The Spirit Of The Modern System Of War

Published in English in 1806, later in the century this work had considerable influence upon Prussian and Austrian military thought.

From the ideas of Clausewitz to contemporary doctrines of containment and cold war, this is a definitive history of modern military thought. A one-volume collection of Azar Gat's acclaimed trilogy, it traces the quest for a general theory of war from its origins in the Enlightenment.Beginning with a provocative critique of Clausewitz's classic work On War, the author unravels the endemic difficulties in Clausewitz's work that have baffled scholars for so long, clearly explaining the development of his ideas against the background of the Napoleonic revolution in war and theRomantic critique of the Enlightenment. He continues the story through the strategic ideas of the Prussian-German military school during the nineteenth century, the factors that shaped the 'cult of the offensive' in the French Army before the First World War, and the competing doctrines whichdominated naval warfare during the ages of sail and steam. In the final part of the trilogy, he shows how theories of mechanized war emerged throughout the industrial world in the first decades of the twentieth century and explains why their leading exponents were associated with fascism.Drastically re-evaluating B.H. Liddell Hart's contribution to strategic theory, the author argues that in the wake of the trauma of the First World War, and in response to the Axis challenge, Liddell Hart developed the doctrine of containment and cold war long before the advent of nuclear weapons.He reveals Liddell Hart as a pioneer of the modern western liberal way in warfare which is still with us today.

The classic reference volume on the theory and practice of war The essays in this volume analyze war, its strategic characterisitics, and its political and social functions over the past five centuries. The diversity of its themes and the broad perspectives applied to them make the book a work of general history as much as a history of the theory and practice of war from the Renaissance to the present. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age takes the first part of its title from an earlier collection of essays, published by Princeton University Press in 1943, which became a classic of historical scholarship. Three essays are repinted from the earlier book while four others have been extensively revised. The rest—twenty-two essays—are new. The subjects addressed range from major theorists and political and military leaders to impersonal forces. Machiavelli, Clausewitz, and Marx and Engels are discussed, as are Napoleon, Churchill, and Mao. Other essays trace the interaction of theory and experience over generations—the evolution of American strategy, for instance, or the emergence of revolutionary war in the modern world. Still others analyze the strategy of particular conflicts—the First and Second World Wars—or the relationship between technology, policy, and war in the nuclear age. Whatever its theme, each essay places the specifics of military thought and action in their political, social, and economic environment. Together, the contributors have produced a book that reinterprets and illuminates war, one of the most powerful forces in history and one that cannot be controlled in the future without an understanding of its past.

The Habsburg Empire's grand strategy for outmaneuvering and outlasting stronger rivals in a complicated geopolitical world The Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European great power. Flanked on four sides by rivals, it possessed few of the advantages that explain successful empires. Yet somehow Austria endured, outlasting Ottoman sieges, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. A. Wess Mitchell tells the story of how this cash-strapped, polyglot empire survived for centuries in Europe's most dangerous neighborhood without succumbing to the pressures of multisided warfare. He shows how the Habsburgs played the long game in geopolitics, corralling friend and foe alike into voluntarily managing the empire's lengthy frontiers and extending a benign hegemony across the turbulent lands of middle Europe. The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire offers lessons on how to navigate a messy geopolitical map, stand firm without the advantage of military predominance, and prevail against multiple rivals.

This is a wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of warfare from the outbreak of the American War of Independence to the British conquest of Egypt. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources this book offers an unrivalled account of civil and international conflicts involving Western powers, integrating both naval and land warfare. This book covers military capability as well as conflict, social and political contexts as well as weaponry, tactics and strategy. As well as examining such major conflicts as the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the American Civil War and the Wars of German Unification, this book redresses the imbalance of previous treatments by examining other important conflicts, for example, those in Latin America, as well as insurgency and counter-insurgency in Europe. This book's global perspective provides for a more reliable assessment of what constitutes military capability. In so doing, the author challenges the technological determinism and linear conceptions of developments in military science that continue to characterise much of military history. Instead the author reveals a much more complex dynamic, indeed going so far as to question the idea of 'modernity' itself. Bold in scope, and cutting-edge in its interpretations, this book offers much for the student, general reader and professional historian alike.

Offers a chronological account of the Civil War, reexamines theories for the South's defeat, and analyzes Confederate and Union military strategy