigns of frederick and Napoleon into an undifferentiated art directly, might have been even better as long as Frederick had detached of war. On the contrary, he saw and vastly admired the new style of a force to cover his Saxon flank. Tempelhof had criticized this idea by warfare, reckless of manpower and the constraints of supply, all energies calculating its logistical requirements, which he argued would have made focused on the sole aim of victory. He used the hesitations and limitations it impossible. Furthermore, Tempelhof added, the risky direct move of Frederician warfare as a background to set off the brilliance of Bona­ " Jahns, Geschichte der Kriegswlssenschaften, j: 1I!73'75. "Traitt, 1:35. In this edition, published in 1811, hI! was more critical of Temptlhnf ,. Traitt, I:i-v, 2.4-43, and 85. The original edition of the first two volumes appeared than he had been in the 1805 edition. In the former, he asked (40n) the indulgence 01 under the title haiti de grande tactiqlle... (Paris, 1805). readers for erring in his "first essay," when he had had less experience with war. 150 151.i.. __ EXPANSION OF WAR JOMINI parte, much as he used the labored partisanship of Lloyd and Tempclhof tionary Wars. He had completed the next two volumes, on the campaigns to display his own clear-sighted universalism. of 1794-1797, and would publish them in 1816. He had also published In chapters 7, 14, 34, and 35 of the Treatise (the last two chapters a number of articles and pamphlets, three of which distilled his ideas on first appearing in 1809, in Volume IV), Jomini moved from the particulars the principles of war.1~ As an officer on the staff of Ney and of Napoleon of military history to the general truth of warfare. His introductory himself, he had risen to the rank of general de brigade and had served language was very like that of Lloyd: "The idea of reducing the system in the Ulm, Jena, Eylau, Spanish, and Russian campaigns. At the battle of war to its fundamental combination, on which all else depends, and of Bautzen in 1813, he had distinguished himself. When he left French which will provide the basis for a simple and accurate theory, offers service shortly after Bautzen, at the age of thirty-four, he had achieved numerous advantages: it will make instruction easier, operational judg­ an international reputation as the preeminent historian and theorist of ment sounder, and mistakes less frequent. I believe that commanders modern warfare, although the book for which he is best known still lay cannot do enough to absorb this concept, and that it ought to guide all years in the future. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that his rapid their plans and actions."" When he turned to more specific conclusions rise, by sheer energy and determination plus a little luck within the from the historical evidence, Jomini seemed still to be following Lloyd: somewhat constricted world of military studies, had been Napoleonic. a single unified line of operations is best. 1o But beyond this point, Jomini From 1813 until his death in 1869 as a Russian general, Jomini appears as a man of the French Revolution, offering a new, radical theory continued to write and publish, defending and elaborating his military of warfare: all strategic "combinations" are faulty (vicieuses) if they do theory, and enhancing his considerable reput~tion.·" He served as advisor not conform to the basic principle "of operating with the greatest possible to the czar at the Congresses of Vienna, Aix-Ia-Chapelle, and Verona, force in a combined effort against the decisive point."" Deciding how as well as during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829 and the Crimean to attack-frontally or on the flank-will depend on the specific situation, War. He took part in establishing a new Russian military academy and but attack itself is essential; the initiative must not be left to the enemy. served as tutor to the future Alexander II. But in the last fifty-six years Once committed to action, the commander must not hesitate. He and of his life there is surprisingly little intellectual development. Living his officers must, by their boldness and courage, inspire their troops to mostly in Paris, he completed his history of the French Revolutionary the greatest possible effort. If beaten, the enemy must be pursued re­ Wars, published separately from the Treatise, in fifteen volumes. He lentlessly. If victory for some reason should elude the commander, he devoted four more volumes to a military biography of Napoleon. In 18 30 , must not expect it from any other system, but must try again, using sound at the suggestion of Czar Nicholas I, he hastily combined his various principles-massing, attacking, persisting. Jomini's picture of warfare chapters and essays on the principles of war into a Synoptic Analysis of could hardly differ more from the cautious, limited-war strategies of the the Art of War. An expanded two-volume edition, published in 18 37­ Old Regime. His closing words can stand without translation: "Voila la 1 8 38 as the Summary of the Art of War, was his most famous book. science de la guerre en peu de mots." Ignoring these principles led to the The Summary shows that he had read the posthumously published On defeats of the Austrians in 1793-1800 and again in 1805, to the French War of Clausewitz and had been moved by it, in late middle age, to loss of Belgium in 1793, and to French failures in Germany (I796) and reconsider some of his own ideas. But the new material incorporated into in Italy and Swabia (1799). By contrast, "Le systeme de I'Empereur the Summary, which has since been translated into many languages, was Napoleon presente une application constante de ces principes invari­ stillborn in terms of its influence. Jomini's audience had received his basic abies. "u message long before, and no new subjects or chapters, unless accom­ Jomini continued to write and publish while on active service from panied by a radical change of emphasis, or perhaps even a virtual aban­ 1805, when he joined Ney's staff, to 1813, when he left the French army donment of his stress on prescriptive principles, could have shifted the to join the Russians. By I8I! he had carried his Treatise to six volumes,., The invaluable pamphlet by John I. Alger, Antoine-Henri Jomini: A Bibliographical from the Seven Years' War through the first two years of the Revolu­ SlIrvey (West Point, N.Y., 1975), clarifies an often confusing list of publications. " Three bundles of papers from his later years are in the British Library (Egerton MSS.., Traitt, 1:188. 3 166 -3'68). A p~rceptive account of his Russian service is Daniel Reichel, "La po,i!ion '0 Ibid., 2.:171. du general Jomini en tant qu'expert militaire a la cour de Russie," Actes du Symp'.. Ibid., 1:2.7.1. 19 8 1, Service historique, Travaux d'histoire militaire et de polemologie, vol. I (Lausa.. Ibid., 1:2.86. 19 81 ), 59"75· 152 153.;;. ':" EXPANSION OF WAR IOMINI direction of his influence on the military profession and on students of oretical discussion in the Summary, stressed that beneath the chaotic warfare. changes in modern warfare lay strategic universality. '5 The most mature and influential expression of his ideas, in the Sum­ mary, elaborates without altering the basic points made in his earliest II published work. The title tells the reader that his subject is not "war," How did this man of the Revolution disconnect the French break­ but "the art of war." For this art there are timeless principles, as valid through in warfare from its Revolutionary roots? We have already seen for Caesar as for Napoleon. In searching for the secret of these principles, that he was fully aware of the dramatic differences between the old and Jomini had failed to find them in the theoretical "systems" of earlier the new ways of waging war and that his views were fully developed writers but had discovered them in the military history of Frederick II. while serving in the very midst of Napoleonic campaigns. Jomini was no Frederick had won by throwing the mass of his army against only a part armchair strategist of the Restoration, spinning out untested theories in of the enemy army. That technique, raised to the highest level of war his library, but a veteran of many campaigns, remarkably well placed to making, was in essence the secret of strategy from which all other prin­ observe a decade of intense warfare across the face of Europe. Under­ ciples derived. Critics like Clausewitz, who doubted the validity of any standing how he came, in his work and still more in his influence, to theory of war, failed to distinguish between a theory of systems and a abstract his conception of warfare from the environment in which wars theory of principles. Principles were guides to action, not infallible math­ take place requires consideration at several different levels. ematical calculations. The specific application of principles would vary Jomini's own personality and career offer the most accessible level with the thousand changing physical and psychological factors that made at which to consider the peculiar direction taken by his mind and work. war "a great drama." Genius would defeat the military pedant, just as As a boy he was troublesome, bright but obnoxious, and he never talent and experience would outdo the bumbling novice. But the prin­ changed. He was always embroiled with someone about something, and ciples themselves, whose truth is demonstrated by all military experience, he was too sensitive ever to pass up the chance to quarrel. His portrait could not be ignored without peril and, when followed, had "almost as a young officer in the Grande Annee is all arrogance, and the old man invariably" (presque en tout temps) brought victory. looks out from his photograph like an angry hawk. That he remained a The principle of maneuvering the-mass of an army so as to threaten quarrelsome, tactless personality is confirmed by all who knew him, even the "decisive points" in a theater of war and then to hurl all available his admirers. ~6 Nothing expresses his character better than his own words, forces against a fraction of the enemy force defending those points is, disguised as the words of Napoleon. In his Life of Napoleon... as told Jomini admitted, very simple. But what, his critics had asked, is a "de­ by himself, published anonymously in 1827, Jomini was able to describe cisive point"? It is a point, answered Jomini, whose attack or capture his own role as Ney's chief of staff in the campaign of 1813. Napoleon would imperil or seriously weaken the enemy. It could be a road junction, is made to say that Jomini was responsible at the battle of Bautzen for a river crossing, a mountain pass, a supply base, or an ·open flank of the a "perfect" manuever of "incalculable" benefit, and that his subsequent enemy army itself. The great merit of Napoleon as a strategist lay in not departure for Russian service (in fact, Napoleon at the time had called simply maneuvering for some limited advantage, but in identifying those it "desertion") was a serious loss "because he was one of the officers points that, if lost, would "dislocate and ruin" the enemy. Informing who understood best my system of war." Jomini's vanity in these remarks himself fully, moving his force,s quickly to converge on the decisive point, is breathtaking but perfectly in character. More revealing are Napoleon's and pursuing a beaten foe a outrance, the young Bonaparte had estab­ purported words excusing his defection to the enemy: "Jomini was a lished his reputation. In a larger theater or in a war with different aims, the principle might be applied differently, perhaps more cautiously. But., Antoine-Henri Jomini, Pr~cis de tart de la guerre, new ed., l. vols. (Paris, 1855; repro the basic principle never changed. Almost without exception the enemy Osnabriick. 197;' with an introduction in German by H. R. Kurz) is the ultimate statement. See "5-10, 16, l.I-l.:t, 2.7.159,191-2.05. et passim. (Hereafter cited as Precis.) flanks and supply line would define the decisive points for attack; an.. The language of this judgment may seem harsh, but it is readily confirmed by the army could not survive without supply and to threaten its base would adminng biography of Lecomte, who was close to Jomini for many years. General A111 (·;·re- compel it to fight, no matter how unfavorable the circumstances. Al­ Henri Jomini, 1779-1869 (I'ayerne, 1969) is a catalogue of an exhibition of Jomini J :1­ orabilia on the centenary of his death, and includes reproductions of his portraiture. Ge, :/ though acknowledging the special nature of Napoleonic warfare, jomini. George B. McClellan viSited Jomini in 1868; he described his face as "much like tha { by a variety of illustrative historical cases deployed throughout his the­ an old worn-out eagle" (The Galaxy 7 Uune, 1869J, 887). , ? There is no need to exaggerate the psychological element in Jomini's The evidence suggests a man who, for all his reputation, was hanging work to see how naturally his thinking reflected his own personal ex­ on desperately-to his irregular position on Ney's staff, to his personal perience. From early on, his life had been a frantic scramble to succeed by making an impression on some key man-the new Swiss war minister,., [Antoin~-Henri Jomini], Vie politique et militaire de NapoMon, raconree par lui-mem~, Ney, Napoleon, the czar, or at the end of his life Miliutin-and at the au tribunal de Cesar, d'Alexandre et de Fn!deric; 4 vols. (Paris, 18:1.7),4:;05, 368-70. same time to out-do some rival and enemy-Berthier, Chernyshev, Jomini's version of his acrion, which he never ceased trying to justify, is in ibid., 370n. Less sympathetic versions abound; a recent one is Franl;ois-Guy Hourtoulle, Ney, les braves Clausewirz, or whoever might be blocking his wayY Jomini had operated des braves (Paris, 1981), 140'43, which includes the suggestion by another member of as a young upstart in a competitive jungle, and was always something Ney's staff that Jomini's claim to ex'emplary conduct at Bautzen was unfounded, and that his extravagant behavior subsequently may have been induced by medicinal drugs, A ; ,. There are glimpses of great anger and unhappiness in published extractS from his detailed account of the affair, sympathetic to Jomini, appeared in Revue historique vaudoise personal papers, most of which are still held privately. Retucning to Payerne in 18:1.;. he 1 (1893),65.80, prompted by the publication in 1890 of the memoirs of General Marbot, wrote of it as "this nasty hovel" (eetlt' horrible bicoque). He threatened to send his teenage who accused Jomini of berraying Napoleon's plans to the Allies. son Henry into the navy as a common seaman for his "perseverance in the vice which will In letters written in old age to his son Alexander, who had risen high in the Russian dt"Stroy him." (Henri Perrochon, "Jominj ecrivain," in Le gbl/ral Antoine-Henri jomini foreign ministry, Jomini claimed to have given crucial advice to the czar in 1813'18[4 and [1779-1869/: Contributions a sa biographie. Bibliotheque Historique Vaudoise. no. 41 lAter in the war with Turkey, but that a "plot" led by Chernyshev had ruined his plan for ILausanne, 19691, 73-87.) a Russian military academy and that in the Crimea he had been no more than "a prompter.. In drafts of long private letters to Russian minister of war Miliutin in 1864 concerning at the play" (un souffleur de comMie). Jommi to Alexander, April 30, 1867, Egerton MSS. the reform of military education, he told the story of how his earlier plans for a Ru:;··; 3 16 7, ff. 78'79. British Library. Earlier letters, written in 1864, tell the story of the military military academy were ruined by Chernyshev (Egerton MSS. 3168, ff. 43-57). He academy (Egerton MSS. 3166, ff. 91'93, 112, 115, 12.2, and 126). On Jomini's situation crossed out passages in which he had praised the French system of education and h. in Russia, see Reichel, "La position du generaIJomini." defended the Ecole Poly technique against allegations of being a nest of sedition.  -----" "1:.. EXPANSION OF WAR ]OMINI of an outsider. His world was less one of great forces clashing than of between 1757 and I794. In both campaigns two separate armies moved the constant collision of ambitious men. "concentrically" on a single objective-Frederick in 1757 invading Bo­ It is instructive to compare Jomini in this respect with Clausewitz. hemia from Saxony and Silesia, French armies in the 1794 advancing on Born a year later, Clausewitz rose in Prussian service from modest origins Brussels from Flanders and the Meuse Valley. Jomini was well aware to high rank, partly through talent and ambition, partly through the that others saw the 1794 operations in a different light. "But there has patronage of Scharnhorst. But beyond this similarity there were great been exaggeration in presenting fthe campaign of 17941 as a new military differences-between Prussia and France, Scharnhorst and Ney as pa­ system, as some kind of miracle unprecedented in the annals of warfare. trons, Clausewitz and Jomini themselves-that marked each man's per­ French armies do not need exaggeration, which only obscures the true ception of modem war. Clausewitz anclPrussia knew adversity, defeat, nature of their victory.")' The true nature of French victory lay, according and humiliation; only after major reforms carried out in the aftermath to Jomini, in strategic maneuver, which on the French side might have of the military catastrophe of Jena in 1806 did the Pruss ian military been improved to secure a still more decisive victory, and which on the system find means to cope with the power of Napoleonic France. Cap­ Austrian side was a classic case of the failure to exploit "interior lines," tured in the Jena campaign, Clausewitz was a junior member of the reform of not concentrating all forces first against one French army, then against group. After Waterloo, Napoleon safely exiled, Clausewitz and the other the other (just as the Austrians had failed to do against Frederick in Prussian reformers fell under a cloud of suspicion. A conservative mon­ 1757)· This Austrian failure to maneuver according to the principles of archy and aristocracy never forgot or forgave their demands for liber­ war was the proximate cause of French victory in 1794. alizing changes after 1806, and by the 1820S Clausewitz could hardly But the operations that led to the French conquest of Belgium in doubt that he had been relegated to the professional shelf as administrator 1794 were in fact far more complex than a set of game-like moves at of the Berlin War College. Clausewitz knew failure; Jomini might suspect which the Austrians were simply outplayed. Vinually every account, it, but spent a long life proclaiming the success of his own ideas. A stronger, stabler person, Clausewitz wrote on war to satisfy himself and contemporary or modern, stresses the relentless character of the French perhaps the ghost of Scharnhorst, killed in 1813, who had set he highest offensive, supported by a stream of reinforcements to replace heavy losses standard of personal and intellectual integrity for his young proteges. and whipped on by the personal presence of Carnot and Saint-Just.H The Ney, by contrast, had given Jomini a job, money, and valuable but spo­ historical evidence points dearly to the decisive importance of both the radic support, abandoning the young man when he tired of his obstrep­ quantity and the qualities of the French forces engaged in the campaign. erous personality. Jomini wrote to publish, and he published to impress, That Jomini would choose to emphasize the Austrian failure to exploit for only by impressing could he hope to move up or hang on. From the the supposed advantage of an "interior line of operations" against the perspective of their contrasting psychologies, it should not be surprising French "concentric lines of operations" is at best a simplification. That that Clausewitz approached war as a complex totality, seeing it in what he would go further by explicitly denying the explanatory value of in­ may be called tragic terms, always threatening to escape human control, stitutional, political, and psychological factors in this campaign seems and that Jomini saw war largely in personal, heroic terms, controlled by bizarre and barely credible. But however questionable his use of the the masterful commander. specific example to illustrate his general point may be, the influence of How far his quest for a science of commanding generalship could his theoretical method, like the general acceptance of his version of mil­ carry Jomini is exemplified by the campaigns of 1793-1794. This was itary history, can hardly be denied. the Year of the Terror, when French forces in the north and east finally The overwhelmingly positive response of Jomini's readers is what turned defeat into victory. While being rebuilt, the French army fought gives his work its importance. Without that response he would have an all-out war on several fronts. Mutinies were frequent, and the heads become little more than a historical curiosity, like his contemporary of defeated French generals literally rolled. It was a time of frenzied effort " Tra;t~, 2:~05. and desperate innovation. From this period Jomini chose the campaign " "Observations sur !'armee fran,aise de 1792 a 1808," published anonymously in 1808, of 1794 to illustrate his theory of "lines of operation" in the famous reprinted in Spectateur militaire, 5th series, vol. 47 (1902), 2j'H. 93-l03, exemplifies fourteenth chapter of his Treatise. He said little about political, emo­ contemporary views 01 the campaign; Steven T. Ross, Quest for Victory: French Military Strategy 1792-179'1 (New York, 1973).58-87, is a fair example of modern scholarship on tional, and organizational conditions, but dwelt instead on the similarities the subject. 158  ?­ ~ _ _ _. - - 1 -_ _. _ _ _'_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ' ___ ~ _ ':' EXPANSION OF WAR jOMINI Bulow. But students of warfare during and after the Napoleonic epoch I Soo-the political relationship became problematical. H No longer a found what they were seeking in the Treatise, in his history of the Rev­ part of the contract by which monarchy and aristocracy shared authority, olutionary Wars, in his life of Napoleon, and above all in his Summary was the military to be simply a subordinate part of the state apparatus? of the Art of War. Jomini had given his audience what it obviously The military coup that brought Napoleon to power in 1799, the wanted. politically motivated defection of Prussian officers in the crisis of 1812, His books, in both their narrative and theoretical aspects, conformed and the Decembrist revolt of 1825 led by Russian officers were major to an ancient tradition of military hisroriography: Joshua, Caesar, Alex­ incidents that made this political question more than academic. Conser­ ander, Frederick, Napoleon-the saga of the warrior-king who, possessed vatives no less than liberals feared a military so professionalized that it of superhuman qualities, leads his people to victory. The story is as old would be alienated from state and society, and the military in turn sought as literature. Jomini fit comfortably into this tradition, in which armies means to avoid the external controls that these fears might impose. In are faceless masses, armed and fed in mysterious ways, whose behavior Jomlni, soldiers found just what they wanted: good arguments against in battle appears to refie(.'t the ascribed chara(.'ter of their race, their strict subordination to political authority. He focused his studies on nation, and their commander. In the end, judgment is traditionally passed Frederick and Napoleon, who combined political and military authority on the performance of the Great Captain and his enemies. H Although in their own persons. These were unique cases, irrelevant even to the the best of Jomini's analytical writing rises above this kind of military most autocratic states where never again would the reigning monarch historiography, most of his published work is campaign narrative, fo­ actually take the field as generalissimo, but Jomini did not explicitly cused on command decisions. Even today these narratives offer clear, confront the problem. Instead he chose to dwell on the opposite case of fairly detailed, and-within their didactic limits-reliable accounts of Austria, which had lost so many of the major campaigns from 1756 to military operations in Europe from 1756 to 1815. But they also pow­ 1815, and thereby he conveyed a strong message on this subject of the erfully reinforced the traditional way of seeing warfare, with all its judg­ political-military relationship. Austrian military commanders, wrote mental and ahistorical tendencies. Jomini, were frequently crippled by "interference" from the "Aulic Coun­ cil," whose strategic naivete and supreme political power had often led Other more active, historically specific forces also helped bring Jo­ the house of Hapsburg to military disaster.}' mini and his audience together. During Jomini's own lifetime the modern The lesson was clear: a government should choose its ablest military military profession emerged in Western societies, with rationalized re­ commander, then leave him free to wage war according to scientific cruitment, education, promotion, retirement, staff systems-all the fea­ principles. Governments should not neglect their armed forces, but they tunis of a separate,. specialized priesthood of technicians, increasingly must not meddle in matters that only educated and experienced officers distinct both from the civilian world that it presumably served and from understand. The military profession, naturally, took this lesson to heart, the traditional identification of the military role with the aristocracy and taught it to their recruits, invoked it whenever threatened by political gentry. To this emergent profession, whose growth and confidence were "interference," and-following Jomini, their mentor-never felt much greatly stimulated by the long wars of 1792-1815, Jomini gave the pres­ need to explore the difficulties such a simplistic formulation created. tige of science as well as a rationale for the professional claim to auton­ These difficulties were a central theme of On War, but soldiers managed omy. The desire of the new military profession to make its expertise to read even Clausewitz in ways that twisted his meaning back into the "scientific" is merely one chapter in the larger story of nineteenth-century comfortable 'jominian formulaY professionalism, in which every profession was seeking to define and Still broader currents of opinion and feeling helped create a receptive defend its own special "science." But the military faced another problem: its relationship to power and authority. As long as officers were aristo­ " Among numerous works on the military profession in the eighteenth and nineteenth crats or gentlemen, the relationship was implicitly defined by their social centuries, outstanding are Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge. Mass., 1957); Gordon A. Craig. The Politics of the Prussian Army. ,640-1945 (New York, origins. When democracy, bureaucracy, and meritocracy began to trans­ 1964); and Raoul Girardet, La societe militaire da1l51a France contemporaine, 18I5-19J9 form the military-as was perceptibly happening almost everywhere by (Paris, 1953). )'{'recis, l:t35-1 J6... John Keegan. The Face of Battle (London. 1976), ch. t, is a goou uiscussion of " Peter Paret, "Clausewi[z and the Nineteenth Century," in The Theory and Practice of traditions In ITulitary historiography. War. ed. Michaell-loward (London and New York, 1965). 2.J-41. 160 1' This essay, expanded and elaborated, was the core of no serious interest except as they apply to a particular historical form of the Summary. Critics of Jomini from Clausewirz in his time to Bernard of warfare. To see "lines of operations" in this way is to miss a vital Brodie in ours have complained that he tried to reduce warfare to a part of what Jomini was attempting to say. simple set of rules. 4J On this point, he could claim no misunderstanding. Jomini inherited the term [ignes d'oplrations from Lloyd and Tern­ But his very didactic emphasis, whose aim so exasperates his critics, may pelhof, to whom he gave credit for the origins of his own serious thinking have obscured other important aspects of his work. about warfare. But he also saw that the term had been used by his His military historiography deserves more than a rassing glance. The earliest work, on the Seven Years' War, was a serious attempt to.. Examples of good modern historians strongly influenced by what might be called the transcend the evident partisanship that consistently afflicted the genre. jominian conception of military historiography are David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (New York, 1966) and Hew Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War (London and Boston, 1983) Tableau analytique, vii; Lecomte, La gentral Jomini, 3rd ed., xxxi... The title of chapter 14 of the Traite (Z.:169-Jl.8) is "Observations generales sur les., Peter Paret, ClausewilX and the Stale (New York, 1976; repro Princeton, [98.\), 15 2,. lignes d'operations. Maximes sur cette branche importante de I'art de la guerre." In a note B and passim; Bernard Brodie, "Strategy as a Science," World Poillics I (1949),467-88, to the chapter tide jomini said that he had been uncertain where to place this key chapter, and more briefly in the Encyclopedia of tbe Social SCIences (New York, '968), 15:281. finally deciding against leaving to the end of the work his statement of the ideas on which 88. all his historical judgments were based. 164 165  _ _ _ _ _ _ "____..1...-..~-----.~- -- ~-----. "----- '1" "'.:.::Ii EXPANSION OF WAR jOMINI predecessors in a confusing, unclear way and that it needed elaboration categories, ending with the implausible category of "accidental." But even and clarification. Perhaps he made a mistake in not dropping the term the term "accidental line of operations" contains a vital point: in warfare altogether at some early stage, because it led him, his readers, and his the unexpected must be expected-rapidly changing circumstances might critics to new levels of confusion, to sterile polemics, and--eventually, require a new line of operations. We must return to some of these sub­ even before his death-to ridicule. Instead of beginning afresh, he took categories later in the discussion, but here it is enough to recognize that obvious delight, as a brash young staff officer in French service, in cor­ a very young Jomini-ambitious, sensitive, and brash-rushed the first recting the errors of Lloyd, Tempelhof, and Billow in their misunder­ full statement of his "principes generaux de rart de guerre" into print standing of this centrally important concept. And once committed to the at Glogau, of all places, during a lull when Ney's Sixth Corps was gar­ published word, by 1805, he was caught for the rest of his life by his risoned in Silesia, sending most of the five hundred copies off to book­ own combative nature in an intellectual trap of his own design. sellers in Berlin and Breslau, the rest to Napoleon and others he hoped The trap, once built and sprung on himself by the ambitious youth, to impress. The chief result was to freeze prematurely, in misleading and never changed. If /ignes d'operations are understood to mean where an obscurantist language, his valuable thought on a vital aspect of all armed force fights, for what objective, and in what force relative to the warfare. 46 total available military power of the state, then Jomini insists that a Strategic choice, regarded in time and space, remains a basic problem fundamental distinction must be made; there are, he argued, two kinds even in an age of microelectronics, nuclear energy, and the exploitation of lignes d'operations. First is the "natural" kind-the rivers, mountains, of "space" itself for military purposes. This was the problem that JorDini seacoasts, oceans, deserts, and sheer distances thtough, over, and around saw at the heart of Napoleonic success, the less spectacular victories of which military operations must be conducted. But there is more: the Frederick II, and the outcome of all warfare past and future. He tried to fairly permanent, man-made environment constricting warfare is also distinguish "territorial" lines of operations, or warfare as it can be part of the "natural," or available, /ignes d'operations-fortifications, planned on a map, in order to set it aside and allow himself to focus political boundaries, naval bases, and road networks. His point may seem more clearly on strategy itself. Similarly, as he elaborated his ideas, he banal, but insofar as military historians and theorists had blurred the recognized that the highest and lowest levels of military action, where distinction between what in warfare was environmentally possible and values and emotions, and weapons and techniques, came into play, levels what was actually done, the point was worth making. The second kind that he called "political and moral" and "tactical," respectively, were of /ignes d'operations, once the environmentally constricting factors are important factors in military results. But these "political" and "tactical" recognized and set apart, is concerned exclusively with strategic choice; levels were qualitatively different, he argued, from the "strategic"; po­ within the range of thoice allowed by the prewar environment, where litical systems and emotional climates varied greatly, while tactics were to fight? To what purpose? In what force? These, today as in the Napo­ narrowly determined by existing-and changing-weaponry. Neither leonic Wars, are not trivial or easy questions. was subject to underlying, unchanging principles; the only aspect of Jomini unhappily began by using different words to make the dis­ warfare susceptible to scientific analysis is strategy.47 The long-term effect tinction: the natural or environmental constriction of strategic choice of his work, then, although he repeatedly denied any such intention, was was categorized as "territorial" lines of operations and the actual strategic to reduce the problem of war to the professional concerns of the wartime choices became "maneuver" lines of operations. When the more detailed, commander. historical discussion inevitably 'mixed these categories with references to "bases" and "zones" or "theaters" of operations, confusion was not His "principles" of war were, and still are in their various modern eliminated but compounded. Generations of impatient soldiers and un­ versions, prescriptions for making strategic choices. "Strategy," as he sympathetic critics have been puzzled and exasperated by what seems an used the term, applied to all levels of military action below the political elusive, abstract use of these neulogisms, whose essential-and impor­ " Alger, Antoine-Henri Jomini, H n. w, indicates that no copy of the original 1807 tant-meaning is much less comprehensible than it might have been from pamphlet has been lound. But the essay was reprinted in the journal Pallas I (T 808), 3 1­ 40. It appears as chapter 35 of the Traitt', 4:2.7~-86. an author who claimed to be above all realistic, direct, simple, aild clear. "The point is implicit ill his treatment 01 both politics and tactics in the l)r~(is. 1:42.­ Jomini compounded the chances for misunderstanding when he fur­ 147 and 2.: 195-97, bur a5 pointed out below he olten ignored his own categorical ther divided "maneuver" [ignes d'operations into no fewer than ten sub­ di~tinctions. \t:;t:; 1(,;7  ---';~~"~-~ ~~- ~1 eXPANSION OF WAR JOMINI decision to wage war against certain enemies down to, but not including, Second Coalition (1799- 1802), based on exhaustive research in British combat itself. At every level the commander must decide where, when, archives, shows a war cabinet with vast naval and financial powers and and how to move his forces in order to carry out his mission and to fight a considerable land force at its disposal completely unable to decide where under the best conditions. In Jomini's judgment, which he claimed to or whether to attack-in the Mediterranean? in America? against France have reached when still in his teens by considering Bonaparte's Italian campaign of 1796-1797, most commanders made the wrong choices itself, somewhere between Flanders and the Bay of Biscay? Had men less because they did not understand the principles of strategy. Those prin­ capable than William Pitt, Henry Dundas, and Lord Grenville been in­ ciples can be summarized in the fewest words as bringing superior force volved in this gross strategic failure, we might think them the fools that to bear on a point where the enemy is both weaker and liable to crippling Jomini, in his more unqualified accounts of military defeat, suggests losers.damage:·~ usually are. 49 The difficulty of making and implementing strategic choices, Again, Jomini seems banal if we fail to see why he emphasizes the however simple and limited they may appear in retrospect, is confirmed point: most commanders make bad strategic choices because they are in war after war, down to the present. And the core of the difficulty is misled by "common sense" (a phrase not used by Jomini, but strongly as Jomini defined it, in correctly weighing risks, benefits, and probabil­ implied by his endless discussions of historical cases). Attempting to ities, and in reaching some conclusion firm enough to be carried out. defend territory or a weaker army, they let the enemy decide where, Whether massed offensive action is always or usually the right prescrip­ when, and how to attack. Uncertain how to protect or exploit several tion is an altogether different question, but at least we must credit Jomini "natural" lines of operations, they hedge their bets by dispersing force for giving the problem of strategic decision making the attention its among several possibilities. The uncommon sense of Napoleon and usu­ history and consequences deserve. ally of Frederick and of all victorious commanders had always been­ The strategic concept that received most attention in his analysis is says Jomini-to attack with massed forces against some enemy point that of the "inner" or "interior" line of operations. It refers to the simple judged to be "decisive." Properly understood, the apparent recklessness idea that one side may have a position between-"inside"-separated of such strategy, which leaves some areas weakened or vulnerable, is enemy forces. With such an "interior" position, it is possible to strike actually prudence. Aggressive, offensive action deprives the enemy of first one part of the enemy force, then the other, defeating each in turn, time to think and act, while superior force at the time and place of battle although the enemy-if united-might be the stronger side. Jomin! never is the best guarantee of ultimate victory. Any other approach to strategy tired of demonstrating how a smaller army commanded by a Frederick is, in one of Jomini's favorite words, "vicieuse." As simple as these or a Napoleon could defeat a larger, presumably stronger army by op­ formulations may se~m, he reiterated them throughout his writings be­ erating on a "single" or united line of operation when the enemy was cause in the actual conduct of warfare they were so often ignored, with operating on "multiple" or "concentric" lines of operation. A skillful disastrous consequences. commander, like Bonaparte in 1796, by rapid maneuver could exploit History for Jomini was both the source of his own grasp of these enemy dispersion, achieve an "interior" line of operation against the principles, and their confirmation and elucidation in the real world of "exterior" lines of his opponent, and win a decisive victory. military action. A question arises about the degree to which Jomini's Jomini claimed that the idea had first struck him in studying Fred­ historical accounts were simply shaped to reflect his theoretical precon­ erick's victory of 1757 at Leuthen. There Frederick had managed to bring ceptions. Clausewitz, for one, disagreed sharply with a number of Jo­ the mass of his army to bear against a single Austrian flank. Jornini saw mini's specific historical judgments, and charged him with both faults­ that Bonaparte had done the same thing on a much larger strategic scale theoretical bias and inadequate knowledge.48 But the enormous difficulty in Italy, to be repeated, in one form or another, in his later campaigns. in making the right strategic choices within the various military coalitions At Waterloo, nothing but Prussian refusal to play the game kept Napo­ against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, as against Prussia during leon from using the victorious formula once again. Separated from the the Seven Years' War, is clearly beyond the slightest doubt. British army under Wellington, the Prussians had been defeated at Ligny, A recent study, for example, of British strategy at the end of the but they had painfully learned never to give Napoleon the time and space " Parer, Clausewitz and the State, 14 8.49. Piers G. Mackesy, War Withollt VictOry: The Downfall of Pilt, 1799-1802 (Oxford, 198 4). 168 169  ,_ "'1.,.>­ , '~ ~. _ _ _,................1; --....!-­ EXPANSION OF WAR jOMINI needed to defeat their ally. At the critical moment at Waterloo, the He had little to say about the principles, if any, that informed the Prussians, instead of retreating along their own line of operation, returned correct strategy for such "dangerous and deplorable" wars. Conquering to the fighting zone, crushed the French right flank, and changed a drawn a people in arms inevitably meant dividing forces; massing troops for battle into a decisive Allied victory. battle would always run the risk of losing control in weakened areas to The "interior" line of operation was the most specific, practical form insurgent forces like Spanish peasants and Russian partisans. The only given by Jomini to his general principle of massing force against some answer seemed to be in having both a mobile field army and separate vulnerable part of the enemy force. As such, it aroused much imerest territorial "divisions" to garrison and control each conquered district. among soldiers seeking useful strategic ideas. Of course its application The commanders of these divisions would need to be intelligent and depended, as it had at Waterloo, on exact calculations of time and space experienced (instruit) because their political role would be as important as well as on enemy behavior. If the enemy kept his own forces united as armed force in securing victory.s1 That this pragmatic advice, which or left too little time and space for his divided forces to be attacked and claimed no scientific authority, meant ignoring his fundamental prescrip­ defeated, then victory might not be possible. Jomini did not deal with tion of massed offensive action against one point, does not appear to this problem except to say that a Great Captain would induce his op­ have troubled him, his audience, or even his critics. Instead, he left a ponent, by confusing and deceiving him, to divide his forces, as had been strong suggestion that the whole subject sickened him, and the clear done to the Austrians in 1805 and to the Prussians in 1806. In that implication that any military power would do well to avoid involving respect Jomini conceded that the science of war would always be an art. itself in national or civil wars. In his mature writing on strategy, Jomini admitted one great excep­ Viewed either as a military problem or as a means of defense, people's tion to the fundamental principle of massed, offensive action against a war was too destructive, too costly and uncontrollable to be part of any single point. The exception he variously called civil, religious, or national scientific study of strategy. To the suggestion that future wars would­ war, or wars of opinion. These were armed struggles not with regular or should-be "national wars," as in 1793-1794, Jomini replied that strategy, like politics, must find some ";uste milieu" between wars of the armies on both sides, but wars in which an entire people was aroused past fought by professional armies and the new yet old barbaric warfare and active. The most intense phase of the Wars of the French Revolution, unleashed by the Revolution. The middle way, he argued, lay in chan­ at the time of the levee en masse and the Reign of Terror, had been of neling popular passions into a trained, organized military reserve that this nature. Jomini himself had taken part in two other such wars: the could quickly join the regular army in time of war.H To that extent, his French invasions of Spain and Russia. In these campaigns it was literally prescription proved to be prophetic. But in the end he wavered, using a pointless to mass forces because there was no decisive point to attack; hypothetical scenario. If France should invade Belgium and in retaliation the enemy was everywhere, usually concealed behind a screen of popular German troops occupied Rhenish territory to prevent French annexation hostility that blinded the invader. Jomini remembered a horrible night of Flanders, should the French government unleash a lev~e en masse to in northwestern Spain, with no Spanish troops reported within sixty defend its eastern frontier? No, of course not; clearly, aims on both sides miles, when an entire artillery company of Ney's corps had been wiped were limited and not worth the horrors of popular war. But if German out. The sole survivor said that the attack had come from peasants led forces achieved victory in the east, what could stop a euphoric decision by priests. All the gold in Mexico, Jomini wrote, could not buy the combat to annex the occupied French territory? How might the risk of such intelligence needed by French ·forces in Spain. 50 Similarly Jomini, who escalation alter the original French calculation? It was, he admitted, a had lost all his papers at the desperate crossing of the Beresina River in difficult question; and there ended the discussion. 54 1812., remembered how Russian partisans had harrassed the retreating As he grew older, Jomini seemed more concerned with the political French columns. Wars like these, in his view, were "dancerous and de­ and psychological aspects of war that his own theorizing had pushed into plorable"-"they always arouse violent passions that make them spiteful, the background. In his early work discussion of political factors, as such, cruel, terrible." Any soldier prefers warfare "Ioyale et chet'a/eresque" to was sporadic and infrequent. The hastily compiled Synoptic Analysis of the "organized assassination" of civil, national, and ideological wars. \1 "This specific bit of advke appeared in his work very early; see Traire, 4:2.8,,·85n. ,0 Precis, 1:77-78. "Precis, 1:81·82.. " Ibid., I:8}... Ibid., 1:80-81. 170  ~;;;iII;.r~:r 1: b'" _ "';,. -_~~.--' __ "'~ ____._...>':-~--........................ "'.;,_,c............. "'.... EXPANSION OF WAR JOMINI 1830 has about fifty pages on the diplomacy of warfare (politique de to or that analysis cannot identify the probable outcomes of various options. gueTTe) and the political aspects of strategy (politique militaire). The Criticism of Jomini must do more than insist that he ought to have Summary. published seven years later, has much longer. more carefully approached his subject in another way; it must take him on his own considered sections on the political dimension of warfare. It seems likely terms and then ask where the work falls short of its own aims. tha t reading On War, the unfinished masterpiece of Clausewitz, who had Four such internal weaknesses suggest themselves, One is that he criticized Jomini as narrow, simplistic, and superficial and who himself failed to test, as a good scientist should, the "null hypothesis"-the had stressed the need to see war as an extension of politics, was an historical cases in which actual military experience did not conform to important factor in this expanded treatment of the subject in 1837. It prediction based on his principles. Indeed he discussed such cases-the was here that Jomini added a long chapter on "wars of opinion" as well campaign of I 794 was one of them, when the French won despite dividing as new sections on supreme command and morale. But in giving these their forces and giving the Austrians the potential advantage of "interior subjects fuller treatment, he could not break out of his established mode Iines"-but Jomini was too evidently concerned to explain such cases of discourse. At every point he described good and bad results, exhorted away, too little interested in the ways that they might have broadened his readers to pursue the good and avoid the bad, and offered various or enriched his theory. These cases were, in short, treated as a threat to techniques for doing so. For example, it was ideal if a supreme com­ his position, and he discussed them only to preempt doubts and criticism. mander, like Frederick or Napoleon, combined political and military A second weakness is closely related to his reductionist method. To power. But if the monarch had to appoint a supreme commander, then reduce relevant factors in his analysis, he made the assumption that the problem was one of avoiding friction and intrigue and of giving the military units of equivalent size were essentially equal--equally well supreme commander all possible political support in carrying out his armed. trained, disciplined, supplied, and motivated." Only differences strategic plans. H There is little attention to the question of why friction at the top. in the capacity of commanders and the quality of their strategic arises between political authority and military command, except as a decisions, were of interest. Like chess players or war gamers, commanders symptom of human weakness. Similarly, national military spirit is reck­ play with units of force whose "values" are more or less known, not oned to be a good thing; but there is no analysis of the phenomenon. variables as Clausewitz would suggest, but constants in the equation of simply a call for the military to be honored and respected. warfare. This assumption facilitates analysis within its own limits of Although Jomini did not claim to base his discussion of politics on