Poetry in War and War in Nature. From Vauban to Naturphilosophie to Clausewitz

Abstract

Carl von Clausewitz (1779–1831) knew the practice of war and was one of the great theoreticians of war. In the eighteenth century there was a flurry of writings on warfare that proposed systems of conduct of warfare but Clausewitz radically departed from them. This essay will suggest possible intersections between his ideas and themes that were popular with the so-called Naturphilosophes, who were influential in promoting what historians of science have called Romantic Science at the beginning of the nineteenth century.