2. Observations on the Wars of the Austrian Succession" (early 1820s)

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This chapter is in the book Carl von Clausewitz

TWO "Observations on the Wars of the Austrian Succession" (early 1820s) Aside from the Napoleonic Wars, the wars of Frederick the Great are the military episodes most often discussed and cited in Clausewitz's writings. Together they make up over three quarters of the references to military history in On War. The young Clausewitz was undoubtedly brought up on the triumphs, hardships, and legends of the Frederician campaigns, and after he returned, a fifteen-year-old lieutenant, from the War of the First Coalition, he began to study them seriously and continued to occupy himself with the subject for the rest of his life. In the early 1820s he decided to set down his ideas in comprehensive chronological form. The manuscript was printed in the tenth volume of his posthumous works under the title, "The Campaigns of Frederick the Great from 1741 to 1762." It is not a true history but rather, as the subtitles of the two main parts indicate, Bemerkungen—remarks, observations, comments, some no more than one or two sentences long, set apart by I signs. The text that follows is of the first main part, "Observations on the Wars of the Austrian Succession." At the time of writing, Clausewitz notes, relatively little had been published on the first two Silesian wars, from 1740 to 1742 and 1744 to 1745, in contrast to the Seven Years' War, on which the literature was already extensive. The first part mentions only one source, Frederick the Great's Histoire de mon temps. To this should be added Jacob de Cogniazo's Gestandnisse eines osterreichisehen Veteranen, which contains material on the early period, but is not referred to until the second part, and probably Ludwig Muller's Kurz-gefasste Beschreibung der drey schlesischen Kriege, a work Clausewitz must have known because he was Muller's student in Berlin from 1801 to 1804. A few articles as well as references in memoirs and other larger works complete the narrow historiographical base available to him. "In no war was strategy as saturated with politics as in this one." With this comment in §3 of the "Observations," Clausewitz does not mean to suggest that other wars were to any lesser degree instruments of policy, but that in the Wars of the Austrian Succession policy and political considerations determined strategy and even the movement of subordinate units to an unusual extent. The wars, which began in December 1740 when Frederick exploited the political uncertainties following the death of the Holy Roman Emperor,

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TWO "Observations on the Wars of the Austrian Succession" (early 1820s) Aside from the Napoleonic Wars, the wars of Frederick the Great are the military episodes most often discussed and cited in Clausewitz's writings. Together they make up over three quarters of the references to military history in On War. The young Clausewitz was undoubtedly brought up on the triumphs, hardships, and legends of the Frederician campaigns, and after he returned, a fifteen-year-old lieutenant, from the War of the First Coalition, he began to study them seriously and continued to occupy himself with the subject for the rest of his life. In the early 1820s he decided to set down his ideas in comprehensive chronological form. The manuscript was printed in the tenth volume of his posthumous works under the title, "The Campaigns of Frederick the Great from 1741 to 1762." It is not a true history but rather, as the subtitles of the two main parts indicate, Bemerkungen—remarks, observations, comments, some no more than one or two sentences long, set apart by I signs. The text that follows is of the first main part, "Observations on the Wars of the Austrian Succession." At the time of writing, Clausewitz notes, relatively little had been published on the first two Silesian wars, from 1740 to 1742 and 1744 to 1745, in contrast to the Seven Years' War, on which the literature was already extensive. The first part mentions only one source, Frederick the Great's Histoire de mon temps. To this should be added Jacob de Cogniazo's Gestandnisse eines osterreichisehen Veteranen, which contains material on the early period, but is not referred to until the second part, and probably Ludwig Muller's Kurz-gefasste Beschreibung der drey schlesischen Kriege, a work Clausewitz must have known because he was Muller's student in Berlin from 1801 to 1804. A few articles as well as references in memoirs and other larger works complete the narrow historiographical base available to him. "In no war was strategy as saturated with politics as in this one." With this comment in §3 of the "Observations," Clausewitz does not mean to suggest that other wars were to any lesser degree instruments of policy, but that in the Wars of the Austrian Succession policy and political considerations determined strategy and even the movement of subordinate units to an unusual extent. The wars, which began in December 1740 when Frederick exploited the political uncertainties following the death of the Holy Roman Emperor,

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