Jomini on the Nature of War – Part V – Lines of Operation

This post continues the series of “Jomini on the Nature of War.” Part I: Introduction is available here, Part II: The Burgeoning Military Theorist here, Part III: The Founder of Modern Strategy here, and Part IV: The Basics here.

“Principles were guides to action, not infallible mathematical calculations. The specific application of principles would vary with the thousand changing physical and psychological factors that made war ‘a great drama.’ Genius would defeat the military pendant, just as talent and experience would outdo the bumbling novice. But the principles themselves, whose truth is demonstrated by all military experience, could not be ignored without peril and, when followed, had ‘almost invariably’ (Presque en tout temps) brought victory.”[i]

 

 Jomini’s arguments for “immutable ‘principle’ of war” rested on the concept of “lines of operation” by which he meant…

• “where an armed force fights,
• for what objective, and
• in what force relative to the total available military power of the state.”[ii]

He identified two types of lines of operation, those that are:

• Natural:
  • rivers,
  • mountains,
  • seacoasts,
  • oceans,
  • deserts, and
  • sheer distance through, over, and around which military operations must be conducted.”[iii]
  • Also included in this category are man-made, permanent structures that constrict the conduct of warfare including: fortifications, military bases, political boundaries and road networks.[iv]
• Concerned exclusively with strategic choice about:
  • where to fight,
  • to what purpose,
  • in what force, etc.[v]

[i – v] John Shy, “Jomini,” in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 154, 166.

Photo: Union entrenchments near Kenesaw Mountain, Ga., 1864. 111-B-531. The National Archives.

Map: First Manasas

Jomini on the Nature of War – Part IV – The Basics

This post continues from Jomini on the Nature of War: Part I Introduction here, Part II The Burgeoning Military Theorist here, and Part III The Founder of Modern Strategy here. Please note links in blue lead to additional information on those topics.
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Jomini was a list maker and a categorizer which influenced the form of his thoughts on the nature of war. His work, The Art of War, begins with a definition of the art of war in terms of five military branches: Strategy, Grand Tactics, Logistics, Engineering and Minor Tactics.

Strategy – “the art of properly directing masses upon the theater of war either for defense or for invasion; the art of making war upon the map.”

Grand Tactics – “the art of posting troops upon the battle-field according to the accidents of the ground, of bringing them into actions, and the art of fighting upon the ground, in contradistinction to planning upon a map.” It is “the maneuvering of an army upon the battle-field, and the different formations of troops for attack.”

Logistics – “the art of moving armies and the execution of strategical and tactical enterprises” and “comprises the means and arrangements which work out the plans of strategy and tactics.”

Engineering – “the attack and defense of fortifications.

Minor Tactics

Jomini adds a sixth branch which he calls, “Diplomacy in its relation to War.” This he envisions as the role of the statesman in war and particularly in those activities which lead up to it. He provides the criteria from which a statesman can conclude whether a war is “proper, opportune, or indispensable.” He lists succinctly and thoroughly his perspective on the reasons why a government would choose to enter into war:  

• “To reclaim certain rights or to defend them;
• to protect and maintain the great interests of the state, as commerce, manufactures, or agriculture;
• to uphold neighboring states whose existence is necessary either for the safety of the government or the balance of power;
• to fulfill the obligations of offensive and defensive alliances;
• to propagate political or religious theories, to crush them out, or to defend them;
• to increase the influence and power of the state by acquisitions of territory;
• to defend the threatened independence of the state;
• to avenge insulted honor; or
• from a mania for conquest.”

Each reason becomes a “type” of war on which Jomini elaborates with examples from history. The type of war, he suggests, “influences in some degree the nature and extent of the efforts and operations necessary for the proposed end.”

Should you have interest in reading de Jomini’s The Art of War, it is available both on Google Books here and at Project Gutenberg here.
——
Jomini, Antoine Henri de. The Art of War, trans. by G. H. Mendell and W. P. Craighill., Special Edition, (El Paso: EL Paso Norte Press. 2005), 9.
A map for the w:en:Battle of the Gebora, in 19 February 1811. Source can be found here. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document (refers to map) under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation license“.