into the world. This
position I may well claim, as a similar one was allowed me during its
formation and progress. Those who are acquainted with our happy married
life, and know how we shared everything with each other--not only
joy and sorrow, but also every occupation, every interest of daily
life--will understand that my beloved husband could not be occupied on
a work of this kind without its being known to me. Therefore, no one can
like me bear testimony to the zeal, to the love with which he laboured
on it, to the hopes which he bound up with it, as well as the manner and
time of its elaboration. His richly gifted mind had from his early youth
longed for light and truth, and, varied as were his talents, still he
had chiefly directed his reflections to the science of war, to which the
duties of his profession called him, and which are of such importance
for the benefit of States. Scharnhorst was the first to lead him into
the right road, and his subsequent appointment in 1810 as Instructor at
the General War School, as well as the honour conferred on him at the
same time of giving military instruction to H.R.H. the Crown Prince,
tended further to give his investigations and studies that direction,
and to lead him to put down in writing whatever conclusions he arrived
at. A paper with which he finished the instruction of H.R.H. the Crown
Prince contains the germ of his subsequent works. But it was in the year
1816, at Coblentz, that he first devoted himself again to scientific
labours, and to collecting the fruits which his rich experience in those
four eventful years had brought to maturity. He wrote down his views,
in the first place, in short essays, only loosely connected with each
other. The following, without date, which has been found amongst his
papers, seems to belong to those early days.

"In the principles here committed to paper, in my opinion, the chief
things which compose Strategy, as it is called, are touched upon. I
looked upon them only as materials, and had just got to such a length
towards the moulding them into a whole.

"These materials have been amassed without any regularly preconceived
plan. My view was at first, without regard to system and strict
connection, to put down the results of my reflections upon the most
important points in quite brief, precise, compact propositions. The
manner in which Montesquieu has treated his subject floated before me in
idea. I thought that concise, sentent