Frederick the Great On the Art of War

418 Pages·1999·47.373 MB·English

by  Jay Luvaas

Frederick the Great
on
War
The
Art
of
Edited &C Translated by Jay Luvaas

EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY
JAY LUVAAS
Frederick the Great
on the
War
Art
of
DA CAPO PRESS NEW YORK
•
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Frederick II, KingofPrussia, 1712-1786.
[Selections. English. 1998]
FredericktheGreatontheartofwar / editedandtranslated byJayLuvaas.
p. cm.
Excerpts from Frederick II's military writings.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-306-80908-7 (alk. paper) —
1.Frederic—kII, Kingof—Prussia, 1—712-1786—Militaryleadership. 2.Militaryart
and—science G—ermany —Prussia —History 18th century. 3. Military—educa-
tion German—y Prussia History 18—th century.—4. Prussia (Germany) His-
tory, Military 18thcentury. 5. Strategy History 18thcentury. I. Luvaas,Jay.
II. Title.
DD405.33.F7413 1999
355.02—dc21 98-16791
CIP
FirstDaCapoPressedition 1999
ThisDaCapoPresspaperbackeditionofFredericktheGreaton the
ArtofWarisanunabridgedrepublicationoftheeditionfirst
published inNewYorkin 1966. Itisreprintedbyarrangement
withTheFreePress, adivisionofSimon& Schuster, Inc.
Copyright© 1966 byTheFreePress
PublishedbyDaCapoPress, Inc.
AMemberofPerseus BooksGroup
233 SpringStreet,NewYork,NY 10013
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured intheUnited StatesofAmerica
To my son RANDY

Preface
Frederick THE GREAT'S
Instructions for his Generals
has long held a deserved place among the military classics. As
do the Reveries of Marshal Saxe and Guibert's Essai general de
tactique, Frederick's Instructions constitutes a basic source for
the study of warfare as it was practiced in the eighteenth cen-
tury. Regarded as a precious legacy by German soldiers of a
later generation, the book was published in various editions in
France and England. As late as the eve of the American Civil
War, General Joseph E. Johnston, testifying before a congres-
sional commission investigating the course of instruction at
West Point, declared that the time had arrived to set aside the
study of the organization of the French army and return to
the earlier studies of Frederick.
Yet Frederick's later writings are virtually unknown, except
to those who have access to the collected Oeuvres published
over a century ago in Germany and the subsequent German
translation, the Werke, that appeared shortly before the First
World War. It is in the essays written during and after the
Seven Years' War that Frederick's mature thoughts on war
are to be found. These are the observations of a general far
wiser and more experienced than was the author of the more
renowned Instructions, which, after all, was written during the
first phase of a long and colorful military career.
With few exceptions, these later writings incorporating the
experiences of the Seven Years' War are not available in Eng-
lish translation. Frederick's histories of the Silesian and the
vii
Preface
Seven Years' War form a part of the Posthumous Works trans-
lated by Thomas Holcroft and published in England in 1789,
along with his essays on the politics of Machiavelli, the general-
ship of Charles XII, and the condition of the Prussian army after
the treaty of Hubertusburg, but for all practical purposes this
set is available to only a few and, in any case, the translation
needs to be updated. There is also a badly mutilated translation
of Frederick's most significant military treatise, the Elements
de castrametrie et de tactique, published in 181 1 in England
under the misleading title The Strategical Instructions of Fred-
erick the Second. This contains, however, only fragments of
the original text and seems to be taken largely from the legends
to the plates that appeared later in the collected Oeuvres, and
it too has become a collector's item. With this trifling exception
none of the later military writings, nor even the earlier instruc-
tions for the administration and tactical employment of the
cavalry, infantry, and artillery, is currently available in English.
This book attempts to fill the gap by presenting a balanced
selection of Frederick's complete and random thoughts on war.
It has not been an easy book to prepare, for the Prussian King
wrote in two languages—German, of which he had no com-
mand, and French, of which an earlier translator complained
that Frederick "wrote with all the easy indifference of a king."
Over half of the present volume is translated into English for
the first time. In preparing these translations I have worked
from the language in which the original was written, except in
the case of the Military Testaments of 1752 and 1768, which
could be located only in German translation. For the sake of a
uniform style I have also reworked Holcroft's translations after
comparing them with the original French. Some passages have
been altered merely in punctuation and paragraph organization,
or by rewording an occasional phrase; others have been prac-
tically rewritten to conform to the style of the text. The foot-
notes should indicate the nature and extent of my activities in
this respect.
My
job as editor is complicated by the fact that Frederick
wrote for a variety of reasons—to amuse himself or to clarify