THE REALITY OF WAR

THE
REALITY OF WAR

A COMPANION
TO CLAUSEWITZ

BY
MAJOR STEWART L. MURRAY
LATE GORDON HIGHLANDERS

POPULAR EDITION EDITED BY
A. HILLIARD ATTERIDGE

LONDON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
WARWICK SQUARE, E.C.

HUGH REES, LTD.
5 REGENT STREET, S.W.

Reprinted in 1914

EDITOR'S PREFACE

Great books, the masterpieces of the special branch of knowledge with which they deal, are often very big books; and busy men, who have not unlimited time for reading, find it helpful to have some one who will give them a general summary of a famous writer's teaching, and point out the most important passages in which the author himself embodies the very essence of his argument.

This is what Major Murray has done for the most important work on war that was ever written. He does not give a mere dry summary of its contents. He sets forth, in language so plain that even the civilian reader or the youngest soldier can read it with interest, the essence of the teaching of Clausewitz, and he embodies in his book the most striking passages of the original work. He adds to each section of his subject some useful criticisms, and at the end of the book he sums up the effect of recent changes on the practice of war.

The book is a popular manual of the realities of war, which should be read not only by soldiers, but by every one who takes an intelligent interest in the great events of our time.

As to the practical value of the writings of Clausewitz, it may be well to quote here the words of Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, the Professor of Military History at Oxford, from his introduction to the original edition of Major Murray's work:

"Clausewitz was a Prussian officer who first saw fighting as a boy in 1793, and whose experience of war lasted until 1815, when the great war ended. He was then thirty-five and spent the next fifteen years in trying to clear his mind on the subject of war, which he did by writing a number of military histories and a systematic treatise 'On War.' At the age of fifty he tied his manuscripts into a parcel, hoping to work at them again on the conclusion of the duties for which he was ordered from home. A little more than a year later he died at Breslau of cholera, and the papers, to which he had never put the finishing touch, were afterwards published by his widow.

"Part of the value of his work is due to the exceptional opportunities which he enjoyed. When the war of 1806 began he had long been the personal adjutant of one of the Prussian princes, and an intimate friend of Scharnhorst, who was probably the greatest of Napoleon's contemporaries. In the period of reorganization which followed the Peace of Tilsit he made the acquaintance of Gneisenau, and of almost all the officers who made their mark in the subsequent wars of liberation. During the years of preparation he was Scharnhorst's assistant, first in the Ministry of War and then on the General Staff. During the campaign of 1812 he served with the Russian army as a staff officer. Thus his experience during the four years of the Wars of Liberation was that of one who was continually behind the scenes, always in touch with the Governments and Generals, and therefore better able than any one not so favourably placed to see everything in its proper perspective, and to follow and appreciate the considerations which directed the decisions both of statesmen and of the commanders of armies. His personal character was of the finest mould, and his writings have the sincerity, the absence of which makes it so difficult to rely upon those of Napoleon.

"The ultimate test of the value of books is time. When Clausewitz died, the two books on war which were thought the best were those of the Archduke Charles of Austria and General Jomini. To-day the book of Clausewitz, 'On War,' easily holds the first place. It is the least technical of all the great books on war; from beginning to end it is nothing but common sense applied to the subject, but for that reason it is the hardest to digest, because common sense or a man's natural instinctive judgment on any subject is exceedingly hard to analyse and put into words. An exceptionally gifted man can go through this process, but few can follow it for any length of time without a distinct effort.

"Almost every good institution has arisen out of the effort to provide a remedy for some evil, but in the imperfection of human nature nearly every institution brings with it fresh evils, which in their turn have to be counteracted. The modern spirit, with its hatred of nepotism and its belief in knowledge, has grafted the examination system upon every form of education from the lowest to the highest. The British army shares in the benefits and in the disadvantages of the system, of which, in the case of an officer, the danger to be guarded against is that it tends to accustom a man to rely rather on his memory than his intelligence, and to lean more on other people's thinking than on his own. Clausewitz aimed at producing the very opposite result. He does not offer specific solutions of the various problems of war lest officers, in moments when their business is to decide and to act, should be trying to recall his precepts instead of using their eyes and their wits. His purpose rather is to enable them to understand what war is. He believed that if a man had accustomed himself to think of war as it really is, had got to know the different elements which go to make it up, and to distinguish those that are important from those that are comparative trifles, he would be more likely to know of himself what to do in a given situation, and would be much less likely to confuse himself by trying to remember what some general, long since dead, did on some occasion in which after all the position was by no means the same as that in which he finds himself."

What is said here of the soldier actually engaged in war, is true also even of the onlooker who takes a patriotic interest in the progress of a war in which his country is involved. Unless he has a clear idea of the real character of modern war, and the principles on which success or failure depend, he will be utterly unable to grasp the significance of the events of which he reads each day. And it is of real importance that in time of war every citizen should judge soundly the course of events, for opinion influences action, and public opinion is made up of the ideas of the units who compose the public. In this connection it is well to bear in mind a point that is often overlooked, a point on which Clausewitz insists in a singularly convincing passage​—​namely, the fact that one of the main objects of a nation waging war is to force the enemy's population into a state of mind favourable to submission. This fact is sufficient proof of the importance of public opinion being well informed not only as to the course of events, but also as to the principles that give to these events their real significance.