Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Phillip von Clausewitz (1780 - 1831) came from a middle-class background, though his family claimed noble origins. He served as a soldier (with extensive combat experience against the armies of the French Revolution and Napoleon), 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. After Napoleon's victory over Prussia, Clausewitz left the Prussian army and joined the Russian army and was appointed Chief of Staff of the Germane - Russian legion. In 1930 he was appointed as Chief of Staff to Gneisenau's army, placed on the Polish border to contain the Polish Revolution. Clausewitz has died of cholera contracted in the field.
