Karl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian soldier and military writer, born at Burg, June 1, 1780, died in Breslau, Nov. 16, 1831. He served in the army while a boy, and studied in the Berlin academy for young officers (1801-'3), where he attracted the attention of Gen. Scharnhorst, with whom he subsequently cooperated in the organization of the landwehr and in other military reforms. In 1806 he was adjutant of Prince Augustus, and was captured by the French. Alter the restoration of peace he acted till 1812 as major of the general staff, as assistant of Scharnhorst, and as military instructor of the crown prince of Prussia and of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands. He next served with distinction in the Russian army, aided Diebitsch in concluding with York the convention of Tauroggen, and accompanied Blucher as Russian staff officer in the campaign of 1813, of which he became the historiographer at the request of Gneisenau, who was long regarded as the author of Clausewitz's Ueber-sieht des Feldzugs von 1813 (Leipsic, 1814). After serving as chief of the general stall' of the Kussian-German legion, he assumed in 1815 the same position in the Prussian army, and became in 1818 major general and director of the military academy, and in 1831 chief of the general staff of Gneisenau's army on the Prussian-Polish frontier.

He died of cholera. His most esteemed writings are Vom Kriege, Der Feldzug von 1706 in Italien, Der Feldzug von 1815, and Ueber das Leben und den Character von Scharnhorst, included in his posthumous works (Hinterlassene Werke uber Krieg und Kriegfuhrung, 10 vols., Berlin, 1832-'7), which rank among the best authorities on military history and science.