On War

Carl von Clausewitz was born in 1780 in Burg, near Magdeburg, Prussia. He joined the Prussian army as a standard-bearer, participating in the Rhine campaign of 1793-1794. He entered the Berlin Military Academy in 1801, where he studied Kant. There he attracted the attention of its director, General Scharnhorst, whom he later helped to reform the Prussian army.
He was wounded and captured during the Jena campaign and, during his time serving the Russians, played an important role in the Moscow campaigns of 1812 and 1813. Upon rejoining Prussian service, he became chief of staff of Thielemann's military corps in Ligny. From 1818 to 1830, already a general, he was director of the Berlin Military Academy, the same one from which he had graduated.
He died in November 1831. His main work, On War (Vom Kriege), was published posthumously by his wife, Marie von Clausewitz, in 1832. She kept the title chosen by Clausewitz himself, On War, in the three volumes published up to 1834. She avoided corrections. From the second edition of 1853 onwards, some changes were introduced by Count von Brühl, since only the first chapter of Book I had been definitively revised by Clausewitz.