Tag: Frederick the Great

Military Policy – Antoine-Henri Jomini

Synopsis:

Institutions, systems, as well as enduring strategic principles tend to define the Jominian approach to military policy. In this way, Jomini’s tri-causal formula endeavors to allay the development of ineffective military policy via a systematic application of known effective military practices. Further, Jominian institutions – and systems – operate top-down as well as bottom-up to increase strategic effectiveness across a broad spectrum.

Excerpts:

“Military policy may be said to embrace all the combinations of any projected war, except those relating to the diplomatic art and strategy.

“Experience has constantly proved that a mere multitude of brave men armed to the teeth make neither a good army nor a national defense.

“A good army commanded by a general of ordinary capacity may accomplish great feats; a bad army with a good general may do equally well; but an army will certainly do a great deal more if its own superiority and that of the general be combined.

“Strategy alone will remain unaltered, with its principles the same as under the Scipios and Caesars, Frederick and Napoleon, since they are independent of the nature of the arms and the organization of the troops.

“If the prince has not a military education it will be very difficult for him to fulfill his duty in this respect. In this case – which is, unfortunately, of too frequent occurrence – the defect must be supplied by wise institutions, at the head of which are to be placed a good system of the general staff, a good system of recruiting, and a good system of national reserves.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Art of War, BiblioBazaar.

The Death of Persia, and the Death of Alexander the Great – Frederick the Great

Synopsis:

Frederick the Great devotes a small corner of his Anti-Machiavel to answer why the Persian Empire of Darius III did not rise again following the death of its conqueror – Alexander the Great. Rather than destroy the empire Alexander in a sense co-opted it, and used the institutions of the Persian Empire for his new Macedonian Empire. Frederick also keenly compares from a cultural/political context the nation-states of Europe in his own era with those of Alexander and Darius.

Excerpts:

“The same policy which carried the King’s ministers to the establishment of an absolute despotism to France, also taught them to distract the nation by using its lightness and inconstancy, to make it less dangerous: a thousand frivolous occupations, the trifles and the pleasures, was given in exchange for their rights and their power.

“France’s powerful armies, and a very large number of fortresses, ensure that the French Sovereign will possess the throne forever, and they do not have anything to fear now concerning internal wars or their neighbors invading France.

“The author (Machiavelli) considers these things from only one point of view. He does not discuss the structure each government has: he appears to believe that the power of the empire of Persia and the Turks was founded only on the general slavery of these nations, and on the single rise of only one man who is the absolute ruler. He is of the idea that a despotism without restriction, established well, is the surest means that a prince has to ensure reign without disorder, and resist its enemies vigorously.

“The difference of the climates, the peoples’ diets, and their level of education, establish a total difference between their way of living and of thinking – like the difference between an Italian monk and a Chinese scholar. The temperament of the English, stout-hearted but hypochondriacal, is completely different from the proud courage of the Spanish; and the French have as little resemblance to the Dutch as the promptness of a monkey-cry has with the phlegm of a tortoise.

“It was noticed from time immemorial that the custom of the Eastern people was a spirit of constancy in their practices and their old habits, of which they almost never depart. Their religion, different from that of Europeans, still obliges them in some way, for fear of trouble visiting their Masters, the company of not to consort with those which they call the infidel; and to avoid carefully all that could pollute their religion and upset the structure of their government. Here is what, in their countries, makes for security of the throne, rather than that of the monarch: the Emperors are often dethroned, but the empire is never destroyed.

*All excerpts have been taken from Anti-Machiavel, Newark Press.