Talk:Carl von Clausewitz

section needs more references
In the "Theory of war" section, there are four paragraphs that have no citations whatsoever. — howcheng  {chat} 03:44, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * And none of the citations given cover this material? Have you checked, or are you just slapping tags onto articles without doing any research whatsoever? Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:16, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * As WP:V states, The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. I am unfamiliar with the topic and the source(s), so I raise my concerns and leave it to more competent individuals. — howcheng  {chat} 17:17, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * As you ar 3eunfamiliar with the subject, you are in no position to know whether it's properly sourced or not. Move on. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:00, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
 * That's ridiculous. I can see that paragraphs have no citations. As WP:V states, Attribute all quotations and any material whose verifiability is challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. Me adding cn tags is challenging the verifiability. — howcheng  {chat} 21:49, 2 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I fixed the citations.
 * LeTouchre (talk) 19:36, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

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References to On War
Today I tried to clean up the reference count by consolidating multiple uses of the same source into a single reference. There yet remain five references to On War, with all referring to different editions and translations. Some future someone should think about using one version of the work, preferably a public domain translation, for all references to the text.
 * LeTouchre (talk) 19:40, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * There';s no policy reason to prefer a PD translation. What should be preferred is an easily available modern edition, so that citations can be easily verified. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:38, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Continuation of Politics by Other Means
This quote appears in the introductory section as
 * Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which the most famous is "War is the continuation of politics by other means." 

I do not believe that is a good source for that quote. The source is to one translation of his work, and the reference does indeed contain the quote. The reference there, though, ought to be to some source that says the quote is the most famous of his quotes, not just to a source that says he said it.

The 1873 translation gives a completely different view, and it is misleading to begin the article with a (possibly) mis-interpreted quote. When seen in context of the entire passage, it becomes clear he is not making a wry statement about politics, but instead refuting the idea that politics ceases when war begins. "...war is only a part of political intercourse, therefore by no means an independent thing in itself.

We know, certainly, that war is only called forth through the political intercourse of Governments and nations; but in general it is supposed that such intercourse is broken off by war, and that a totally different state of things ensues, subject to no laws but its own.

We maintain, on the contrary: that war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. We say, mixed with other means, in order thereby to maintain at the same time that this political intercourse does not cease by the war itself, is not changed into something quite different, but that, in its essence, it continues to exist, whatever may be the form of the means which it uses, and that the chief lines on which the events of the war progress, and to which they are attached, are only the general features of policy which run all through the war until peace takes place.Book 8 Chapter 6 of 1873 translation"


 * LeTouchre (talk) 20:59, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that this is a crucial point - the German is quite clear - "mit" means with not by, and makes much better sense in the context of his work as a whole. European Prehistorian (talk) 15:32, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Translation is not the simple replacement of one word by another -- if it were, mechanical translation would have been a breeze to implement, instead it's quite difficult to do. Yes, "mit" in German generally means "with", but one has to take into account the meaning of what's being said and the grammar of the languages. "'with other means" clearly means "by the use of other means", and in English that is aphoristically better expressed as "by other mean" rather than "with other means".  I see no reason that the standard English form of the quote isn't consonant with Clausewitz' corpus. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:57, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

KurumaCè says: I think that there are several problems with saying that Clauswitz has been misquoted. The first is that the "wrong" quote and the "correct" quote are both in English, whereas Clauswitz wrote Vom Kriege (On War) in German. It's fundamentally wrong to say that any English rendering is a misquotation of the original German (and this is a problem with James R Holmes' article). We could say that Clauswitz' famous aphorism has been wrongly translated into English, or that it's just been misunderstood, but we can't really say it's been misquoted unless we're talking about the original German being misquoted in German. Also, to say that something has been "misquoted" is a very black-and-white statement. Once we say this, we're effectively denying the possibility of any legitimate discussion on how this aphorism should be translated in English.

As for the meaning of ‚mit‘; it's not unusual for any single word (in any language) to have several possible meanings, and ‚mit‘ is no exception. My mid-range Ultralingua Collins German-English dictionary app (with 85,000 entries) has 7 subsections for the meanings of this word, and it gives both 'with' and 'by' as possible English translations of ‚mit‘. (We also need to take into account that these two English words each have several different meanings.) So, translating ‚mit‘ is really not as straightforward as some people would like to say it is. A case needs to be argued, and perhaps we won't be able to arrive at a definitive answer to our question.

I think that the idea of Clauswitz being misquoted needs to be removed from this article (unless there is some question of the original German being misquoted in German). (I also think that James Holmes' article should be removed as a reference.) This 'misquotation' idea could then perhaps be replaced by a section on how there is disagreement about how Clauswitz' famous aphorism should be understood, or how there is disagreement about how it should be translated into English. If someone has access to several different English translations of Vom Kriege with different renderings of ‚mit anderen Mitteln‘, then perhaps they could quote the different ways that these words have been translated. Likewise, if anyone has access to one or more reference works on Clauswitz and/or Vom Kriege that discusses how these words could be or should be or have been understood/translated, then a quote from these (on this subject) would be helpful. --KurumaCè (talk) 09:07, 6 January 2023 (UTC)


 * So many words to say: BS! "Mit anderen Mitteln" can be very nicely translated to English as "by other/different means". I'm afraid the only problem here is a lack of English: German "bei" has nothing in common with English "by". I hope I'm wrong on this one, 'cause it would be a terrible Armutszeugnis/Bankrotterklärung if that were the actual cause of so much talkin' ;)
 * So, who's going ahead and taking this unneeded tangent out of the article? Cheers & viel Spaß, Arminden (talk) 20:25, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:25, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Stamps of Germany (DDR) 1980, MiNr 2496.jpg

Recent edits
I tidied some of the prose, punctuation and layout, removed duplicate wikilinks and used a script to Americanise the spelling as it seemed the dominant form. Nothing contentious surely? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 19:16, 7 November 2018 (UTC) Keith-264 (talk) 19:20, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Why did you Americanize it? There's no notice (that I can see) that the article is written in American English, and I would think that British English would be the more appropriate version to use. In addition your style corrections blanded out the prose somewhat, and the layout prior to your changes was superior.  In short, while there were some edits which were helpful, overall I thought your changes were not an improvement. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * See above, it read as US Eng not Briteng. If you want it in BritEng I'm glad but we should respect the original if it isn't and seek consensus. Long quotes should not be in the text, re-editing sloppy sentences isn't bland; remedying punctuation errors and duplicate wikilinks is a good thing. Keith-264 (talk) 20:25, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * None of your objections or explanations are acceptable to me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:22, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

None of your lousy syntax, punctuation and vocabulary are acceptable to me. Keith-264 (talk) 17:04, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Have what you are gremmir -- vendor upscale sentencing torpid alluvial testament portal;  bikini squash . 19:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * At the risk of engaging in an exercise in futility I have remedied a few reference errors and limited myself to changing one textual infelicity. I suggest that the editors interested in the article decide on a common citation form and apply it. My favourite is sfn which I recommend. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 10:14, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

The importance of morale
I added something here about Clausewitz's ideas about the importance of morale to the outcome of military operations, but it was reverted on the grounds of "notaforum." I agree that morale in general is outwith the scope of an article on Clausewitz, but we need more in the article on what he said about it and how his thoughts have been applied by his readers. At present the article uses it to explain the "balance of terror" between the US and USSR, which seems to be stretching the concept too far. Could other readers here find out if military writers have used this concept to explain the outcomes of recent "limited wars," such as Vietnam and Iraq, to supplement what has been said? NRPanikker (talk) 18:52, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The views of other military writers are not relevant here, except as juxtaposed with Clausewitz' views. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:16, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Mil/Philo balance in the lede
The lede of this article needs work. It focuses almost entirely on philosophy and very little on his military career. p b  p  01:29, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

First of July
Just read a newspaper article on Clausewitz in the "Taz" and a guy from the (a) Clausewitz society said that he was not born in June, but on the first of July - he was the fourth son and his father wanted to get rid of him (Cl. was too young for the military). P.S.: Just see, that german WP has the July 1st date.--Ralfdetlef (talk) 07:33, 19 January 2023 (UTC)