The seventh lecture of the National Defence Forum of Peking University – National Defence University PLA China hosted by the Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS), Peking University (PKU) was staged at the North Pavilion on April 08, 2016. Sr. Col. Xu Qiyu, Vice Director of the Institute of Strategy Studies of National Defence University PLA China, gave a lecture themed by Thought, Doctrine and Warfare Efficiency — An Introduction to Prussian / German Military History, and Yu Tiejun, Vice President of IISS, PKU, served as chairman of this lecture.

Sr. Col. Xu Qiyu chronologically introduced the representative Prussian/ German military thinkers of different periods since Clausewitz, and thoroughly analyzed the characteristics and changes of Prussian/ German military thoughts and their influences on Prussian/ German defence and warfare.

First, Sr. Col. Xu Qiyu made comments on Clausewitz’s military thought, and believed that the greatest contribution made by Clausewitz to Prussian/ German military thoughts lies in his war concept of Trinity, which specifically consists of: 1) War is politically motivated, namely the well-known thought that war is nothing but a continuation of politics; 2) War is a kind of violent action with blind hatred and enmity; 3) War is beyond blindness and irrationality and gives militarists some room for maneuver, that is, war is subject to chance and probability so that militarists are able to give free play to their creativity. Among these three elements, the last one particularly matters. The important purpose of Clausewitz’s writing On War lies not in telling future generations how to march and fight, but probing into the nature of war. Different from the stereotype of Germans being precise and rigid, Clausewitz’s theory is fuzzy, and he stresses that war is subject to plenty of uncertain factors, and that the outcome of war depends on the fact that the commander gives how much free play to the art of war, does not attempt to search for the nonexistent “Victory Magic”.    

Sr. Col. Xu Qiyu opines that following Clausewitz, Sr. Moltke inherited and carried forward Clausewitz’s thoughts, and attached great importance to the uncertainty of war, the free play to the initiative of decision-makers at all levels, and stressed on free will and military art. With emphasis on researching the history of war, Sr. Moltke specially set up a department of historical research, but he didn’t want researchers to conduct historical researches with problems and reach conclusions from them, but stimulate soldiers’ talent and people’s true understanding of war through historical researches. The Battle of Sedan serves as a fruit of this military thought.

But when time marches to Schlieffen and afterwards, because of changes in thoughts and huge development of military technology, German decision-makers on war, especially its army commanders, almost completely deviated from Clausewitz’s military thoughts and attempted to command a battle or even a war as precise as a combat. This resulted in the poor result of Germany army on the Western Front during World Ward Ⅰ. Therefore, German army tried to restore its traditional military thoughts after World Ward , and achieved some results.  

Finally, Sr. Col. Xu Qiyu also made comments on Israel Defense Forces and the Northeast Field Army of Chinese People’s Liberation Army. According to him they both embody the characteristics of Clausewitz’s military thoughts. At the end of the lecture, Sr. Col. Xu Qiyu professionally and humorously answered questions asked by teachers and students being present. Consequently, the forum witnessed a complete success.