Public-domain ebook
by Charles Jean Jacques Joseph Ardant du Picq
Language: en1,290 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #7294.
Battle Studies is a military treatise that juxtaposes the timeless human factors of combat with the evolving tactics of ancient and modern warfare. The work opens by invoking Napoleon’s famous moral‑to‑material ratio and proceeds to argue, through a series of historical examples, from Caesar and Hannibal to the French commanders of 1914‑18, that the “human element” of endurance, sacrifice and morale remains constant even as weapons and formations change. The author, Colonel Ardant du Picq, presents his analysis in two parts: a scholarly survey of classical battles followed by a collection of notes on contemporary engagements, enriched with unpublished fragments, questionnaires sent to fellow officers, and commentary on the French experience of the Franco‑Prussian War and the Great War.
Written in the late‑19th‑century French officer’s voice, the prose is dense, didactic and steeped in the language of doctrine, yet it retains a vivid, almost lyrical quality when describing the soldier’s experience. Readers with a keen interest in military history, strategy students, or anyone fascinated by the psychological underpinnings of combat will find du Picq’s blend of historical illustration and theoretical reflection both rigorous and compelling.
The opening · free to read
Napoleon has said that in war the moral element is to all others as three is to one. Moreover, as du Picq impressively demonstrates, while all other circumstances change with time, the human element remains the same, capable of just so much endurance, sacrifice, effort, and no more. Thus, from Caesar to Foch, the essential factor in war endures unmodified.
And it is not the value of du Picq's book, as an explanation of the disasters of 1870, but of the triumphs of 1914-18, which gives it present and permanent interest. It is not as the forecast of why Bazaine, a type of all French commanders of the Franco-Prussian War, will fail, but why Foch, Joffre, Petain will succeed, that the volume invites reading to-day.
Beyond all else, the arresting circumstances in the fragmentary pages, perfect in themselves but incomplete in the conception of their author, is the intellectual and the moral kinship they reveal between the soldier who fell just before the crowning humiliation of Gravelotte and the victor of Fere Champenoise, the Yser and the colossal conflict of 1918 to which historians have already applied the name of the Battle of France, rightly to suggest its magnitude.
Read the hastily compiled lectures of Foch, the teacher of the Ecole de Guerre, recall the fugitive but impressive words of Foch, the soldier, uttered on the spur of the moment, filled with homely phrase, and piquant figure and underlying all, one encounters the same integral conception of war and of the relation of the moral to the physical, which fills the all too scanty pages of du Picq.
"For me as a soldier," writes du Picq, "the smallest detail caught on the spot and in the heat of action is more instructive than all the Thiers and the Jominis in the world." Compare this with Foch explaining to his friend Andre de Mariecourt, his own emotions at the critical hour at Fere Champenoise, when he had to invent something new to beguile soldiers who had retreated for weeks and been beaten for days. His tactical problem remained unchanged, but he must give his soldiers, tired with being beaten to the "old tune" a new air, which would appeal to them as new, something to which they had not been beaten, and the same philosophy appears.
Du Picq's contemporaries neglected his warning, they saw only the outward circumstances of the Napoleonic and Frederican successes. In vain du Picq warned them that the victories of Frederick were not the logical outgrowth of the minutiae of the Potsdam parades. But du Picq dead, the Third Empire fallen, France prostrated but not annihilated by the defeats of 1870, a new generation emerged, of which Foch was but the last and most shining example. And this generation went back, powerfully aided by the words of du Picq, to that older tradition, to the immutable principles of war.
With surprising exactness du Picq, speaking in the abstract, foretold an engagement in which the mistakes of the enemy would be counterbalanced by their energy in the face of French passivity, lack of any control conception. Forty years later in the Ecole de Guerre, Foch explained the reasons why the strategy of Moltke, mistaken in all respects, failed to meet the ruin it deserved, only because at Gravelotte Bazaine could not make up his mind, solely because of the absence in French High Command of precisely that "Creed of Combat" the lack of which du Picq deplored.
Of the value of du Picq's work to the professional soldier, I naturally cannot speak, but even for the civilian, the student of military events, of war and of the larger as well as the smaller circumstances of battle, its usefulness can hardly be exaggerated. Reading it one understands something, at least of the soul as well as the science of combat, the great defeats and the great victories of history seem more intelligible in simple terms of human beings. Beyond this lies the contemporaneous value due to the fact that nowhere can one better understand Foch than through the reading of du Picq.
By translating this volume of du Picq and thus making it available for an American audience whose interest has been inevitably stirred by recent events, the translators have done a public as well as a professional service. Both officers enjoyed exceptional opportunities and experiences on the Western front. Col. Greely from Cantigny to the close of the battle of the Meuse-Argonne was not only frequently associated with the French army, but as Chief of Staff of our own First Division, gained a direct knowledge of the facts of battle, equal to that of du Picq, himself.
On the professional side the service is obvious, since before the last war the weakness of the American like the British Army, a weakness inevitable, given our isolation, lay in the absence of adequate study of the higher branches of military science and thus the absence of such a body of highly skilled professional soldiers, as constituted the French or German General Staff. The present volume is a clear evidence that American officers themselves have voluntarily undertaken to make good this lack.
On the non-professional side and for the general reader, the service is hardly less considerable, since it supplies the least technically informed with a simply comprehensible explanation of things which almost every one has struggled to grasp and visualize during the last six years extending from the battle of Marne in 1914 to that of the Vistula in 1920.
Of the truth of this latter assertion, a single example will perhaps suffice. Every forthcoming military study of the campaign of 1914 emphasizes with renewed energy the fact that underlying all the German conceptions of the opening operations was the purpose to repeat the achievement of Hannibal at Cannae, by bringing the French to battle under conditions which should, on a colossal scale, reproduce those of Hannibal's greatest victory. But nowhere better than in du Picq's volume, are set forth the essential circumstances of the combat which, after two thousand years gave to Field Marshal von Schlieffen the root ideas for the strategy expressed in the first six weeks of 1914. And, as a final observation, nowhere better than in du Picq's account, can one find the explanation of why the younger Moltke failed in executing those plans which gave Hannibal one of the most shining triumphs in all antiquity.
Thus, although he died in 1870, du Picq lives, through his book, as one of the most useful guides to a proper understanding of a war fought nearly half a century later.
FRANK H. SIMONDS.
Snowville, New Hampshire, October 15, 1920.
Colonel Ardant du Picq's "Battle Studies" is a French military classic. It is known to every French army officer; it is referred to as an established authority in such works as Marshal Foch's "The Principles of War." It has been eagerly read in the original by such American army officers as have chanced upon it; probably only the scarcity of thinking men with military training has precluded the earlier appearance of an American edition.
The translators feel that the war with Germany which brought with it some military training for all the best brains of the country has prepared the field for an American edition of this book. They are sure that every American reader who has had actual battle experience in any capacity will at some point say to himself, "That is absolutely true...." or, "That reminds me of the day...."
Appendices II, III, IV, and V, appearing in the edition from which this translation is made, deal with issues and military questions entirely French and not of general application. They are therefore not considered as being of sufficient interest to be reproduced herein. Appendix VI of the original appears herein as Appendix II.
The translation is unpretentious. The translators are content to exhibit such a work to the American military public without changing its poignancy and originality. They hope that readers will enjoy it as much as they have themselves.
J. N. G.
R. C. C.
We present to the public the complete works of Colonel Ardant du Picq, arranged according to the plan of the author, enlarged by unpublished fragments and documents.
These unpublished documents are partially known by those who have read "Studies on Combat" (Hachette & Dumaine, 1880). A second edition was called for after a considerable time. It has left ineffaceable traces in the minds of thinking men with experience. By its beauty and the vigor of its teachings, it has created in a faithful school of disciples a tradition of correct ideas.
For those familiar with the work, there is no need for emphasizing the importance and usefulness of this rejuvenated publication. In it they will find new sources of interest, which will confirm their admiration for the author.
They will also rejoice in the popularity of their teacher, already highly regarded in the eyes of his profession on account of his presentation of conclusions, the truth of which grows with years. His work merits widespread attention. It would be an error to leave it in the exclusive possession of special writers and military technicians. In language which is equal in power and pathetic beauty, it should carry its light much further and address itself to all readers who enjoy solid thought. Their ideas broadened, they will, without fail, join those already initiated.
No one can glance over these pages with indifference. No one can fail to be moved by the strong and substantial intellect they reveal. No one can fail to feel their profound depths. To facilitate treatment of a subject which presents certain difficulties, we shall confine ourselves to a succinct explanation of its essential elements, the general conception that unites them, and the purpose of the author. But we must not forget the dramatic mutilation of the work unfortunately never completed because of the glorious death of Ardant du Picq.
When Colonel Ardant du Picq was killed near Metz in 1870 by a Prussian shell, he left works that divide themselves into two well-defined categories:
Pamphlet (printed in 1868 but not intended for sale), which forms the first part of the present edition: Ancient Battle.
A series of memoirs and studies written in 1865. These are partly reproduced in Appendices I and II herein.
(2) Notes jotted down on paper, sometimes developed into complete chapters not requiring additions or revision, but sometimes abridged and drawn up in haste. They reveal a brain completely filled with its subject, perpetually working, noting a trait in a rapid phrase, in a vibrating paragraph, in observations and recollections that a future revision was to compile, unite and complete.
The collection of these notes forms the second part: Modern Battle.
These notes were inspired by certain studies or memoirs which are presented in Appendices I-V, and a Study on Combat, with which the Colonel was occupied, and of which we gave a sketch at the end of the pamphlet of 1868. He himself started research among the officers of his acquaintance, superiors, equals or subordinates, who had served in war. This occupied a great part of his life.
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