CM 
 
PHE UNIVERSITY AND 
 THE STUDY OF WAR 
 
 AN INAUGURAL LECTURE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 NOVEMBER 27 1909 
 
 BY 
 
 SPENSER WILKINSON 
 
 CHICHEI.E PROFESSOR OF MILITARY HISTORY 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1909 
 

 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK 
 
 TORONTO AND MELBOURNE 
 
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE 
 STUDY OF WAR 
 
 Mr. Vice-Chancellor, 
 
 You and those who under your auspices are assembled 
 here to-day can enter, as no other audience could enter, 
 into the feelings with which, as your first Professor 
 of Military History, I address you for the first time. 
 A man for whom the years spent under the influence 
 of this University were the prelude to the battle 
 of life, and who owes to his Oxford training, how- 
 ever imperfectly received, his way of looking at public 
 affairs, now comes back among you with the duty 
 of contributing to the spiritual and intellectual life of 
 Oxford something of what he has learned in the course 
 of a prolonged effort to explore and understand the 
 currents of national energy. The duty laid upon me 
 is at the same time a privilege, for it gives me the 
 opportunity of endeavouring — I will not say to discharge 
 my filial obligation to our generous mother, for which 
 of us could either wish or hope to repay that debt? — 
 but at any rate to prove that I am no thankless child. 
 To you then I can and must speak freely and sincerely, 
 and, sustained by your goodwill, I shall, according to 
 time-honoured tradition, attempt to set forth the scope 
 of the task which I now undertake, and to interpret the 
 purpose of the University in conferring its freedom 
 upon the study of Military History. 
 
 Everything, it has been said, depends upon the point 
 
 225901 
 
4 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 of view. The point of view from which I see our 
 University is that of the nation to which we belong. 
 I conceive of the University as a community of workers 
 for England ; and of the service which it performs 
 as consisting in the first place in the maintenance and 
 communication of a spiritual or intellectual standard, 
 and in the second place in the common life which we 
 here share, and which we regard as a preparation for 
 citizenship, as the means by which we train not only 
 the mind but the man. The spirit in which our 
 intellectual work is carried on is set forth in the terse 
 but pregnant terms of the Statute defining the duties 
 of Professors. A Professor is *to give instruction to 
 students, to assist the pursuit of knowledge, and to 
 contribute to the advancement of it *, and he is ' to give 
 assistance to students in their studies by advice, by 
 informal instruction, and otherwise as he may judge 
 to be expedient'. In these clauses, the University 
 recognizes the character of knowledge as something 
 living and growing, rather than as an inorganic, inert, 
 and limited mass; and insists on that vital connexion 
 between the advancement of knowledge and its com- 
 munication which makes it the first qualification of the 
 teacher that he should be himself a learner. It recog- 
 nizes further that, to use the words of one of Oxford's 
 great men, ' in the higher regions of instruction it is not 
 the substance of what is communicated, but the act of 
 communication between the older and the younger 
 mind, which is the important matter.' 
 
 If, in the twofold service which Oxford renders to 
 the nation, I place first the advancement of learning as 
 the means by which the University becomes a source of 
 ideas which are to permeate and inspire the community, 
 it is because this is the function which qualifies her for 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 5 
 
 her other duty— that of education. Here she is a labourer 
 in a specific field. I hardly think you will quarrel with 
 me when I assert that the special education which we 
 have to consider here is the training of servants for the 
 nation, a training for citizenship and for that statesman- 
 ship which is but citizenship raised to a higher power. 
 If we are to fulfil that mission, we must cherish in 
 our students the qualities in virtue of which they can 
 render service. Our common life should give them 
 an object, their country, and accustom them to do 
 their work with that object in view. The purpose of 
 our instruction is to communicate to them the power 
 of seeing things as they are, which is synonymous with 
 science or true knowledge. So long as our University 
 can send out her young men thus prepared and inspired 
 for citizenship, so long will she be a faithful servant — 
 or, if you prefer another name, a leader — of this nation. 
 
 There has been in this country for some time past 
 a certain despondency ; many people have come to think 
 that England is standing still while other nations are 
 moving on and leaving her behind ; and there are some 
 who seem to think that Oxford herself is stationary, 
 if not stagnant. I have to submit to you a more hopeful 
 view, to give you reasons for faith in our country, and 
 for the belief that Oxford still is, and will continue 
 to be, a spring of thought and a source of action. 
 
 Forty-four years ago we were told that the business of 
 criticism was 'to know the best that is known and 
 thought in the world, and by in its turn making this 
 known to create a current of true and fresh ideas '. 
 The effort thus described has been carried on not only 
 elsewhere but here also. Men trained in the spirit of 
 that effort have been spread abroad through these 
 islands, and through the British Empire. As a result 
 
6 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 of their labours, the people of this country have lost the 
 self-complacency that marked the middle of the Victorian 
 age. They have measured themselves, the nation and 
 its institutions, by higher standards. This is the cause 
 of the dissatisfaction which is so widespread and so 
 profound. It is the dissatisfaction not of despair but 
 of the resolve to approximate, as far as is compatible 
 with human imperfection, to the better ideals that have 
 been set up. 
 
 In this healthy process of self-criticism, or of the 
 expansion of ideals, Oxford has her part, due not only 
 to her national environment, but also to the continuity 
 of her own labours. It used to be, and I fancy still is, 
 the characteristic feature of Oxford studies that their 
 main current runs in the humanities. We learn from 
 our Greek teachers to regard the State as the medium 
 of human hfe, to believe its purpose to be the suste- 
 nance of a good life, its fruit and justification the crea- 
 tion of a noble type of character to be impressed upon 
 all its citizens. Our effort to see things as they really 
 are compels us to be ever considering the State in all 
 its varying relations, so that our conception may corre- 
 spond with the living growth of human society. But 
 life and growth are prior to reflection, and speculative 
 thought necessarily follows after rather than precedes 
 the facts; and thus our political thinking follows after 
 rather than precedes the phenomena of English national 
 life, though we may hope that our attempts at analysis 
 and synthesis may lead to fresh and true ideas, to be 
 afterwards with beneficial effect diffused through the 
 community. 
 
 Among the impulses of this national life which have 
 marked the last fifty years is one which has only 
 comparatively recently made itself felt in the region 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 7 
 
 of political consciousness or theory, the renewal of 
 the perception that the State has external relations 
 which may take the form of conflict. Our pohtical 
 thinkers have slowly and reluctantly become aware 
 of a change in their views of the nature of peace, 
 which is at length seen to be insufficiently accounted 
 for by the absence of energy, and suspected to consist 
 rather in an equilibrium than in an absence of forces. 
 The system of states, of which we have long thought 
 as purely European, but which in our own day has 
 revealed itself as world-wide in extent, is seen to owe 
 the existence of such equipoise as it possesses rather 
 to the constant operation of a multitude of counteracting 
 pressures than to a universal inertia. It is beginning to 
 be felt that a theory of the State which regards it purely 
 from within, as something existing isolated in space 
 with no external relations, must be supplemented and 
 corrected by a theory of the relations between States, 
 and of the place of physical forces in those relations. 
 The people of England have gradually come to see that 
 war is a part of the real world, and that the idea of the 
 State cannot be fully comprehended without a knowledge 
 of the principles of international statics and dynamics. 
 
 This perception has followed, not preceded, the 
 spontaneous movement of the national life, of which 
 the first expression was the Volunteer movement in 
 1859, ^he second the agitations of 1888 and of 1894 for 
 the expansion of the Navy. Both these movements 
 were followed by an impulse towards the study of war, 
 which was strengthened by the chief events of contem- 
 porary history — the great Civil War in the United 
 States, the conflicts between Prussia and Austria, and 
 between United Germany and the Third French Empire. 
 The Volunteer movement made itself felt in Oxford, 
 
8 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 though it hardly became an integral part of the life of 
 the University. Here and there a student was attracted 
 to inquire into the phenomena of war and into the 
 history of wars ; a not very large number of young men 
 received a slight initiation into the military life ; a still 
 smaller number associated themselves for tactical 
 exercises in the shape of the Kriegspiel or War-game. 
 At the time when this took place, about 1875, English 
 military literature of permanent value was represented 
 almost entirely by the work of Sir Edward Hamley. 
 Modern English naval literature had not then come into 
 existence. It was not till 1883 that a Chichele Professor 
 of Modern History published a life of Lord Hawke, 
 which preceded the Treatise on Naval Warfare written 
 by the late Admiral Philip Colomb, himself the disciple 
 of his greater brother, the late Sir John Colomb. 
 
 The crisis of the South African War at length 
 brought home to the people of this country the reality 
 of a phenomenon they had too long ignored. This 
 produced an awakening effect upon Oxford, and in 
 particular upon All Souls College, which had some 
 years before specially dedicated itself to the service 
 of the University, with the result which I have 
 already suggested as the natural accompaniment of 
 such dedication. Two Fellows of All Souls inde- 
 pendently undertook to write the history of that war ; 
 and, soon after the pacification, the University began 
 to take its share in the national effort towards 
 military reorganization. A number of commissions 
 in the Army were thrown open under certain 
 conditions to graduates of the Universities, Oxford 
 admitted the subject of Military History as a special 
 subject for candidates for Honours in the School of 
 Modern History, and in 1905 the University, in conse- 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 9 
 
 quence of the gift of a private donor, established a 
 Lecturership in that subject. The chosen Lecturer, 
 Sir Foster Cunhffe, set the example both to his students 
 and successors of diligent and unwearying research, 
 especially into the great campaigns of Napoleon. It 
 was his endeavour to make military history teach war 
 by the full and accurate ascertainment of the facts from 
 the contemporary documents so far as by industry and 
 perseverance they could be made available. In the 
 course of last Term, All Souls College submitted to 
 the University a proposal that the Lecturership should 
 be transformed into a Professorship, and the sanction 
 of the University enabled that intention to be realized. 
 Thus the University has bestowed its full franchise 
 upon the study of war. The foundation of the Chair 
 then, so far from being a fortuitous event, is the direct 
 outcome of that close contact which has long existed, 
 and which from year to year becomes more intimate, 
 between Oxford and the national life of England. 
 
 After the sketch I have given you of the origin of the 
 Chair there is no need to dwell at much length upon 
 its necessity, its logical justification. Yet it may be 
 well to remind ourselves that we can no longer think 
 of the University as capable of doing its duty without 
 having in its scheme of work a place for the study 
 of war. 
 
 Our first business is what the Greeks called OecupLa, 
 seeing things as they are. We must get our vision of 
 the actual world into accordance with the facts, before 
 we can profitably attempt to dream of a better world. 
 
 One of our main occupations here is with the life of 
 mankind, which is realized only in political communities 
 or states. In our school of Literae Humaniores we 
 
 B 
 
lo THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 study the idea of the State; in our schools of History 
 the life and growth of states. It is to this part of the 
 University's work that the study of war belongs. For 
 war is one of the modes of human intercourse. It is 
 the form assumed by the conflict between communities 
 of men, the shape assumed by the acuter stages of the 
 struggle between states. A study of the State or of 
 states that should omit to examine war must needs be 
 crippled and defective. It would be like a study of the 
 ship which should take no account of the sea. An 
 ethics or a politics which failed to analyse the nature 
 and meaning of the conflict of wills and of the collision 
 between states would be an ethics and a politics out of 
 touch with the real world in which we live. 
 
 We are thus bound to study war if we are to culti- 
 vate true ideas or to advance a healthy learning. And, 
 if we are to turn out citizens or statesmen equipped 
 for their functions in the actual State, we are bound 
 to teach the nature of war. 
 
 The first and most important of all the facts in regard 
 to war is that in its inception, in its course, and in its 
 conclusion, the control and direction of a war, or of the 
 activity of a state in and in regard to war, is the function 
 primarily of the statesman rather than of the soldier, 
 and that in regard to war the architectonic art is policy 
 or politics, not strategy or generalship, which is not 
 the master but the servant. This is the very first of the 
 principles which constitute what is called the Art of 
 War. If we use the word policy as a name for the 
 personified intelligence and will of the State, then, says 
 the military historian, it is the business of policy on 
 every*occasion to decide whether or not the State shall 
 engage in conflict with another state, and to base that 
 decision upon a true estimate of the nature of the 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR ii 
 
 probable conflict, of the risks and exertions to be 
 undertaken, and of the evils which may be incurred 
 either by shrinking from a necessary struggle, or by 
 entering into one which is unnecessary. Evidently, if 
 this choice is to be rightly made, the statesman must 
 be acquainted with war; he need not be a master of 
 the art, he need not himself be able to handle fleets or 
 armies ; but he ought to have a true knowledge of what 
 can and what cannot be done by those instruments, and 
 of the way in which their use or misuse will react upon 
 the well-being of the community which puts its trust 
 in him. 
 
 This being the case, a University which ignored war 
 could hardly be a good school for those who may become 
 statesmen. By the adoption of democratic forms of 
 government, by the acceptance of the representative 
 system with all its consequences, the British State has 
 been popularized or nationahzed. To it therefore applies 
 a saying which I recollect from one of the lectures of my 
 master, William Wallace, whose untimely loss those of 
 you who were his contemporaries here so deeply deplore. 
 After quoting the words of Plato, that, if the State was 
 to be what it ought to be, philosophers must be its 
 rulers, Wallace said : * The reply of the modern spirit 
 is that the people must and shall become philosophers.' 
 
 So much by way of demonstration of the necessity to 
 the University of the study of Military History. Before 
 I can submit to you a view of its aim and scope within 
 the sphere of the University, I must give a brief account 
 of the view of its nature which results from the labours 
 of two or three generations of military historians. 
 
 Military History is the effort to understand war, to 
 get to know what war is and what it means. There 
 
12 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 is no method of getting to know war except the 
 study of wars, and the only wars that can be studied 
 are either wars that have happened and are over, or 
 a war that is taking place. But a war that is taking 
 place cannot be fully known. While it lasts, no one 
 whatever can be fully acquainted with it. Neither of 
 the Commanders-in-Chief know more than a fraction 
 of what his enemy is thinking and doing, and no one 
 except a Commander-in-Chief and those in his intimate 
 confidence is aware of more than a portion of what 
 is passing in the army to which he belongs or with 
 which he is in communication. 
 
 Accordingly, if we wish to study a war and to get to 
 know exactly what happened in it, we have to wait until 
 after its close, when the reasons for secrecy have ceased 
 to exist, when both sides have become willing to let the 
 facts be known, and when the principal actors have 
 recorded so much as they are able or willing to divulge 
 of their experience. This time does not come as a rule 
 until long after the events, for neither governments nor 
 individuals are very ready to let the world know all 
 their motives, or to have their conduct fully laid bare 
 and open to discussion. Reasons of state, considera- 
 tions of friendship and of regard for the reputation of 
 distinguished men, tend to postpone as long as possible 
 the disclosure of the exact truth, which in some cases 
 never becomes known. 
 
 For these reasons, full and trustworthy knowledge of 
 any war is obtainable only as the result of that pro- 
 longed and patient research to which we give the name 
 of History. 
 
 If we wish to know what war is in itself, what it 
 means for us, for our nation, and for mankind, we must 
 study not one particular war, but as many wars as 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 13 
 
 possible, in order by comparison between them to learn 
 what features and characteristics they have in common, 
 whether the events which composed them happened at 
 random, or whether they happened as they did by 
 reason of some inherent necessity. We cannot but 
 wish to discover whether there is not an order in the 
 infinite variety which they exhibit. But the only basis 
 either for a science or for an art of war is Military 
 History, the record of the facts ascertained by methodical 
 collection, sifting, and classification of the evidence. 
 
 The features common to all wars are that they are 
 acts of force or violence with a poHtical aim. They 
 are acts of state. Apart from these common character- 
 istics, wars differ almost infinitely one from another. 
 The mode of action of the Greek City State in forcible 
 conflict with a similar community or with the Persian 
 Empire differs from that of the Roman Commonwealth, 
 and ancient armies had little resemblance either in 
 respect of weapons or of organization to the levies of 
 the feudal nobles of the Middle Age. The first standing 
 army was the beginning of the collapse of feudalism, 
 yet it was a very different thing from the army 
 maintained by one of the enlightened despots of the 
 eighteenth century. As the State is, so will its army 
 be ; and the war of any age is the reflection of the 
 political and social condition of the communities en- 
 gaged in it. Weapons will embody the progress of 
 the constructive arts and industries. Communications 
 will be such as society has made for itself The 
 organization will be the expression of the community's 
 conception of itself as a more or less organized body. 
 Thus the determining factor is always the nature and 
 character of the States engaged in the war ; and changes 
 in weapons, carrying with them modifications in tactics, 
 
14 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 are but a portion of the development given to war 
 by the development of political communities. 
 
 This cardinal principle is, so to speak, the backbone 
 of our knowledge of the reality of war. Considerations 
 of time compel me to illustrate it in a logical rather 
 than a strictly historical form. The State is the 
 organized attempt of a community to realize its con- 
 ception of the best life. It will not therefore rationally 
 engage in a war except to overcome some obstacle 
 in the way of its realizing the purpose of its existence. 
 Accordingly, in the ideal the whole sum of its energies 
 will be concentrated in the struggle, and the logical 
 process would be that so soon as the struggle was 
 determined upon, the whole resources of the State 
 would be mobilized for a sharp and decisive effort, 
 the whole nation would rush to arms and move in 
 a concentrated mass to overthrow in a single battle 
 the equally concentrated force of the adversary, after 
 (''^ which the successful power would take possession 
 of the territory and the State of its defeated 
 ( adversary. The conditions of such rapid and con- 
 / centrated action, in which the whole energies of the 
 I State, would be collected into a single blow, are the 
 I perfect organization of the; nation for the pursuit of 
 its ends and the absolute control of the community 
 thus organized by a Government which fully repre- 
 sented the intelligence and will of all the citizens. 
 , This would be the character of the war of an ideal 
 / State. The cause would seem just to every citizen, 
 whose faith in the State would inspire him with un- 
 limited devotion to its purposes, so that as a matter 
 o( course he would be ready to sacrifice himself 
 to them. 
 This conception of war was revealed in the wars 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 15 
 
 of the French Revolution and Empire. The people of 
 France regarded themselves as having taken possession 
 of the French State, of which roughly speaking they 
 were in accord with the purposes, and the permanent 
 requisition or levee en masse was the enunciation of 
 the idea of the nation in arms. The grandeur of these 
 conceptions led to an enthusiasm till then unpre- 
 cedented, and to a breadth of design in the military 
 operations which had never before been known. The 
 military history of the nineteenth century is the history 
 of a persistent endeavour more perfectly to realize this 
 conception of war. First Prussia and then Germany 
 reorganized the State with a view to attaining the 
 utmost development of collective action in conflict with 
 other states; and the pattern thus disclosed was in- 
 evitably adopted by the other states one after another, 
 with success which varied according to the stage- of 
 national organization to which the several states had 
 attained. 
 
 According to the time during which a conflict is 
 prolonged, to the duration of the struggle with the 
 enemy, is the extent to which it is capable of voluntary 
 and intelligent direction during its course. A war that 
 consisted of a long series of battles between compara- 
 tively small forces might resemble the series of thrusts 
 and parries of a couple of skilled fencers ; but the rush 
 of a whole population into the territories of a hostile 
 state, leading directly to a collision between two con- 
 centrated armies, tends rather to resemble some great 
 explosion which, once the train has been laid and the 
 match applied, admits of no further control or guidance. 
 In proportion as war has assumed the character of 
 a conflict between highly organized nations, and in 
 proportion as the military intention has been to crush 
 
i6 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 and destroy the military forces of the adversary, has 
 been the strength of the tendency to put the main 
 work of direction, the chief effort of the guiding miUtary 
 intelligence, into the period of preparation preceding 
 the actual collision. Campaigns have become shorter 
 and more decisive, and the work of generalship 
 has more and more shown its effectiveness in the 
 previous elaboration of the design. Napoleon, in his 
 great campaigns, collected almost his entire army into 
 a single organized mass, threw it after a few days* 
 march upon a fraction or the whole of the enemy's 
 army, crushed that army in a single decisive battle, 
 and then occupied the enemy's capital and dictated 
 his terms. In the same way, Moltke, within a few 
 days of the outbreak of war, crushed and reduced 
 to impotence in a single battle, or in a short series of 
 battles, the mass of the enemy's organized forces. 
 
 Thus the developments of war are the developments 
 of the organization of society, and its increasing in- 
 tensity, rapidity, and decisiveness are the results of 
 progressive organization which more and more identifies 
 the whole people with the State. 
 
 The wars of the French Revolution and Empire 
 manifested an energy and a ruthlessness which had 
 long been unknown. They represented a new type, 
 the conflict between nationalized states. It was the 
 achievement of Clausewitz that he first recognized 
 this new type of war, and its origin in the new type 
 of State which had come into existence. He asked 
 himself whether it was merely the passing phenomenon 
 of a day, or would reappear and persist in the future. 
 He was driven to the conclusion that whenever national 
 states should come into conflict in behalf of interests 
 which the mass of their people could recognize as 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 17 
 
 vital, the war between them would resemble the wars 
 of the French Revolution and Empire both in the 
 energy which would be devoted to it and in the 
 grandeur of its designs. 
 
 The experience of three-quarters of a century has 
 confirmed the view suggested by Clausewitz that when- 
 ever a war should be the affair of a whole nation 
 deeply stirred by the cause of quarrel, there would 
 be devoted to it a corresponding proportion of the 
 nation's resources, and the operations would reveal a 
 correspondingly great and comprehensive plan. The 
 conditions which produce the extreme energy of war, 
 what Clausewitz called war in its absolute form, have 
 not always accompanied all the campaigns that have 
 been fought since he wrote. There have been conflicts 
 in which neither side has been a nationalized State, 
 and conflicts in which that quaHty could not be pre- 
 dicated of both sides ; but where the conditions have 
 been fulfilled, the prophecy of Clausewitz has been 
 realized. The notable instances are the Civil War in 
 the United States of America, the war between Prussia 
 and Austria in 1866, and the war between Germany and 
 France in 1870. The last great war in the Far East 
 was a case in which one side (Japan) was a nationalized 
 State in which the motives of the war vibrated in the 
 spirit of every member of the community, while the 
 adversary (Russia) was very far removed from that 
 stage of political development in which the political 
 purpose of the struggle could be reflected in the mind 
 and conscience of every citizen or of every combatant. 
 Our own struggle in South Africa was a case in which 
 two small and uncentralized States of great territorial 
 extent were inspired by a common determination with 
 which the mass of their citizens were imbued. The 
 
 c 
 
i8 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 whole mass therefore threw itself with great determina- 
 tion into the conflict; but on the British side there 
 were lacking on the part of the statesmen in the first 
 instance that clearness of conception and that lucidity 
 of exposition which might have brought home to the 
 whole body of citizens the necessity and the justice 
 of the cause, so that the national character of the war 
 was by no means fully understood until the crisis was 
 past. Accordingly, the nation was surprised at what 
 happened ; and both the nation and its members of all 
 classes, both the soldiers and those who were citizens 
 without being soldiers, received the impression that 
 there was something in the nature of war which they 
 had not thoroughly grasped, and which it might be 
 desirable to understand. Those who made the attempt 
 to penetrate beneath the surface, and to ascertain the 
 bond between cause and effect in the events of that 
 war, were led to believe that citizens and soldiers alike 
 would be benefited by an abandonment of the neglect 
 with which the subject of war had too long been treated. 
 From the searchings of heart of that period have resulted 
 changes in the military organization, changes in the ar- 
 rangements for miUtary education, as well as an expan- 
 sion of the studies of more than one University. Thus 
 the movement of which one of the results is our presence 
 here to-day has been of very long and gradual growth 
 spreading over the whole world. It has as yet hardly 
 exercised its full pressure upon our own country, which 
 however will be carried along in the stream of national- 
 izing and organizing effort until there has been created 
 in one way or another an organization for war by land 
 and sea of all the resources of the nation. 
 
 The tendency of war towards concentration of effort, 
 towards the accumulation in a single decisive collision 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 19 
 
 of all the forces which a nation can accumulate, is best 
 seen when the theatre of war is the sea. At sea a fleet 
 can move at twenty times the rate at which an army 
 can walk along the surface of the ground. The ships 
 carry in them all the necessaries of life and action, so 
 that a fleet does not, Hke an army, trail behind it 
 a lengthening chain of vulnerable communications. 
 There are in the open sea no such geographical 
 features as enable an army to find obstacles which may 
 serve as shelter against the enemy's attacks. At sea, 
 therefore, the difference between attack and defence 
 resolves itself into little more than the difference 
 between confidence and hesitation. Accordingly, naval 
 warfare is apt to be decided in a single battle, in which 
 the bulk of the forces of both sides are engaged, and 
 which, by the almost complete destruction of the force 
 of the defeated side, determines the issues. The nation 
 that aspires in the event of war to assert for itself the 
 command of the sea may, therefore, have to hazard its 
 fate upon a single battle, of which the result will in 
 most cases have been predetermined by the character 
 of the national efforts made during a long preceding 
 period of preparation. The historian sees in Trafalgar 
 and in Tsusima nothing but the inevitable consequence 
 of the previous lives of the navies concerned. 
 
 In the modern world, when a nation — that is, a people 
 organized as a state — goes to war, the energy developed 
 is so great that nothing but a similarly organized body 
 can hope to withstand the shock ; and the effort involved 
 on each side is so intense that it must for the time 
 being absorb the whole of the national energies and 
 carry with it a temporary suspension of all other forms 
 of activity. The effect of war upon the State which has 
 been successfully invaded is comparable only to that 
 
20 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 of some great natural cataclysm. The ravages of 
 war, even when carried on by a highly civilized and 
 thoroughly disciplined army, resemble in their effects 
 those of the flood or of the earthquake. 
 
 But it is a mistake to dwell too much upon the 
 physical aspects of war. Far more important is its 
 spiritual character, of which the significance has been 
 increased a hundred-fold by the development of its 
 national quality. A nation cannot be called to arms 
 and mobilized except for the assertion of some cause 
 which appeals to the hearts and the consciences of the 
 mass of its citizens. For a nation, therefore, to go to 
 war, except in behalf of a cause which makes that 
 appeal, is to court defeat. There cannot in such a case 
 be that sudden and tremendous development of energy 
 without which it is idle to hope for victory. The more 
 closely, therefore, a statesman has familiarized himself 
 with the nature of war and the more deeply he has 
 explored the causes of victory and defeat, the more | 
 profoundly will he be convinced that the ultimate secret 
 of success lies in the cause in behalf of which he 
 calls on his people to draw the sword. 
 
 But the time when causes must be scrutinized is not 
 when a dispute has begun, when prejudices fill the air, 
 and when passions quicken the pulses. The origin of 
 wars lies in the conflict of policies, in the incompatibility 
 of the purposes of two states ; the time to weigh the 
 possibilities of conflict is when the national policy is 
 taking shape. The chief result, therefore, of the study 
 of military history is to force us to ask the question : 
 What is the purpose of national life, and what the 
 specific purpose of our own nation? Oxford is the 
 home of the doctrine that the State arises for the purpose 
 of rendering human life possible, and that the object of 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 21 
 
 its development is to sustain a noble life in which its 
 citizens shall be sharers. A noble life is a life of service 
 to the community, and a great nation is one that serves" 
 JthQ other nations of mankind. We have learned each 
 for himself from a great leader of war that England 
 expects every man to do his duty. Let us learn also, 
 when called upon in our capacity as citizens to consider 
 the national policy, to say to ourselves that Englishmen 
 expect England to do her duty. 
 
 I have dwelt at perhaps too much length upon the 
 main truths disclosed by military history as to the nature 
 of war, partly because I think that too little attention 
 has been paid to them, and partly because I derive 
 from them my conception of the scope and method of 
 the University study of war. The Statute prescribes 
 that the Professor shall lecture and give instruction in 
 military history, with special reference to the conditions 
 of modern warfare. In the matter of warfare, the modern 
 epoch begins in 1792 with the first appearance of the 
 nation in the field. The period to which we must devote 
 special attention is from 1792, to the latest date up to 
 which the publication or the accessibility of sufficient 
 evidence enables us to obtain accurate knowledge and 
 to form a trustworthy judgement of the events. The 
 area thus given for our exploration is considerable. It 
 includes a number of wars of the first magnitude, and 
 a number of leaders of considerable power — several of 
 them stars of the first magnitude. I confess that I am 
 specially attracted by the two greatest of them, by 
 Napoleon and Moltke— by Napoleon, because he was 
 the originator of modern methods as well as the greatest 
 master of the art ; by Moltke, because he inherited and 
 developed the tradition of the Napoleonic age, trans- 
 forming and applying to conditions in many respects 
 
22 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 new the ideas developed in the earlier period. The 
 researches of the last thirty years have thrown a new 
 light upon the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and it 
 seems prudent to begin by the attempt to appreciate 
 those wars by the aid of the now available mass of 
 evidence. My own special endeavour has been for 
 some years to trace the genesis of Napoleon's general- 
 ship from his early studies, from the environment in 
 which he grew up, and from the teaching which he 
 inherited, in order to arrive at an historical understanding 
 of the rise of modern strategy ; and I hope that some 
 of my students will be able to associate themselves with 
 me in that attempt. 
 
 There are three processes involved in the work of the 
 military historian. The first is the kind of criticism 
 which is here taught in the schools of History, the 
 sifting of the evidence with a view to the establishment 
 of the facts. This is, and always must be, the basis of 
 all our work, for without it we shall be dealing not with 
 reality but with dreams. History resembles Antaeus, 
 who lost his strength when lifted out of contact with 
 the earth on which he walked — in the case of history 
 the facts as established by evidence. 
 
 The second process consists in the application of the 
 military judgement. It is the attempt to arrange the 
 facts in their connexion of cause and effect, and requires 
 us to trace the course of the events with sufficient 
 minuteness to make sure so far as may be that we 
 know the intentions and the motives of the chief actors. 
 It is perhaps not the historian's business to distribute 
 praise and blame, but it may be his function to inquire 
 upon occasion whether the means employed were those 
 most suitable to produce the result desired. This is the 
 third process, of which you may like to have an 
 illustration. 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 23 
 
 In 1797 Napoleon, who in the previous year had 
 driven the Austrian armies from the north of Italy 
 and made himself master of the plain from the Alps 
 to the Ticino and of the hills as far north as the 
 Brenner, set out with such forces as he could collect 
 to advance on the line from Verona to Vienna. The 
 Austrian Government saw itself compelled to with- 
 draw for the defence of Vienna the portion of its forces 
 which was facing the French armies in South Germany, 
 and with which, in 1796, the Archduke Charles had 
 brilliantly defeated those armies. The Archduke Charles 
 collected a small army in the north-east of Italy at 
 the foot of the mountains which interposed between 
 the Italian plain and the plain of Austria-Hungary. 
 He put himself as well as he could between Napoleon 
 and his objective. The first critical historian of this 
 war, Jomini, expressed the opinion that the Archduke 
 Charles would have done better if he had collected 
 his army in the Tyrol and thereby compelled Napoleon 
 to turn to his left rather than go straight on. The 
 next great critic, Clausewitz, was unwilling to dis- 
 approve of the action of a commander previously so 
 prudent and able as the Archduke Charles. He 
 therefore speculated on the reasons which might have 
 induced the Archduke to follow the course which he 
 actually adopted, and these speculations will always 
 be worth studying because they reveal the breadth 
 and the strength of the judgement of one of the 
 greatest of all critics. Clausewitz had no means of 
 knowing, and was aware that he had no means of 
 knowing, the principal fact, namely, the real ideas and 
 intentions of the Archduke. Many years after the death 
 of Clausewitz were published the military memoirs of the 
 Archduke, who in them discussed this question. After 
 
24 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 reviewing the situation at the opening of the campaign, 
 he says : ' To all these unfavourable circumstances were 
 further added the erroneous views of the Archduke 
 Charles, who was recalled from the Rhine and replaced 
 at the head of the troops in Italy, and whose mind 
 was too much dominated by old-fashioned ideas. . .. 
 Accordingly, he took up a quite unsuitable, mistaken 
 position, leaving only a small force in Tyrol, and col- 
 lecting the greater part on the Tagliamento/ 
 
 In this kind of inquiry the military judgement is formed, 
 and it may be found useful for the student from time 
 to time to give it further exercise by attempting in the 
 imagination an independent solution of the problems 
 with which generals in the past have been confronted. 
 For the conclusion that a particular operation was not 
 the most appropriate for the end in view cannot be 
 demonstrated except by an exposition of a more appro- 
 priate means, and by the examination of what would 
 have been the probable results of its employment. 
 
 I think it would be in accordance with the spirit of 
 the Statute that I should from time to time, as oppor- 
 tunity offers, try to show for the benefit of historical 
 students not directly concerned with military history, 
 the way in which the modern knowledge of war throws 
 light on some of the obscure problems with which 
 historians sometimes deal. I hope, for example, at no 
 very distant date, to discuss in the light of modem 
 military research the problem, sometimes thought 
 insoluble, of HannibaFs passage across the Alps. 
 
 I do not conceive it to be the function of the 
 University to undertake the technical instruction of 
 professional of^cers, or to give its students practice 
 in the art of leading troops. Yet the University may 
 well be of some use to those who have charge of the 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 25 
 
 management of the army. If our work is rightly 
 carried on, we may throw some light upon aspects 
 of war with which the professional soldier has not 
 always time to occupy himself; and we shall hope 
 to derive help and guidance from the historical and 
 other scientific labours carried on by the general staff 
 at the War Office. The greatest services, however, 
 which the University can render to the army, as to 
 the nation, must consist in the effort which we carry 
 on to obtain and to communicate true ideas of human 
 life and society, and in the inspiration which we may 
 be able to give to our students. If we are able to 
 send out into the working life of England a stream 
 of men of sound intellectual training, with a large 
 outlook on life and a high purpose of service to 
 the nation, it is for the army to attract them to the 
 particular career which it has to offer. 
 
 The ultimate outcome of the activity of the military 
 historian is the insight which he gains into the nature 
 of war, and which he may attempt to express in a view 
 or theory of its nature and of its several parts or mani- 
 festations. I doubt whether there has been in recent 
 times an English view of war. EngHsh students for 
 the most part have accepted the theory set forth either by 
 Jomini, the head of the French school, or by Clause witz, 
 the founder after Scharnhorst of the German school. 
 To some, these two views have seemed to be incon- 
 sistent with one another, and there have been those who 
 have tried, both in discussion and in action, to defend one 
 theory against the other, very much as those politicians 
 whose thinking is divorced from history imagine the 
 State to be the corpus vile upon which experiments may 
 be made concerning the results of particular abstract 
 theories. More than three-quarters of a century have 
 passed since Jomini and Clausewitz gave to the world 
 
 D 
 
26 THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 such insight as they had acquired during a generation 
 of war into its nature and workings. In my view, the 
 subsequent experience reconciles and confirms them 
 both, and I have often thought it possible that the 
 continuance of their labours might well be the work 
 of some English hand. To-day, I cannot but dream 
 of an Oxford School of War developing that which 
 time has confirmed of the ideas of the older writers 
 into a fresh yet true idea adequate to the needs of the 
 present day and of our own people. It would attempt 
 to be a vision and not a dream, and would base itself 
 upon such knowledge as Oxford can supply of the 
 nature of society and of the State. 
 
 I may perhaps venture, in illustration of my fancy, to 
 touch upon one point where I suspect that the ideas 
 of the German thinkers are open to discussion. From 
 the evident necessity for harmony between policy and 
 strategy they deduce the conclusion that it is desirable 
 that the political and the strategical direction of the State 
 should be in a single hand. That doctrine seems to me 
 to lend itself to a possible inversion of the true relations 
 between the two activities. A strategist in supreme 
 authority may easily underrate the magnitude of those 
 ethical laws which manifest themselves in the life of 
 nations. Is there not a contrast to be drawn between 
 Napoleon and Moltke ? The more we study the conduct 
 of Napoleon's campaigns, the more we must admire his 
 splendid insight into the laws of force. Yet is it not 
 clear that he was blind to some of the laws of spiritual 
 and national life, and is it not the conflict between his 
 insight and his blindness which invests the story of his 
 catastrophe with something of the awe of tragedy? 
 The work of Moltke may have been less brilliant, 
 but his victories have certainly had more durable 
 results, and his serene end recalls the ancient saying 
 
THE STUDY OF WAR 27 
 
 that we must estimate no man's happiness until his 
 career is over. Now Moltke was not, as Napoleon was, 
 the master of his State. His strategical genius was not 
 the dictator, but the obedient servant of his country. 
 Perhaps the deepest secret of his career is to be found 
 in the words inscribed on the little chapel which he 
 erected in the grounds of his Silesian country house 
 as a monument to what was dearest to him — the words 
 ' Love is the fulfilling of the law \ 
 
 Permit me now, in conclusion, to collect into a focus 
 the thought which I have been trying to express. 
 My purpose has been to set before you a true idea of 
 war, that being the end and aim of my presence in the 
 University as Professor of Military History. A true 
 idea is like a living thing that grows from a small seed, 
 and its peculiar quality is that from the beginning to 
 the end of its growth it remains the same, developing 
 from an original kernel to a great and complicated 
 organism. The true idea of war is that it is a social 
 effort, a form of the struggle of a society for self- 
 realization, its peculiar form being that of violent 
 conflict with another society, its rival or enemy. This 
 way of looking at war gives the clue to all the phe- 
 nomena observed in the history of innumerable wars. 
 It accounts for changes and developments in the 
 organization of combatant forces, in their armament 
 and administration, in their tactics, and in the mechanism 
 of their command and control. From this point of view 
 we are able to understand the relation between the 
 statesman and the naval or miUtary commander, and 
 to grasp the necessity of modifications of military 
 systems in accordance with the metamorphoses which 
 the State itself undergoes. 
 
 Applying this simple idea to the well-known facts of 
 
 7 
 
28 THE STUDY OF WAR 
 
 modem history, we have seen how the transformation 
 of the State which marked the close of the eighteenth 
 century, the transition from the monarchical to the 
 democratic organization, brought with it the possibility 
 of a great expansion of the energies and resources 
 available for conflict. Once that possibility had been 
 revealed in action the several states found themselves 
 in turn compelled to reckon with it, until the modern 
 State, of which the general character is that of a whole 
 people organized for political purposes, or, as we say in 
 a single word, a nation, has tended to become, for that 
 kind of self-realization which we know as war, a nation 
 in arms. This idea of the nature of war I have put 
 before you as the essence of the teaching of that military 
 history which is identical with the science of war. If 
 it is a true idea it ought to explain all the phenomena, 
 great and small. I have therefore applied it in the 
 explanation of the beginnings of military studies at 
 Oxford; and that inquiry has shown, I trust to your 
 satisfaction, that our University is, in this as in other 
 branches, consciously or unconsciously doing work in 
 the service of our country of which, though the fruits 
 are not yet seen, the character and quality may be 
 divined. 
 
 I have suggested that the development of the national 
 organization is bound by the conditions of the world to 
 adapt itself in some measure to the needs of ever- 
 possible conflict, so that our nation must and will find, 
 its mode of constituting itself as a fighting power. In 
 that development Oxford will have her part, which 
 I imagine must be, according to the nature of her 
 activities, to cultivate, develop, and diffuse the true 
 idea of the nature of war. 
 
 Oxford: Printed at the Clarendon Press by Horace Hart, M.A. 
 
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