Book IV, The Combat, Chapters I-VIII Summary and Analysis

In Chapter I, Clausewitz proposes to discuss combat and battle tactics. Chapter II explains the character of the modern battle. In a modern battle, soldiers organize in large masses arranged together and behind one another, with a small portion deployed at each one time and engaging in several hours of fire-combat lasting until the night. Chapter III discusses the combat in general; it is the key warlike activity and everything else is subservient to it. Combat is fighting that aims at the destruction or conquest of the enemy in the form of the armed force standing against us. Again, strategies are composed of each unit of combat. Overcoming the enemy means destroying his military force, though it may not always appear that way as it rarely happens. Instead, perhaps it is...