September 20, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode, we compare and contrast 2 minds of war: Clausewitz vs. Jomini. Special guest and professor Joshua Meeks joins the show to give us an overview on their respective biographies and their military theories. We will discuss all of the following:
🔍 1. Philosophy of War
🎯 Theory vs. Application
🧠 View of the Commander
⚔️ Tactical and Strategic Emphasis
🌍 Legacy and Influence
Thanks for watching/listening!
X/Twitter: @andnapoleon
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to Generals and Napoleon.
We are very excited to have a new guest on the line, the great
Joshua Meeks from the US Naval War College.
How are you, Joshua? I'm doing great.
How are you? I'm good, I'm good.
Thanks for joining us. For those of you not familiar
with Josh, he is a professor at the Naval War College and he
also has two books out on Amazonthat I recommend you check out.
(00:20):
Josh, can you give to the uninitiated kind of overview of
your career and the books? Absolutely, yeah.
I was a graduate student at Florida State and as part of the
Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution, which really
formed a lot of my my early career in particular, which and
that led to my dissertation. Dissertation turned in the first
book, which was on the struggle for the revolutionary western
(00:42):
Mediterranean, looking specifically at Britain and
France and how they weaponized diplomacy and even ideology to a
certain extent during the war ofthe first coalition.
That was a fun. It was a great book.
I had a lot of fun writing it and I still have a deep, a deep
love for the Mediterranean. And then my from there I got got
(01:03):
connected with Ramen Littlefield, who asked me to put
together a reference guide for Napoleon and his life and works.
And the way I approach that, it's essentially a single author
encyclopedia was the way they pitched it.
But I was like, that's not very fun.
So what I did was think of it asa deconstructed biography that
went alphabetical instead of chronological.
(01:24):
So it's a, it's a short smallishin terms of a biography of
Napoleon. It's relatively relatively short
and svelte and mostly used as a reference work, but it was a fun
project to write as well. I like that it's alphabetical
order and and Waterloo kind of works perfectly for.
That it's a, it's a capstone, right?
It absolutely is. And yes, Dan, I, I got a job at
the US Naval War College, which is primarily teaching strategy.
(01:45):
And it's a different type of history, right?
Using history to think about strategy as opposed to using
history for its own sake. So there's a different spin on
what I do. Well, what's interesting, and
that's our topic for today, we're going to talk about Klaus
Witz and Jomini, who are two military strategists, and they
were both really good readers and they were both very good
(02:07):
writers. And you would think, well, how
can I learn strategy without being on the battlefield, right?
But that's kind of what these two gentlemen did.
I mean, they were on the battlefield, but they also read
and wrote a lot. I, I think some might quibble
with Klausowitz being a good writer.
He's turgid. His German prose is turgid at
best. But no, I mean, I completely
agree, right? That, and this is, this is one
of the, the things that I wrestle with, not wrestle with,
(02:29):
but engage with on a day-to-day basis in my job, which is
talking about strategy, talking about theory, talking about this
idea. And I don't have military
experience myself, so I'm teaching military officers as an
academic. And there is sometimes somebody
skepticism that comes into that if you don't know what it is
that you're talking about. As we could say with Klaus Fitz
(02:50):
and Germany that they both, theywere on battlefields.
I will say they were active dutyon battlefields, getting engaged
there. But they're not the principal
military leaders of the day. They are the people who are
thinking about the principal military leaders of the day.
Right. And I was kind of equated the
guy behind the guy, kind of likeMarshall Bertie.
Like you don't hear a lot about him, but he was the guy behind
Napoleon. Absolutely.
(03:11):
And he also really didn't like Germany, so.
No, he did not, and we'll get into that in just a minute.
Before jump into the episode, Josh, you gotta read a little
disclaimer report. I'm in an individual capacity.
My views here do not represent the views of the Department of
Defense, U.S. government, Department of the Navy, US Naval
War College or anything therein.So yeah, that's thank you for
(03:32):
that. Just me, Just me here, Not the
naval war. Just your views that going
forward. Gotcha.
OK, so let's dive into their biographies really quick.
It's funny, they're both born around the same time.
Klausowitz was born July 1780 inMagdeburg, Prussia, and Joe
Minnie was born March 1779 in Switzerland.
Their upbringings, nothing spectacular, I would say, right?
(03:53):
And they just kind of both joined the army.
Yeah. Well, so Klaus Fitz, he is a
career like he, he joins the military, joins the Army very
early on, like he is, he is there, you know, as a 13 year
old, right. Like his career is essentially
always going to be that, whereasGermany is supposed to be a
banker, right? That's what his dad wants him to
be. That's what he goes to school
(04:14):
for. And he ends up being a banker in
Paris and I think 1796. And, but from the from an early
age, he is fascinated by military ideas.
He, he writes even at an early age of wanting to get involved
in the military. But his as we, you know, his dad
wants him, wants him to be a banker.
And then he starts out doing that.
(04:35):
But when he gets to Paris in 1796, as often happens in these
right, these moments of flux, he's there and opportunity
presents itself and he catches the eye of of Marshall Net,
right. He kept he catches the eye of
people involved in the military and gets his ambition to join
the military realized through really just not not a
(04:58):
predestined career in the way that Klaus Fitz was always going
to be part of the military. Germany comes in and says, I, I
want this. And he uses that ambition and
uses really a way with words to become a military member and a
part of the military, Despite that in his early years he
wasn't necessarily destined for that in the same way that Klaus
was. Right.
Yeah. I was reading about this and I
(05:19):
found it interesting. First of all, people always say
what a blockhead Marshall Ney was, but obviously the guy was
reading and trying to learn strategy wherever he could.
So Jomini publishes this book, and I think Ney actually helps
him publish it and gives him money for it.
And the interesting thing is Napoleon Murray, one of his
ministers, read it to him. And he said, quote, here is a
young battalion commander, a Swiss at that, who teaches us
(05:41):
what my teachers never taught meand what very few generals
understand, but my entire systemof war.
We must seize this book and prevent it from spreading.
End Quote. I just find that fascinating.
Yeah, yeah. And that is what Jomany does
early on and constantly is he thinks and he writes and he is
quite good at that, right. You know, there's, there's some
(06:02):
criticisms you we can eventuallylevel at Jomany, but in terms of
his observations, he's sitting there again, not with a lot of
military training, just as a keen, intelligent and dedicated
observer of the Napoleonic military system.
And as he writes ideas, suggestions, engagements,
engagements with it, the people who are in that military system
(06:24):
read it and say that's high quality, that is worthwhile.
Yeah, and he eventually becomes chief of staff, the Marshall
Navy. We'll come back to him in a
minute with Klaus Wits. I think it's also interesting.
He had a very influential guy, atutor much like the most the
great generals do, and that's General Sharnhorst, who again is
a reformer. He wants to make over the
Prussian military after their defeat at Jana Auerstadt.
(06:45):
And he learned, I think, for three years under this
Sharnhorst, who's one of the best generals in the Prussian
army. Absolutely.
There's some people who argue, and I don't necessarily disagree
with this, that later on Clausewitz gets this label as a
prophet of Napoleon, an apologist for Napoleon, someone
who is who is uses Napoleon as the as this exemplar of what
(07:07):
military strategy should be. And he does.
When you read Clausewitz, you'relike, wow, he references he was
clearly deeply influenced by Napoleon.
A lot of that is actually, I would read it as not putting
himself in Napoleon shoes or in Napoleon staff.
It's putting himself in Charn horse shoes, in on Charn horse
staff, which is where he actually was.
So he thinks when he thinks of the Napoleonic era and
(07:28):
Napoleonic age, he's largely thinking of it almost as an
office from an opposition's perspective because of this
experience that he has it deep, deep in the Prussian military
establishment. Yeah.
And I think there's something tobe learned, obviously, from
Napoleon. The guy won 60 battles and lost,
what, 8? And I think Zhomini and
Klausowitz both had the opportunity to work under
(07:50):
Napoleon at one point in their career.
You know, the Russian invasion and Zhomini more than that.
So I think they both learned from a master of warfare, which
was Napoleon, right? They did though.
An interesting contrast, almost in a personality aspect here is
the Germany is. I'm not going to say mercenary.
Mercenary is the wrong word, buthe is someone who cares more
(08:10):
about his ideas being listened to and less about any fealty to
a specific state. Later on he will kind of say
like, hey, I really don't want to invade Switzerland, right?
I don't think that's a good idea.
I'm Swiss, right? Like, let's not do that.
But for the most part, he's like, OK, the French are
listening to me. So that's where I'm going to
spend my career. When the French stopped
listening to him, he goes to someone who will listen to him,
(08:33):
which is the the Russians. He doesn't care that much about
the ideological polarization that's going on in the
Napoleonic Wars, whereas Classitz does when Prussia
allies with France, kind of thatforced alliance after in 1806,
he that's when he goes and joinsthe Russians.
He's like, I don't want to be with Napoleon.
I don't agree with the Napoleonic conquests.
(08:56):
I will put myself opposite Napoleon, wherever that might
be. And obviously for a time it's
almost nowhere. He doesn't go to Britain, right?
He doesn't go that far. He doesn't speak English, I
don't think. Yeah, it's, it's interesting,
kind of the wheels fall off for both Jomini and Klauswitz.
After the Russian invasion, Jomini's arguing Marshall Ney
(09:17):
more often. Jomini, I believe, was got to be
promoted by Marshall Ney. I think out there it was a
Boutsen or Lutsen, one of those,and Marshall Bertier, in his
typical bickering ways, denied it and then ordered Jomoni to be
arrested for not sending in, I think, a troop status report on
time. Yeah, which is, you know, depend
and this is one of those that ifyou read Jomoni, he's like what
(09:39):
up trumped up charges, right. This is this is completely
ridiculous. How dare I would I think there
is some merit to Jomoni not actually doing a great job at at
the tail end of the the the Russian invasion, right.
Like, he's he's distracted. He's not, he's not.
Doesn't do a great job. Does he deserve to be arrested?
Probably not. There's some personality issues
(10:00):
that come in with Ney and Bertier as well there.
But ultimately, yeah, regardlessof whose side you want to
believe in terms of how big of adeal it was, he was his name was
struck from the promotion list. He was arrested briefly.
And largely, I don't want not discredited from his ideas, but
discredited as a effective general, right.
(10:21):
I mean, he's a general, yeah. Yeah, and I read Marshall,
General Marbeau's memoirs, and Germany changes size.
He goes over to the Russians. Now we'll get into it.
Why? It's not necessarily turn coding
because he always had a Commission.
Was it the Russian army or he had a dual Commission?
So it wasn't necessarily. But still, to the French, it's
like, well, you're leaving us. Yeah, and you're leaving us.
(10:43):
It's not that you're leaving us when we're allies, you're you're
leaving for the Russians after we're we're clearly like that,
that that dual Commission that kind of somewhat.
And I think again, I think actually Germany somewhat
oversells the amount to which heI think he did have a dual
Commission, but it was not he paints it as he was this hot
(11:03):
commodity, right when Germany writes about this, he says, I
was this hot commodity. The Russians wanted me, the
French wanted me. Everybody wanted Germany.
And so then the French didn't want him.
So he's like, so I went to wherethe I went to where the money
was. I went to where the interest
was. They still want me.
I'm going there. I think that's overselling it a
bit. And especially in terms of how
engaged the Russians were with trying to get Germany from the
(11:27):
French. You know, I think of in sports
terms, right? He's not actually a free agent.
Who's this hot commodity. It's it's almost like the French
wave him and then the Russians pick him up off of Wickham.
That's a good analogy, yeah. But you look at I was out
Dresden, all right, So Czar Alexander's like, all right, I
can't beat Napoleon. I want to get Bernadotte in
there. I want to get Moreau in there.
(11:48):
I want to get Jomini in there. Like I want to get his guys who
know how to beat him working on my team.
Absolutely, yeah. And, and Jomini does have a
reputation, again, not as this brilliant field commander, but
as a brilliant thinker, as someone who does know the
systems incredibly well. And so his value to the Russians
was never going to be, you know,lead, you know, win this, this
(12:11):
battle For me, it was going to be a systematic, like
understanding the system that Napoleon was able to employ so
brilliantly. And you can see that even very
quickly. He gets involved, not just in OK
staff work and and leading troops.
He gets involved in education, right?
That's one of his primary roles when he goes into gets involved
in Russia is teach. Figure out the the best way to
(12:33):
teach these theories, to teach these ideas because that's your
strength. All right, so now we'll just
jump ahead. You know, Napoleon obviously
loses 18141815 again at Waterloo, so the Napoleonic Wars
are over. So then there's all these
memoirs that come out, there's analysis, and then Klaus
switches book, which is actuallypublished by his widow, right?
(12:54):
He's just working on it. And he dies of cholera, I think
in 1831. So he dies before he gets to
really pull it together, right? Is that kind of how it comes
out? Absolutely.
He is a call it a perfectionist,but he's constantly refining his
work right on war. His his big, big book.
He is constantly refining it to up until his death.
(13:14):
And so when he passes away before his time, really his wife
Marie, she takes it and edits it, finishes it in a lot of
ways. And there's some debate there of
how much are we reading Clouds? Where how much are we reading?
Marie, I'll put a plug in from one of my colleagues here at the
Naval War College. Vanya Bellinger is one of the
(13:34):
experts on Marie Klaus Fitz and she's excellent.
I highly recommend her work if you're interested in Marie
Klaus. But regardless, right, his book
comes out posthumously and it isit is finished, right?
It does. We can now dig deep and say
like, oh, that, that looks like one of those parts that was
unfinished, but it is a completework, right?
We could write. There's elements that I would
(13:54):
have liked. I know he would have developed
further even in terms of things like not quite insurgency, but
in counterinsurgency. But he has thoughts on small
wars. He has thoughts on things that
are not fully developed and on war, that in a alternate world
in which he has a long and healthy life, he he's going to
write more and he's going to flesh out these ideas.
(14:16):
So with that said, Jomini does have a long lives.
He advises a few Russian czars. He also comes back to France,
which is shocking to me, and advises Napoleon the Third in
his Italian campaign. So he gets to have that full
life and really flesh out his works, correct?
He does flesh out is one way to say it.
(14:38):
He does he does refine his work,right?
He does continually refine his work.
But there's a question of whether he does that in pursuit
of perfection or whether he doesthat in pursuit of publication.
Because he is what every time he, he makes a new his, you
know, his, his main main work called the Art of War, not to be
confused with Sun Tzu, but summary of the Art of War preces
(15:00):
on the art of war. There are so many editions.
I want to say it's, it's well over 10 editions.
I think it's close to 20 editions that are not that
distinct. So there's this argument I kind
of buy into a little bit that Jomani's refinement of his work
is not quite the same as when when you see Klaus Fitz refining
his work and not even publishing, it's because he's
(15:21):
pursuing perfection. Whereas Jomani, he's like, no,
make a tweak here or there. I'll I'll edit this.
I'll change that and resell it and get.
Money. So is that George Lucas making
minor changes to Star Wars and pumping it back out?
I think a little bit, right, Youknow, he is, again, there's a
not mercenary, I think. I do think that's the wrong
(15:41):
word. But but Germany is not just
concerned about the purity of the work.
He's concerned about his own reputation, right?
He's concerned about maintainingthat reputation.
And he does have because he lives that long life.
Also, something I think is worthnoting, because he writes in
French and then is translated toEnglish, Klaus does not write in
(16:02):
front in French or English and it takes a while for him to be
translated. He writes in German.
It is somewhat turgid at times, and Germany is popular in the
19th century in particular. He forms and shapes his own
popularity. Props to him.
Right? Like I'm not going to begrudge
him that. But when we look at their
relative importance and weight over the course of their
(16:24):
careers, that's those two factors are pretty important.
One, Clauswitz dies. And the second being that again,
Clauswitz is writing to a Prussian world.
And the Prussian world in 1820 is not particularly important or
impressive. It's only when Bismarck comes
around and people like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are these?
Prussians read it right? And they're like, oh, they're
reading this weird Clauswitz guy.
(16:46):
Let's let's see if there's value.
And yeah, Germany dies in 1869 in France, oddly enough, lives
out his life there. But even when the two were alive
at the same time, they didn't always agree with each other.
And we're gonna kind of get intothe differences here.
I'm going to talk about philosophy of war first, and
these are just bullet points forme.
Klaus Witz's theory on philosophy of war.
(17:07):
War is a continuation of politics by other means,
Emphasizes wars, chaotic, unpredictable political nature
and views wars shaped by moral forces, chance and friction.
Whereas Jomeni says no, no, no. War is more of a science
governed by principles and formulas.
Focuses on geography, logistics and lines of operation.
(17:28):
Love logistics, by the way, and believes in universal principles
that can guide generals to victory.
So as an aside here, I have heard this said, though I
haven't tracked it down, that Jomeni actually essentially
invents the word logistics. I've heard that too, yeah.
I haven't done the the deep diveto track it and say no, it's he.
(17:48):
I don't have a strong opinion onthat.
But yeah, he's a logistics guy. It's interesting that you know
principles where any generals can win.
I mean, there's good generals and bad generals as we know in
history. But if you can focus on
logistics like the Duke of Wellington did, you give
yourself a better chance of winning?
Absolutely. And and so there's actually
that's a really good way of, of nuancing Germany because I think
(18:09):
I do think that Germany, and I'll start with Germany real,
real quick here, because I thinkthat Germany gets get his work
is often viewed in caricature tothat it is just science, right?
It is just these general principles.
It's a checklist. And if you follow the checklist,
you're going to win. And I think that's an
oversimplification because he does acknowledge that war writ
(18:31):
large as this big idea, this bigthing is more complex than a
checklist can, can really give you, right?
Like that it is affected by variables and factors that are
going to be outside the control of the commander.
He gets that right. And that's something we
generally associate more with Klaus Fitz, which is fair.
But what Jomani does say is thatbattle, if we want to kind of
(18:54):
put it simply, or strategy more large, like if you're asking the
question of how do I win within these constraints, you can do a
checklist, right? And that the result of that
checklist is that it's going to give you, if you follow these
principles, if you follow these formulas in this checklist, it
is going to give you the best possible chance to achieve
victory in war. Does it guarantee it?
No, but it will give you that big leg up.
(19:18):
I think that's a great point. And Napoleon always talked about
luck, like I want lucky generals, but what he meant by
that was generals who did the hard work before the battle.
But there is luck. There is the rainstorm the night
before Waterloo. There's the snowstorm the middle
of the Battle of Ilao that blinded Ozuru's cork.
So there's definitely things youcannot scientifically predict.
Absolutely. And, and again, I, I speak
(19:39):
against kind of this caricature of Germany as just formulas.
And that's part of what I think is often missed with his, with
his work. That being said, he does often
emphasize formulas and he does say war is or strategy is, is a
science can be scientific, that there are right answers.
(20:03):
And I think that's kind of the the big distinction to make and
how they are viewing war in general is that Germany would
say if you ask a question, thereis almost always going to be a
right answer to that question. Question and it might we might
have to go through some branch and colas right?
Like it might get complex but there is a right answer.
Klausfitz on the other hand, andthis is something that we say in
(20:24):
my classes all the time we Klausfitz says it depends,
right? Like what's I'm going to ask you
a question and you're going I want you to give me an answer
but really the answer 9 times out of 10 is it depends and then
you go into this what does it depend on?
Well, it depends on on what it depends right?
It gets this incredibly murky fuzz, right.
(20:44):
One of the phrases that we oftenassociate with Klaus Fitz is the
fog of war. And I like to think of, you
know, you know, we have the, theliteral fog that he's on the, on
some of these battlefields wherefog is playing a pretty
important role. And he is informed by that idea
of fog and friction almost as literal things, even though he's
thinking of them more conceptualin terms of what fog and
(21:07):
friction are. But he he breathes that in that
fog and friction are part of what strategy is.
Agreed. Let's look theory versus
application. As you mentioned, Klauswitz's
book on war is often dense. It's hard to read and it's and
it's unfinished and it seeks to understand the nature of war,
not just how to win. Zhomani is more practical.
(21:28):
His His Art of War book outlineshow to conduct campaigns and
wrote with military officers andstaff in mind, offering clear
examples. You agree with that?
I do. And especially in the
philosophical element that KlausFitz, I mean he's a post
enlightenment or even intra enlightenment thinker.
He's writing essentially A Gallian dialectical
(21:50):
philosophical work about war. And that's one of the reasons
that it is both harder to engagewith and was hard.
It took a while to pick up steam.
It's also, I would argue, and wecan talk about this later, but
it's one of the reasons that it has persisted a little bit more
than Germany is because it has that philosophical element that
you can point to almost like, oh, I'll use this in this
(22:11):
context, regardless of whether we're talking about space or
whether we're talking about mountains and logistics, right?
Like there's it's, it's widely applicable.
And the other element that that goes into that is, and this goes
back to the previous point, but Klaus says when he says war is
politics by other means, a continuation of politics depends
on how you translate it. But politics is flexible, right?
Politics is variable. And so at it's very foundational
(22:35):
philosophical level, he's sayingbecause war is determined by
politics and is affected and always influenced by politics,
it's always going to be fuzzy and a a very human endeavor.
And that leads to this abstraction, right, that it's
all kind of theory and print andtheory and I and funny ideas
(22:58):
rather than here's the right answer.
Well, I think that's a great point.
Back in college, I majored in political science, but politics,
as you mentioned, it's murky. There's Gray elements to it.
So to to extend politics throughother means that just, it's just
as murky. There's a, there's, there's some
when, when people write about Clausfitz in particular, one of
the things that they, they note,which is an interesting talking
(23:19):
about academic circles even today, political science,
Strategic Studies, and it's odd bedfellows with political
science, but they, they get along quite well.
And one of the reasons that Klaus Fitz is, is difficult to
use in Strategic Studies sometimes is because Klaus Fitz
is so murky, right? We're not talking about
independent, independent variables, right?
We're not going to be able to graph Klaus Fitz and and bring a
(23:41):
method section down at the at the end of the paper.
That's really hard to do using acloset in principles, if not
impossible. It's not what he intended to do,
but I think within that there iswhen thinking about theory
versus application. It's a, it's an interesting
almost terminology problem because we use Klaus, it's as
theory, right? We say Klaus Fitz is a theoret
(24:01):
is is theoretical. And when we say those words
today, we tend to kind of have this pie in the sky abstract
principles that are very theoretical.
That's often actually not how Klaus Fitz and Germany would
have like would have articulatedit.
Clausfitz would actually antagonize theory in a lot of
ways because theory is this framework through which we can
(24:24):
get those right answers. And Clausfitz is more interested
in is this process, a broader process that can go in many
different murky directions and is very ill defined.
Whereas Germany is this is the theory.
The theory is this these this rules and principles and very,
very direct and discreet and specific lessons that we can so
(24:46):
he Germany is practical to an tothe NTH degree, right?
He only wants practicality. Right.
Well, this next point is I want to talk about it after I go
through the bullet points, but their respective views on on the
Commander Clausewitz emphasizes the role of genius, intuition
and judgement under uncertainty and says great commanders adapt
to changing conditions and political goals.
(25:09):
Germany idolizes systematic decision making and clear
strategic rules and believes success depends on correctly
applying set principles. The Duke of Wellington used to
say this about Marshall Salt. He said he was a smart guy, but
when he got to the battlefield, he was kind of like stuck in his
battlefield and couldn't adapt to changes.
And that's why Wellington alwaysbeats Salt.
(25:30):
Like he just he couldn't move off of his plane once it was in
motion. And I think that's what
Klauswitz is kind of talking about here.
And it's fascinating, right? Because we have this question of
Napoleon, right? Both of these thinkers look at
Napoleon and are trying to say, why did Napoleon wipe the floor
(25:50):
with us or he just wins? What is going on here?
This doesn't make a great deal of sense in the arc and
trajectory of European military history, right?
This is an aberration. What's going on?
Is it because, as Germany would say, is it because Napoleon has
perfected a system? He is such a strict adherent to
(26:13):
his system and his system is just better than any other
system that go that that exists right now.
So it's a systems battle. And the better system, of
course, the better system alwayswins. 4 is always greater than
three. There is no way that you can
have three be greater than 4, right?
It's a math equation and it's simple, right?
(26:34):
Why that is Napoleon win because4 is greater than three done
right, whereas what Clauswitz would say is what Napoleon does
better. It's not the system.
The system is brilliant. He doesn't begrudge that right?
But this is where Charnhorse comes in and he would say
Charnhorst has a great system, his reforms and his system is
actually really impressive in its own way.
(26:55):
And it's not that Napoleon just has the best system.
He also has the best. You know, Clauswitz would say
the coup de Oy, right, the commanders I that when he looks
at the battlefield, he is seeinghow to employ that system.
And going to the previous point,he is the one of the purest
expressions of war and politics being intertwined and just being
(27:17):
very healthy. Not now healthy maybe is the
wrong word because it's maybe unhealthy to have war in
politics as entwined as they arein the person of Napoleon.
But that's proof for Klaus Fitz that Napoleon is this genius.
And the question then becomes not how do you Rep replicate
genius? Because that's almost a fool's
errand, right? You can't really replicate
(27:38):
genius. What you can do is replicate the
conditions in which the genius operates.
Well, I think that's what Jomeniis saying.
Like I'm just going to follow the systems of the genius.
Like Josh Meeks and John Vescardo could take piano
lessons from Mozart and Beethoven for 100 years and
still not be as good on the piano.
You know, we're just, we don't have that talent.
But I think that's what Jomeni is saying is like, well, we can
(28:00):
just study his systems and not worry about the genius that he
has. Yes, and that is that's, that's
true. And I think you're right, Right.
So what Germany is saying in essence is we, we want to create
a system in which geniuses, we don't need a genius to succeed.
We have technicians, but I had two sisters who played piano,
not me, but one of them took piano for 12 years and she was a
(28:22):
technician at the piano, right? She would she could play a piece
that was set in front of her. Another one was an artist,
right? And she would have a temper
tantrum and sit at the piano andcompose a song.
And when they played the same piece of music, you could tell
the difference. I don't know how I'm sure that
musical theorists would say, butI'm a strategy theorist and this
(28:43):
is right where you can see the difference between someone who
knows how to win a battle because they read the book and
they're doing very good at that.That's a Jominian approach.
And then you can see the geniuses, right?
The people who know who have that, that that particular eye
and that artistic sense. And Klaus Fitz is Morse is
(29:05):
saying that you can be an artist.
I'm not saying you can be Van Gogh, right?
But I'm going to try to teach you how to be an artist and to
identify those incredibly flexible and dependent moments
where you as the artist get to shape the canvas of the
battlefield in your own way. Whereas John is saying, I'm not
(29:26):
going to teach you how to be an artist, I'm going to teach you
how to be a technician, right? I'm going to teach you how to do
things right. Well, I think, you know, that
was one of the great complaints about the marshals is people
would say, why didn't Napoleon just teach the marshals how to
do what he's doing? And I don't you probably you
can't teach genius like we were saying.
Right And well, that's an interesting, you know, clause
fits wouldn't would agree, rightthat you can't teach genius, but
(29:49):
that you can allow for creativity and you can create.
If your system is such that it does not allow for and encourage
creativity, it's going to be a worse system because it's not
acknowledging the reality of thebattlefield.
And that's that's a huge distinction between them, is
that Germany is limp trying to eliminate the unknowns in any
(30:11):
battlefield. And Klaus Fitz says that's a
fool's errand. You cannot eliminate that, that
blank space for the art to create.
And So what we should be doing is teaching people how to work
within that blank space. Yeah, it's interesting.
Napoleon gave his Marshalls someindependence, but you know he
was also giving orders like all the way from Paris into Spain
(30:33):
and Portugal. And it doesn't always work that
way if you have an independent guy somewhere.
Talented Messena and Devue come to mind.
But some were not and and you could see in the results.
Absolutely. And that this is what's great,
right, is that you can see how both thinkers are looking at the
exact same situations and comingto very different conclusions
about what is making this systemwork or or fail.
(30:56):
And both are right. It depends, right?
You're right. It depends.
Yeah, Murky again. Yeah.
OK, let's talk tactical and strategic emphasis.
Klauswitz is less concerned withtactical specifics, more about
the interplay between politics and strategy, and sees Total War
and limited war as parts of a spectrum.
Jomani says there should be a strong focus on operational
(31:18):
planning, interior lines, decisive points and base of
operations, and champions the idea of a Napoleonic
concentration of force and maneuver.
And that's fair. Well, though class Fets is also
aired. If we're going to just take one
of the Clausewitzian principles,that really is all is equally A
Jominian principle. It is concentrate your forces at
(31:39):
the decisive point. The the question then becomes
how do you determine the constant, the decisive point and
how do you concentrate your forces?
And there are some differences in how they approach that.
But the core idea of this is what you should be doing.
This is this is the the essence of what a battle is and a war is
even that's shared between them.This is a little bit like when
we talk about Mahon and Corbett as different, right?
(32:03):
They're they're completely different naval theorists.
They are more similar than different, but they do have some
fundamental differences about how they conceive of naval
forces being employed or land and almost even the military in
general. It's function in in war, as
Klaus Fitz and Germany would, because you're right, this is
Klaus Fitz's thinking of war as politics, as a continuation of
(32:27):
politics, as an expression of politics.
And Germany's not opposed to that.
But he would say once, once we get once war happens.
It's a math question. It's an equation that we can
solve. And Klaus Fitz is never really
comfortable with just making it into a simple equation.
It's one of the famous ideas that we get from Klaus Fitz is
(32:49):
the idea of the Trinity or the triangle.
And it's hotly debated of what exactly that is and how that's
actually going to be manifested.But for our purposes, let's just
say that it's the passion of thepeople, the realm of chance, and
then rationality of the government, and that those three
are always going to be in, and Ishouldn't say government, but
(33:09):
rationality in general. They're often associated with
passion equals people, chance equals commander, and
rationality equals government. So they get kind of connected in
there, though I don't know that Klaus Fitz always argues.
Again, it gets messy in there, but he puts those three in
tension with each other constantly.
(33:29):
And Germany is saying, yeah, sure, there's chance, but let's
eliminate that. Yeah, sure, there's passion of
the people. Put that off to the side.
When you are winning, when you're fighting a war, the only
thing that you're really concerned about is the military,
the Army, the logistics, the Howdo you determine the center of
gravity doesn't call it that, the Schwer punks.
But how do you identify that center point?
(33:52):
How do you identify that call that a day, be done with it.
That's your job. Don't worry about those other
factors. You can kind of see where
Napoleons we're sort of fate. He he got the two confused
because he was a politician. He you know, he was an emperor.
So he had to take concerns of borders and and different kings
and Queens and Princess. And before that he was just a
general, you know, annihilating armies.
(34:14):
But now he had to take in these other factors.
Absolutely, yeah. And I do think that there is,
again, there is a lot of like ifyou read the entirety of
clauses, Clausewitz is often, and we do it in my own syllabus
at at the Naval War College where we pick and choose.
We say this is what's relevant and this is what's not relevant.
And in doing so, we can get thisimage of Klaus Fitz as this
primarily political strategic thinker with an eye towards
(34:36):
operations, but not an operational tactical thinker.
And I, I don't actually know that that's fair when you read
the entirety of Klaus Fitz, because Klaus Fitz does go deep
into some of the weeds of operations and tactics.
That's just not his strength. That's not what you learn from
Klaus Fitz. That's not what what we take
from Klaus Fitz. Whereas Jomani, when he writes,
(34:57):
that's primarily what he's writing about.
And he brings that insightful, again, almost just linguistic
clarity. He's synthesizing a lot of
different ideas and he's puttingthem on paper in a way that is
still useful, right? When we're looking at
operations, when we're looking at the logistics, lines of
force, lines of lines of operation, when we're looking at
(35:17):
all of these things and we read what Jomani writes, that's
that's his strength and that's what he wants to be remembered
for in a lot of ways. And so when you ask what are
they trying to do, they're kind of trying to do different things
in certain ways, right? So it's OK for us to read them
together and not always intention.
Well, let's talk lastly about their legacy.
(35:39):
Legacy and influence. I would say of the two, Klaus
Foots is probably the more famous in terms of.
Books today he is. But maybe not then.
Yeah. So if we look at Klaus Witz, he
influenced modern strategic thought, political realism, 20th
century military planning. He also studied.
He studied in political science,military academies like yours
and leadership courses. Germany dominated military
(36:01):
education in the 19th century, especially the US Civil War era,
and is favored by general seeking clarity and actionable
guidance. Do you think that's accurate?
It is absolutely. And it's one of the things we
even wrestle with today of the difference between training and
education. And that's almost how I would
put what what happens with someone.
When you learn from Zhalmani, you are being trained on how to
(36:24):
operate on a battlefield. And when you learn from Klaus
Fitz, you're being educated on how to think about a
battlefield. And you might not be as well
trained when you get there, but you're going to be a much more
flexible thinker. And so then the question becomes
what is easier to fill in? Is it easier to have a someone
who's well trained be a good thinker, or is it easier for
someone who's a good thinker to then fill in the training?
(36:47):
And that's a difficult question even today.
Well, I think that's a great example of in this, these are
two distinct things. What is the difference between
strategy and tactics? Absolutely.
What's your what's your overall strategy of your campaign?
And then when you get to the battlefield, what is your
tactical overview? And and that's when I teach my
students, I'm trying to, you know, I get O threes and O fours
(37:09):
coming into the Naval War College.
And we have conversations where they're saying, well, I don't
care about strategy. I'm like, I get that you are not
being asked to think and operatestrategically right now, But if
you're going to tell me that youdon't care about it, you're
going to be a worse operator, right?
Like you know your stuff really well.
What I'm trying to get you to dois think about all the way up
(37:31):
the chain so that you can betterunderstand your commander's
intent on a day-to-day basis, not just plan on being the next
Admiral. Understand the admiral's mind
now is going to make you a better tactician and operator.
So there's that's that that tension the way that one of the
ways that that tension manifestsin today's.
I would argue in today's some oftoday's military, professional
(37:52):
military education. But one of the interesting
things that I want to point out with the legacy of Klaus Fitz
and the way that one of the turning points, it's actually
the Vietnam War, it's not the only turning point.
Klaus Fitz is. The other turning point that I
would isolate is the Franco Prussian wars in which Bismarck
is incredibly successful and people start looking for one of
the reasons why the Prussian military is so successful.
(38:14):
And the reason that they isolatethere is they're reading Klaus
Fitz and not just Germany. And so let's try and explain and
explore what this new theory, new theorist who has been around
in German circles for a while. But the other one that in
Vietnam is important here because this is where the the
American system that has been largely steeped in Jominian
(38:37):
approaches, it struggles significantly.
And one of the very quick reasons why we say the American
system struggled is because we did not understand the proper
relationship between politics and military goals.
And that's the cause it's talks about.
Good point. Also on the Civil War piece of
it, you know, Germany is still alive during the US Civil War,
(38:59):
and I think a lot of U.S. Army cadets studied Napoleon at
West Point and tried to apply those principles and it didn't
necessarily, you know, that's 50years after Napoleon.
So those principles don't alwayswork the same way.
Absolutely. And it's interesting that's been
the waxing the waning of Germanyright where people will say that
right and I think accurately saythat be like, well, this guy was
(39:21):
a Napoleonic thinker. What good is he for the civil
war? What good is he for the world
wars? What good is he for the Cold War
and what good is he for the postCold War?
He is not relevant for a post Cold War era.
I don't fully agree with that. I like I only part like I
understand the sentiment, but I also would would argue that the
(39:41):
ideas of concentration of force and logistics.
And even if it's not the specifics of how Germany is
thinking you're going to win a battle, that checklist
modernized to the present day isactually still quite useful.
And I think we we lose somethingby ignoring the Jominian
approach to war. The actual specifics needs to be
(40:01):
maybe updated to a modern day orto whatever day in which you're
using it, but it can be updated.The reason why Klaus Fitz is
more famous right now is that Klaus Fitz doesn't really need
to be updated that much. He's so.
Ephemeral. He's kind of like just talking
in these general ideas that it'sso easy to say, yeah,
(40:21):
concentrate, force. What does that look like?
Does that look like drones? Carriers?
Does it look like cyber? Like, what does that look like?
We can. It's going to look different,
but the principle remains the same.
The idea and the situation in which we're operating remains
the same. Culminating points.
How do you know when you've lostor won?
Yeah, I, I think those are all great points.
And it's, it goes back to like, why are why are tech leaders in
(40:44):
Silicon Valley reading about Napoleon?
Well, he got rid of old systems that didn't work and he figured
out a replicable system where hewon and won and won over and
over again. So I think that's why he's still
applicable to this. Absolutely.
And he was. And the other element that that
I think is relevant there is leadership, right?
Napoleon knew how to lead. And so then Jomoni and Klaus
(41:06):
Fitz both kind of come at that same observation of this man as
an amazing leader. How do we distill translatable,
like something that we can put into a textbook or put into a
Military Academy or put into a boardroom?
How do we take those essences ofleadership and apply them?
Both are trying to do that. And that's what we still try to
(41:26):
do today, is try to understand how we can translate what he did
to our world. Yeah, and I'm glad you hit upon
that last part, the leadership part of it.
Like he knew how to talk to the general foot soldier in
management by walking around, share a meal with him, but he
also knew how to inspire his generals and Marshalls to work
harder and do things that no oneelse had done before.
And he was an operator, right? Napoleon knew what was going on
(41:49):
on the battlefield. He was not a pie in the sky
thinker, right? He was not Germany.
And Klaus Fitz, he knew what wartook.
He had his checklist. He had all of this idea of the
nitty gritty technical dimensions of war that Germany
would say that's what makes Napoleon so great.
That's part of what makes Napoleon so great.
(42:10):
But that's not all of what Napoleon had, right?
He had that system and he had those technic technical
checklists, but he also had thatcommander's eye.
And that's I think where when hetalks to the marshals, when he
engages with the marshals, the reason why they follow him is
not because he knows everything on the battlefield.
It's because they're like, I didn't see that.
I didn't see that you did and that's why you're in.
(42:32):
Charge right and you know, Wellington said.
You know his hat's worth 40,000 men.
The morale, the army went up, the marshals knew that he was
going to put them the right place to win there.
There was a lot to to his leadership.
Absolutely. Yep.
The trust, right? Trust that this is this is
someone who knows what he's doing and how to inculcate that.
OK. Final question.
I'm not going to hold you to it.Who do you like better, Germany
(42:56):
or Klaus Witz? I have an answer to that.
I've tried to play both sides right.
I've tried to tried to kind of give a fair accounting, but I'm
a Klaus Vitzian guy. I think that ultimately, and I
say that on two different levels, one is as an educator, I
find Klaus fits significantly more useful in the classroom.
I like to ask thought provoking questions and Klaus Fitz is
(43:19):
fantastic for asking thought provoking questions and watching
students wrestle and me being able to say like, well, and then
I throw something else at them in there and that is that's so
good and I think it's valuable. And Germany doesn't really give
me that. I can, I can almost do a
multiple choice test to see the light go on for students with
Germany. And I like a fluid classroom
(43:42):
environment. But I also like Klaus Fitz
because I am relatively convinced by the idea that he is
easier to apply to a myriad of situations.
And because he's more difficult to apply in some ways, he's more
malleable, less rigid. And that malleability I think is
critical for today. It's critical for us
understanding the past and understanding and using that
(44:05):
historical analysis aspect of it.
But it's also critical for military thinkers today to not
be caught off guard when something shows up on their
checklist that wasn't there yesterday.
I think that's a great point. I, I tried to read Marshall
Marmont's book on war and, you know, basically his memoirs.
It was, it was kind of a technical manual.
It's almost like too dense to read.
And I, I wasn't getting a lot out of it.
(44:26):
And yeah, I think Klaus, would you get more, like you said,
theory and stuff that makes you think it's not just like a field
manual. It's not a field manual and, and
again, we live in a a rapidly changing environment that Klaus
fits is not a perfect fit for One of the things I always tell
my my students is we read Sunsu,we read Klaus.
It's we, I, I allude to Germany.We read a little bit of little
heart. We read a little bit of a few
(44:49):
other theorists that we might, we might include.
I love theory, so I'll always try to try to throw more at
them. But I, I, I always say, Hey, we
just talked about the bunch of dead guys, right?
Like they're all like, what is one of the redefining
characteristic of a military theorist?
They're dead, right? And that's problematic in some
ways that we, we, we need to at least be aware of who is writing
(45:14):
at the time, which is one of that's, or who's writing at our
time and who is writing for our time.
So to go back to one of the things that Jomani does so well
is he's a theorist in that is respected and understood and,
and engaged with in his time. And that allows him to be
flexible, allows him to shape itallows him to be an active
participant in the military culture of multiple generations
(45:38):
really. And that's hard to quantify the
value of being alive and being athinker.
Maybe one of the students in your class is the next, you
know, critical thinker and genius like, you know, the next
Stephen Ambrose or, or of this generation, like who's a
military historian that's going to be pushing these ideas
forward 80 years from now. Absolutely.
(45:59):
And at at the Naval War College,we go back to Admiral James
Stockdale, who? Well, Stockdale, but also
Stansfield, Turner, both of those, they are thinkers and
they were Admirals, right? You know, they're they're
Admirals who were thinkers who would talk about the books that
you've read and talk about the ideas that you've engaged with
and the way that that makes you better on the battlefield and
better able to win. Does that mean that you should
(46:21):
not read Germany? No, that means you should read
Germany, right? You should read Germany so that
you can engage with those ideas.Yes, maybe recognize the more
technical aspects of it, but it's one of those old dictums,
beware the man of one book. And I think that's one of the
dangers of Klaus Fitz and his preponderance of authority in
(46:42):
the modern professional militaryeducation circles is the one
book. And it's like we need to, we
need to go beyond Klaus Fitz andGermany is a important and
critical counterpoint to that. Yeah, our son Sue or Machiavelli
or any of the old books. Absolutely.
All right, my friend. Well, again, Josh, thanks for
joining us. If you want to check out Josh,
he has two books on Amazon that I highly recommend.
(47:03):
And yeah, we were thrilled to have him on the show.
This was fantastic. Out of blast as well.
Hopefully we I want to convince people of the relevance of some
of these theorists, right? It's not just I will say trying
to read Klaus Vitz. I'm not going to go out and say
go read Klaus Vitz because that like read snippets and I know
that's bad form, right? But it is hard to read
(47:25):
sometimes. Engage with it, engage with the
ideas, engage with the principles, and we'll better
understand the Napoleonic era and our own at the same time
through looking at theory like this.
Amen.
Welcome back to Generals and Napoleon.
We are very excited to have a new guest on the line, the great
Joshua Meeks from the US Naval War College.
How are you, Joshua? I'm doing great.
How are you? I'm good, I'm good.
Thanks for joining us. For those of you not familiar
with Josh, he is a professor at the Naval War College and he
also has two books out on Amazonthat I recommend you check out.
(00:20):
Josh, can you give to the uninitiated kind of overview of
your career and the books? Absolutely, yeah.
I was a graduate student at Florida State and as part of the
Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution, which really
formed a lot of my my early career in particular, which and
that led to my dissertation. Dissertation turned in the first
book, which was on the struggle for the revolutionary western
(00:42):
Mediterranean, looking specifically at Britain and
France and how they weaponized diplomacy and even ideology to a
certain extent during the war ofthe first coalition.
That was a fun. It was a great book.
I had a lot of fun writing it and I still have a deep, a deep
love for the Mediterranean. And then my from there I got got
(01:03):
connected with Ramen Littlefield, who asked me to put
together a reference guide for Napoleon and his life and works.
And the way I approach that, it's essentially a single author
encyclopedia was the way they pitched it.
But I was like, that's not very fun.
So what I did was think of it asa deconstructed biography that
went alphabetical instead of chronological.
(01:24):
So it's a, it's a short smallishin terms of a biography of
Napoleon. It's relatively relatively short
and svelte and mostly used as a reference work, but it was a fun
project to write as well. I like that it's alphabetical
order and and Waterloo kind of works perfectly for.
That it's a, it's a capstone, right?
It absolutely is. And yes, Dan, I, I got a job at
the US Naval War College, which is primarily teaching strategy.
(01:45):
And it's a different type of history, right?
Using history to think about strategy as opposed to using
history for its own sake. So there's a different spin on
what I do. Well, what's interesting, and
that's our topic for today, we're going to talk about Klaus
Witz and Jomini, who are two military strategists, and they
were both really good readers and they were both very good
(02:07):
writers. And you would think, well, how
can I learn strategy without being on the battlefield, right?
But that's kind of what these two gentlemen did.
I mean, they were on the battlefield, but they also read
and wrote a lot. I, I think some might quibble
with Klausowitz being a good writer.
He's turgid. His German prose is turgid at
best. But no, I mean, I completely
agree, right? That, and this is, this is one
of the, the things that I wrestle with, not wrestle with,
(02:29):
but engage with on a day-to-day basis in my job, which is
talking about strategy, talking about theory, talking about this
idea. And I don't have military
experience myself, so I'm teaching military officers as an
academic. And there is sometimes somebody
skepticism that comes into that if you don't know what it is
that you're talking about. As we could say with Klaus Fitz
(02:50):
and Germany that they both, theywere on battlefields.
I will say they were active dutyon battlefields, getting engaged
there. But they're not the principal
military leaders of the day. They are the people who are
thinking about the principal military leaders of the day.
Right. And I was kind of equated the
guy behind the guy, kind of likeMarshall Bertie.
Like you don't hear a lot about him, but he was the guy behind
Napoleon. Absolutely.
(03:11):
And he also really didn't like Germany, so.
No, he did not, and we'll get into that in just a minute.
Before jump into the episode, Josh, you gotta read a little
disclaimer report. I'm in an individual capacity.
My views here do not represent the views of the Department of
Defense, U.S. government, Department of the Navy, US Naval
War College or anything therein.So yeah, that's thank you for
(03:32):
that. Just me, Just me here, Not the
naval war. Just your views that going
forward. Gotcha.
OK, so let's dive into their biographies really quick.
It's funny, they're both born around the same time.
Klausowitz was born July 1780 inMagdeburg, Prussia, and Joe
Minnie was born March 1779 in Switzerland.
Their upbringings, nothing spectacular, I would say, right?
(03:53):
And they just kind of both joined the army.
Yeah. Well, so Klaus Fitz, he is a
career like he, he joins the military, joins the Army very
early on, like he is, he is there, you know, as a 13 year
old, right. Like his career is essentially
always going to be that, whereasGermany is supposed to be a
banker, right? That's what his dad wants him to
be. That's what he goes to school
(04:14):
for. And he ends up being a banker in
Paris and I think 1796. And, but from the from an early
age, he is fascinated by military ideas.
He, he writes even at an early age of wanting to get involved
in the military. But his as we, you know, his dad
wants him, wants him to be a banker.
And then he starts out doing that.
(04:35):
But when he gets to Paris in 1796, as often happens in these
right, these moments of flux, he's there and opportunity
presents itself and he catches the eye of of Marshall Net,
right. He kept he catches the eye of
people involved in the military and gets his ambition to join
the military realized through really just not not a
(04:58):
predestined career in the way that Klaus Fitz was always going
to be part of the military. Germany comes in and says, I, I
want this. And he uses that ambition and
uses really a way with words to become a military member and a
part of the military, Despite that in his early years he
wasn't necessarily destined for that in the same way that Klaus
was. Right.
Yeah. I was reading about this and I
(05:19):
found it interesting. First of all, people always say
what a blockhead Marshall Ney was, but obviously the guy was
reading and trying to learn strategy wherever he could.
So Jomini publishes this book, and I think Ney actually helps
him publish it and gives him money for it.
And the interesting thing is Napoleon Murray, one of his
ministers, read it to him. And he said, quote, here is a
young battalion commander, a Swiss at that, who teaches us
(05:41):
what my teachers never taught meand what very few generals
understand, but my entire systemof war.
We must seize this book and prevent it from spreading.
End Quote. I just find that fascinating.
Yeah, yeah. And that is what Jomany does
early on and constantly is he thinks and he writes and he is
quite good at that, right. You know, there's, there's some
(06:02):
criticisms you we can eventuallylevel at Jomany, but in terms of
his observations, he's sitting there again, not with a lot of
military training, just as a keen, intelligent and dedicated
observer of the Napoleonic military system.
And as he writes ideas, suggestions, engagements,
engagements with it, the people who are in that military system
(06:24):
read it and say that's high quality, that is worthwhile.
Yeah, and he eventually becomes chief of staff, the Marshall
Navy. We'll come back to him in a
minute with Klaus Wits. I think it's also interesting.
He had a very influential guy, atutor much like the most the
great generals do, and that's General Sharnhorst, who again is
a reformer. He wants to make over the
Prussian military after their defeat at Jana Auerstadt.
(06:45):
And he learned, I think, for three years under this
Sharnhorst, who's one of the best generals in the Prussian
army. Absolutely.
There's some people who argue, and I don't necessarily disagree
with this, that later on Clausewitz gets this label as a
prophet of Napoleon, an apologist for Napoleon, someone
who is who is uses Napoleon as the as this exemplar of what
(07:07):
military strategy should be. And he does.
When you read Clausewitz, you'relike, wow, he references he was
clearly deeply influenced by Napoleon.
A lot of that is actually, I would read it as not putting
himself in Napoleon shoes or in Napoleon staff.
It's putting himself in Charn horse shoes, in on Charn horse
staff, which is where he actually was.
So he thinks when he thinks of the Napoleonic era and
(07:28):
Napoleonic age, he's largely thinking of it almost as an
office from an opposition's perspective because of this
experience that he has it deep, deep in the Prussian military
establishment. Yeah.
And I think there's something tobe learned, obviously, from
Napoleon. The guy won 60 battles and lost,
what, 8? And I think Zhomini and
Klausowitz both had the opportunity to work under
(07:50):
Napoleon at one point in their career.
You know, the Russian invasion and Zhomini more than that.
So I think they both learned from a master of warfare, which
was Napoleon, right? They did though.
An interesting contrast, almost in a personality aspect here is
the Germany is. I'm not going to say mercenary.
Mercenary is the wrong word, buthe is someone who cares more
(08:10):
about his ideas being listened to and less about any fealty to
a specific state. Later on he will kind of say
like, hey, I really don't want to invade Switzerland, right?
I don't think that's a good idea.
I'm Swiss, right? Like, let's not do that.
But for the most part, he's like, OK, the French are
listening to me. So that's where I'm going to
spend my career. When the French stopped
listening to him, he goes to someone who will listen to him,
(08:33):
which is the the Russians. He doesn't care that much about
the ideological polarization that's going on in the
Napoleonic Wars, whereas Classitz does when Prussia
allies with France, kind of thatforced alliance after in 1806,
he that's when he goes and joinsthe Russians.
He's like, I don't want to be with Napoleon.
I don't agree with the Napoleonic conquests.
(08:56):
I will put myself opposite Napoleon, wherever that might
be. And obviously for a time it's
almost nowhere. He doesn't go to Britain, right?
He doesn't go that far. He doesn't speak English, I
don't think. Yeah, it's, it's interesting,
kind of the wheels fall off for both Jomini and Klauswitz.
After the Russian invasion, Jomini's arguing Marshall Ney
(09:17):
more often. Jomini, I believe, was got to be
promoted by Marshall Ney. I think out there it was a
Boutsen or Lutsen, one of those,and Marshall Bertier, in his
typical bickering ways, denied it and then ordered Jomoni to be
arrested for not sending in, I think, a troop status report on
time. Yeah, which is, you know, depend
and this is one of those that ifyou read Jomoni, he's like what
(09:39):
up trumped up charges, right. This is this is completely
ridiculous. How dare I would I think there
is some merit to Jomoni not actually doing a great job at at
the tail end of the the the Russian invasion, right.
Like, he's he's distracted. He's not, he's not.
Doesn't do a great job. Does he deserve to be arrested?
Probably not. There's some personality issues
(10:00):
that come in with Ney and Bertier as well there.
But ultimately, yeah, regardlessof whose side you want to
believe in terms of how big of adeal it was, he was his name was
struck from the promotion list. He was arrested briefly.
And largely, I don't want not discredited from his ideas, but
discredited as a effective general, right.
(10:21):
I mean, he's a general, yeah. Yeah, and I read Marshall,
General Marbeau's memoirs, and Germany changes size.
He goes over to the Russians. Now we'll get into it.
Why? It's not necessarily turn coding
because he always had a Commission.
Was it the Russian army or he had a dual Commission?
So it wasn't necessarily. But still, to the French, it's
like, well, you're leaving us. Yeah, and you're leaving us.
(10:43):
It's not that you're leaving us when we're allies, you're you're
leaving for the Russians after we're we're clearly like that,
that that dual Commission that kind of somewhat.
And I think again, I think actually Germany somewhat
oversells the amount to which heI think he did have a dual
Commission, but it was not he paints it as he was this hot
(11:03):
commodity, right when Germany writes about this, he says, I
was this hot commodity. The Russians wanted me, the
French wanted me. Everybody wanted Germany.
And so then the French didn't want him.
So he's like, so I went to wherethe I went to where the money
was. I went to where the interest
was. They still want me.
I'm going there. I think that's overselling it a
bit. And especially in terms of how
engaged the Russians were with trying to get Germany from the
(11:27):
French. You know, I think of in sports
terms, right? He's not actually a free agent.
Who's this hot commodity. It's it's almost like the French
wave him and then the Russians pick him up off of Wickham.
That's a good analogy, yeah. But you look at I was out
Dresden, all right, So Czar Alexander's like, all right, I
can't beat Napoleon. I want to get Bernadotte in
there. I want to get Moreau in there.
(11:48):
I want to get Jomini in there. Like I want to get his guys who
know how to beat him working on my team.
Absolutely, yeah. And, and Jomini does have a
reputation, again, not as this brilliant field commander, but
as a brilliant thinker, as someone who does know the
systems incredibly well. And so his value to the Russians
was never going to be, you know,lead, you know, win this, this
(12:11):
battle For me, it was going to be a systematic, like
understanding the system that Napoleon was able to employ so
brilliantly. And you can see that even very
quickly. He gets involved, not just in OK
staff work and and leading troops.
He gets involved in education, right?
That's one of his primary roles when he goes into gets involved
in Russia is teach. Figure out the the best way to
(12:33):
teach these theories, to teach these ideas because that's your
strength. All right, so now we'll just
jump ahead. You know, Napoleon obviously
loses 18141815 again at Waterloo, so the Napoleonic Wars
are over. So then there's all these
memoirs that come out, there's analysis, and then Klaus
switches book, which is actuallypublished by his widow, right?
(12:54):
He's just working on it. And he dies of cholera, I think
in 1831. So he dies before he gets to
really pull it together, right? Is that kind of how it comes
out? Absolutely.
He is a call it a perfectionist,but he's constantly refining his
work right on war. His his big, big book.
He is constantly refining it to up until his death.
(13:14):
And so when he passes away before his time, really his wife
Marie, she takes it and edits it, finishes it in a lot of
ways. And there's some debate there of
how much are we reading Clouds? Where how much are we reading?
Marie, I'll put a plug in from one of my colleagues here at the
Naval War College. Vanya Bellinger is one of the
(13:34):
experts on Marie Klaus Fitz and she's excellent.
I highly recommend her work if you're interested in Marie
Klaus. But regardless, right, his book
comes out posthumously and it isit is finished, right?
It does. We can now dig deep and say
like, oh, that, that looks like one of those parts that was
unfinished, but it is a completework, right?
We could write. There's elements that I would
(13:54):
have liked. I know he would have developed
further even in terms of things like not quite insurgency, but
in counterinsurgency. But he has thoughts on small
wars. He has thoughts on things that
are not fully developed and on war, that in a alternate world
in which he has a long and healthy life, he he's going to
write more and he's going to flesh out these ideas.
(14:16):
So with that said, Jomini does have a long lives.
He advises a few Russian czars. He also comes back to France,
which is shocking to me, and advises Napoleon the Third in
his Italian campaign. So he gets to have that full
life and really flesh out his works, correct?
He does flesh out is one way to say it.
(14:38):
He does he does refine his work,right?
He does continually refine his work.
But there's a question of whether he does that in pursuit
of perfection or whether he doesthat in pursuit of publication.
Because he is what every time he, he makes a new his, you
know, his, his main main work called the Art of War, not to be
confused with Sun Tzu, but summary of the Art of War preces
(15:00):
on the art of war. There are so many editions.
I want to say it's, it's well over 10 editions.
I think it's close to 20 editions that are not that
distinct. So there's this argument I kind
of buy into a little bit that Jomani's refinement of his work
is not quite the same as when when you see Klaus Fitz refining
his work and not even publishing, it's because he's
(15:21):
pursuing perfection. Whereas Jomani, he's like, no,
make a tweak here or there. I'll I'll edit this.
I'll change that and resell it and get.
Money. So is that George Lucas making
minor changes to Star Wars and pumping it back out?
I think a little bit, right, Youknow, he is, again, there's a
not mercenary, I think. I do think that's the wrong
(15:41):
word. But but Germany is not just
concerned about the purity of the work.
He's concerned about his own reputation, right?
He's concerned about maintainingthat reputation.
And he does have because he lives that long life.
Also, something I think is worthnoting, because he writes in
French and then is translated toEnglish, Klaus does not write in
(16:02):
front in French or English and it takes a while for him to be
translated. He writes in German.
It is somewhat turgid at times, and Germany is popular in the
19th century in particular. He forms and shapes his own
popularity. Props to him.
Right? Like I'm not going to begrudge
him that. But when we look at their
relative importance and weight over the course of their
(16:24):
careers, that's those two factors are pretty important.
One, Clauswitz dies. And the second being that again,
Clauswitz is writing to a Prussian world.
And the Prussian world in 1820 is not particularly important or
impressive. It's only when Bismarck comes
around and people like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are these?
Prussians read it right? And they're like, oh, they're
reading this weird Clauswitz guy.
(16:46):
Let's let's see if there's value.
And yeah, Germany dies in 1869 in France, oddly enough, lives
out his life there. But even when the two were alive
at the same time, they didn't always agree with each other.
And we're gonna kind of get intothe differences here.
I'm going to talk about philosophy of war first, and
these are just bullet points forme.
Klaus Witz's theory on philosophy of war.
(17:07):
War is a continuation of politics by other means,
Emphasizes wars, chaotic, unpredictable political nature
and views wars shaped by moral forces, chance and friction.
Whereas Jomeni says no, no, no. War is more of a science
governed by principles and formulas.
Focuses on geography, logistics and lines of operation.
(17:28):
Love logistics, by the way, and believes in universal principles
that can guide generals to victory.
So as an aside here, I have heard this said, though I
haven't tracked it down, that Jomeni actually essentially
invents the word logistics. I've heard that too, yeah.
I haven't done the the deep diveto track it and say no, it's he.
(17:48):
I don't have a strong opinion onthat.
But yeah, he's a logistics guy. It's interesting that you know
principles where any generals can win.
I mean, there's good generals and bad generals as we know in
history. But if you can focus on
logistics like the Duke of Wellington did, you give
yourself a better chance of winning?
Absolutely. And and so there's actually
that's a really good way of, of nuancing Germany because I think
(18:09):
I do think that Germany, and I'll start with Germany real,
real quick here, because I thinkthat Germany gets get his work
is often viewed in caricature tothat it is just science, right?
It is just these general principles.
It's a checklist. And if you follow the checklist,
you're going to win. And I think that's an
oversimplification because he does acknowledge that war writ
(18:31):
large as this big idea, this bigthing is more complex than a
checklist can, can really give you, right?
Like that it is affected by variables and factors that are
going to be outside the control of the commander.
He gets that right. And that's something we
generally associate more with Klaus Fitz, which is fair.
But what Jomani does say is thatbattle, if we want to kind of
(18:54):
put it simply, or strategy more large, like if you're asking the
question of how do I win within these constraints, you can do a
checklist, right? And that the result of that
checklist is that it's going to give you, if you follow these
principles, if you follow these formulas in this checklist, it
is going to give you the best possible chance to achieve
victory in war. Does it guarantee it?
No, but it will give you that big leg up.
(19:18):
I think that's a great point. And Napoleon always talked about
luck, like I want lucky generals, but what he meant by
that was generals who did the hard work before the battle.
But there is luck. There is the rainstorm the night
before Waterloo. There's the snowstorm the middle
of the Battle of Ilao that blinded Ozuru's cork.
So there's definitely things youcannot scientifically predict.
Absolutely. And, and again, I, I speak
(19:39):
against kind of this caricature of Germany as just formulas.
And that's part of what I think is often missed with his, with
his work. That being said, he does often
emphasize formulas and he does say war is or strategy is, is a
science can be scientific, that there are right answers.
(20:03):
And I think that's kind of the the big distinction to make and
how they are viewing war in general is that Germany would
say if you ask a question, thereis almost always going to be a
right answer to that question. Question and it might we might
have to go through some branch and colas right?
Like it might get complex but there is a right answer.
Klausfitz on the other hand, andthis is something that we say in
(20:24):
my classes all the time we Klausfitz says it depends,
right? Like what's I'm going to ask you
a question and you're going I want you to give me an answer
but really the answer 9 times out of 10 is it depends and then
you go into this what does it depend on?
Well, it depends on on what it depends right?
It gets this incredibly murky fuzz, right.
(20:44):
One of the phrases that we oftenassociate with Klaus Fitz is the
fog of war. And I like to think of, you
know, you know, we have the, theliteral fog that he's on the, on
some of these battlefields wherefog is playing a pretty
important role. And he is informed by that idea
of fog and friction almost as literal things, even though he's
thinking of them more conceptualin terms of what fog and
(21:07):
friction are. But he he breathes that in that
fog and friction are part of what strategy is.
Agreed. Let's look theory versus
application. As you mentioned, Klauswitz's
book on war is often dense. It's hard to read and it's and
it's unfinished and it seeks to understand the nature of war,
not just how to win. Zhomani is more practical.
(21:28):
His His Art of War book outlineshow to conduct campaigns and
wrote with military officers andstaff in mind, offering clear
examples. You agree with that?
I do. And especially in the
philosophical element that KlausFitz, I mean he's a post
enlightenment or even intra enlightenment thinker.
He's writing essentially A Gallian dialectical
(21:50):
philosophical work about war. And that's one of the reasons
that it is both harder to engagewith and was hard.
It took a while to pick up steam.
It's also, I would argue, and wecan talk about this later, but
it's one of the reasons that it has persisted a little bit more
than Germany is because it has that philosophical element that
you can point to almost like, oh, I'll use this in this
(22:11):
context, regardless of whether we're talking about space or
whether we're talking about mountains and logistics, right?
Like there's it's, it's widely applicable.
And the other element that that goes into that is, and this goes
back to the previous point, but Klaus says when he says war is
politics by other means, a continuation of politics depends
on how you translate it. But politics is flexible, right?
Politics is variable. And so at it's very foundational
(22:35):
philosophical level, he's sayingbecause war is determined by
politics and is affected and always influenced by politics,
it's always going to be fuzzy and a a very human endeavor.
And that leads to this abstraction, right, that it's
all kind of theory and print andtheory and I and funny ideas
(22:58):
rather than here's the right answer.
Well, I think that's a great point.
Back in college, I majored in political science, but politics,
as you mentioned, it's murky. There's Gray elements to it.
So to to extend politics throughother means that just, it's just
as murky. There's a, there's, there's some
when, when people write about Clausfitz in particular, one of
the things that they, they note,which is an interesting talking
(23:19):
about academic circles even today, political science,
Strategic Studies, and it's odd bedfellows with political
science, but they, they get along quite well.
And one of the reasons that Klaus Fitz is, is difficult to
use in Strategic Studies sometimes is because Klaus Fitz
is so murky, right? We're not talking about
independent, independent variables, right?
We're not going to be able to graph Klaus Fitz and and bring a
(23:41):
method section down at the at the end of the paper.
That's really hard to do using acloset in principles, if not
impossible. It's not what he intended to do,
but I think within that there iswhen thinking about theory
versus application. It's a, it's an interesting
almost terminology problem because we use Klaus, it's as
theory, right? We say Klaus Fitz is a theoret
(24:01):
is is theoretical. And when we say those words
today, we tend to kind of have this pie in the sky abstract
principles that are very theoretical.
That's often actually not how Klaus Fitz and Germany would
have like would have articulatedit.
Clausfitz would actually antagonize theory in a lot of
ways because theory is this framework through which we can
(24:24):
get those right answers. And Clausfitz is more interested
in is this process, a broader process that can go in many
different murky directions and is very ill defined.
Whereas Germany is this is the theory.
The theory is this these this rules and principles and very,
very direct and discreet and specific lessons that we can so
(24:46):
he Germany is practical to an tothe NTH degree, right?
He only wants practicality. Right.
Well, this next point is I want to talk about it after I go
through the bullet points, but their respective views on on the
Commander Clausewitz emphasizes the role of genius, intuition
and judgement under uncertainty and says great commanders adapt
to changing conditions and political goals.
(25:09):
Germany idolizes systematic decision making and clear
strategic rules and believes success depends on correctly
applying set principles. The Duke of Wellington used to
say this about Marshall Salt. He said he was a smart guy, but
when he got to the battlefield, he was kind of like stuck in his
battlefield and couldn't adapt to changes.
And that's why Wellington alwaysbeats Salt.
(25:30):
Like he just he couldn't move off of his plane once it was in
motion. And I think that's what
Klauswitz is kind of talking about here.
And it's fascinating, right? Because we have this question of
Napoleon, right? Both of these thinkers look at
Napoleon and are trying to say, why did Napoleon wipe the floor
(25:50):
with us or he just wins? What is going on here?
This doesn't make a great deal of sense in the arc and
trajectory of European military history, right?
This is an aberration. What's going on?
Is it because, as Germany would say, is it because Napoleon has
perfected a system? He is such a strict adherent to
(26:13):
his system and his system is just better than any other
system that go that that exists right now.
So it's a systems battle. And the better system, of
course, the better system alwayswins. 4 is always greater than
three. There is no way that you can
have three be greater than 4, right?
It's a math equation and it's simple, right?
(26:34):
Why that is Napoleon win because4 is greater than three done
right, whereas what Clauswitz would say is what Napoleon does
better. It's not the system.
The system is brilliant. He doesn't begrudge that right?
But this is where Charnhorse comes in and he would say
Charnhorst has a great system, his reforms and his system is
actually really impressive in its own way.
(26:55):
And it's not that Napoleon just has the best system.
He also has the best. You know, Clauswitz would say
the coup de Oy, right, the commanders I that when he looks
at the battlefield, he is seeinghow to employ that system.
And going to the previous point,he is the one of the purest
expressions of war and politics being intertwined and just being
(27:17):
very healthy. Not now healthy maybe is the
wrong word because it's maybe unhealthy to have war in
politics as entwined as they arein the person of Napoleon.
But that's proof for Klaus Fitz that Napoleon is this genius.
And the question then becomes not how do you Rep replicate
genius? Because that's almost a fool's
errand, right? You can't really replicate
(27:38):
genius. What you can do is replicate the
conditions in which the genius operates.
Well, I think that's what Jomeniis saying.
Like I'm just going to follow the systems of the genius.
Like Josh Meeks and John Vescardo could take piano
lessons from Mozart and Beethoven for 100 years and
still not be as good on the piano.
You know, we're just, we don't have that talent.
But I think that's what Jomeni is saying is like, well, we can
(28:00):
just study his systems and not worry about the genius that he
has. Yes, and that is that's, that's
true. And I think you're right, Right.
So what Germany is saying in essence is we, we want to create
a system in which geniuses, we don't need a genius to succeed.
We have technicians, but I had two sisters who played piano,
not me, but one of them took piano for 12 years and she was a
(28:22):
technician at the piano, right? She would she could play a piece
that was set in front of her. Another one was an artist,
right? And she would have a temper
tantrum and sit at the piano andcompose a song.
And when they played the same piece of music, you could tell
the difference. I don't know how I'm sure that
musical theorists would say, butI'm a strategy theorist and this
(28:43):
is right where you can see the difference between someone who
knows how to win a battle because they read the book and
they're doing very good at that.That's a Jominian approach.
And then you can see the geniuses, right?
The people who know who have that, that that particular eye
and that artistic sense. And Klaus Fitz is Morse is
(29:05):
saying that you can be an artist.
I'm not saying you can be Van Gogh, right?
But I'm going to try to teach you how to be an artist and to
identify those incredibly flexible and dependent moments
where you as the artist get to shape the canvas of the
battlefield in your own way. Whereas John is saying, I'm not
(29:26):
going to teach you how to be an artist, I'm going to teach you
how to be a technician, right? I'm going to teach you how to do
things right. Well, I think, you know, that
was one of the great complaints about the marshals is people
would say, why didn't Napoleon just teach the marshals how to
do what he's doing? And I don't you probably you
can't teach genius like we were saying.
Right And well, that's an interesting, you know, clause
fits wouldn't would agree, rightthat you can't teach genius, but
(29:49):
that you can allow for creativity and you can create.
If your system is such that it does not allow for and encourage
creativity, it's going to be a worse system because it's not
acknowledging the reality of thebattlefield.
And that's that's a huge distinction between them, is
that Germany is limp trying to eliminate the unknowns in any
(30:11):
battlefield. And Klaus Fitz says that's a
fool's errand. You cannot eliminate that, that
blank space for the art to create.
And So what we should be doing is teaching people how to work
within that blank space. Yeah, it's interesting.
Napoleon gave his Marshalls someindependence, but you know he
was also giving orders like all the way from Paris into Spain
(30:33):
and Portugal. And it doesn't always work that
way if you have an independent guy somewhere.
Talented Messena and Devue come to mind.
But some were not and and you could see in the results.
Absolutely. And that this is what's great,
right, is that you can see how both thinkers are looking at the
exact same situations and comingto very different conclusions
about what is making this systemwork or or fail.
(30:56):
And both are right. It depends, right?
You're right. It depends.
Yeah, Murky again. Yeah.
OK, let's talk tactical and strategic emphasis.
Klauswitz is less concerned withtactical specifics, more about
the interplay between politics and strategy, and sees Total War
and limited war as parts of a spectrum.
Jomani says there should be a strong focus on operational
(31:18):
planning, interior lines, decisive points and base of
operations, and champions the idea of a Napoleonic
concentration of force and maneuver.
And that's fair. Well, though class Fets is also
aired. If we're going to just take one
of the Clausewitzian principles,that really is all is equally A
Jominian principle. It is concentrate your forces at
(31:39):
the decisive point. The the question then becomes
how do you determine the constant, the decisive point and
how do you concentrate your forces?
And there are some differences in how they approach that.
But the core idea of this is what you should be doing.
This is this is the the essence of what a battle is and a war is
even that's shared between them.This is a little bit like when
we talk about Mahon and Corbett as different, right?
(32:03):
They're they're completely different naval theorists.
They are more similar than different, but they do have some
fundamental differences about how they conceive of naval
forces being employed or land and almost even the military in
general. It's function in in war, as
Klaus Fitz and Germany would, because you're right, this is
Klaus Fitz's thinking of war as politics, as a continuation of
(32:27):
politics, as an expression of politics.
And Germany's not opposed to that.
But he would say once, once we get once war happens.
It's a math question. It's an equation that we can
solve. And Klaus Fitz is never really
comfortable with just making it into a simple equation.
It's one of the famous ideas that we get from Klaus Fitz is
(32:49):
the idea of the Trinity or the triangle.
And it's hotly debated of what exactly that is and how that's
actually going to be manifested.But for our purposes, let's just
say that it's the passion of thepeople, the realm of chance, and
then rationality of the government, and that those three
are always going to be in, and Ishouldn't say government, but
(33:09):
rationality in general. They're often associated with
passion equals people, chance equals commander, and
rationality equals government. So they get kind of connected in
there, though I don't know that Klaus Fitz always argues.
Again, it gets messy in there, but he puts those three in
tension with each other constantly.
(33:29):
And Germany is saying, yeah, sure, there's chance, but let's
eliminate that. Yeah, sure, there's passion of
the people. Put that off to the side.
When you are winning, when you're fighting a war, the only
thing that you're really concerned about is the military,
the Army, the logistics, the Howdo you determine the center of
gravity doesn't call it that, the Schwer punks.
But how do you identify that center point?
(33:52):
How do you identify that call that a day, be done with it.
That's your job. Don't worry about those other
factors. You can kind of see where
Napoleons we're sort of fate. He he got the two confused
because he was a politician. He you know, he was an emperor.
So he had to take concerns of borders and and different kings
and Queens and Princess. And before that he was just a
general, you know, annihilating armies.
(34:14):
But now he had to take in these other factors.
Absolutely, yeah. And I do think that there is,
again, there is a lot of like ifyou read the entirety of
clauses, Clausewitz is often, and we do it in my own syllabus
at at the Naval War College where we pick and choose.
We say this is what's relevant and this is what's not relevant.
And in doing so, we can get thisimage of Klaus Fitz as this
primarily political strategic thinker with an eye towards
(34:36):
operations, but not an operational tactical thinker.
And I, I don't actually know that that's fair when you read
the entirety of Klaus Fitz, because Klaus Fitz does go deep
into some of the weeds of operations and tactics.
That's just not his strength. That's not what you learn from
Klaus Fitz. That's not what what we take
from Klaus Fitz. Whereas Jomani, when he writes,
(34:57):
that's primarily what he's writing about.
And he brings that insightful, again, almost just linguistic
clarity. He's synthesizing a lot of
different ideas and he's puttingthem on paper in a way that is
still useful, right? When we're looking at
operations, when we're looking at the logistics, lines of
force, lines of lines of operation, when we're looking at
(35:17):
all of these things and we read what Jomani writes, that's
that's his strength and that's what he wants to be remembered
for in a lot of ways. And so when you ask what are
they trying to do, they're kind of trying to do different things
in certain ways, right? So it's OK for us to read them
together and not always intention.
Well, let's talk lastly about their legacy.
(35:39):
Legacy and influence. I would say of the two, Klaus
Foots is probably the more famous in terms of.
Books today he is. But maybe not then.
Yeah. So if we look at Klaus Witz, he
influenced modern strategic thought, political realism, 20th
century military planning. He also studied.
He studied in political science,military academies like yours
and leadership courses. Germany dominated military
(36:01):
education in the 19th century, especially the US Civil War era,
and is favored by general seeking clarity and actionable
guidance. Do you think that's accurate?
It is absolutely. And it's one of the things we
even wrestle with today of the difference between training and
education. And that's almost how I would
put what what happens with someone.
When you learn from Zhalmani, you are being trained on how to
(36:24):
operate on a battlefield. And when you learn from Klaus
Fitz, you're being educated on how to think about a
battlefield. And you might not be as well
trained when you get there, but you're going to be a much more
flexible thinker. And so then the question becomes
what is easier to fill in? Is it easier to have a someone
who's well trained be a good thinker, or is it easier for
someone who's a good thinker to then fill in the training?
(36:47):
And that's a difficult question even today.
Well, I think that's a great example of in this, these are
two distinct things. What is the difference between
strategy and tactics? Absolutely.
What's your what's your overall strategy of your campaign?
And then when you get to the battlefield, what is your
tactical overview? And and that's when I teach my
students, I'm trying to, you know, I get O threes and O fours
(37:09):
coming into the Naval War College.
And we have conversations where they're saying, well, I don't
care about strategy. I'm like, I get that you are not
being asked to think and operatestrategically right now, But if
you're going to tell me that youdon't care about it, you're
going to be a worse operator, right?
Like you know your stuff really well.
What I'm trying to get you to dois think about all the way up
(37:31):
the chain so that you can betterunderstand your commander's
intent on a day-to-day basis, not just plan on being the next
Admiral. Understand the admiral's mind
now is going to make you a better tactician and operator.
So there's that's that that tension the way that one of the
ways that that tension manifestsin today's.
I would argue in today's some oftoday's military, professional
(37:52):
military education. But one of the interesting
things that I want to point out with the legacy of Klaus Fitz
and the way that one of the turning points, it's actually
the Vietnam War, it's not the only turning point.
Klaus Fitz is. The other turning point that I
would isolate is the Franco Prussian wars in which Bismarck
is incredibly successful and people start looking for one of
the reasons why the Prussian military is so successful.
(38:14):
And the reason that they isolatethere is they're reading Klaus
Fitz and not just Germany. And so let's try and explain and
explore what this new theory, new theorist who has been around
in German circles for a while. But the other one that in
Vietnam is important here because this is where the the
American system that has been largely steeped in Jominian
(38:37):
approaches, it struggles significantly.
And one of the very quick reasons why we say the American
system struggled is because we did not understand the proper
relationship between politics and military goals.
And that's the cause it's talks about.
Good point. Also on the Civil War piece of
it, you know, Germany is still alive during the US Civil War,
(38:59):
and I think a lot of U.S. Army cadets studied Napoleon at
West Point and tried to apply those principles and it didn't
necessarily, you know, that's 50years after Napoleon.
So those principles don't alwayswork the same way.
Absolutely. And it's interesting that's been
the waxing the waning of Germanyright where people will say that
right and I think accurately saythat be like, well, this guy was
(39:21):
a Napoleonic thinker. What good is he for the civil
war? What good is he for the world
wars? What good is he for the Cold War
and what good is he for the postCold War?
He is not relevant for a post Cold War era.
I don't fully agree with that. I like I only part like I
understand the sentiment, but I also would would argue that the
(39:41):
ideas of concentration of force and logistics.
And even if it's not the specifics of how Germany is
thinking you're going to win a battle, that checklist
modernized to the present day isactually still quite useful.
And I think we we lose somethingby ignoring the Jominian
approach to war. The actual specifics needs to be
(40:01):
maybe updated to a modern day orto whatever day in which you're
using it, but it can be updated.The reason why Klaus Fitz is
more famous right now is that Klaus Fitz doesn't really need
to be updated that much. He's so.
Ephemeral. He's kind of like just talking
in these general ideas that it'sso easy to say, yeah,
(40:21):
concentrate, force. What does that look like?
Does that look like drones? Carriers?
Does it look like cyber? Like, what does that look like?
We can. It's going to look different,
but the principle remains the same.
The idea and the situation in which we're operating remains
the same. Culminating points.
How do you know when you've lostor won?
Yeah, I, I think those are all great points.
And it's, it goes back to like, why are why are tech leaders in
(40:44):
Silicon Valley reading about Napoleon?
Well, he got rid of old systems that didn't work and he figured
out a replicable system where hewon and won and won over and
over again. So I think that's why he's still
applicable to this. Absolutely.
And he was. And the other element that that
I think is relevant there is leadership, right?
Napoleon knew how to lead. And so then Jomoni and Klaus
(41:06):
Fitz both kind of come at that same observation of this man as
an amazing leader. How do we distill translatable,
like something that we can put into a textbook or put into a
Military Academy or put into a boardroom?
How do we take those essences ofleadership and apply them?
Both are trying to do that. And that's what we still try to
(41:26):
do today, is try to understand how we can translate what he did
to our world. Yeah, and I'm glad you hit upon
that last part, the leadership part of it.
Like he knew how to talk to the general foot soldier in
management by walking around, share a meal with him, but he
also knew how to inspire his generals and Marshalls to work
harder and do things that no oneelse had done before.
And he was an operator, right? Napoleon knew what was going on
(41:49):
on the battlefield. He was not a pie in the sky
thinker, right? He was not Germany.
And Klaus Fitz, he knew what wartook.
He had his checklist. He had all of this idea of the
nitty gritty technical dimensions of war that Germany
would say that's what makes Napoleon so great.
That's part of what makes Napoleon so great.
(42:10):
But that's not all of what Napoleon had, right?
He had that system and he had those technic technical
checklists, but he also had thatcommander's eye.
And that's I think where when hetalks to the marshals, when he
engages with the marshals, the reason why they follow him is
not because he knows everything on the battlefield.
It's because they're like, I didn't see that.
I didn't see that you did and that's why you're in.
(42:32):
Charge right and you know, Wellington said.
You know his hat's worth 40,000 men.
The morale, the army went up, the marshals knew that he was
going to put them the right place to win there.
There was a lot to to his leadership.
Absolutely. Yep.
The trust, right? Trust that this is this is
someone who knows what he's doing and how to inculcate that.
OK. Final question.
I'm not going to hold you to it.Who do you like better, Germany
(42:56):
or Klaus Witz? I have an answer to that.
I've tried to play both sides right.
I've tried to tried to kind of give a fair accounting, but I'm
a Klaus Vitzian guy. I think that ultimately, and I
say that on two different levels, one is as an educator, I
find Klaus fits significantly more useful in the classroom.
I like to ask thought provoking questions and Klaus Fitz is
(43:19):
fantastic for asking thought provoking questions and watching
students wrestle and me being able to say like, well, and then
I throw something else at them in there and that is that's so
good and I think it's valuable. And Germany doesn't really give
me that. I can, I can almost do a
multiple choice test to see the light go on for students with
Germany. And I like a fluid classroom
(43:42):
environment. But I also like Klaus Fitz
because I am relatively convinced by the idea that he is
easier to apply to a myriad of situations.
And because he's more difficult to apply in some ways, he's more
malleable, less rigid. And that malleability I think is
critical for today. It's critical for us
understanding the past and understanding and using that
(44:05):
historical analysis aspect of it.
But it's also critical for military thinkers today to not
be caught off guard when something shows up on their
checklist that wasn't there yesterday.
I think that's a great point. I, I tried to read Marshall
Marmont's book on war and, you know, basically his memoirs.
It was, it was kind of a technical manual.
It's almost like too dense to read.
And I, I wasn't getting a lot out of it.
(44:26):
And yeah, I think Klaus, would you get more, like you said,
theory and stuff that makes you think it's not just like a field
manual. It's not a field manual and, and
again, we live in a a rapidly changing environment that Klaus
fits is not a perfect fit for One of the things I always tell
my my students is we read Sunsu,we read Klaus.
It's we, I, I allude to Germany.We read a little bit of little
heart. We read a little bit of a few
(44:49):
other theorists that we might, we might include.
I love theory, so I'll always try to try to throw more at
them. But I, I, I always say, Hey, we
just talked about the bunch of dead guys, right?
Like they're all like, what is one of the redefining
characteristic of a military theorist?
They're dead, right? And that's problematic in some
ways that we, we, we need to at least be aware of who is writing
(45:14):
at the time, which is one of that's, or who's writing at our
time and who is writing for our time.
So to go back to one of the things that Jomani does so well
is he's a theorist in that is respected and understood and,
and engaged with in his time. And that allows him to be
flexible, allows him to shape itallows him to be an active
participant in the military culture of multiple generations
(45:38):
really. And that's hard to quantify the
value of being alive and being athinker.
Maybe one of the students in your class is the next, you
know, critical thinker and genius like, you know, the next
Stephen Ambrose or, or of this generation, like who's a
military historian that's going to be pushing these ideas
forward 80 years from now. Absolutely.
(45:59):
And at at the Naval War College,we go back to Admiral James
Stockdale, who? Well, Stockdale, but also
Stansfield, Turner, both of those, they are thinkers and
they were Admirals, right? You know, they're they're
Admirals who were thinkers who would talk about the books that
you've read and talk about the ideas that you've engaged with
and the way that that makes you better on the battlefield and
better able to win. Does that mean that you should
(46:21):
not read Germany? No, that means you should read
Germany, right? You should read Germany so that
you can engage with those ideas.Yes, maybe recognize the more
technical aspects of it, but it's one of those old dictums,
beware the man of one book. And I think that's one of the
dangers of Klaus Fitz and his preponderance of authority in
(46:42):
the modern professional militaryeducation circles is the one
book. And it's like we need to, we
need to go beyond Klaus Fitz andGermany is a important and
critical counterpoint to that. Yeah, our son Sue or Machiavelli
or any of the old books. Absolutely.
All right, my friend. Well, again, Josh, thanks for
joining us. If you want to check out Josh,
he has two books on Amazon that I highly recommend.
(47:03):
And yeah, we were thrilled to have him on the show.
This was fantastic. Out of blast as well.
Hopefully we I want to convince people of the relevance of some
of these theorists, right? It's not just I will say trying
to read Klaus Vitz. I'm not going to go out and say
go read Klaus Vitz because that like read snippets and I know
that's bad form, right? But it is hard to read
(47:25):
sometimes. Engage with it, engage with the
ideas, engage with the principles, and we'll better
understand the Napoleonic era and our own at the same time
through looking at theory like this.
Amen.
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