...between variously composed groups of states that formed official or informal, temporary or relatively permanent military alliances. These two essentially indissoluble concepts underwent, since their inception and to this day, a far from simple evolution.

In keeping with the current Russian interpretation, a military coalition (a military-political alliance) is a union of two or several states designed to attain political goals by military means. (1) The Western definition of the same is practically identical to the Russian. (2) These alliances may be concluded in anticipation of future wars (military conflicts) and unexpectedly arising threats. Accordingly, military operations pursued by those alliances are coalition--or multinational, as they are also described in the West--operations.

The first to develop a theory of coalition warfare and military coalitions within the framework of the European military art was the Prussian military theorist and historian Karl von Clausewitz, who repeatedly addressed this most complicated phenomenon of science in his works. Many other representatives of the Western military school that prevailed in European military science at that time also paid attention to coalition problems. They are, among others, Adam von Bulow, Alfred von Schlieffen, Gerhardt von Scharnhorst, and Christian von Massenbach. But it was Clausewitz's fundamental theoretical work On War that reflected, in a concentrated form, all the aspects of coalition warfare as they were at the start of the 19th century.

Let us dwell on some of his postulates that in effect accumulated the main principles underlying the making of military coalitions and the conduct of coalition operations.

While considering this phenomenon of military art, Clausewitz proceeded from the policy factor. He stressed that a result the states sought as they joined a military alliance was the addition of the subjects' burgeoning multilateral political relations. Upon their accession, the subjects began working to preserve and strengthen those relations, thus laying, for the time being, a powerful foundation for the alliance they had created. An indispensable condition in this context was that the coalition members should assume reciprocal commitments to help each other. (3)

The central point in coalition-making, according to Clausewitz, is the one about a single commander, or, to be more exact, about his powers. If the participants fail to stipulate in advance all the fine points of the operational command, it may so happen that the commander of a national contingent will be guided by directives of his own government rather than the general campaign plan. Of interest in this respect is Clausewitz's remark to the effect that where one of the national units in a general coalition cannot be fully subordinated to a single command, no splitting in half should be practiced either: the worst of it is when two independent generals of two different nations (but of the same coalition!) operate upon one theater of war. (4)

As I see it, he makes another important point when he comes to how to appoint a commander for a national contingent to be placed under a foreign commander-in-chief: don't choose the most cautious and circumspect men, he says, let them better be the most enterprising ones. It is only in this case, he believes, that each coalition component can be made to perform with utmost efficiency within the framework of general efforts. (5)

In practice, he says, the states that are included in a coalition might differ in their policies in respect of the adversary. This is why all possible details of subsequent allied actions must be stipulated in advance. This procedure, according to Clausewitz, is rather in the nature of a commercial deal. Even if states have some major interest in common, he continues, there is no way to escape certain additional reservations, and the contracting parties usually commit themselves, in a convention they make, only to some insignificant involvement in order to use their remaining military forces in accordance with certain special considerations that may further arise in the course of their policies. (6) More than that, says Clausewitz, member-states of a coalition eventually must realize that the individual aspirations of each should be subordinated to the general goal of a campaign regardless of how much forces and weapons they contributed to this or that particular alliance. He puts a special emphasis on the fact that at the final stage of the war against Napoleon in 1813, the Russian Emperor, who possessed the strongest army and had done more than anyone else to achieve a reversal of fortunes in that war, subordinated his troops to the Prussian and Austrian army commanders, without letting himself be carried away by the ambition to go...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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