Debate begins - Chevalier de Folard

In the above, I have stressed that the ordre profond was not a radically-conceived or under-supported movement. Instead, deep-order tactics were designed to have practical outcomes for the ancien régime armies, and gained the support of a wide audience. Yet despite this support, the ordre profond was not immediately incorporated into the French tactical canon. Instead, as will now be examined, the idea underwent decades of debate. Opposition to the ordre profond was not usually ideologically based, as is sometimes alleged.[1] Well-versed in military scholarship, tacticians expressed a number of practical concerns with the ordre profond. [2] These concerns were widely shared and expressed. Recent scholarship by Sandra Powers has demonstrated the presence of a wide circle of book-sharing between European and American military philosophes, including copies and annotations of authors varied from Polybius to Vegetius, and Folard to Frederick. A copy of Drummond de Melfort's Traite sur la Cavalerie, for example, was annotated by and passed between the Duc d’Orleans (advocate of the ordre profond), Marshal Castries, Montmorency-Laval, Lauzun, Rochambeau, and George Washington.[3]  Consequently, the ordre profond was a well-known point of contention in France’s academic and military circles, and was debated on an accordingly large scale.

Even during its infancy, the ordre profond was reasonably high-profile. Though initially confined to theory, the ordre profond’s first major proponents, Jean Charles Chevalier de Folard and Maurice de Saxe, were both extremely influential. Not only were they major military figures in France during their lifetimes, but their publications received a great deal of posthumous attention. The system began with Folard, who published his Nouvelles D' écouvertes sur la guerre dans une dissertation de Polybe in 1724. In it, Folard proposed a 24-30 man wide by 46 man deep column to be used on the battlefield in every circumstance.[4] He suggested that the “manner of fighting by column is  . . . superior to all others,” and that France’s battalions knew “neither how to attack nor defend themselves . . . because they [fought] on so little depth that they [could] easily be pierced and broken.” [5] Claiming that depth would maintain French morale while dashing the enemy lines, Folard took specifically from Polybius’ doubled phalanx, even claiming to have improved upon it.[6] He believed that deep-order formations promoted the ultimate solidarity between soldiers, and rejected the notion that firearms could or would break troops in column formation, stating that it was “morally impossible that a column could ever be broken.” [7] Most, including Saxe, agreed that Folard went “too far,” particularly in his claim that “all ground is proper” for the column.[8] Nevertheless, even Frederick the Great encouraged all his officers to read Folard, though notably he informed them it contained “diamonds in a dung heap.” [9]

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[1] James R Arnold, “A Reappraisal of the Column versus the Line in the Peninsular War,” The Journal of Military History 68, no. 2 (April 2004): 537.

[2] Starkey, 212; Powers, 787-788.

[3] Ibid., 788; Powers also notes that between 1770-1772, the Encyclopedie Militaire, a journal devoted to the military debates of the time, was widely popular in Paris, and devoted particular attention to the works and achievements of authors and generals such as Saxe, Folard, Montecuccoli, and Frederick. Ibid., 783.

[4] Quimby, 28, 31.

[5] Folard, quoted in Quimby, 30.

[6] Folard specifically stated that the column “has the solidity and the impulsion of the doubled phalanx, of which Polybius speaks, without having its weaknesses.” Jean-Charles de Folard, Nouvelles d’ecouvertes sur la guerre dans une dissertation sur Polybe (Paris: Jean-Francois Josse, 1726), 200. 

[7] Folard, quoted in Quimby, 30.

[8] Saxe, Memoires sur L’Art de la Guerre, 3; Folard, 200.

[9] Frederick the Great, quoted in Quimby, 40.

Debate continues - Maurice de Saxe

Better known than Folard is Maurice de Saxe. Friendly with Voltaire and well known by the French and Russian monarchs, Saxe was France’s hero of the War of Austrian Succession, winning victories at Fontenoy and Maastricht, among others.[1] Saxe’s support for the ordre profond was published in his Reveries, or Memoires sur l’art de guerre, and read not only in France, but throughout Europe. His proposed system differed slightly from that of Folard’s, though he accepted Folard’s system both as generally feasible and as commendable.[2] The column, Saxe suggested, should be designed according to the Roman legionary standards, with smaller battalion sizes and deeper formations, as opposed to the Greek-style phalanx which Folard had suggested.[3] As columns necessitated extremely high discipline, Saxe presumed, he proposed to keep soldiers in their vital formation by means of a cadenced march.[4] This discipline would compensate for unpredictable troop morale by keeping soldiers together and in line, something he felt Folard had not fully taken into account.[5] Saxe recognized that the column could not act alone, and advocated a use of mixed arms, in particular cavalry to support the ordre profond.[6] Finally, he agreed with Folard that it was the nature of the French to attack, and controversially advocated the use of pikes instead of gunpowder weapons within the ordre profond. [7] Saxe condemned firearms specifically because of their lack of accuracy and power:

Powder is not as terrible as believed. Few men, in these affairs, are killed from in front or fighting. I have seen entire salvos fail to kill four men. And I have never seen, and neither has anyone else, I believe, a single discharge do enough violence to keep the troops from continuing forward and avenging themselves with bayonet and shot at close quarters.[8]  

 

Though this particular suggestion met considerable criticism, in general, Saxe was widely influential. His outright support for the deep-order tactical system was dispersed and debated by tacticians as well as by monarchs. With the groundwork for the ordre profond complete, the fate of the system rested with the military and academic community.

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[1] Phillips, 97-98.

[2] Saxe, Memoires sur L’Art de la Guerre, 3-4.

[3] Saxe, “My Reveries,” 148-149.

[4] Ibid., 109, 122.

[5] Saxe criticised Folard, stating “He supposes all men to be brace at all times and does not realize that the courage of troops must be reborn daily, that nothing is so variable, and that the true skill of a general consists in knowing how to guarantee it by his dispositions, his positions, and those traits of genius that characterize great captains. The same troops, who if attacking would have been victorious, may be invariably defeated in entrenchments. Few men have accounted for it in a reasonable manner, for it lies in human hearts and one should search for it there.” (Il suppose toujours les hommes braves, sans faire attention que la valeur des troupes est journalière, que rien n’est si variable, & que la vraie habileté d’un General consiste à savoir s’en garantir par les dispositions, par les positions, & par ces traits de lumières qui caractérisent les grands Capitaines.) Ibid., 100-101;  Saxe, Memoires sur L’Art de la Guerre, 3-4.

[6] Saxe, “My Reveries,” 126.

[7] See page 10; Saxe recommended 13 foot pikes and shields, justifying this decision with the confidence it would inspire in the French character: “According to my formation all the men are covered, each by each other, with reciprocal confidence; the front presents a forest of spears; their appearance is formidable and gives confidence to your own troops because they feel its power.” Ibid., 116-117.

[8] Ibid., 110.

Debate continues: Mesnil-Durand and Broglie

Thirty years after Folard’s first publication, his ordre found another ardent disciple: Francois-Jean de Mesnil-Durand, a French tactician who published his Projet d'un ordre françois en tactique in support of the ordre profond in 1755. It was through the work of Mensil-Durand that the ordre profond finally became a reality of the field. Based on Folard and Saxe’s precedent, Mesnil-Durand agreed that troops in column must not fire, but rely instead on the spirit of the system.[1] He proposed a system of deployment from and into column which would speed and simplify the process, allowing commanders to focus on his five principles of attack: superiority of numbers at the point of attack, concealment of the attack until the last moment, reliance on a vigorous charge and not on fire, concentration of attack to one point, and attack upon the centre.[2] Additionally, Mesnil-Durand answered critics of the ordre profond by publishing geometric proofs which he claimed demonstrated that the column was not only feasible, but ultimately a superior method to the ordre mince. Mesnil-Durand algebraically calculated that the column could maintain a superior level of accuracy and rate of fire while moving faster than line orders.[3] More importantly, he calculated that under fire, the column would lose fewer soldiers than the ordre mince, solving a major criticism of the ordre.[4] Though his proofs met some opposition, Mesnil-Durand won the favour of France’s top commander, Victor-Francois de Broglie, and the interest of the king, pushing the ordre profond closer to inclusion in the tactical canon.[5]

Mesnil-Durand was not the only reason the ordre profond gained ground in the mid-eighteenth century. The successful use of similar military systems by armies which the French had recently come into contact with suggested that deep-order tactical systems could be fruitfully employed. Infantry columns were being used with success in Russia. Due to the flat terrain and heavy presence of cavalry on Russian battlefields, especially in south-eastern Europe, Russian infantry successfully relied on square and column formations.[6] More significant, the American Revolution had demonstrated the power of free and motivated soldiers. On a tactical level, commanders in America – including LaFayette – found that small groups of fast moving and excited soldiers could win a battle, and consequently included infantry columns in their repertoire to house such soldiers.[7] It seemed to the French that the Americans were successfully employing the universal principles of warfare on the modern battlefield.[8] Finally, French losses in the Seven Years War prompted a call for change within the army.[9] Riding this discontent, by 1778 Mesnil-Durand and Broglie had won enough support for the ordre profond to put it to the test.

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[1] Quimby, 211-212. Unable to find translated versions of Mesnil-Durand’s works, I rely upon extensive passages quoted by Quimby, Alder, and Colin, noting the bias which this may bring.

[2] Ibid., 220. These notably aligned very closely with the universal principles of war which the Ancients advocated, discussed above.

[3] Alder, 115.

[4] Ibidem.

[5] Quimby, 233.

[6] Starkey, 179.

[7] Ibid., 23. John Lynn, Battle, 186; Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier Lafayette, Memoirs, Correspondence, and Manuscripts of General Lafayette, Published by his Family, vol. 1 (New York: Saunders and Otley, 1836), 236.

[8] Julia Osman, “Ancient Warriors on Modern Soil: French Military Reform and American Military Images in Eighteenth-Century France.” French History 22, no. 2 (2008): 187. 

[9] Avant, 54.