“Every suspension of offensive action, either from erroneous views, from fear or from indolence, is in favor of the side acting defensively.”

Source: On War (1832), Book 6, Chapter 1.

Last update Nov. 16, 2021. History

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Carl von Clausewitz 68
German-Prussian soldier and military theorist 1780–1831

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“Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.”

Bk. IX, ch. 1
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