whole of Europe within a few short years. But whereas supernovae disappear
when their fuel runs out, revolutions in military affairs follow a different course.
They end, if they ever do, when other nations, armed forces, and commanders
wake up to the possibilities they open. 49 To use the language of Thomas Kuhn in
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, each ‘revolution’ is succeeded by a period of
‘normal’ warfare. But not before it has left indelible traces behind it, forcing
anybody who comes after it to adapt to it.
As noted above, the particular revolution with which we are concerned here,
and which led to the emergence of ‘operational’ warfare, owed very little to
technological factors. No great and important inventions preceded it. Personally,
Napoleon tended to be on the conservative side, technologically speaking. He did
away with the French balloon units, and he also refused to subsidize the American
inventor of the submarine and the steamboat, Robert Fulton. Instead, the revo-
lution was made possible by the development of three interrelated institutions
that contradicted one another in some ways but complemented one another in
others. The first was thecorps d’arme ́esystem, which began to develop from the
1760s on, until, in 1805, it burst on an unsuspecting world. The second was the
imperial headquarters; the third, which until two and a half decades ago had been
largely ignored by the literature, was the ‘directed telescope’.
The corpsd’arme ́e system, by creating formations that were both able to look
after themselves for a time and interchangeable, led to a sharp decrease in the
amount of information that, per mile of front and per manoeuvre planned or
executed, armies needed in order to move, operate, and engage the enemy. The
imperial headquarters, crowned by the emperor’s own formidable intellect,
allowed the information that operationsdidrequire to be processed in an efficient
and timely, if not always orderly, manner. The ‘directed telescope’ provided the
link between the two, acting as the emperor’s eyes and ears both when it came to
obtaining information about the enemy and the environment and when it was a
question of finding out what his own forces were up to. Even more importantly, it
prevented the emperor from becoming the prisoner of his own general staff.
Whereas the first of these three elements minimized the need for information, the
second and the third were responsible for processing and transmitting that part of
it which was still needed. The outcome was a vast increase, indeed, almost an
explosion, in the speed, extent, range, and flexibility of military operations. To the
point where, for the first time in history, it often became possible to compel an
enemy to give battle, even if there were no borders or natural obstacles against
which he could be forced.
Subsequent historians have often accused Napoleon of over-centralization,
claiming that he did not share his plans with any of his subordinates and treated
them almost like puppets on a string. The charge is not entirely unfounded.
Though the emperor was the first important commander in history to employ a
chief of staff in the modern manner, Berthier was very far from being his coequal
partner. Besides, he controlled neither the Maison nor the administrative head-
quarters where much of the work of directing theGrande Arme ́eand looking after
its needs was done. He was excellent in caring about a myriad of details, but
30 The Evolution of Operational Art