Antoine Henri Jomini was born in Payerne, small town of the country of Vaud, located not far from on on March 6th, 1779, Neuchâtel Lake. Although it belonged to a family of middle-class notaries of Payerne, and bannerets or avoyers since generations, it made modest studies. It extremely early showed remarkable provisions for the figures. It wished to embrace the military career. The particular circumstances of the time made this vocation unrealizable. It thus entered very young person the working life, and left its birthplace for Paris or it occupied various functions, in the trade, and the bank. Installed on its account as stockbroker in 1798 it carried out good deals but the revolution of the 18 fructidor made him lose its capital.

During the years devoted to the trade, it continued to be impassioned for the military questions, which enabled him to acquire sufficient knowledge to enter at the proper time to the service of the Swiss republic, and to be appointed major in 1800.

Genious autodidact, it was discovered by the Ney marshal who helped it to publish his first works (Treated great tactic). He began his military career in the French Army with the camp from Boulogne under the orders of the Ney marshal. He quickly acquired a great fame for his writings. He was also used for the Staff of the Large army, with the rank of brigadier, under the orders of Napoleon I. He took part in the countryside of Germany in 1805, in the countryside of Prussia in 1806 (Iéna, Auerstaedt) in the countryside of 1807 in Poland (Eylau,) in the countryside of Spain. He also took part in the countryside of Russia as governor of Vilna, then governor of Smolensk.

In 1813, it took part as chief of staff of the Ney marshal, with the battles of Lützen and Bautzen. For his participation in this battle, the Ney marshal placed it at the top of the promotion table for his nomination at the rank of major general. Alas, for him and France, this request was rejected by the Berthier marshal for a futile reason. Ulcerated, Jomini joined the Russian Army during the armistice. The tsar Alexandre I had promised long time to him a station of high ranking.

He was used in the Russian Army initially with the rank as major general (general lieutenant) and was named aide-de-camp of the Emperor Alexandre I ^er. With its advent Nicolas I ^er stuck it like advising private and named it General-in-chief in 1826. It took part like advising in the countryside of Turkey of 1828. Jomini was again consulted at the time of the Crimean War in 1854. The tsar Nicolas I ^er charged it studying a reform of military teaching, and with re-examining the plans of the fortresses of the Empire. Moreover it accepted the military load of tutor of the tsarévitch Alexandre, later tsar Alexandre II. He was the creator of the Military academy, and devoted to this project much time and of energy. Intriguing prevented it from being appointed director of this academy.

The Jomini general is the author of a very important work of historian and military critic. He wrote in particular a “Treaty of great military operations, containing the critical history of the campaigns of Frederic II” who allowed him to set up a revolutionary approach of the art of warfare and to forge his own convictions as regards strategy. Then between 1820 and 1824 it published a “History of the Wars of the Revolutions” in 15 volumes, to which refer of many historians (Thiers makes him many loans). It published in 1827, after the death of Sainte Helene Napoleon, enthralling “a Political life and soldier of Napoleon” in 4 volumes written with the first nobody, and so credible, that was worth to him the nickname of “soothsayer of Napoleon”. This work was translated in the United States by the American General of the American Civil War, Henry Wager Halleck and was published in 1864.

Other historical works which take as a starting point the “Memories” of the Jomini general, were published after its death. It is the case of the “political and military Precis of the campaigns of 1812 to 1814” published by Ferdinand Lecomte in 1886, and of “War of Spain” published in 1892.

Its “Precis of the Art of the war” made the glory of Jomini of alive sound, and allows him today to appear in good place in all the anthologies treating of strategy. This work intended for the instruction of the Grand duke Alexandre, the future tsar Alexandre II, carries out the synthesis of its principles. Those were matured by the study, the personal genius, the observation and the participation in many campaigns and battles its time. It is still regularly republished in the principal languages, and appears in good place in the Military academies of the whole world. Impossible to circumvent during all the XIX ^E century, it entered then a kind of sown purgatory of flashes of light. Perhaps time did not come yet for him to be really revealed in the general public and to become definitively traditional of the strategy. However its fame grows because of its influence in the universities of management, to direct the sales strategy of the multinationals. It continued also to mark of its print the principles of the large American academies, and finds today an influence in the strategic reflection of the powers of the Atlantique pact.

The ideas of Clausewitz were considered to be deeper at the end of the XIX ^E century, because in particular of their philosophical and global solution of the war. They start on the contrary to mark their age. The wars D `extermination marked first half of the XX ^E century. Those of the end of the century were gained by applying more measured strategic principles expressed clearly by Jomini: “To relate, by strategic combinations, the large one of the forces of an army, successively to the decisive points of a theater of war, and as much as possible on the communications of the enemy without compromising to them his”.

The American strategic approach, is above all jominienne. It is not in the philosophy of the American people to leave a too broad place randomly. While implementing average logistics they gained victories over almost all their theaters of operation, including that of the Gulf, and more recently in Afghanistan and Iraq. From this point of view, Jomini is American than European!

Jomini, character of exception, whose extraordinary perspicacity, made it possible to decipher certain complex mechanisms of the art of the war, and to carry out the interpretation of the victories of the most remarkable strategist of all times, Napoleon Bonaparte. Its influence, denied by the ones, perhaps exaggerated by the others, continuous to cause the interest and passion and to print its mark on the thinkers of the strategy.

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The site Antoine-Henri de Jomini present of the headings on its writings, its life, its genealogy, its campaigns, Jomini and its contemporaries, “Jomini with known as” and “They said of him”.