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(1780–1831), military theoretician and general. Born in western Pomerania, he entered the Prussian army in 1792. Clausewitz was an active participant in the french revolutionary wars and the napoleonic wars , which would inform his thinking. After the disastrous jena-auerstädt campaign of 1806, he was instrumental, along with scharnhorst and gneisenau , in devising and implementing the reforms which rebuilt the Prussian army. Disgusted by the Franco-Prussian treaty which preceded the campaign of 1812, he transferred into the Russian forces. However, he regained his Prussian commission in time to serve at waterloo . He was subsequently appointed superintendent of the Allgemeine Kriegsschule (War College) at Berlin. During his career Clausewitz wrote several academic studies of warfare , but his most famous work on that topic ( Vom Kriege) was unfinished at the time of his death from cholera, and was published posthumously by his wife in 1832. Said to be one of the most widely cited and least read books of all time, the work has nevertheless come rightfully to enjoy a totemic status because of the breadth, depth, and timelessness of its insights. Although it contained some advice on tactics and strategy for contemporary practitioners of warfare in the nineteenth century, its true value lay in the enduring nature of propositions such as the following: that war is a continuation ... log in or subscribe to read full text