The Reality of War

The Reality of War, with the subtitle A Companion to Clausewitz, is a book by Stewart Lygon Murray. The editor's preface says busy men, who have not unlimited time for reading, find it helpful to have some one who will give them a general summary of a famous writer's teaching. The editor's preface says Major Murray has done this for the most important work on war that was ever written. The contents list names chapters on, among others, The Life of Clausewitz, Public Opinion in War, The Nature of War and Tactics.

The chapter on the life of Clausewitz calls him a practical soldier of very great experience in the long series of wars 1793 to 1815, and one present throughout Napoleon's Russian campaign in 1812. The text says one of the main objects of a nation waging war is to force the enemy's population into a state of mind favourable to submission. The text says it is not possible to improvise such organization of national force after the war has begun, for there cannot be sufficient time.