Jomoni Was a Contemporary of Napoleon and Clausewite and K Nown for His Own Theies. Actually
JOMINI
Introduction
jomoni was a contemporary of Napoleon and Clausewite and K nown for his own theies. Actually jomini and Clausewite were interterts of Nepaleon. Thought his thoughts become doluted in front of Clausewitz's thoughts pepole remember him for his Writings and theories . He has been ealled a" paper" because he never led a battle as a military G eneral.
Life History
jomono Was bron in 1769 in the Canton of Vaud in French Switerland in good middle class fsmily, Which had emigrated from Italy sevral feneration earlier.He received conventional education of a young bourgeois destined to trade or lank, and was,indeed, in a banking house in paris when he succeeded in getting himself an unpaid and almos t unofficial staff position in the french army .
The young Swiss, perhaps more ambitious , and certainly moored curious, then adventurous, decided he too must be a soldier. Possessed of real administrative ability, he managed a bit unorthodoxy to work himself into the French Army in the service of supply and to continue with minor staff work. During the delusive peace of Amiens he returned to commercial life but with he renewal of war found his niche as chief of staff fie Marshal Ney, and started off of the great campaign that was to culminate in Austerity.
It was the quickness and panged of his mind applied to military matters that had impressed Gen, Ney, brave soldier and a giid tactician in action ,But certainly not an inquiring student of the art of war. During the interlude of Amiens. Ney helped his protégé to publish the first volumes of a great strategies on the campaigns of the Frederick the Great, in which Jomini hazarded certain generalizations in military thought, and made certain comparisons between Frderick's genaralship and Napoleon;s. Jomini maniged to get apreaentation copy through to the emperor,and the emperor in the lull after Austerlitz managed to find a spare moment to have some of the book read to him. Impressed with the author's intuitive understanding of the Napoleonic touch, he had jomini's position regularized by an appointment as colonel inthe French Army.
The campaign of Jena was brewing in Napoleon's mind. Jomini at the end of the conference, asked if he might rejoin the emperor four days latter in Bemberg. "Who told you that I am going to Bamberg?." asked the emperor-not,one assumes, without annoyance,for he supposed his destination a secret. Jomini, like many other intellectuals,was some times too right. There could be no doubt that he had an admirably clear understanding of Nepoleon's strategically habit of mind, and that Nepoleon appreciated the value of Jomini's writings.
Though he rose to the positions of 'genaral de brigade' in the French army and though he served as Ney's chief of staff in Prussia and in the Russian Campaign.he served as governor of Vilna and later of Smolensk, Jomoni never attained independed command. Bitterly disappointed by the lack of promotion,Jomini rode off to the Allied lines in August 1813 and offered his services to Alexander of Russia. In Russain servce,He held the rank 0f Genegal until his death.He acted as a military advisor,took a decisive part in the fondation of the Russian military academy,and found ample time to complete the historical and analytical studies he had begun after Marengo.At the time of his death in Paris in 1869, Jomini's books were widely used in military education all over the word and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was regarded as some thing of an oracle.
Books written
Jomini has written about twenty-seven books in his career, but some important books are as follows;
Treaties on Grand Military Operation(1805).
Critical and Military History of the Campaign of the Revolution from 1792 to 1801 (1806).
Principles of Strategy (1818).
Life of Napoleon (1827).
Summary of the Art of War (1838).
Military vocabulary
Jomini has always emphasized on military vocabulary. He applied simple military words in his explanations, and said “Clear definition of terms was a pre-requisite to the development of sound military thought.” Some important military vocabulary used by Jomini are as follows;
Theater of war : The theater of war comprises those areas of land, sea and air which are, or which may become, directly involved in the conduct of war.
Strategy : The art of making war upon the map and comprehend the whole of the theater of operations.
Tactics : The maneuvers of an army on the field of the battle or of combat and the different formations for leading troops to attack.
Base of Operation : A base of operation is the portion of the country from which the army obtains its reinforcements and resources, from which it starts when it takes the offensive, to which it retreats when necessary and by which it is supported when it takes position to cover the country defensively.
Military Policy : Military policy embraces the political considerations relating to the operation of armies, which belongs to nether diplomacy, strategy nor tactics.
Military Career
Jomini’s military career was certainly unusual. He raised neither through hard knocks in the ranks, nor through the formal conditioning of a cadet school. He slipped into an administrative position in the French Army without previous military training. Inevitably, as a Swiss, something of an outsider, his temperament prevented his ever-attaining full comradeship of arms.
It is, however, quite wrong to think of Jomini as a “Paper Soldier” a pure theorizer, an intellectual who had no more direct concern with armies than the old-fashioned academic economist had with business. He did help move armies on the field. He had the grave responsibilities, as Ney’s chief of staff, of getting things done in this imperfect world. He had to make important decisions, especially at Ulm and Spain. He had firsthand experience of what it is now fashionable to call the “fog of war” His writings reflect it.
Military Thoughts
Jomini’s writings on warfare may be divided into two groups, those mainly historical and those mainly theoretical or analytical. The division is not exclusive, for in military history Jomoni constantly sought for the principles, which explain why, and how action was taken. He rarely dwells on abstract thinking without trying to buttress his theories with the facts of history. There are also a few pamphlets written by him, they are mostly brief replies to his critics.
His histories, originally issued in twenty-seven volumes, cover the war of Frederick the Great and the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, from 1792 to 1815. The Seven Years’. War and the revolutionary wars are covered in detail. Napoleon’s own military career after 1799 is treated in a four volume work entitled vie politique et militaire de Napoleon, which originally appeared in 1827.
Jomini’s theoretical writings have, however, survived and have been a staple of military education for over a century. Jomini’s first essay in military theory is to be found in the Traite des grandes operations militaries, a work, which focuses on the history of the Seven Years’ War. It was the seventh and fourteenth chapters of this work, which Napoleon had read to him after Austerlitz, and which so impressed him.
Jomini’s greatest theoretical work was the précis de lart de la guerre, which appeared in two volumes in 1838. In this paper, the Swiss thinker showed his concern for the problem of validity of general ideas in military science.
Concept of war
Jomini took up the study of warfare, as he hiself tells us, convinced that it was a form of human activity here on the earth. It must make some sense. He started out in definite reaction against such statementas as the famous one of Marshal de Saxe, "War is a science covered wiht darkness, in the midst of which one does not walk with an saaured step..... all science have principle, but that of war as yet none."
In his criticism of Bulow, Jomini had shown that he was opposed to "systems of war" which provide contingencies, which contain recipes, like cook books and which present hard hand fast rulse for all matters of military organization. Human intelligence, he felt, is incapable of inventing such a system, the more os because war is "an impassioned drama and in no way a mathematical operation."
The main problem of Military science is the establishment of these general principles of war. Therefore, Jomini felt, as "A general officer, after taking part in a dozen campaigns, ought to know that war is a great drama, in which a thousand moral or phycial elements act more or less powerfully and which cannot be reduced to mathematical clculations.
Fundamental principles of war
Jomini said, "I must equally admit without qualification, that twenty years of experience have only fortified in me the following convictions."
"There are a small number of fundamenatal principles of war which may be disergarded only with the greatest danger and the application of which has, on the other hand, been crowned in nearly everly case with success."
"The practical applications which derive from these principles are also few in number and, though they are modified sometimes by circumstances, they may nevertheless serve in general as a campass for the commander-in –chife of an army to guide him in the task. Which is always difficult and complex, of directing operations in the midst of the noise and tumult of battle."
After experimenting wiht other formulations, Jomini decided that the fundamental principles of the stratge consisted in:
- Bringing, by strategic measures, the major part of an army's forces successively ot bearupon the decisive areas of a thretar of war and as far as possible on the enemy's commucications, without compromising one's own:
- Manoeuvering in such a manner as to engage one's major forces against parts only of those of the enemy;
- Furthermore, in battle, by tactical manoeuvers, bringing one's major forces to bear on the decisive area of the battle-field or on part of the enemy's lines which it is important to verwhelim;
- Arranging matter5s in such fashion that tese masses of men be not only brought to bear at the decisive place but that they ge put into action speedily and together, of that they may make simultanesous effort.
The Art of war
If the art of war consists of putting into action greatest possible number of the forces at the decisive point in the theater of operations, the means of accomplishing that is the coice of the correct line of operations. This, said Jomini, must be considered as the fundamental basis of a good plan of campaign, and consequently the center and heart of all military theory.
This very general and necessarily some what abstract formulation Jomini made more concerte by numerous specific instances from military history, pointing out that history proved that the most brilliant successes and greatest defeats were the result of adherence ot or violation of the fundamental principles.
Line of opreation
Jomini's theory of lines of operations was first clearly stated in the seventh chapter of the Traite. He defined a line of operations as that part of the whole zone of oprations, which an army covered in carrying out its mission, whether it followed several routes or only one.
Jomini holds that an army is safe in employing a double line of operations when it occupies the interior lines- that is, when the enemy army can be less easily united taht can the forces it oppose. "An army whose lines are interior and closer together than those of the enemy can by a strategic movement overwhelm the enemy forces one after other, by reuniting altemately the mass of its forces."
The choice of the line of operations becomes important, since it may well decide the fate of a campaign. "IT can repair the disasters of lost battle. Make vain an invasion, extend the advantages of a victory, assure the conquest of a country."
Zone of operation
Each military operation will take place within a definite zone of operations. Jomini, betraying the very mathematical tendency which he had criticized in Bulow, regarded the zone of operations as consisting of a field wiht four sides. The opposing forces occupied two of these sides. The task of the commanding general was, in full consideration of the natural characteristices of the zone in which he was employed to choose the line of operations, which would be most effective in dominating three sides of the rectangular zone. If he succeded in doing this, the enemy would be crushed or would be forced to abandon the zone operations. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that in his emphasis upon the necessity of dominating the zone operations. Jomini, like the theorist of the eighteenth century, regarded warfar largely as a matter of winning teritory.
Task of Commander
It is apparent that, in Jomini's opinion, the tast of a commanding generaql is primarily an intellectual one. "It is" he says, "the combination of wise theory with great character which will make the great captain." A natural flair for war, the ability to inspire troops. These things are also important, but the general, if he hopes to be successful, must have schooled himself in the fundamental principles of war. "Natural genius might, doubtless, by happy inspiration apply the principles as could the most well-versed theoretician. But a simple theory, one free from all d\pedantry, going back to first causes but eschewing absolute systems. based in short on a few fundamental maxims, may oftern supplement genius and may serve to develop it by augmenting its confidence in tis own inspirations."
The Concept of good Army
Jomini has expressed his ideas about military organization "The nature of military organization is the most important point of military policy of any country," According him, a good army wiht common officers can win a war and similarly, a bad army with good offiecrs can also win a war, but Army has to perform well in both conditions. Jomini poited out twelve varous conditions, which are absolutely necessary to become a perfect army, as follows.
(a)To vahve a good recruting system.
(b)A good and strong organization.
(c)A well organized system of national reserve.
(d)Good combat staff and administrative instruction.
(e)Strict discipline and spirit of subordimtion based on conviction rather than on the formalities of the services.
(f)A well-established system of rewards.
(g)To have armament supeiror if possible to that of the enemy.
(h)The special arms of engineering and artilery.
(i)A general staff capable to teach the theoretical and practial educations to its officers.
(j)A good system for commissariat, hospital and administration.
(k)A good system of assignment of command of directing the principle operation of war.
(l)To excitement ot keep alive the military spirt of people.
Concept of Strategy
According ot Jomini 'the decision of many battles depends on strategic movement.' Therefore, he included following points in his strategy;
(a)Selection of the theater of war and defferent cimbinatins, which it allows.
(b)Determination of decisive points in these combinations.
(c)SElection and establishment of fixed base and zone of operation.
(d)Selection of objective points, whether offensive of defensive.
(e)The strategic front lines of defence and fornt of operation Choice of line operation leading to objective.
(f)The best of operation and strategic reserve.
(g)The best strategic line and defferent manoeuver.
(h)The marches of armies, considered as manoeuver.
(i)The relation between the positon of depots and march of the army.
Conclusion
Jominis military thought is admirable evidence of a fact that many hopeful nineteen century liberals refused to recognize: that is , that war is not an aberamon of human life with a history its own and alien to other kinds of history but that it is an integral part of the history of civilization.
it was largely upon the deeds of Napoleon and his revolutionary predecessors that Jumini exercised his reason and discernment. He hs chiefly been known to later genertaions, as the first great military thinker to comment upon Napoleon. Now, since Napoleon himself was in many important ways also a child of the eighteenth century an age of enlightenmemt. Jomini had a task for which he was on the whole admirably fitted.