The second classification to which we are led by the political theory of war, is one which Clausewitz was the first to formulate and one to which he came to attach the highest importance.  It becomes necessary therefore to examine his views in some detail—­not because there is any need to regard a continental soldier, however distinguished, as an indispensable authority for a maritime nation.  The reason is quite the reverse.  It is because a careful examination of his doctrine on this point will lay open what are the radical and essential differences between the German or Continental School of Strategy and the British or Maritime School—­that is, our own traditional School, which too many writers both at home and abroad quietly assume to have no existence.  The evil tendency of that assumption cannot be too strongly emphasised, and the main purpose of this and the following chapters will be to show how and why even the greatest of the continental strategists fell short of realising fully the characteristic conception of the British tradition.

By the classification in question Clausewitz distinguished wars into those with a “Limited” object and those whose object was “Unlimited.”  Such a classification was entirely characteristic of him, for it rested not alone upon the material nature of the object, but on certain moral considerations to which he was the first to attach their real value in war.  Other writers such as Jomini had attempted to classify wars by the special purpose for which they were fought, but Clausewitz’s long course of study convinced him that such a distinction was unphilosophical and bore no just relation to any tenable theory of war.  Whether, that is, a war was positive or negative mattered much, but its special purpose, whether, for instance, according to Jomini’s system, it was a war “to assert rights” or “to assist an ally” or “to acquire territory,” mattered not at all.

Whatever the object, the vital and paramount question was the intensity with which the spirit of the nation was absorbed in its attainment.  The real point to determine in approaching any war plan was what did the object mean to the two belligerents, what sacrifices would they make for it, what risks were they prepared to run?  It was thus he stated his view.  “The smaller the sacrifice we demand from our opponent, the smaller presumably will be the means of resistance he will employ, and the smaller his means, the smaller will ours be required to be.  Similarly the smaller our political object, the less value shall we set upon it and the more easily we shall be induced to abandon it.”  Thus the political object of the war, its original motive, will not only determine for both belligerents reciprocally the aim of the force they use, but it will also be the standard of the intensity of the efforts they will make.  So he concludes there may be wars of all degrees of importance and energy from a war of extermination down to the use of an army of observation.  So also in the naval sphere there may be a life and death struggle for maritime supremacy or hostilities which never rise beyond a blockade.