ABSTRACT
This chapter explores an important part of the historical legacy that informs the meaning of the concept of total war, namely that of the war that began in 1812 with Napoleon's invasion of Russia. It looks at how this legacy is expressed in a selection of writings of the philosopher J. G. Fichte that were composed during the war, as well as those of the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz written in its immediate aftermath. Experiences with the mass, organized violence of war have always motivated philosophical reflections on violence, just as the problem of war more broadly construed has always provided an important motivation for reflection on the human condition. The violence unleashed by the revolution thus masks a deeper story of freedom and emancipation; and it is in the collective experience of this emancipation that there develops a sense of the present as something that carries within it a unique relation to the possibilities of the future.
