"Everything You Know About Clausewitz Is Wrong" Topic

"As Mark Twain reputedly quipped, it's not so much what we know that gets us in trouble; it's what we know that just ain't so. How much of what we know about martial ventures is wrong? In the naval sphere, for instance, it's common knowledge that Alfred Thayer Mahan instructs commanders never to divide the fleet. Except he doesn't. Once upon a time, it turns out, historians took to quoting other historians quoting Mahan to that effect. Over time the quotation — in reality, someone's bowdlerized version of his ideas about concentrating naval strength — took on an air of authenticity and authority. "Never divide the fleet" endured as a truism despite its flimsy provenance. And it drowned out Mahan's real ideas through constant repetition.

This is about more than salvaging a long-dead maritime strategist's reputation. Faulty or outdated ideas can carry real-world repercussions. Acting on them creates a garbage-in/garbage-out effect that bedevils strategic endeavors. Nor is the problem confined to one apocryphal maxim from Mahan. We all know, don't we, that strategic grand master Carl von Clausewitz defines war as "the continuation of policy by other means" (italics in original). Except he doesn't. Read in the original German (insert favorite Hitler joke here), Clausewitz's masterwork On War proclaims — uniformly — that war is a mere continuation of policy "with other means" (mit anderen Mitteln), or sometimes "with the addition of other means" (mit Einmischung anderer Mitteln). Nowhere in On War or his prefatory notes does the Prussian write "by" other means.

Yet this false quotation refuses to die. "By," "with," who cares? Well, any student or practitioner of warfare should. Substituting a two-letter for a four-letter word makes a big difference in how Westerners conceive of war. And as Clausewitz teaches, grasping the nature of war in general — and of the particular war we're contemplating — constitutes the first, most fundamental, most crucial act of statecraft. Get the basics wrong and grim consequences follow…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

What everything? Or just the one word ?

Or just the translation of one word …

Phil

Yes, everything.

Turns out he was nothing to do with the Prussian military. He wasn't even German! Just a florist from Harrogate……..

So, who did we, or didn't we, go to war with because of this tremendous error?

I'm not so sure that the difference claimed between the interpretations of 'by other means' and 'with other means' is one that would be discerned by a native English speaker other than a linguistic pedant or a philosopher.

Von Clausewitz gets credit or blame in cycles – about twenty years ago the military history wags thought he was the cause of all evil, he is now seen in a somewhat better light

Given that he was a product of his times and that, after all, he never did finish the book himself (inconveniently dying before it was completed) I think is a masterful work, although I do find it a difficult read

You mean that guy who didn't want it published unless it was complete, died before completing his work, but had a wife who published his incomplete thoughts posthumously, much like Christopher Tolkien?

Crazy to think there might be errors and misinterpretations from that!