The doctrine of military theorist Carl von Clausewitz is situated in the landscape of international law at the time of post-Napoleonic thought. The Clausewitzian thesis that war is a continuation of politics by other means was expressed in the posthumous treatise On War, published in its entirety in 1834. Clausewitz argued for the necessity of absolute and total war, although he, during the process of writing, came to the conclusion that limited war was an option. Theoretically, he may have been influenced by the then-current doctrine of international law and the jus in bello positions of the Swiss author Vattel and others, but most likely he was aware of the jus contra bellum positions of the emerging peace movement. In general, he downgraded the importance of international law and peace policy and stuck to his hardline thesis. Nevertheless, due to the perceived anti-humanitarian harshness of his main thought, his position provoked an antithesis of Hegelian nature that was in tune with the liberal societal attitudes at the time. This in turn led to a kind of synthesis through later humanitarian regulation of armed conflict: the Lieber Code of 1863 during the American Civil War, the first Geneva Convention of 1864 and the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868. The Laws of War had come into being and would be further developed.