Battle Studies

Charles Jean Jacques Joseph Ardant du Picq, Roger J. Spiller

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780700623921, 9780700623914
• eBook ISBN: 9780700623938
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

A classic of military thought that merits a place alongside the works of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, Battle Studies was first published in Paris ten years after the death of its author, French army officer Charles Ardant du Picq (1821–1870). Updated to provide a more complete and accurate biographical and historical framework for understanding its meaning and import, this edition—deftly translated, introduced, and annotated by noted military historian Roger Spiller—offers a new generation of readers the benefit of Ardant du Picq’s unique insight into the nature of warfare.

Nothing, Ardant du Picq asserts, can be prescribed wisely in an army “without an exact understanding of its ultimate instrument, man, and his morale at the defining instant of combat.” Accordingly, Battle Studies, the first systematic exploration of human behavior in the extremities of combat, focuses squarely on the tactical realm its author knew so well. Eschewing grand military theories and strategies, Ardant du Picq draws on his real-world experience, especially during the Crimean War and the Siege of Sebastopol where he was captured, to examine what motivates a soldier to fight, what creates cohesion or disorder, what gives a commander tactical control, and what makes reason give way to instinct: in short, “the essence of the science of combat.”

PART ONE

Ancient Battle: Introduction

Battle is the ultimate purpose of armies, and man is the ultimate instrument of combat. Nothing can be prescribed wisely in an army; its makeup, its organization, its discipline, its tactics—all of which are like the fingers of a hand—without an exact understanding of its ultimate instrument, man, and his morale at the defining instant of combat.

It often happens that those who discuss matters of war, taking the weapon as the starting point, assume without hesitation that the man called upon to serve it will always use it as expected and directed by rules and regulations.

But the soldier is a reasoning being; without his excitable, changeable nature, he becomes a mere pawn, an abstract unit in battle plans, born of speculation in the ministry [of war], and not a real man. He is flesh and blood; he is body and soul. And strong as the soul often is, it cannot master the body so that its flesh does not revolt or its spirit is not weakened in the face of destruction.

The human heart, in the words of Marshal de Saxe, is the starting point for all matters of war; to understand this, it must be studied.

Let us study, not modern combat at first—too complex to be easily understood—but ancient combat, which is simpler, clearer, although nowhere explained in detail.

The centuries have not changed the human heart; the passions, the instincts, above all the instinct of survival, all of which have been manifested according to the time, place, and character of the races. Thus, today we can admire—even under the pressure of the same danger—the composure of the English, the élan of the French, and the stolidity of the Russians that is called tenacity. But, basically, we always find the same man; and it is this man, always the same, whom we see in the organization and discipline of the soldiers when the masters prepare them for action. The greatest of the masters knew man best, modern man as well as historical man. This is clear from a close analysis of the formations and great events of ancient warfare.

This analysis has led us to the study of man in combat.

We will even go beyond ancient battle, to primitive combat. By progressing from the savages to our own time, we shall have a clearer view of the man. Then, shall we know as much as the masters? No more than a painter who knows only the methods of painting; but we will better understand these able men and the great examples they left behind.

From them, we will learn to suspect mathematics and materiel calculations when they are applied to matters of combat; we shall be skeptical of illusions drawn from the firing range and training ground, where the soldier is calm, sedate, rested, well fed, attentive, obedient, intelligent, and tractable—and not with the nervous, impressionable, agitated, troubled, distraught, excitable creature incapable of self-control who is every fighting man from commander to private (except for the strong, and they are very rare).

However, illusions, persistent and tenacious, always recover the day after experience inflicts the greatest damage on them. At the very least, illusions lead to ordering the impractical, as if it were not really an attack on discipline, and would not lead to commanders and soldiers being baffled by the unexpected and by being surprised by the difference between battle and peacetime training.

Certainly, battle always surprises. But it surprises less if understanding and realism have influenced the fighting man’s training and are widespread throughout the ranks. Let us therefore study man in combat, for it is he who actually fights.

I

Man in Primitive and Ancient Combat

Man does not enter combat to fight, but for victory. He does everything he can to avoid the first and guarantee the second.

War between savage peoples, between Arabs, even in our own day,¹* is a war of ambush by small groups of men, each of whom at the moment of surprise chooses not his adversary but his victim, and is an assassin.² Because the weapons on both sides are the same, the only way to find an advantage is by surprise; the man who is surprised needs a moment to think and defend himself. In this moment, he is killed if he does not flee.

The surprised enemy does not defend himself, he tries to escape; and face to face or body to body combat with primitive arms, ax or knife, so terrible among combatants without defensive arms, is exceedingly rare. It can only take place between enemies who are mutually surprised and without a chance of safety for anyone except in victory.

And yet . . . in such a case there is another chance for safety, that of one side or the other falling back, and that chance is often taken. An example—and if it does not concern savages but soldiers of our own time, it is none-theless significant—is a man of warlike temperament who has related what he was forced to witness with his own eyes while disabled by his wound.

During the Crimean War, on a day of heavy fighting, among numerous movements over broken ground, two groups of soldiers, A and B, come unexpectedly face to face, at ten paces, and freeze. Then, forgetting their rifles, they threw stones and withdrew. Neither group had a leader to urge them forward, and neither dared to shoot first for fear the others would also bring their rifles to bear. They were too close to escape, or so they thought—although in reality opposing fire at such close range is almost always too high. The man who would fire sees himself already killed by return fire. So he throws stones instead, not very hard, to distract himself from his rifle, to distract his enemy, to win a little time, until he sees some chance of escaping point-blank fire.

This agreeable situation does not last long, a minute perhaps. The appearance of a troop B on the flank sees the flight of group A and opens fire.

Certainly, the encounter is farcical and laughable.

Let us see, however. In a dense forest a lion and a tiger meet face to face on a trail. They stop, rearing backward, their knees bent, ready to lunge, their eyes measuring the other, their throats rumbling. Their claws flex, their hair stands up. Their tails batting the ground, necks extended, ears back, lips curled, they display their formidable fangs in that terrible menacing gesture common to felines.

An unseen observer, I shudder.

For the lion as well as the tiger, the situation is frightful. One movement means the death of a beast. Which? Perhaps both.

Slowly, very slowly, one of the legs flexed to jump, still bent, moves back. Slowly, very slowly, the foreleg follows, then the other legs. Little by little, still face to face, they retreat farther than a single leap could carry them. Lion and tiger turn away slowly and, still watching the other, calmly walk away with the sovereign dignity of the great lords. I no longer shudder, but neither do I laugh.

There is no laughing at man, because he has in his hands a more terrible weapon than the teeth and nails of a lion or tiger, the rifle, which without cover can send you instantaneously from life to death. It is understandable, therefore, that no one is in a hurry to shoot, to put into action a force that may kill him. He is not anxious to set fire to the wick that may blow up the enemy and himself at the same time.

Who has not seen similar examples between dogs, between dogs and cats, cats and cats?

In the Polish War of 1831, two Russian regiments and two Polish regiments of cavalry charged each other. With equal élan, both went forward with the same dash to meet each other; then, when they drew close enough to see each other’s faces, they both withdrew. The Russians and the Poles, at this terrible moment, saw each other as brothers, and rather than spill fraternal blood, they withdrew from combat as if it were a crime. That is the testimony of a witness, a Polish officer.

Cavalry troops who see each other as brothers?

But to resume:

When a society becomes more populous, and when surprising an entire people occupying a vast territory is no longer possible, when a sort of public knowledge has risen within society, one is forewarned before war is formally declared. Surprise is not the entirety of war, but it is still one of the means, one of the best means, even today.

Man can no longer slay his defenseless enemy without warning. He must expect to find the enemy waiting in force. He must fight, taking as little risk as possible to win, using the mace against the staff, arrows against the mace, shield against arrows, shield and cuirass against the shield alone, the long lance against the short lance, the armed chariot against the infantry, and so forth.

Man strains his ingenuity to kill without the risk of being killed. His bravery rests on his feeling of strength and it is not absolute; in the face of greater strength, he flees shamelessly. The natural survival instinct is so powerful he feels no reluctance to obey it. However, with the defensive power of arms and armor he can fight at close quarters, who could expect otherwise? He must test himself before knowing who is stronger, and once the strength is known, no one can face it.

The strength and valor of individuals played a dominant role in ancient combat, and when the hero was killed, the nation was vanquished. By mutual, tacit agreement, combatants stopped fighting to watch in wonder and anguish as two heroes struggled. Whole peoples placed their fate in the hands of these heroes, who stood to fight in single combat. Everyone agreed since no one could stand against heroes.

But intelligence defies force. No one can stand against an Achilles, but no Achilles can stand against ten opponents who, uniting their efforts, act in concert. Tactics are born, in which organized means and action are decided first to ensure concerted efforts and the discipline that counteracts the individual fighter’s weaknesses.

So far we have seen man against man on his own, in the manner of wild beasts, hunting to kill, fleeing that which can kill him. From now on, discipline and clear tactics unite the commander and the soldier, and the soldiers with each other. In addition to intellectual progress, there is moral progress. To ensure solidarity in combat, and to make tactical decisions that make it practical, we must see that everyone is dedicated to one another. This raises all fighters to the same heights as the champions of primitive combat. Pride is born. Flight is disgraceful because the soldier is no longer alone in battle but part of a legion, and he who runs away abandons his commander and his comrades. In all respects, the soldier is now more valuable.

Thus reason makes clear the strength of wisely concerted effort; discipline makes it possible.

Will we see terrible struggles, battles of extermination? No. Men assembled in a disciplined formation in tactical battle order are invincible against undisciplined troops. But against similarly disciplined troops, men revert to the primitive, fleeing before stronger forces of destruction that are real or imagined. Nothing changes in the heart of man. Discipline keeps him face to face with his enemy a little longer, but the instinct of survival reigns supreme, and the sense of fear with it.

Fear!

There are commanders, there are soldiers, who do not know it, but they are men of rare character. The mass trembles because one cannot suppress the flesh, and the trembling born of apprehension must be an essential calculation in all matters of organization, discipline, dispositions, movements, maneuvers, and plan of action—all of which is exactly why the soldier’s human weakness that causes him to exaggerate his enemy’s strength must be taken into account.

If we study this weakness in ancient battle, we see that of the nations best at war, the strongest have been those who best understood war in general, and who acknowledged human weakness and took measures to overcome it. It is remarkable that the most warlike people are not always those in which military institutions and methods of combat are the best or most rational. And indeed, among warlike nations there is a good dose of vanity. They only demand courage in their tactics; one might think they refuse to admit their weakness.

The Gaul, a fool in war, used barbarian tactics, and after the first surprise, he was always beaten by the Greeks, by the Romans.

The Greek, a warrior and also a politician, had tactics far superior to those of the Gauls and the Asiatics.

The Roman, a politician above all, for whom war was only a means to an end, demanded perfect means. He had no illusions; he acknowledged human weakness and found the legion.

But this is merely affirming what should be demonstrated.

1. *Général Dumas, Meurs et coutumes d l’Algérie, surprise nocturne et extermination d’un compement. [Editor’s note: Asterisks indicate original notes written by Ardant du Picq.]

2. Melchior Joseph Eugène Daumas (1803–1871), the French general whose work du Picq notes above, was an early Arabist and ethnologist as well as a professional soldier. First posted to Algeria in 1835, he took part in several early campaigns under Marshal Clausel, and became a close student of Algerian life and culture, and was the author of several well-known works in the field. He put this knowledge to work in early Arab affairs departments under Marshal Bugeaud in Algeria and in 1850 was appointed director of Algerian Affairs in the Ministry of War in Paris. He was elevated to the Senate in 1857.

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Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Frontispiece
• Foreword
• Introduction Toujours la question essentielle
• About This Translation
• BATTLE STUDIES Ancient and Modern Battle
• PART ONE Ancient Battle: Introduction
• PART TWO Modern Battle
• APPENDIXES
• Back Cover