The wars of the nineteenth century provided ample evidence of the strategic impact of
an accelerating and diffuse process of industrialization. Also, they flashed a red light to
those attentive to the significance of the national sentiment which had first made its
presence felt as a driving element in America in the 1770s, and then in France, Prussia
and Russia a generation later. The period 1 8 15–1914 concluded with a protracted conflict
between multi-million-man armies locked into indecisive combat for four and a quarter
years. There were no decisive battles in World War I, as Michael Howard reminds us,
perhaps with some overstatement (Howard, 2004: 53). That generally plausible claim was
the consequence of the state of technology, military and civilian, and the sheer scale of
the armies committed to the fight. The Great War was the temporary, if highly dynamic,
conclusion to the trends and processes discussed in this and the previous chapter, but it
would be a grave error to assume that the march from Waterloo to the Marne was entirely
linear. Clausewitz pondered the question of whether the wars of the French Revolution
and Napoleon presaged the wars of the future:
Since Bonaparte, then, war, first among the French and subsequently among their
enemies, again became the concern of the people as a whole, took on an entirely
different character, or rather closely approached its true character, its absolute per-
fection. There seemed no end to the resources mobilized; all limits disappeared in
the vigor and enthusiasm shown by governments and their subjects. Various factors
powerfully increased that vigor: the vastness of available resources, the ample field
of opportunity, and the depth of feeling generally aroused. The sole aim of war was
to overthrow the opponent...War, untrammelled by any conventional restraints,
had broken loose in all its elemental fury. This was due to the people’s new share in
these great affairs of state; and their participation, in turn, resulted partly from the
impact that the Revolution had on the internal conditions of every state and partly
from the danger that France posed to everyone...Will this always be the case in the
future? From now on will every war in Europe be waged with the full resources of
the state, and therefore have to be fought only over major issues that affect the
people? Or shall we again see a gradual separation taking place between government
and people?The Prussian concluded his speculation by observing that ‘once barriers – which in a
sense consist only in man’s ignorance of what is possible – are torn down, they are
not so easily set up again. At least when major interests are at stake, mutual hostility
will express itself in the same manner as it has in our own day’ (Clausewitz, 1976:
592–3).
Clausewitz is quoted at such length because he penetrates to the heart of primary
concerns. What was the character of European and American warfare in the nineteenth
century? Were the theorist’s fears borne out by events? Note that Clausewitz was
speculating strictly with reference to the political context of warfare, not at all to its
material conditions. For a fearful speculative glance at war’s material future, nearly
contemporary with Clausewitz’s political warning, one needs to turn to the pages of
Jomini. His most influential work, published in 1 838 , only seven years after Clausewitz’s
death, contained these somewhat prophetic thoughts:
62 War, peace and international relations