Then the old Roman deities were discredited; and the world was waiting for something to take their place: a world religion perhaps. Mithras, the soldier’s religion, I understand was a contender; Judaism as the Pharisees understood it did not stand a chance. Christianity now is largely discredited in popular imagination; on the BBC they snigger at it. Islam might claim to be a more marshal religion; but there is hardly a Muslim state that is not tied to third world poverty, except where there is oil. Religion does not stand high in the public’s estimation; and the Christianity that the clergy preach now stands as little chance of fulfilling man’s spiritual aspirations, as Judaism did then. But the situation now is radically different from that of his day, both because society itself is so different, and also because knowledge particularly scientific knowledge is so immeasurably greater. It would be folly to go about things in the way he did, even if it were possible. We come back to the same maxim: to take the plans of bygone heroes, and to try to force them to fit new situations, is the road to catastrophe. It always was, and always will be. So what is to be done, either in the religious world, or the secular world?
Today I believe it is one and the same question. It was not so in Clausewitz’s day. He had no interest in religion; being poor and of somewhat dubious nobility, his prospects of promotion in the army were slender, unless he distinguished himself in war. So he longed for war, yet saw War as an instrument of policy on the part of the State, which he regarded as an organic body, almost as a person. A reasonable view to take in an absolute monarchy; but it meant that success or failure in life for him depended not only on his personal achievement and the chance circumstances of his career, but also on the moral character of the State he served. That is one of the penalties of putting the State into the position that Religion usually occupies; although there may be bonuses as well.
His distress was all the greater after the debacle of 1806. In the years before, he had been a military assistant to Colonel von Scharnhorst, who had done what he could to educate Prussian officers on the need for reform, if the challenge of Napoleonic warfare was to be met. Frederick the Great may have raised a nation of slaves to a pre-eminent position in Europe; but with the death of Frederick, there was no prospect of timid and unimaginative men continuing the system without reform. And Prussian military power became a shadow of its former self. Scharnhorst had considerable success in educating even senior officers to his point of view; but none in penetrating the corridors of power. So when Prussia mobilized, too little and too late in 1806, to the astonishment of Europe, the same timidity controlled its armies. Although at Auerstadt the Prussians outnumbered the French, they collapsed under the French assault. Clausewitz on the right wing was able to organise a battalion into a rear-guard, and helped to effect an orderly retreat there; but within a fortnight the troops he was with were forced to surrender. Prussian resistance had almost totally collapsed.