By Gustav Person, 1st Virginia Regiment
“…I am no advocate for blindly following the maxims of European policy.â
Part I of this article examined the British and Ameri- can training manuals in use and available for study by American leaders during the War of Independence. This part will examine those French and German (mainly Prussian) manuals that were also available and widely read.
During the Seven Years War in Europe, the Prussian infantry enjoyed the preeminent position as the finest on any field. Their discipline and ability to maneuver, sometimes under very difficult conditions, marked them as the infantry to be emulated. When the Prussian drill manual of 1757 (later adapted in 1759) appeared, it was widely copied. It also formed the basis of the British â64â manual (see Part I). English language translations and adaptations soon appeared to wide acclaim. Indeed, during this period anything vaguely âPrussianâ enjoyed wide popularity. For example, note George Washing- tonâs interest in Frederick the Greatâs The King of Prus- siaâs Instruction to his Generals, published in English in 1760.
Prior to the Seven Years War, the French excelled in many areas of military endeavor. In the 17th and early 18th Centuries, Marshal Sebastien de Vauban led the way in military engineering and siegecraft. Yet in the aftermath of the humiliating defeat of 1763, the French cast about to improve their battlefield performance. Beginning in 1764, General Jean Baptiste de Gribeauval standardized gunnery and ordnance. In the ten years preceding the American War of Independence, a pro- longed debate evolved over battle tactics. This argument pitted advocates of heavy, massed infantry formations (lâordre profond) assaulting with the bayonet, against those favoring linear tactics (lâordre mince). The heavy column concept was originally championed by the Chevalier Jean-Charles de Follard in the 1730s. In the 1760s and 1770s, Marshal de Bellisle and François-Jean de Mesnil-Durand also favored columnar tactics.
Comte Turpin de CrissĂ© had already set forth his ideas on light infantry in his 1754 Essai sur lâArt de la Guerre. In 1766, the Comte de Guibert presented the French War Ministry with a memorandum introduc- ing a compromise identified as lâordre mixte. This memorandum, subsequently refined and published in 1772 as the Essai gĂ©nĂ©ral de tactique, stressed flexibil- ity and utility. Infantrymen, trained for both line and light infantry tactics, could deploy in line or column, or a combination of both, depending on the tactical situation. Guibertâs manual has been called the most important military book of the 18th Century. By the end of 1778, most French officers became disciples of the mixed order, even though the French Army did not formally adopt Guibertâs ideas until the ReglĂ©ment of 1791, when they became the tactical norm during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Guibertâs manual was a particular favorite of Washington, who also familiarized himself with Mesnil-Durandâs writings. The writings of de Saxe and Guibert also contributed to the intense interest in petite guerre, or partisan operations, which seemed to fit the ânatural geniusâ of Americans for ranger operations in the North American wilderness. Generals John Forbes and Henri Bouquet (a Swiss in the British service) had turned to several European thinkers to solve the problems of operating with regular and provincial troops in the American forests.
Forbes based his successful 1758 campaign against Fort Duquesne in the French and Indian War on Turpin de CrissĂ©âs Commentaire. Washington served as a brigade commander in this campaign. Bouquet refined Forbesâ techniques during Pontiacâs rebellion by consulting de Saxeâs Mes RevĂȘries, a posthumous work published in French and English in 1757. De Saxe had paid particu- lar attention to aimed musketry in skirmishing opera- tions, and emphasized combined arms training by infan- try, artillery and cavalry. Bouquetâs âReflections on War with the Savages of North Americaâ appeared in 1765 as an appendix to William Smithâs A Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians in the Year MDCCLXIV. Both de Saxe and Guibert had forcefully argued that Roman military history demonstrated that regular line infantry could function in broken terrain if they were trained as light infantry.
In summary, on 8 May 1777, Washington expressly or- dered all Continental officers to read âmilitary authorsâ in their spare time. French and German professional soldiers noted that they readily obeyed. Captain Johann von Ewald, a Hessian JĂ€ger officer who became a lead- ing theorist of light infantry tactics after the Revolution, commented on this fact: âI was sometimes astonished when American baggage fell into our hands…to see how every wretched knapsack, in which were only two shirts and a pair of torn breeches, would