BOOK VIII. PLAN OF WAR CHAPTER I. Introduction CHAPTER II. Absolute and Real War CHAPTER III. A. Interdependence of the Parts in a War CHAPTER III. B. On the Magnitude of the Object of the War and the Efforts to be Made CHAPTER IV. Ends in War More Precisely Defined—Overthrow of the Enemy CHAPTER V. Ends in War More Precisely Defined (_continued_)—Limited Object CHAPTER VI. A. Influence of the Political Object on the Military Object CHAPTER VI. B. War as an Instrument of Policy CHAPTER VII. Limited Object—Offensive War CHAPTER VIII. Limited Object—Defence CHAPTER IX. Plan of War When the Destruction of the Enemy is the Object INTRODUCTION The Germans interpret their new national colours—black, red, and white—by the saying, “Durch Nacht und Blut zur licht.” (“Through night and blood to light”), and no work yet written conveys to the thinker a clearer conception of all that the red streak in their flag stands for than this deep and philosophical analysis of “War” by Clausewitz. It reveals “War,” stripped of all accessories, as the exercise of force for the attainment of a political object, unrestrained by any law save that of expediency, and thus gives the key to the interpretation of German political aims, past, present, and future, which is unconditionally necessary for every student of the modern conditions of Europe. Step by step, every event since Waterloo follows with logical consistency from the teachings of Napoleon, formulated for the first time, some twenty years afterwards, by this remarkable thinker. What Darwin accomplished for Biology generally Clausewitz did for the Life-History of Nations nearly half a century before him, for both have proved the existence of the same law in each case, viz., “The survival of the fittest”—the “fittest,” as Huxley long since pointed out, not being necessarily synonymous with the ethically “best.” Neither of these thinkers was concerned with the ethics of the struggle which each studied so exhaustively, but to both men the phase or condition presented itself neither as moral nor immoral, any more than are famine, disease, or other natural phenomena, but as emanating from a force inherent in all living organisms which can only be mastered by understanding its nature. It is in that spirit that, one after the other, all the Nations of the Continent, taught by such drastic lessons as Königgrätz and Sedan, have accepted the lesson, with the result that to-day Europe is an armed camp, and _peace is maintained by the equilibrium of forces, and will continue just as long as this equilibrium exists, and no longer._