wunder beta🗺️ Jomini's Art of War
Two West Point engineers translate a Swiss general in 1862. You learn why a decisive point is not the middle of the field, and why a plan that cannot feed an army is only a drawing.
What you’ll learn
- The map on the tableIdentify this book as Jomini's 1838 Précis in the 1862 Mendell–Craighill translation, and state that war begins with a political object.West Point, January 1862. Not Sun Tzu. Six branches, with statesmanship first. Chapter I sorts wars by their reason before anyone moves a corps.
- The decisive pointState Jomini's four maxims and define a decisive point, interior lines, and a line of operations without flattening them into slogans.Mass, place, fraction, time. A point is decisive by what capture does. Interior lines are a clock. A line of operations joins base, depots, army, and object.
- How a campaign actually movesDistinguish strategy, logistics, and grand tactics, and explain why a passive defense and a copied formation both fail his test.Strategy chooses where; logistics arrives; grand tactics fights. Passive defense is pernicious. The oblique order is a conditional tool, not Jena's superstition.
- How to read him nowRead Napoleonic examples as cases, keep coup d'oeil as practiced judgment, and take his questions off the page tonight.Campaigns test relations; they are not a costume. Coup d'oeil is a glance, not a prophecy. Tonight, draw the line from object to point on any public plan.
Questions this course answers
In Jomini, what makes a point 'decisive'?
Article XIX defines decisive strategic points by their influence on a campaign or enterprise. The center is decisive only in some cases, for example when the enemy is extended or detached.
Match Jomini's branch to the job he gives it
He is explicit: strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops there; grand tactics decides the manner of execution. Statesmanship, the sixth branch, is diplomacy in its relation to war.
Put Jomini's four maxims in the order he numbers them
The 'one great principle' is this sequence of four maxims in Chapter III. Timing is the last, not an afterthought.
What kind of lines let a force concentrate faster than separated enemies can unite?
Interior lines let one or two armies oppose several hostile bodies and still mass faster than the enemy can oppose a greater force. Exterior lines risk the opposite result.
In your own words, why does Jomini call a purely passive defense pernicious?
Article XVI: the passive defense is always pernicious; the active may accomplish great successes. Article XXX repeats that the defender must know how to take the offensive at favorable moments.
Why should Napoleon's campaigns in this book not be treated as a universal formula?
Jomini uses the campaigns as a laboratory for the principle. Spain, Ulm, and Jena teach different relations. The conditions of those wars are not a costume for the next one.
Grounded in trusted sources
- Baron de Jomini, The Art of War, trans. Capt. G. H. Mendell and Lieut. W. P. Craighill, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1862. Title page: General and Aid-de-Camp of the Emperor of Russia; New Edition, with Appendices and Maps. Translators' preface, West Point, January 1862: read strategy map in hand; they tried not to add ideas. Definition of the art: six parts, statesmanship plus strategy, grand tactics, logistics, engineering, minor tactics. Chapter I articles on kinds of war. Chapter III: strategy as making war upon the map; logistics as moving armies; 'Strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point; grand tactics decides the manner of execution.' Four maxims of the fundamental principle. Article XVI: passive defense always pernicious. Article XIX: decisive points, Mack at Ulm / Donauwerth. Article XXI: interior and exterior lines. Article XXX: take the offensive at favorable moments; certain coup-d'oeil. Salamanca coup-d'oeil; Ruchel and the oblique order at Jena. Project Gutenberg ebook 13549, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13549 and https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13549/pg13549-images.html
- Internet Archive / Open Library record of the same 1862 Lippincott edition, catalogued as The Art of War by Antoine-Henri baron de Jomini, William Price Craighill, and George Henry Mendell. Confirms publisher, date, and translators against the Gutenberg transcription. https://archive.org/details/artwar00mendgoog and https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19802198W/The_art_of_war
- Christopher Bassford, Jomini and Clausewitz: Their Interaction, paper for the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, Georgia State University, 26 February 1993, hosted at ClausewitzStudies.org. Jomini 1779–1869; Précis de l'Art de la Guerre, Brussels, 1838; Mendell and Craighill, Lippincott, 1862, and the earlier Winship–McLean Putnam translation of 1854; Jomini's fundamental prescription as placing superior power at the decisive point; interior lines; the Summary as a mid-nineteenth-century military-educational text. https://clausewitzstudies.org/readings/Bassford/Jomini/JOMINIX.htm
- Thomas Zakharis, Book review: The Art of War, napoleon.org (Fondation Napoléon). Two West Point English translations: Winship and McLean, 1854, and Mendell and Craighill, 1862, Lippincott. Summarized Art of War first published 1830, updated edition 1838. Swiss birth; French then Russian service. Use for publication history, not for every biographical flourish. https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/book-review-the-art-of-war/
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