Das Einrücken der Garde du Corps ins Lager bei Potsdam

Title

Das Einrücken der Garde du Corps ins Lager bei Potsdam

Description

Depiction shows the Prussian Garde du Corps entering the camp near Potsdam, with the windmill at Sanssouc in the background. After the original drawing by Carl Wilhelm Kolbe.

ca. 1803

Artist

Frick (1774-1850)

Historical Description

The art of war is the theory and practice of the preparation, conduct and execution of combat operations of various dimensions in all spheres, which emerged with the formation of war and the armed forces. The art of war includes more than just warfare. It is divided into three components according to the increasing scale of combat operations: tactics, operational art and strategy. The art of war emerged in the period of transition from the gentile order (The origin of the family, private property and the state) to the class society in a long historical process and developed in connection with the gradual formation of states and the military. It is connected with the politics of peoples, states, classes, nations and coalitions of alliances, as well as the armed forces, and the wars they fought and military theoretical thinking. The oldest European written records on warfare date from the time of the Trojan War (ca. 1300 BCE), namely from Homer's work Iliad. The process of development towards the art of war intensified in the 5th/4th century B.C.E. in the countries of the Near East and North Africa, and continued in Europe for centuries until the 5th century B.C.E. The term art of war first appeared in European military writings in the 16th/17th century. It referred to the activity of the commander in war. Between 1519 and 1520, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Art of War or Dell'arte della guerra, which mainly describes military affairs and reports on tactics, strategy and politics in feudal society. Until the 18th century, military affairs and the command of troops were often understood as a craft of war or art rather than a science. Principles and rules of the art of war in late feudal armies were reflected in the writings of the French marshals Henri de la Tour d`Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611-1675), and Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707), the Austro-imperial generals Raimund von Montecuccoli (1609-1680) and Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736), and the Prussian king Frederick II. and in the 17th/18th century. An outstanding representative of a new art of war was the French Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821).