JOMINI, ANTOINE HENRI, BARON (1779-1869), general in the French and afterwards in the Russian service, and one of the most celebrated writers on the art of war, was born on the 6th of March 1779 at Payerne in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, where his father was syndic. His youthful preference for a military life was disappointed by the dissolution of the Swiss regiments of France at the Revolution. For some time he was a clerk in a Paris banking-house, until the outbreak of the Swiss revolution. At the age of nineteen he was appointed to a post on the Swiss headquarters staff, and when scarcely twenty-one to the command of a battalion. At the peace of Lunéville in 1801 he returned to business life in Paris, but devoted himself chiefly to preparing the celebrated _Traité des grandes opérations militaires_, which was published in 1804-1805. Introduced to Marshal Ney, he served in the campaign of Austerlitz as a volunteer aide-de-camp on Ney's personal staff. In December 1805 Napoleon, being much impressed by a chapter in Jomini's treatise, made him a colonel in the French service. Ney thereupon made him his principal aide-de-camp. In 1806 Jomini published his views as to the conduct of the impending war with Prussia, and this, along with his knowledge of Frederick the Great's campaigns, which he had described in the _Traité_, led Napoleon to attach him to his own headquarters. He was present with Napoleon at the battle of Jena, and at Eylau won the cross of the Legion of Honour. After the peace of Tilsit he was made chief of the staff to Ney, and created a baron. In the Spanish campaign of 1808 his advice was often of the highest value to the marshal, but Jomini quarrelled with his chief, and was left almost at the mercy of his numerous enemies, especially Berthier, the emperor's chief of staff. Overtures had been made to him, as early as 1807, to enter the Russian service, but Napoleon, hearing of his intention to leave the French army, compelled him to remain in the service with the rank of general of brigade. For some years thereafter Jomini held both a French and a Russian commission, with the consent of both sovereigns. But when war between France and Russia broke out, he was in a difficult position, which he ended by taking a command on the line of communication. He was thus engaged when the retreat from Moscow and the uprising of Prussia transferred the seat of war to central Germany. He promptly rejoined Ney, took part in the battle of Lützen and, as chief of the staff of Ney's group of corps, rendered distinguished services before and at the battle of Bautzen, and was recommended for the rank of general of division. Berthier, however, not only erased Jomini's name from the list, but put him under arrest and censured him in army orders for failing to supply certain returns that had been called for. How far Jomini was held responsible for certain misunderstandings which