Romanian Military Thinking

Opinions • Arguments • Certitudes • Perspectives
«Strategie – historique, evolution»,
Commander (and General-to-be) Mordacq,
who was a teacher at the French War School,
pinpointed in the European strategic
thought two opposing schools of thought:
both of them aim to interpret the training
of the Napoleonic Wars: on the one hand,
the ideologists – led by Clausewitz –, on the
other hand, the doctrinaires, led by Jomini.
Although he praises the Prussian General’s
theories, which won his country the victory
of 1870-1871 against France, Mordacq
stresses the major criticism the school
of ideologists has met with: it flies too high,
philosophises, wanders
from the topic, talks in
abstractions and loses
sight of important and
concrete aspects of the
reality of war; it puts a
great emphasis on the
doctrinaires, who «are
very keen on learning
from the Napoleonic
epic deeds but end up losing their way and
developing one of the narrowest doctrines.
They reached the following conclusion:
the art of war cannot be refined [...]. They
aimed to reduce war to equations».
Before making a comparison, it is
important to give some pieces of information
about his life and his works. Differently
from Clausewitz – who died in 1831 – Antoine
Henry Jomini (1779-1869) took part in the
Russian-Turkish war in 1828, in the war of
Crimea during the period 1854-1856 and
in the Italian Wars of Independence in 1859
and 1866. Differently from Clausewitz,
although he had developed an early military
vocation, Jomini never did military studies
and never led units in war; he served in the
General Staff of the Great Armée and was
“ ... he has pinpointed in
the European strategic
thought two opposing
schools: on the one hand,
the ideologists – led by
Clausewitz –, and on the
other, the doctrinaires, who
followed Jomini ”
unpopular with the French Generals for his
Swiss origins because he was a parvenu,
as well as being a well-connected, touchy,
pretentious, arrogant theoretical self-taught
man. After having dedicated himself, in Paris,
to business and the Stock Exchange, in 1803
he wrote the first version of his monumental
work «Traité des grandes operations
militaires», which would be published as
a eight-volume edition in 1811-1816. In this
first version he explains his thought: the
rapid concentration of the mass of forces
at a crucial point, where he finds the secret
of the Napoleonic wars. Field Marshal Ney
is keen on his work
and gave him a job
in the General Staff.
In 1806-1807 he joined
Napoleon’s General
Staff, who had read
a new more extensive
version of «Traité».
After the peace of
Tilsitt (1807), he went
back to serve Field Marshal Ney but,
because of misunderstanding within the
General Staff, in 1810 he decided to go to
work for the Tsar. In 1812, however, he left
him because he did not want to fight the
Great Armée and
returned to work
under Napoleon,
who appreciated his
collaboration and
in 1813 appointed
him as Chief of Staff.
Even though he
distinguished
himself in this new
job, feelings of envy
came out again and,
in 1813, he returned
An Officer on the Light
Horsemen of the French
Imperial Guard
(Napoleonic era)
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