Tag: Napoleonic Wars

6,341 words

Part 3 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here)

1. Fichte on the Nature of the State

We began to explore Fichte’s political philosophy in the last installment, as expounded primarily in his 1796 work Foundations of Natural Right. It is a basic principle of Fichte’s philosophy that subjectivity, what he calls the “I,” must bring nature under the control of reason. (more…)

4,031 words

Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

II. To Winter Wonderlands

The road through the Almond and Raisin Gate led Nutcracker and Marie to Rock Candy Mountain and the Christmas Woods, Bon-Bonville, Marzipan Castle, and Jamburg. Upon crossing Lemonade River, six monkeys in red vests began “playing the most beautiful Turkish military music,” while they walked “farther and farther on multicolored tiles, which, however, were nothing but nicely filled lozenges.” (more…)

Left: Antoine-Jean Gros, Premier Consul Bonaparte, ca. 1802; Right: Cover for E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alexandre Dumas’ The Nutcracker & the Mouse King

5,234 words

Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)

Like many of us this past season, I have had to endure far too many repetitions of the same 11 ”holiday” songs that fail to capture the essence of the season: the contemplative, dirge-y, or haunted side of winter, paired with the tasteful emotional warmth and childlike joy of Christmas. (more…)

William Blake, Mrs. Q, ca. 1815

7,128 words

“The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it.” — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

The last article of mine that our editors at Counter–Currents kindly published was about the masculine topic of military history. To complement a foray into the Napoleonic Wars, I included a clip from the 1970 film Waterloo.^[1] In the comments, a reader shared an observation about one of the few Waterloo scenes that did not take place on a battlefield. Instead, this particular scene immersed audiences in a Brussels high-society fête, where the Duchess of Richmond hosted the Duke of Wellington’s officers at her famous summer Ball of 1815. (more…)

Horace Vernet, Napoleon at Jena: “En Avant!”

1,990 words

1. Homer, Iliad. W. C. Bryant, trans. Perth, Aus.: Imperium Press, 2019, 576 pp.: While everyone knows the story, few people today have actually read it. You can bet that almost every great military commander in Western history read it. Composed during the Greek “Dark Ages” and (probably) based on a real event, Iliad is an echo of the even earlier Bronze Age — of war’s power at its all-encompassing, glorious, and terrible pinnacle. (more…)

Napoleon’s North African-attired Consular Guard: a hard look to pull off

4,571 words

Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

2. Rage Militaire: Franco-American Zouave-mania

“His parents taught him to be a cavalier, but the life of the Zou-zou he much did prefer.” — anonymous Confederate verse

“The city,” one Richmond, Virginia newspaperman enthused, “was yesterday thrown into a paroxysm of excitement by the arrival of the New Orleans Zouaves — a battalion of six hundred and thirty, as unique and picturesque looking Frenchmen as ever delighted the oculars of Napoleon the three.” (more…)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

5,174 words

1. The Greatest Unread Philosopher in History

Chances are you may never even have heard of the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). If you have heard of him, you probably have the vague idea that he was a follower of Kant who went off the reservation and tried to defend the bizarre position that all of reality is the creation of something called the “Absolute Ego.” This is how he is often treated in histories of philosophy. But this characterization of Fichte is completely wrong. (more…)

4,506 words

Part 2 of 2. Part 1 here.

Schleiermacher’s Philosophy of Mind

According to Schleiermacher, the task of philosophy is the “immersion of the Spirit into the innermost depths of itself and of things in order to fathom the relations of their [spirit and nature] being-together.”[1] Schleiermacher’s philosophy, like German idealism in general, was very influenced by, and a reaction to, the critical transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant. (more…)

4,148 words

Part 1 of 2. Part 2 here.

“I feel sure that Germany, the kernel of Europe, will arise once more in a new and beautiful state, but when this will happen, and whether the country will not first have to experience even greater difficulties […] God alone knows.” — Friedrich Schleiermacher, 1806[1]

(more…)

An East German soldier guards Clausewitz’s grave in the 1980s.

1,982 words

Part 4 of 4 (Part One here; Part Two here; Part Three here)

Conclusion: Freedom or Death

After his death, Clausewitz had a public destiny rare for generals, let alone theorists. He was not only enthusiastically celebrated in the Third Reich, a regime firmly dedicated to many of the Prussian virtues, but, for better and for worse, his words proved to be of foundational importance for Hitler and his own life’s work. (more…)

Allegedly the last photo ever taken of Hitler, in the ruins of the Reich Chancellery, April 1945.

3,368 words

Part 3 of 4 (Part One here; Part Two here)

Hitler & the Bekenntnis: A Mantra of Resistance & Renewal

Perhaps more significant still than Hitler’s use of the Formule, is his citing of Clausewitz to assert the ethical validity of resistance at any price, even doomed resistance. (more…)

3,960 words

Part 2 of 4 (Part One here)

Clausewitz in the Third Reich I: A National Hero

Clausewitz’s presence in this period of German history cannot be reduced to Hitler. As a Prussian patriot and the preeminent theorist of modern war, Clausewitz was unsurprisingly enthusiastically celebrated in the Third Reich. (more…)