Who was Carl von Clausewitz?
Carl Phillip Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a Prussian soldier and intellectual. [Issues regarding Clausewitz’s name are discussed Here.] He came from a middle-class social background, though his family claimed noble origins and these claims eventually received official recognition. He served as a practical field soldier (with extensive combat experience against the armies of the Revolutionary France), as a staff officer with political/military responsibilities at the very center of the Prussian state, and as a prominent military educator. Clausewitz first entered combat as a cadet at the age of 13, rose to the rank of Major-General at 38, married into the high nobility, moved in rarefied intellectual circles in Berlin, and wrote a book which has become the most influential work of military philosophy in the Western world. That book, On War (in the original German, Vom Kriege) has been translated into virtually every major language and remains a living influence
