A History of Strategy by Martin van Creveld Page B

them it was a question not so much of seeking innovation as of recovering and assimilating the achievements of that world. No one was more representative of these attitudes than Machiavelli, to whom the very idea of outdoing his admired Romans would have been sacrilege. But it was equally evident in his successors. Throughout the eighteenth century, most writers on military affairs insisted that the best authors to study were Frontinus and Vegetius and, among historians, Polybius, Caesar, and Livy. Thus Joly de Maizeroy not only translated the Byzantine classics from the Greek but was regarded as the leading expert on ancient warfare, a subject on which he wrote several specialized studies. Both von Bülow and Berenhorst begin their works by comparing ancient warfare with that of the modern age.
    And yet, even with von Bülow, the situation began to change. For von Bülow this was because the ancient textbooks had absolutely nothing to say about strategy, precisely the field to which he himself had made the greatest contribution, of which he was understandably proud. That also accounts for the fact that, as with Jomini, “the ancients” are not even mentioned in Clausewitz's book. Another, perhaps more important factor, was the overall intellectual climate in which Clausewitz and Jomini wrote. As the Enlightenment gave way to the Romantic Movement, philosophers such as Vico and Hegel began propagating a view of history which emphasized the “otherness” of the past rather than its essential similarity with the present. Up until then history had been seen as a record of the same thing happening again and again. That was just why centuries-old events could serve as a source for practical “lessons.” Now it was transformed into the record of change. In general, the more historically distant the period, the greater the gulf that separated it from what came later on.
    This is not the place to follow the transformation of history, a subject better left to specialized students of that subject. Suffice it to say that, by the time Clausewitz did his main work in the 1820’s, it had been fully accomplished. Previously most of the authors here discussed had assumed that, since history was essentially unchanging, war too had unchanging principles. However, to Clausewitz, whose approach was “historicist,” this was much less evident. In Book VIII of
vom Kriege
he comes very close to saying that, since each period made war in a manner corresponding to its social and political characteristics, a single theory of war applicable to all times and places might not be possible at all.
    Clausewitz saw himself as a practical soldier writing for other practical soldiers (the first edition of his book was sold by subscription). Hence he was in some doubt as to how far back one could go in one’s quest for rules, lessons, principles, and examples. Whether, in other words, “modern” history began with the campaigns of Frederick the Great; or with the end of the War of the Spanish Succession; or with the Peace of Westphalia which had marked the construction of the modern European State. Be that as it may, he felt quite certain that, since only recent events were at all like the present, the further back one went the less useful the things one could find. His own writings on military history only go as far back as Gustavus Adolphus. Previous wars, such as those of the Tartars and the middle ages, are mentioned only to emphasize their “otherness.” As to the ancient authors, they are entirely ignored. None is even allowed to make his appearance on the pages of
On War.
    Even ignoring the contemporary revolution in historical thought, it was becoming all too clear that the old tried-and-true methods for thinking about war would no longer suffice. Between 217 BC, when Ptolemy IV had confronted Antiochus III at Raffia, and Leipzig in 1813 the maximum number of men who had confronted each other in battle had scarcely grown. It is true that,