Strategy: A History

by Lawrence Freedman

This view survived well into the nineteenth century, and arguably only collapsed in that century’s second half.

Even a badly bruised opponent might find a way to continue resistance, regroup, or acquire an external ally. Given the uncertainties and explosive tendencies connected with war, was it wise to assume that this was no more than a form of violent diplomacy? If it was bound to end with a compromise, why not settle the matter with diplomacy before blood was shed, or look for alternative—possibly economic—forms of coercion?

We noted earlier the role of the stratēgos in 5th-century Athens. According to Edward Luttwak, the ancient Greek and Byzantine equivalent to our strategy would have been stratēgike episteme (generals’ knowledge) or stratēgōn sophia (generals’ wisdom).3

The word strategy only came into general use at the start of the nineteenth century. Its origins predated Napoleon and reflected the Enlightenment’s growing confidence in empirical science and the application of reason. Even war, the most unruly of human activities, might be studied and conducted in the same spirit.

In 1770, Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, published his Essai général de tactique. Then only 27, Guibert was a precocious and extravagant French intellectual who had already acquired extensive military experience. He produced a systematic treatise on military science that captured the spirit of the Enlightenment and gained enormous influence. At issue was whether it was possible to overcome the indecisiveness of contemporary war.

Thus strategy was the art of the commander-in-chief “projecting and directing the larger military movements and operations of a campaign,” while tactics was “the art of handling forces in battle or in the immediate presence of the enemy.”8 Soon the word migrated away from its military context and into such diverse areas as trade, politics, and theology.

It is not surprising therefore that strategy became closely associated with planning. Questions of supply and transport limited what could be achieved, and calculations of firepower and fortification influenced decisions on the deployment of troops. Put this way, strategy covered all those aspects of a military campaign that might properly be determined in advance.

Developments in cartography meant that it was possible to consider how a campaign might develop by plotting its likely course on sheets of paper, representing base camps and lines of supply, enemy positions, and opportunities for maneuvers.

Lloyd is credited with inventing the term line of operations, which remains in use to this day and describes an army’s path from its starting point to its final destination. Lloyd influenced subsequent military theorists, including the Prussian Heinrich Dietrich von Bulow, who went to France in 1790 to experience the Revolution first hand.

His reliance on mathematical principles led to him to offer proofs on how armies might constitute themselves and move forward, according to distances from their starting base and enemy objective.

His observations on tactics were considered to have merit, but much to his chagrin his description of the “new war system” was ignored by Prussian generals.

Strategy could be considered a matter of science, in the sense of being systematic, empirically based, and logically developed, covering all those things that could be planned in advance and were subject to calculation. As art, strategy covered actions taken by bold generals who could achieve extraordinary results in unpromising situations.

Napoleon preferred to keep the critical ingredients behind his approach beyond explanation. The art of war, he insisted, was simple and commonsensical. It was “all in execution … nothing about it is theoretical.”

Napoleon was not creating new forms of warfare completely from scratch. He was building on the achievements of Frederick the Great, the most admired commander of his time.

Initially he preferred his wars to be “short and lively,” which required accepting battle. Long wars exhausted a state’s resources as well as its soldiers, and Frederick’s country was relatively poor.

Over time, however, Frederick became more wary of battle due to its dependence upon chance.

Unlike Napoleon, Frederick preferred to avoid fighting too far from his own borders,

It involved concentrating forces against the enemy’s strongest flank while avoiding engagement on his own weak flank.

As a young officer, Napoleon also read Guibert and took from him some basic ideas which he made his own. In particular, he noted the need to launch attacks at the key points where superiority had been achieved, and to reach these points by moving quickly.

The actual creation of the mass army can be credited to Lazar Carnot, a key figure in the French Revolution, who had an uneasy relationship with Napoleon but served him until 1815. It was Carnot who as minister of war used conscription to create the levée en masse and turned it into a formidable, trained, and disciplined organization. Carnot also showed how a mass army could be used as an offensive instrument by separating it into independent units that could move faster than the enemy, enabling attacks against the flanks and creating opportunities to cut off communications. Most of Napoleon’s generals learned their trade under Carnot.

Napoleon’s contribution was to grasp how the potential of the mass army could be realized. He imbibed the military wisdom of the Enlightenment and took advantage of the system created by Carnot in such a way as to upset not only traditional thinking about war but also the whole European balance of power.

But Napoleon was not reckless. He would wait until the right moment to make his move.

Napoleon never provided a complete account of his approach to war. He did not write of strategy,

His views were recorded in a number of maxims. They were often practical reflections on the standard military problems of his day and lack the universal quality of Sun Tzu’s writings.

Many of his maxims revolved around the need to understand the enemy: by fighting too often with one enemy, “you will teach him all your art of war”; never do what the enemy wishes “for this reason alone, that he desires it”; never interrupt an enemy making a mistake; always show confidence, for you can see your own troubles but you cannot see those facing your enemy.12

Fought between the French and Russian armies on September 7, 1812, it involved some quarter of a million men. Of these, about seventy-five thousand were killed, wounded, or captured. Although the French came out on top, the Russians did not consider themselves beaten. Moscow was occupied following Borodino, but the Russians refused to agree to peace terms and Napoleon found that he lacked the capacity to sustain his army

Tsar Alexander had a far better, although politically controversial, strategy. It drew on Russia’s excellent intelligence network in France.

Austria and Prussia were reluctant to join an anti-French coalition involving a Russia that planned to retreat,

Most importantly, he understood that Napoleon wanted battle. If that was what he wanted, that was exactly what he should not have. The Russian plan therefore was to fall back, to the chagrin of many senior officers whose instincts were offensive.

“We must avoid big battles until we have fallen right back to our supply lines.”

When it came, the retreat had a degree of improvisation, but it was managed better than Napoleon’s advance.

Facing him in charge of the Russian forces was General Mikhail Kutuzov, a shrewd officer with a good understanding of the attitudes of ordinary soldiers and the Russian people, as well as considerable experience in war. But Kutuzov was now 65, physically and mentally slower than before,

The emperor himself had put on fat, having enjoyed the good life to excess, and had lost the energy of his earlier years. On the day of the battle he was also unwell, suffering from fever and a painful inability to urinate. He barely seemed in charge.

Mikaberidze adds that Napoleon was “unrecognizable and his lethargy may have been the most decisive factor in the battle, as he rejected proposals that could have delivered victory.”

Kutuzov managed to withdraw his forces in an orderly fashion. His one important, absolutely critical, decision was to encourage Napoleon to enter Moscow instead of chasing his army in order to inflict what might have been a decisive defeat.

For present during the Russian campaign, though playing minor roles, were the two greatest nineteenth-century theorists of war: Carl von Clausewitz and Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini.

[W]ar is not an exercise of the will directed at inanimate matter, as is the case with the mechanical arts, or at matter which is animate but passive and yielding, as is the case with the human mind and emotions in the fine arts. In war, the will is directed at an animate object that reacts. —Clausewitz, On War

CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, born 1780, learned his military craft in the Prussian army as it failed to resist Napoleon’s mass army. Dismayed at Prussia’s craven subordination to victorious France, Clausewitz joined the Russian army (hence his appearance at Borodino) before returning to the Prussian army for the campaign that culminated at Waterloo and the final defeat of Bonaparte. Along with the bulk of the European officer class, he had been mesmerized by Napoleon.

His initial, and not unreasonable, conclusion was that the “vastness” of Russia made it impossible “to cover and occupy strategically.” A “large country of European civilization” could not “be conquered without the help of internal discord.”1 Later he was harsher on Napoleon for not chasing the Russian army and described Borodino as a battle that was “never completely fought out.”

War’s tendency toward the absolute both thrilled and appalled the younger Clausewitz.

His widow did the best she could with the book’s posthumous publication, but the final version inevitably left commentators guessing about what might have been found had he lived to complete the work to his satisfaction.

While Clausewitz was seeking to advise the Russians in 1812, Jomini was on the French side.

Although Clausewitz is now considered to be the greater of the two and Jomini is rarely read, it was Jomini who for most of the nineteenth century was taken to be the foremost interpreter of the Napoleonic method.

Jomini was born in Switzerland in 1779.

He held staff positions for both Napoleon and Ney, but was a difficult egotist and a serial resigner.

His core ideas were published in his Art of War (always a popular title), which was first published in 1830 and then in a revised form in 1838.5 His book has been described as “the greatest military textbook of the nineteenth century.”6 By elucidating the enduring principles of strategy, Jomini sought to “make instruction easier, operational judgment sounder, and mistakes less frequent.”

“Strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point; grand tactics decides the manner of execution and the employment of the troops.”

He also assumed that military units of equivalent size were essentially equal in how they were armed, trained, disciplined, supplied, and motivated. Strategy was therefore important because only the quality of the commanders and their decisions really made a difference.

Before Jomini went out of fashion during the twentieth century he was the first port of call for any aspiring strategist and a model of lucidity and intelligibility. Jomini might not always have been a scintillating read, but he was much easier to follow than Clausewitz.

The relationship between the two was complex. The younger Clausewitz clearly borrowed from Jomini, and the second edition of the Art of War took into account Clausewitz’s criticisms.