Clausewitz, Cholera, and Coronavirus

Portrait of Clausewitz by Wach

Dear Reader,

Earlier this week, I watched, with millions of others, online, as the USNS Comfort docked in New York City. This image is paired with hundreds of others from the current crisis, where soldiers from many nations, across the globe have been utilized in order to assist with this outbreak. This is nothing new, as millions of Americans who have served in the armed forces, and provided relief efforts all over the world, can attest. It is important to realize, however, that using military forces as a means of stopping the spread of disease, and assisting with the care for the sick, is nothing new, even in the long view of history. Today, we are going to examine one such case, of a particularly famous officer: Carl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz' wife, Marie, would eventually publish his collect writings as the book, On War. As a result of Marie's industrious work, Clausewitz' ideas would join the western canon of prominent military thinkers. His book is still read by generations of young officers today.

Ok, ok. So you have heard of Clausewitz. But do you know how he died? This most famous Prussian didn't die on the battlefield confronting Napoleon, or even while repressing the peasants on his estate. There is a reason why his wife, Marie, had to edit and publish his book posthumously. That reason is the spread of epidemic disease.

In Prussia, a generation of younger officers in the Old Regime, such as Schnarhorst, Gneisenau, Clausewitz, and Berenhorst, grew up in Frederick the Great's shadow . These men experienced the horror of defeat at Jena-Auerstadt, the solidification of that defeat at Tilsit. and came to prominence during the era of military reform during the Napoleonic Wars. Some of these men were killed in combat, or died of old age during or directly after the Napoleonic conflicts. However, two of the most prominent of those officers, Gneisenau and Clausewitz, lived through the challenge of the Napoleonic Wars, and survived to influence the army in the Restoration era. They lost their lives to a different opponent: the Cholera epidemic of 1831.

In 1831, the Prussian army established a cordon in western Poland, in order to stop the spread of insurrection from the Russian-occupied portion of the former Polish state. The Russian army had moved into eastern Poland, bringing with it a relatively novel disease at that time: Cholera. Cholera had spread from Russia into other parts eastern Europe, and the Prussian state tried to react, sealing its borders from goods and people traveling from Russia. Warsaw was badly infected by the disease, and before long, it had reached where Clausewitz was stationed at Posen.

The Prussian Army in Poland was immediately tasked with stopping the choleric spread further into the Prussian Kingdom. Clausewitz himself was directly responsible for the establishment of a sanitary cordon, designed to keep the infectious disease out of Prussian territory.[1] According to the biographer of Clausewitz' wife, Marie: "The personally invasive and widely unpopular measure[s] blocked travel and trade, delayed mail, and forced people into involuntary twenty-day isolation periods. Sometimes soldiers even shot at peasants trying to cross the border."[2] Clausewitz wrote to his wife that he was not afraid of the disease, because, "very seldom do people who live under good conditions [referring to cleanliness] become victims of this illness."[3] Marie believed that cleanliness helped to avert the disease as well, and asked her husband and his household to shower more frequently.

In July, the first soldier under Clausewitz' direct command perished from the disease.[4] On July 28th, Clausewitz' orderly, a man named Hensel, died of the disease. He was followed in death by August von Gneisenau's groom, as both men lived together.[5] Clausewitz, disturbed that the disease was killing people near to him, and that it had moved beyond the closed borders, wrote to Marie suggesting social distancing: he wanted his wife and mother-in-law to leave Berlin, and move to a less populated portion of Silesia.[6]

On the same day, July 28th, there were riots in capital of East Prussia, Koenigsberg, due to what the population felt were excessive disease control measures. The people of the city, not sufficiently educated as to the means of containing outbreak, believed that doctors were not being honest regarding the causes of death in most of the Cholera cases. When a doctor prescribed an ineffective medicine which killed a carpenter, a angry crowed rioted, and the military was called in to break up the riot, killing eight of the rioters.[7]

Gneisenau, by George Dawe

On August 22nd, 1831 Clausewitz' friend and immediate superior, Gneisenau, was taken ill, and the medical personnel present believed that Cholera was the cause.[8] Though Gneisenau was initially positive, his condition soon worsened, and Clausewitz wrote to his Marie, "The Field Marshal is in danger of his life. He is so ill, and I need all the composure I can to write these lines."[9]  Gneisenau at first responded well to the treatment of the doctor, Gumpel, but soon worsened again. After slipping in a coma on the afternoon of August 23rd, August von Gneisenau, a famed Prussian army reformer and field marshal, died from Cholera.

Clausewitz and his staff were immediately quarantined, and put in isolation, where they had to remain in a house near Posen, until the middle of September. He wrote his wife, in language that will feel familiar, describing his quarantine: Now I sit here as a prisoner, in a derelict...house." [10] By September, the disease had reached Berlin. Initially, a low number of cases were reported, giving the Prussian state a false sense of security, and cause Marie von Clausewitz to believe that her elderly mother was safe from danger.[11] Released from quarantine, Clausewitz finished his military mission in Poland during October. By November, Clausewitz had returned home to Breslau, but on the 16th of the month he was taken ill. Marie sent for the doctor. Clausewitz had a brief respite from symptoms, but they returned, and by 9pm, he died, likely of a heart attack caused by cholera.

As I write this, I am struck by how little has changed in the intervening two hundred years. In 1831 and 2020, governments and military forces have attempted to halt the spread of disease by closing borders, populations full of anxiety have disbelieved authorities regarding the seriousness of the disease, and then flaunted and rebelling against disease restrictions. Governments themselves doubted the seriousness of the problem, allaying public fears, perhaps wrongly. Family members suggested social distancing, particularly with the elderly in mind. The wealthy, believing they are relatively safe from the disease, are infected along with the poor.

All in all, it is a sobering reminder of the difficult times we have endured in the past, and the difficult times we must endure today. I'll be back soon with some more cheery content, in order to make up for all of this.

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Thanks for Reading, 

Alex Burns

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[1] Vanya Bellinger, Marie von Clausewitz, 215.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Quoted in Bellinger, Marie von Clauseiwitz, 215. 
[4] Donald Stoker, Clausewitz: His Life and Work, 279 (Kindle Edition)
[5] Bellinger, Marie von Clausewitz, 215.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Barbara Dettke, Die asiatische Hydra. Die Cholera von 1830/31 in Berlin und den preußischen Provinzen Posen, Preußen und Schlesien, 130-135.
[8]Roger Parkinson: Clausewitz: A Biography, Location 6424 (Kindle Edition)
[9]Quoted in Parkinson, Clausewitz, Location 6425 (Kindle Edition)
[10] Ibid, Location 6447.
[11] Bellinger, Marie von Clausewitz, 216.