6 - The Prussian Triangle of Leadership in the Face of a People's War: A Reassessment of the Conflict Between Bismarck and Moltke, 1870-71

Summary

THE PROBLEM

In modern history, conflicts between political leadership and military command over the conduct of war, more often than not, have tended to occur wherever there was a distinction, at least in theory, between a civilian government and the top echelons of the armed forces. This problem characterized the civil-military relations in Germany in the period from 1870 to 1945. As early as the 1820s, the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz provided an almost prophetic analysis of this issue. In fact, the relationship between politics and war was central to his famous book On War, and his thorough investigation came to a seemingly clear-cut conclusion. Following earlier suggestions by Christian von Massenbach dating back to 1795, Clausewitz demanded in time of war a well-defined hierarchy that put political leadership unquestionably above military command. It could not reasonably be otherwise, as Clausewitz s theory had demonstrated that war was nothing but an instrument of politics, “only a branch of political activity,” possessing its own “grammar” but not its own logic. It was policy that gave war its aim and determined its character. Hence, it appeared absurd to Clausewitz to suggest that the military commander in chief be allowed autonomy in decision making in order to run the war according to purely military considerations.