In 1773 he visited Germany and was present at the Prussian regimental drills and army manœuvres; Frederick the Great, recognizing Guibert's ability, showed great favour to the young comte and freely discussed military questions with him. Guibert's Journal d'un voyage en Allemagne was published, with a memoir, by Toulongeon (Paris, 1803). His Défense du système de guerre moderne, a reply to his many critics (Neuchâtel, 1779) is a reasoned and scientific defence of the Prussian method of tactics, which formed the basis of his work when in 1775 he began to co-operate with the count de Saint-Germain in a series of much-needed and successful reforms in the French army. During those years, he also won the love of Julie de Lespinasse, whose love letters to him, later published, are still read today.
JACQUES ANTOINE HIPPOLYTE, COMTE DE. GUIBERT (1743-1790), French general and military writer, was born at. Montauban, and at the age of thirteen accompanied his father;, Charles Benoit, comte de Guibert (1715-1786), chief of staff to Marshal de Broglie, throughout the war in Germany, and won the cross of St Louis and the rank of colonel in the expedition to Corsica (1767). In 1770 he published his Essai general de tactique in London, and this celebrated work appeared in numerous subsequent editions and in English, German and even Persian translations (extracts also in Liskenne and Sauvan, Bibl. historique et militaire, Paris, 1845). Of this work (for a detailed critique of which see Max Jahns, Gesch. d. Kriegswissenschaften, vol. iii. pp.2058-2070and references therein) it may be said that it was the best essay on war produced by a soldier during a period in which tactics were discussed even in the salon and military literature was more abundant than at any time up to 1871. Apart from technical questions, in which Guibert's enlightened conservatism stands in marked contrast to the doctrinaire progressiveness of Menil Durand, Folard and others, the book is chiefly valued for its broad outlook on the state of Europe, especially of military Europe in the period 1763-1792. One quotation may be given as being a most remarkable prophecy of the impending revolution in the art of war, a revolution which the " advanced" tacticians themselves scarcely foresaw. "The standing armies, while a burden on the people, are inadequate for the achievement of great and decisive results in war, and meanwhile the mass of the people, untrained in arms, degenerates.. .. The hegemony over Europe will fall to that nation which. .. becomes possessed of manly virtues and creates a national army" - a prediction fulfilled almost to the letter within twenty years of Guibert's death. In 1773 he visited Germany and was present at the Prussian regimental drills and army manoeuvres; Frederick the Great, recognizing Guibert's ability, showed great favour to the young colonel and freely discussed military questions with him. Guibert's Journal d'un voyage en Allemagne was published, with a memoir, by Toulongeon (Paris, 1803). His Defense du systeme de guerre moderne, a reply to his many critics (Neuchatel, 1779) is a reasoned and scientific defence of the Prussian method of tactics, which formed the basis of his work when in 1775 he began to co-operate with the count de St Germain in a series of muchneeded and successful reforms in the French army. In 1777, however, St Germain fell into disgrace, and his fall involved that of Guibert who was promoted to the rank of marechal de camp and relegated to a provincial staff appointment. In his semiretirement he vigorously defended his old chief St Germain against his detractors. On the eve of the Revolution he was recalled to the War Office, but in his turn he became the object of attack and he died, practically of disappointment, on the 6th of May 1790. Other works of Guibert, besides those mentioned, are: Observations sur la constitution politique et militaire des armees de S. M. Prussienne (Amsterdam, 1778), Eloges of Marshal Catinat (r775), of Michel de l'Hopital (1778), and of Frederick the Great (1787). Guibert was a. member of the Academy from 1786, and he also wrote a tragedy, Le Connetable de Bourbon (1775) and a journal of travels in France and Switzerland.
General Essay On Military Tactics Guibert
Napoleon was one of the greatest military minds in the history of warfare. He expanded the conquests of France from her revolutionary borders to that of an Empire that stretched from Spain to the steppes of Russia. Napoleon's genius lay not in revolutionizing of warfare itself, but in the refinement of existing means. He did not propose any drastic changes in tactics nor invent a new method of waging warfare, instead he excelled at the tactical handling of the armies of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Napoleon established himself as a great leader of men during the revolutionary period with the siege of Toulon and his triumphs in Italy in 1796. These talents were refined and reached their height during the battles of Ulm, Austerlitz and Jena in the period of 1805-1806. Towards the end of the Empire the weaknesses of Napoleon as a military commander became more evident. His insistence on the micro management of the army and the awarding of Marshal batons to those who excelled under his leadership, but who possessed no great talent for individual command, worked to his determent. The strategic failures of the decisions to invade Spain and Russia and the inability to keep the other major European powers divided proved disastrous. The increasing size and static nature of armies and the increasingly murderous nature of warfare during the latter part of the Empire revealed Napoleon's in ability to adapt to the changing shape of war. It is in the light of his triumphs and later failures that Napoleon's traditional reputation as a great military leader must be judged.
Writing at the turn of the century historian Maximilien Von Wartenburg regarded Napoleon as a military genius, arguing that Napoleon had "no equal as a general", but at the same time he was eminently aware of the limitations of Napoleon's personality. Wartenburg regarded this as the "predominant factor of our (and in particular Napoleon's) fate." William Morris, writing during the same period, regarded Napoleon as possessing "extraordinary gifts as a warrior," but during the later part of his reign he was "like a thundercloud streaming against the wind, and doing violence to the forces of nature..." The French historian Albert Sorel in Pieter Geyl's Napoleon: For and Against, simply follows Napoleon's presentation of events, while Thiers, and Bignon see a significant difference after 1806-1807 when they argue that Napoleon's ambitions diverge from those of France. George Lefebvre goes as far back as 1801 and the peace Luneville to argue the existence of this divergence. In the overall historical interpretation of Napoleon as a military commander it is generally agreed that he was a great military leader, but what must taken into consideration is his limitations and the reasons for his decline.
The Napoleonic wars were a mere continuation of those of the revolutionary era with regards to tactics, organization and weaponry. Bonaparte inherited these elements as well as a professional French officer corps, seasoned and trained veterans and new rules for the recruitment of rank and file from the revolutionary wars. Most of the reforms that were used to such great effect under Napoleon's generalship had actually been introduced at the end of the old regime in France. It was the Republican armies under the guidance of Generals Kellerman, Jourdan, Moreau and others that refined the infantry tactics of Guibert and the artillery reforms of Gribeauval and the Du Teil brothers that dominated the Revolutionary and Napoleonic epochs.
At the end of the Seven Years War, some good works appeared; Frederick himself, not content with being a great king, a great captain, a great philosopher and great historian, made himself also a didactic author by his instructions to his generals. Guichard, Turpin, Maizeroy, Menil-Durand, sustained controversies upon the tactics of the ancients as well as upon that of their own time, and gave some interesting treatises upon those matters. Turpin commented on Montecuculi and Vegetius; the Marquis de Silva in Piedmont, Santa Cruz in Spain, had also discussed some parts with success; finally d'Escremeville sketched a history of the art, which was not devoid of merit. But all that by no means dissipated the darkness of which the conqueror of Fontenoy complained.
I was not yet acquainted with the last two books, when, after having quitted the Helvetic service as chief of battalion, I sought to instruct myself by reading, with avidity, all those controversies which had agitated the military world in the last half of the 18th century; commencing with Puységur, finishing with Menil-Durand and Guibert, and finding everywhere only systems more or less complete of the tactics of battles, which could give but an imperfect idea of war, because they all contradicted each other in a deplorable manner.
At the same epoch when Clausewitz seemed thus to apply himself to sapping the basis of the science, a work of a totally opposite nature appeared in France, that of the Marquis de Ternay, a French emigre in the service of England. This book is without contradiction, the most complete that exists on the tactics of battles, and if it falls sometimes into an excess contrary to that of the Prussian general, by prescribing, in doctrines details of execution often impracticable in war, he cannot be denied a truly remarkable merit, and one of the first grades among tacticians.
I have made mention in this sketch only of general treatises, and not of particular works on the special arms. The books of Montalembert, of Saint-Paul, Bousmard, of Carnot, of Aster, and of Blesson, have caused progress to be made in the art of sieges and of fortification. The writings of Laroche-Aymon, Muller and Bismark, have also thrown light upon many questions regarding the cavalry. In a journal with which, unfortunately, I was not acquainted until six years after its publication, the latter has believed it his duty to attack me and my works, because I had said, on the faith of an illustrious general, that the Prussians had reproached him with having copied, in his last pamphlet, the unpublished instructions of the government to its generals of cavalry. In censuring my works, General Bismark has availed himself of his rights, not only in virtue of his claim to reprisals, but because every book is made to be judged and controverted. Meanwhile, instead of replying to the reproach, and of giving utterance to a single grievance, he has found it more simple to retaliate by injuries, to which a military man will never reply in books, which should have another object than collecting personalities. Those who shall compare the present notice with the ridiculous pretensions which General B________ imputes to me, will judge between us.
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