The author responds:

A couple of years ago, I published an article in War and History that sought to fathom the hostility and disdain British historian John Keegan reserved for those he labeled "the Clausewitzians." Keegan's quarry, to judge by his description, were an arrogant, fanatical, and muddled lot, intolerant of deviations from their version of received truth. Having just read Azar Gat's review of my book, I'm beginning to see what Keegan was getting at. My interpretation of Clausewitz is rather different from Gat's, and my approach to writing a book on Clausewitz's legacy is not the one Gat would have taken. Therefore, I gather, the book was a crashing failure and I am a dishonest ignoramus. In failing to meet Mr. Gat's standards, however, I am fortunately not alone: "[Peter] Paret ... totally misinterprets the essence of Clausewitz's military teaching throughout his life.... [Raymond] Aron's theoretical naivete is astonishing." (Gat, Origins of Military Thought, pp.169-170.) Frankly, I'm thrilled to be abused in such company.

My goal, as I made clear (click HERE to see the actual text of the book's introduction), was not to write "a study of Clausewitz's influence." My goal was to tell the story of Clausewitz's reception—by writers whether famous or not, "influential" or not. I took great pains to distinguish reception from "influence." The distinction is important. We can trace Clausewitz's reception by what writers actually said about him. Tracing his "influence," on the other hand, requires interpretation of the actions and attitudes of vast numbers of people who in most cases have left no specific evidence of Clausewitz's impact (if any) on their views. Such an interpretation must inevitably be based on preconceptions with no basis in fact. Thus the story of Clausewitz's influence is entirely beyond any possibility of meaningful historical reconstruction. Because Clausewitz's "influence" has been the basis of so much of the writing about him, I had no wish to avoid discussing the topic, but it is not the subject of the book. Gat seems to forget that those subject to Clausewitz's "influence" were real people who hardly built their lives and world-views on the exclusive reading of one book. Few of them knew or cared anything about the complexities of Clausewitz's personal evolution. Gat's ideas on Clausewitz's reception in English are based on supposition, not research. For example, the fact that Britain underwent military reforms after 1871—even Prussian-inspired reforms—is hardly evidence for any particular interest in Clausewitz himself at that time. Although the latter expectation seems perfectly reasonable, there is unfortunately no evidence whatsoever to support it—no significant reference to Clausewitz in the British military literature or government documents of that period. Annual sales of the 1873 translation of On War were minuscule (in single digits) for a good many years afterward. Although the writing of intellectual history is often a matter of "nailing jelly to the wall," I felt some obligation to be constrained by the evidence.

In any case, I don't claim to know what Clausewitz's influence has been. Gat clearly doesn't know either. Since I made it clear that I was not seeking Clausewitz's influence, I don't understand Gat's criticism of my discussions of minor writers, like the Duke of Wellington and his circle, who had no "such influence." (Wellington's comments would be of obvious interest to most reviewers.) I did not claim that Clausewitz was "influential" in the United States via Jomini's book, although I pointed out that Jomini had made substantial adjustments to his own ideas after reading On War. In my "toying" with [other writers'] speculation about Lincoln's alleged study of Clausewitz, I concluded that there is little evidence to support such speculation. However, I did find interesting the reasons behind the speculation.

The book's treatment is specifically limited to the expressed views of English-speaking writers. Why, then, should I have provided the reader with a long discourse on works which were not known to such writers? As Gat points out, I am well aware of the problems deriving from the unfinished evolution of On War, and I informed my readers about them. However, my book was not about the evolution of Clausewitz's ideas. For that, I referred readers to works by writers like Peter Paret and even Gat himself. I am also well aware of the range of ideas concerning the proper interpretation of Clausewitz's theories. While Gat's views are sometimes interesting, they are also often very peculiar and—insofar as they relate to the ideas actually expressed in On War itself—misleading. The evidence is quite clear that few if any of Clausewitz's readers suffered from the "predicament" Gat describes.

I suspect, unfortunately, that the book's real failing was its temerity in taking issue with Gat himself at several points. For instance, Gat says in his Origins of Military Thought that in the United States and Great Britain "on the eve of the First World War ... Jomini's dominance remained unchallenged." Characteristically, he provided no evidence for this sweeping statement. It is, as I perhaps tactlessly demonstrated, flatly wrong. However, I notice in Gat's review that he has now settled comfortably into my position on this issue, without acknowledging the fact (another example of a writer's influence differing from his reception). Probably just as irritating to Gat as my reliance on actual evidence was my undisguisable distaste for his bombastic attacks on other writers.

Someone said that the reason why academic politics is so vicious is because the stakes are so small. Reviews like Gat's serve only to illustrate that unfortunate truth.
 

CHRISTOPHER BASSFORD
US Army War College

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