Absolute war : violence and mass warfare in the German lands, 1792-1820

316 Pages·2017·2.093 MB·English

by  Hewitson, Mark

ABSOLUTE WAR

Absolute War
Violence and Mass Warfare in
the German Lands, 1792–1820
MARK HEWITSON
1
3
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First Edition published in 2017
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ISBN 978–0–19–878745–7
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To my extended families,
old and new

Preface
Like many projects, this one has changed shape. The present volume is the first of a
series on the violence of war, which is a subject that has been treated indirectly by a
large number of scholars—military historians and many others—but which has
only recently attracted attention on its own account, not least because the conjunc-
tion sounds tautological (but isn’t). The significance of violence during military
conflicts has varied enormously, as has its impact on combatants, in accordance
with the means used, the intensity and scope of the fighting, and the proximity of
wartime conditions to other aspects of life. The study of the violence of war in this
extended sense requires a familiarity with social and cultural history as well as polit-
ical, diplomatic, and military history. Because some of the relevant transformations
(and reverses) are gradual, contrasting with outcomes of conflict—collapse, loss and
acquisition of territory, political reform, and revolution—that are sudden, it also
calls for the analysis of a long historical period, providing amongst other things a
daunting opportunity to research the history of the late eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries, when early modern historians come face-to-face with modern
ones. I have found this confrontation to be a bracing and stimulating experience. I
owe a considerable debt to the editors and referees of War in History (especially Hew
Strachan), the English Historical Review (Martin Conway in particular), and the
Historical Journal (Andrew Preston), where drafts and offshoots of this study have
been published, for giving useful criticism and for trusting in the (often obscure)
purposes of the research, in the unwieldy form in which it first took shape.
I was able to start the basic reading and research for the project during an
immensely enjoyable year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in
2010/11. I am very grateful to Joan Scott for helping to bring this period of leave
into being and to Didier Fassin and all the members at the IAS that year for mak-
ing it so intellectually rewarding. The distance, not just geographical, which our
stay in New Jersey created has proved much more valuable than I realized at the
time. Equally valuable, although quite different, was a second, extended period of
leave facilitated by the award of an AHRC fellowship (under the aegis of the
research leadership scheme), supplemented by a term of sabbatical at UCL. This
leave allowed me to finish and write up a project which was expanding—at certain
points—uncontrollably. I am thankful for the extra time permitted by the AHRC’s
new scheme before the publication of outputs is required. I was able to divide the
first part of the project into two books as a result of such leeway—something that
I would not have been able to do under the terms of previous schemes. I would also
like to thank Christopher Wheeler and, more recently, Cathryn Steele at OUP for
the same reason. Both have been willing to treat these metamorphosing studies in
their own right, amending contracts and extending deadlines. Their flexibility has
meant that I have been able to devote myself to writing up—perhaps more than I
should—without distraction.
viii Preface
My principal and overwhelming debt in this respect is to my family: to Cécile,
for covering, supporting, and distracting me as we have juggled the varying com-
mitments of home and work (and work that comes home); and to Anna and
Camille, who are now old enough to ask what we are doing and to criticize us for
sitting for too long in front of a laptop. In addition to technical incompetence,
they—along with our wider families and friends—have furnished the overriding
reasons for turning the laptop off.
MH
London, April 2016
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers wish to thank the following for the use of copyright
material:
Map 3. Central Europe, September 1809, from C. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars: An
International History, 1803–1815 (London, 2007), xxvii, reproduced with the per-
mission of Penguin Random House LLC.
Map 4. The Campaign of 1812, from D. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon: The True
Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace (London, 2009), xviii–xix, reproduced
with the permission of Penguin Random House LLC.
Figure 5.1. Caspar David Friedrich, Huttens Grab (1823–4), reproduced with the
permission of Klassik Stiftung Weimar.