Cabinet wars, derived from the German expression Kabinettskriege (German: [kabiˈnɛtsˌkʁiːɡə] , singular Kabinettskrieg), is a historical term to describe the shift in Europe from the regular, limited, aristocratic conflicts of the eighteenth century to total war following the French Revolution. [1] Historians define cabinet wars as a period of small conflicts not involving standing armies, but with a growing military class arising to advise monarchs. [2] The term derived from the council these cabinets provided during the period of absolute monarchies from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia to the 1789 French Revolution. These cabinets were marked by diplomacy and a self-serving nobility. [3] [4]
Cabinet wars marked the period of limited conflicts between monarchs from 1648 to 1789. These conflicts define a transition from princely wars (Fürstenkriege) to state wars (Staatenkriege) and Volkskriege, or wars of the people or nation in the mid-nineteenth century such as the French Revolution. [5] Cabinet wars were often more regulated, fought over lesser stakes, and revolved around noble territorial disputes and emerging state borders. [6]
Cabinet wars, as historically defined, link the evolution of the state with evolution of modern warfare. [7] These conflicts were marked by mercenary forces from different countries who did not identify with an abstract notion of the nation, rather than national standing militaries. [8] [9]
The contrast between Kabinettskriege, cabinet wars, and Staatenkriege, or state wars, was popularized by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder [10] who oversaw the modernization of the Prussian and Ottoman militaries. This classifications of three types of modern war: cabinet war, people's war and guerrilla war built off of Karl von Clausewitz' two types of war. [11]
This classification of cabinet wars stems from the analysis of warfare after the Napoleonic Wars by Clausewitz [12] and other military writers of the time. Debate centered around the question of whether wars should be all encompassing, or more limited in nature. In On War (1832) Clausewitz suggested a third type of war of limited strategy. Over time the classification became adopted in the lexicon of military historians.
Historians generally mark the end of the cabinet wars period with the beginning of the use of conscription and the levée en masse . [13]
Cabinet wars were not just bracketed by the Thirty Years' War and the French Revolution; they were marked by specific characteristics. Historians note the following features:
Carl Philipp Gottfriedvon Clausewitz was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral" and political aspects of waging war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege, though unfinished at his death, is considered a seminal treatise on military strategy and science.
Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted by using conventional weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined and fight by using weapons that target primarily the opponent's military. It is normally fought by using conventional weapons, not chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons.
Vom Kriege is a book on war and military strategy by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), written mostly after the Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1830, and published posthumously by his wife Marie von Brühl in 1832. It is one of the most important treatises on political-military analysis and strategy ever written, and remains both controversial and influential on strategic thinking.
Total war is a type of warfare that includes any and all resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilises all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs.
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of conflicts fought between the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte (1804–1815) and a fluctuating array of European coalitions. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.
The German Confederation was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved in 1806 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.
The Schlieffen Plan is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on 4 August 1914. Schlieffen was Chief of the General Staff of the German Army from 1891 to 1906. In 1905 and 1906, Schlieffen devised an army deployment plan for a decisive (war-winning) offensive against the French Third Republic. German forces were to invade France through the Netherlands and Belgium rather than across the common border.
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts resulting from the French Revolution that lasted from 1792 until 1802. They pitted France against Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and several other countries. The wars are divided into two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France had conquered territories in the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries, and the Rhineland due to its very large and powerful military, which had been totally mobilized for war against most of Europe with mass conscription of the vast French population. French success in these conflicts ensured military occupation and the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.
The War of the Second Coalition was the second war targeting revolutionary France by many European monarchies, led by Britain, Austria, and Russia and including the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples and various German monarchies. Prussia did not join the coalition, while Spain supported France.
Grand strategy or high strategy is a state's strategy of how means can be used to advance and achieve national interests in the long-term. Issues of grand strategy typically include the choice of military doctrine, force structure and alliances, as well as economic relations, diplomatic behavior, and methods to extract or mobilize resources.
Levée en masse is a French term used for a policy of mass national conscription, often in the face of invasion.
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas including modern France, Europe, and a variety of regions throughout the world.
The Oberste Heeresleitung was the highest echelon of command of the army (Heer) of the German Empire. In the latter part of World War I, the Third OHL assumed dictatorial powers and became the de facto political authority in the Empire.
The casualties of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), direct and indirect, are broken down below:
Klemens Wilhelm Jacob Meckel was a general in the Prussian army and foreign advisor to the government of Meiji period Japan.
The Royal Prussian Army served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Prussia as a European political and military power and within Germany.
The Second Hundred Years' War is a periodization or historical era term used by some historians to describe the series of military conflicts around the globe between Great Britain and France that occurred from about 1689 to 1815, including several separate wars such as the Nine Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The Second Hundred Years' War is named after the Hundred Years' War, which occurred in the 14th and 15th century. The term appears to have been coined by J. R. Seeley in his influential work The Expansion of England (1883).
Timothy Charles William Blanning is an English historian who served as Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge from 1992 to 2009.
The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648–1815, written by the British historian Timothy Blanning, was first published by Allen Lane in 2007. It met with very favourable reviews, was The Sunday Times history book of the year, and was reprinted in paperback by Penguin Books in 2008.
International relations from 1648 to 1814 covers the major interactions of the nations of Europe, as well as the other continents, with emphasis on diplomacy, warfare, migration, and cultural interactions, from the Peace of Westphalia to the Congress of Vienna.