The Need for Organisational Resilience - Chapter 1

Carl von Clausewitz was born in 1780 and rose through the ranks of the Prussian Army, with an

interlude with the Russian Army that led him to experience the Napoleonic wars at Borodino. The

Battle of Borodino, fought on 7 September 1812, during the invasion of Russia by Napoleonic forces,

pushed the Russian army back from its positions, but only at the gain of a tactical victory. With no

capitulation of the Russian army in sight and the French forces ill-prepared for a prolonged standoff, it

marked the beginning of the end of the Russian campaign for Napoleon Bonaparte.

Von Clausewitz re-joined the Prussian Army, mesmerized but also disillusioned by the

Napoleonic way of thinking. He commented on Borodino that in the whole battle there was not a

single trace of an art or superior intelligence.

He was transferred to an administrative post in the Prussian Army, and found time to write down

his impressions and reflections on this remarkable period of warfare. The book On War remained

unfinished, when Clausewitz died in 1832, but his works were published in 1835 by his widow.

De Jomini was born in 1779, joining the French Army in 1797. He held staff positions under

Napoleon and Ney, but was only promoted to general de division when he joined the ill-fated

campaign against Russia on 28 June 1812. He gained first-hand experience of the Napoleonic

method, and its failure during the retreat from Moscow, which concluded in December 1812 with the

loss of around 300,000 French, 70,000 Poles, 50,000 Italians, 80,000 Germans, and 60,000 from

other nations. His thoughts about strategy were originally published in 1830, with a revised edition

eight years later.

Since then, Von Clausewitz and De Jomini have been seen as the cornerstones of military

science, and yet not without substantial criticism of their work. One aspect of the criticism of

Clausewitz relates to his preoccupation with the political sphere as a strategic variable in war;

whereas De Jomini is said to focus his attention on operational and tactical details, lacking a ‘bigger

picture’ understanding.

Both theories were developed with an understanding of current context in mind, not with an

imaginative, futuristic one. Military technology did not provide military planners with those

opportunities to kill over a great distance, in stealth, and to a far greater extent than in the Napoleonic

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