Fourth, the ordre
profond was appealing simply for the fact that it was a geometric system. Ancien
régime tacticians and commanders, particularly during the eighteenth
century, were very attached to linear and geometric systems, and the ordre profond
did not stray from these traditions.[1] The desire to maintain
orderly and systematic battlefields was the foremost cause of this attraction
to geometric systems. Such linearity evoked authority, control, discipline and
order, and in this way appealed as much to the theorist as they did the
general.[2] Though a seemingly shallow
motive, such an appearance could serve to demoralize an opponent, especially an
unorganized one.[3]
However, deeper cultural feelings were also perhaps behind the desire to
maintain geometric formations. Even briefly skimming the texts of Vegetius or
Polybius inspires a deep sense of the importance of geometric formations on and
off the battlefield. Geometric systems were a fundamental part of how the ancien
régime commander or tactician felt war ought to be fought, at least
according to the universal principles of war. Thus, along with the number of
reasons why ancien régime commanders and tacticians felt that the ordre
profond was both acceptable ideologically and ideal in a practical sense,
perhaps equally important was that the ordre profond was simply the
right shape.
[1] John France, “Close Order and Close Quarter: The
Culture of Combat in the West,” The International History Review 27, no.
3 (September 2007): 498.
[3] Ibid.,
251; In this, philosophes were likely supported by Arrian’s accounts of
Alexander’s military effectiveness through his use of the Macedonian pezhetairoi
phalanx, which on one occasion, Arrian reports, was able to cause an enemy
to retreat from the battlefield simply by manoeuvring and performing extremely
well-executed drills. Arrian, The Campaigns
of Alexander, ed. and trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (London: Penguin, 1971),
52.
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