The Art of War (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press)

Antoine-Henri, Baron Jomini (1779-1869), general in the French and afterwards in the Russian service, and one of the most celebrated writers on the Napoleonic art of war, was born at Payerne in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, where his father was syndic. His youthful preference for a military life was disappointed by the dissolution of the Swiss regiments of France at the start of the Revolution. For some time he was a clerk in a Paris banking-house, until the outbreak of the Swiss Revolution. At the age of nineteen he was appointed to a post on the Swiss headquarters staff, and when scarcely twenty-one to the command of a battalion. At the peace of Lunéville 1801 he returned to business life in Paris, but devoted himself chiefly to preparing the celebrated Traité des grandes operations militaires, which was published in 1804-1805.