Philip Sabin points out that modern wargames not only contain substantial amounts of historical information but also arrange it into interactive models which depict historical processes in a simplified manner. Such models can be used in historical research as well, complementing the discourse through more holistic and mathematically strict accounts, and providing tools that impose some discipline on counter- factual speculation.

The purpose of this paper is to go beyond the usual scheme associated with Clausewitz, which narrows his life down to being a soldier and concentrates solely on his theory of war. By presenting his main methodological approach, the study examines the role of history in Clausewitz’s thinking and analyses how his historical studies tested and validated his evolving theoretical structure and how they could enable soldiers who had never fought or served as commanders to develop their battle intuition and enhance decision making process by learning from real world examples in times of peace.