Antoine - Henri Jomini Antoine - Henri , baron Jomini ( 6 March 1779 – 24 March 1869 ) was a general in the French and later in the Russia n service , and one of the most celebrated writers on the Napoleonic art of war . According to the historian John Shy , Jomini " deserves the dubious title of founder of modern strategy . " Jomini ' s ideas were a staple at military academies . The senior generals of the American Civil War — those who had attended West Point — were well versed in Jomini ' s theories . Early life and business career . Jomini was born in Payerne in the canton of Vaud , Switzerland , on 6 March 1779 , where his father served as mayor . The Jominis " were an old Swiss family " of distant Italian descent with a decidedly pro - French outlook . As a young boy , Jomini " was fascinated by soldiers and the art of war , " and hoped to join the military , but his parents pushed him towards a career in business . As a result , Jomini entered a business school in Aarau at the age of 14 . In April 1795 , Jomini left school and went to work at the banking house of Monsieurs Preiswerk in Basle . In 1796 , he moved to Paris where he worked first at another banking house and then as a stockbroker . After a short time in banking , however , " Jomini convinced himself that the tedious life of a banker was not to be compared with the life afforded in French Army , " and decided to become a military officer as soon as he found an opportunity . Swiss Army . In 1798 , after the establishment of the Helvetic Republic , Jomini became an " eager revolutionary " , following the example of Frédéric - César de La Harpe and found a position in the new Swiss government as a secretary for the Minister of War with the rank of captain . In 1799 , after being promoted to the rank of major , Jomini took responsibility for reorganizing the operations of the ministry . In that capacity , he standardized many procedures , and used his position " to experiment with organizational systems and strategies . " After the peace of Lunéville in 1801 , Jomini returned to Paris , where he worked for a military equipment manufacturer . He found the job uninteresting , and spent most of his time preparing his first book on military theory : " Traité des grandes operations militaires " ( Treatise on Major Military Operations ) . Michel Ney , one of Napoleon ' s top generals , read the book in 1803 and subsidized its publication . The book appeared in several volumes from 1804 to 1810 , and was " quickly translated and widely discussed " throughout Europe . Service in the Napoleonic Wars . French Army . Jomini served in the 1805 campaign , serving on Ney ' s staff . Jomini fought with Ney at the Battle of Ulm and in December of that year , he was offered a commission as a colonel in the French Army . In 1806 Jomini published his views as to the conduct of the impending war with Prussia . This , along with his knowledge of Frederick the Great ' s campaigns , which Jomini had described in the " Traité " , led Napoleon to attach him to his own headquarters . Jomini was present with Napoleon at Jena and at Eylau , where he won the cross of the Legion of Honour . After the peace of Tilsit Jomini was made chief of the staff to Ney and created a Baron . In the Spanish campaign of 1808 his advice was often of the highest value to the marshal , but Jomini quarrelled with his chief , and was left almost at the mercy of his numerous enemies , especially Louis Alexandre Berthier , the emperor ' s chief of staff . Russian Army . Overtures had been made to him , as early as 1807 , to enter the Russian service , but Napoleon , hearing of his intention to leave the French army , compelled him to remain in the service with the rank of general of brigade . For some years thereafter Jomini held both a French and a Russian commission , with the consent of both sovereigns . But when war between France and Russia broke out , he was in a difficult position , which he dealt with by taking a non - combat command on the line of communication . Jomini was thus engaged when the retreat from Moscow and the uprising of Prussia transferred the seat of war to central Germany . He promptly rejoined Ney , took part in the Battle of Lützen . As chief of the staff of Ney ' s group of corps , he rendered distinguished services before and at the Battle of Bautzen , and was recommended for the rank of general of division . Berthier , however , not only erased Jomini ' s name from the list but put him under arrest and censured him in army orders for failing to supply certain staff reports that had been called for . How far Jomini was responsible for certain misunderstandings which prevented the attainment of all the results hoped for from Ney ' s attack at Bautzen , we cannot be sure . But the pretext for censure was in Jomini ' s own view trivial and baseless , and during the armistice Jomini did as he had intended to do in 1809 – 1810 , and went into the Russian service . As things then were , this was tantamount to deserting to the enemy , and so it was regarded by many in the French army , and by not a few of his new comrades . It must be observed , in Jomini ' s defense , that he had for years held a dormant commission in the Russian army and that he had declined to take part in the invasion of Russia in 1812 . More important — and a point that Napoleon commented upon — was the fact that he was a Swiss citizen , not a Frenchman . His Swiss patriotism was indeed strong , and he withdrew from the Allied Army in 1814 when he found that he could not prevent the allies ' violation of Swiss neutrality . Apart from love of his own country , the desire to study , to teach and to practise the art of war was his ruling motive . At the critical moment of the battle of Eylau he had exclaimed , " If I were the Russian commander for two hours ! " On joining the allies he received the rank of lieutenant - general and the appointment of " aide - de - camp " from the tsar , and rendered important assistance during the German campaign : an accusation that he had betrayed the numbers , positions and intentions of the French to the enemy was later acknowledged by Napoleon to be without foundation . As a Swiss patriot and as a French officer , he declined to take part in the passage of the Rhine at Basel and the subsequent invasion of France . In 1815 he was with Tsar Alexander in Paris , and attempted in vain to save the life of his old commander Ney . This defense of Ney almost cost Jomini his position in the Russian service . He succeeded , however , in overcoming the resistance of his enemies and took part in the Congress of Vienna . Post - war service and retirement . After several years of retirement and literary work , Jomini resumed his post in the Russian army , and in about 1823 was made a full General . Thenceforward until his retirement in 1829 he was principally employed in the military education of the Tsarevich Nicholas ( afterwards Emperor ) and in the organization of the Russian staff college , which was established in 1832 and bore its original name of the Nicholas Academy up to the October Revolution of 1917 . In 1828 he was employed in the field in the Russo - Turkish War , and at the Siege of Varna he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Alexander Order . This was his last active service . In 1829 he settled in Brussels which served as his main place of residence for the next thirty years . In 1853 , after trying without success to bring about a political understanding between France and Russia , Jomini was called to St Petersburg to act as a military adviser to the Tsar during the Crimean War . He returned to Brussels upon the conclusion of peace in 1856 . Later he settled at Passy near Paris . He was busily employed up to the end of his life in writing treatises , pamphlets and open letters on subjects of military art and history . In 1859 he was asked by Napoleon III to furnish a plan of campaign for the Italian War . One of his last essays dealt with the Austro - Prussian War of 1866 and the influence of the breech - loading rifle . He died at Passy only a year before the Franco - Prussian War of 1870 - 71 . Works and influence . Jomini ' s military writings are frequently analyzed : he took a didactic , prescriptive approach , reflected in a detailed vocabulary of geometric terms such as bases , strategic lines , and key points . His operational prescription was fundamentally simple : put superior combat power at the decisive point . In the famous theoretical Chapter 25 of the " Traité de grande tactique " , he stressed the exclusive superiority of interior lines . As one writer rather partial to Carl von Clausewitz — Jomini ' s great competitor in the field of military theory — put it : Jomini was no fool , however . His intelligence , facile pen , and actual experience of war made his writings a great deal more credible and useful than so brief a description can imply . Once he left Napoleon ' s service , he maintained himself and his reputation primarily through prose . His writing style — unlike Clausewitz ' s — reflected his constant search for an audience . He dealt at length with a number of practical subjects ( logistics , seapower ) that Clausewitz had largely ignored . Elements of his discussion ( his remarks on Great Britain and seapower , for instance , and his sycophantic treatment of Austria ' s Archduke Charles ) are clearly aimed at protecting his political position or expanding his readership . And , one might add , at minimizing Clausewitz ' s , for he clearly perceived the Prussian writer as his chief competitor . For Jomini , Clausewitz ' s death thirty - eight years prior to his own came as a piece of rare good fortune . Jomini took the view that the amount of force deployed should be kept to the minimum in order to lower casualties and that war was not an exact science . Specifically , Jomini stated in his book : " War in its ensemble is NOT a science , but an art . Strategy , particularly , may indeed be regulated by fixed laws resembling those of the positive sciences , but this is not true of war viewed as a whole . Among other things , combats may be mentioned as often being quite independent of scientific combinations , and they may become essentially dramatic , personal qualities and inspirations and a thousand other things frequently being the controlling elements . The passions which agitate the masses that are brought into collision , the warlike qualities of these masses , the energy and talent of their commanders , the spirit , more or less martial , of nations and epochs , [ 51 ] — in a word , every thing that can be called the poetry and metaphysics of war , — will have a permanent influence on its results . " . While in Russian service , Jomini tried hard to promote a more scientific approach at the general staff academy he helped to found . Prior to the American Civil War , the translated writings of Jomini were the only works on military strategy that were taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point . His ideas , as taught by professor Dennis Hart Mahan permeated the Academy and shaped the basic military thinking of its graduates . The regular army officers who became the general officers for both the Union and the Confederacy in the Civil war began by following Jominian principles . However , British historian John Keegan argues in " The American Civil War " that the peculiarities of American geography , particularly as pursued by Ulysses S . Grant and William T . Sherman in the western theater of the war , forced them to move beyond his geometric conventions and find other strategic solutions to the problems which confronted them .