German military leader and strategist Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) has been called the "father of modern warfare." As a member of the officers' corps of the mighty Prussian army from an early age, Clausewitz witnessed some of the most decisive European battles of his century and culled his observations into a body of theories that were outlined in his 1832 tract, On War. Its most enduring statement, "War is a continuation of policy by other means," has been widely misconstrued.

Clausewitz was born Karl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz on June 1, 1780 in the Prussian city of Burg, near Magdeburg, capital of Saxony-Anhalt. He was one of six children of Friedrich Gabriel von Clausewitz, a retired Prussian army officer. Though Prussia no longer exists as a sovereign nation, during Clausewitz's lifetime it was one of Europe's most formidable powers. It originated as a duchy in the seventeenth century, and eventually acquired...