{"id":1323,"date":"2010-04-20T02:41:07","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T21:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2021-02-25T21:46:44","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T16:46:44","slug":"american-european-training-manuals-in-the-era-of-the-american-revolution-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/american-european-training-manuals-in-the-era-of-the-american-revolution-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"American\/European Training Manuals in the Era of the American Revolution Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Gustav Person, 1st Virginia Regiment <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“…I am no advocate for blindly following the maxims of European policy.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Part I of this article examined the British and Ameri-\ncan training manuals in use and available for study by\nAmerican leaders during the War of Independence. This\npart will examine those French and German (mainly\nPrussian) manuals that were also available and widely\nread.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Seven Years War in Europe, the Prussian\ninfantry enjoyed the preeminent position as the finest\non any field. Their discipline and ability to maneuver,\nsometimes under very difficult conditions, marked them\nas the infantry to be emulated. When the Prussian drill\nmanual of 1757 (later adapted in 1759) appeared, it was\nwidely copied. It also formed the basis of the British\n\u201864\u2019 manual (see Part I). English language translations\nand adaptations soon appeared to wide acclaim. Indeed,\nduring this period anything vaguely \u201cPrussian\u201d enjoyed\nwide popularity. For example, note George Washing-\nton\u2019s interest in Frederick the Great\u2019s The King of Prus-\nsia\u2019s Instruction to his Generals, published in English in\n1760.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n(l\u2019ordre profond) assaulting with the bayonet, against\nthose favoring linear tactics (l\u2019ordre mince). The heavy\ncolumn concept was originally championed by the\nChevalier Jean-Charles de Follard in the 1730s. In the\n1760s and 1770s, Marshal de Bellisle and Fran\u00e7ois-Jean\nde Mesnil-Durand also favored columnar tactics.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comte Turpin de Criss\u00e9 had already set forth his ideas on light infantry in his 1754 Essai sur l\u2019Art de la Guerre. In 1766, the Comte de Guibert presented the French War Ministry with a memorandum introduc- ing a compromise identified as l\u2019ordre mixte. This memorandum, subsequently refined and published in 1772 as the Essai g\u00e9n\u00e9ral 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. Guibert\u2019s 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 Guibert\u2019s ideas until the Regl\u00e9ment of 1791, when they became the tactical norm during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Guibert\u2019s manual was a particular favorite of Washington, who also familiarized himself with Mesnil-Durand\u2019s 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 \u201cnatural genius\u201d 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forbes based his successful 1758 campaign against Fort\nDuquesne in the French and Indian War on Turpin de\nCriss\u00e9\u2019s Commentaire. Washington served as a brigade\ncommander in this campaign. Bouquet refined Forbes\u2019\ntechniques during Pontiac\u2019s rebellion by consulting de\nSaxe\u2019s Mes Rev\u00earies, a posthumous work published in\nFrench and English in 1757. De Saxe had paid particu-\nlar attention to aimed musketry in skirmishing opera-\ntions, and emphasized combined arms training by infan-\ntry, artillery and cavalry. Bouquet\u2019s \u201cReflections on War\nwith the Savages of North America\u201d appeared in 1765\nas an appendix to William Smith\u2019s A Historical Account\nof the Expedition against the Ohio Indians in the Year\nMDCCLXIV. Both de Saxe and Guibert had forcefully\nargued that Roman military history demonstrated that\nregular line infantry could function in broken terrain if\nthey were trained as light infantry.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary, on 8 May 1777, Washington expressly or-\ndered all Continental officers to read \u201cmilitary authors\u201d\nin their spare time. French and German professional\nsoldiers noted that they readily obeyed. Captain Johann\nvon Ewald, a Hessian J\u00e4ger officer who became a lead-\ning theorist of light infantry tactics after the Revolution,\ncommented on this fact: \u201cI was sometimes astonished\nwhen American baggage fell into our hands…to see how\nevery wretched knapsack, in which were only two shirts\nand a pair of torn breeches, would\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gustav Person, 1st Virginia Regiment “…I am no advocate for blindly following the maxims of European policy.\u201d 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)… <\/p>\n

Read the full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-library"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1324,"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions\/1324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.continentalline.org\/CL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}