Jomini : Biography

The 18th and 19th century were centuries full of conflict for Europe. Napolean's war raged between France and series of 3 coalitions of European Countries from 1792-1815. These conflict also produced few greatest military thinkers of all time.Napolean who often regarded as a great military strategist left no written records of his concepts and his military applications but mostly penned mostly novellas, essays, etc.

But thanks to 2 men for recording analyzing and interpreting his strategy and contributions:

1. Antoine-Henri, Baron Jomini (6 March 1779 – 24 March 1869)
2. Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz[1] (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831)

Antoine Henri Jomini

Antoine-Henri, Baron Jomini was the first among the military thinkers who analyzed Napoleon’s warfare tactics. Swiss by birth Jomini joined the French Army. He was working backend i.e as a staff officer throughout his career.

In 1806 after publishing his views on the current war with Prussia and his exceptional knowledge of Fredrick the Great's campaign made Napolean appoint him at his headquarters. Later he was offered to join Russian Armed service which he did after the consent of both countries. But was caught in a flux when the war between the France and Russia started which he tackled by engaging as non-combatant in the communications area.

In his later life, he started Military Academy of St Petersburg (1826) in Russia and then retired in France where he advised Napoleon III for the Italian campaign (1859) and died on 22 March 1869, in Paris at the age of 90.

The famous quote for Jomini was “Devin de Napoléon” or the man who guessed what Napoleon was about.

He along with Clausewitz had done for Defence Studies what Adam Smith had done for Economics.