AntoineHenri Jomini

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Antoine-Henri Jomini
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Objectives

• 1. Understand the role Baron Jomini played in
  developing modern Military Strategy
• 2. Compare and contrast the views of Jomini with
  other military strategists of the time.

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Jominis Background

• Born to prominent small-town Swiss family
• Father and Grandfather were Mayors
• Following Swiss Revolution became Secretary to
  Minister of War
• Acquired Rank of Captain

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Jominis Background

• Jomini grateful to the French for support during
  anti-French uprising in Switzerland
• Came to the attention of General Ney
• Subsidized his first Book on Military Strategy

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History

• Prior to 1803 studied the campaigns of Napoleon
  in Italy
• Obsessed with Military Glory wanted to imitate
  the incredible rise of Napoleon

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Thoughts on Strategy

• That Strategy is the key to warfare
• That all strategy is controlled by invariable
• scientific principles and that these
• principles prescribe offensive action to
• mass forces against weaker enemy forces at
• some decisive point if strategy is to lead to
• victory

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Origins of Jominian Thought

• Owed greatest intellectual debt to General Henry
  Lloyd
• Welshman who served in several armies
• Wrote a history of the German Campaigns of the
  Seven Years War
• War was founded on certain and fixed principles
  which are by their nature invariable
• Does not discuss these invariable principles

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Origins of Jominian Thought

• Lloyd concludes
• army conducting single line of operations short
  and safe
• enemy divides forces and over extends supply
  lines
• Napoleons victories in Italy did not support
  this theory
• Jomini liked Lloyds approach, not his
  conclusions
• Science of War

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Thoughts on War

• In all military operations there is always some
  imperfection or weak point but in judging
  operations we must apply principles with the
  objective in mind, and ask whether a given
  operation offers the best chance for victory

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Thoughts on War

• Key to victory is strategic choice based on
  invariable Principles of War
• Principles of War existed and their operation
  could be discerned from actual conduct of warfare
• Historical analysis

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Principles of War

• Prescriptions for making Strategic Choices
• In simplest terms
• bringing superior force to bear on a point
  where the enemy is both weaker and liable to
  crippling damage

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Principles of War

• Lines of Operations
• Natural (limits to strategic choice)
• Rivers
• Mountains
• Forts
• Bases
• Strategic choice
• Where to fight?
• For what purpose?
• With what force?

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Thoughts on War

• Warfare regressed
• Too much concern for supply lines/logistics
• War could feed war
• Victory is the sole aim

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Reduce War to its Fundamental Combinations

• All Strategic combinations are faulty if they do
  not conform to operating with the greatest
  possible force in a combined effort against the
  decisive point

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Thoughts on War

• Attack is essential
• How depends on situation
• Do not leave initiative to the enemy
• Pursue the beaten enemy
• MASSING
• ATTACKING
• PERSISTING

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Thoughts on War

• Mass forces and attack decisive points
• Points whose attack or capture would imperil or
  seriously weaken the enemy
• Maneuvering simply for some limited advantage was
  useless
• Commanders must identify those points which will
  ruin the enemy

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Thoughts on War

• Armies a faceless mass
• Denied the importance of institutional,
  political, or psychological factors
• Prescription and Reduction

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Thoughts on War

• Rise of the Military professional
• Jomini gave science to the profession
• Defined the relationship between military and
  government

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Military/Government Relationship

• A government should choose its ablest military
  commander, then leave him free to wage war
  according to scientific principles. Governments
  should not neglect their armed forces, but they
  must not meddle in matters that only educated and
  experienced officers understand

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Exceptions

• Exception to fundamental principle of massed
  offensive actions against a single point
• Civil, religious, or national wars
• Not regular armies entire populations involved
• No decisive point to attack the enemy was
  everywhere
• By massing troops you would always leave a weak
  point vulnerable in this kind of war

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Criticisms

• 1. Does not discuss the historical cases when his
  principles of war do not work.
• 2. To reduce relevant factors for his analysis,
  he assumed that military forces of the same size
  were essentially equal. Only differences among
  their commanders and the choices they made were
  of interest

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Criticisms

• 3. Stated that the political realm and tactical
  levels of war are not susceptible to scientific
  analysis, then blurred the levels of military
  operations by applying his timeless principles
  to battlefield applications
• 4. Vagueness about when the principles of war do
  and do not apply

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Active Learning Exercise

• Based on Jominis principles of war, was our
  conduct of operations in the Vietnam Conflict
  sound?
• Did the U.S. follow Jominis Principle of massed
  force on a decisive point?
• What was the military / governmental
  relationship?
• Was the Vietnam the kind of war that Jominis
  principles could be applied to?