Advances in Europe’s Art of War, 1600–1750 133pline, but also because the rank and file found real psychological
satisfaction in blind, unthinking obedience, and in the rituals of mili
tary routine. Prideful esprit de corps became a palpable reality for
hundreds of thousands of human beings who had little else to be
proud of. Human flotsam and jetsam found an honorable refuge from
a world in which buying and selling had become so pervasive as to
handicap severely those who lacked the necessary pecuniary self-
restraint, cunning, and foresight. An artificial community bureau
cratically structured and controlled, came into existence, based on
deep-seated, stable, and very powerful human sentiments. What an
instrument in the hands of statesmen, diplomats, and kings!
The feats of arms that European armies routinely performed, once
drill had become soldiers’ daily experience, were in fact quite extraor
dinary. Being heirs of the European past, we are likely to take their
acts for granted and lose the sense of wonder they properly deserve.
Yet consider how amazing it was for men to form themselves into
opposing ranks a few score yards apart and fire muskets at one
another, keeping it up while comrades were falling dead or wounded
all around. Instinct and reason alike make such behavior unaccount
able. Yet European armies of the eighteenth century did it as a matter
of course.
Equally remarkable was the way in which army units obeyed the will
of invisible superiors with about equal precision, whether they were
located over the nearest hill crest or half the globe away. Many
thousands of men who had no obvious personal stake in fighting one
another and did have very obvious personal reasons for wishing to be
out of the other fellows’ line of fire nevertheless did what they were
commanded to do—routinely. As a result, bureaucratically appointed
officers, regardless of their personal competence or incompetence, ex
pected and received automatic and obedient response to their com
mands, almost without fail, and regardless of what part of the globe
they happened to find themselves assigned to.
The creation of such a New Leviathan—half inadvertently perhaps
—was certainly one of the major achievements of the seventeenth
century, as remarkable in its way as the birth of modern science
or any of the other breakthroughs of that age.^12
- I am not aware of any really perceptive discussion of the psychological and
sociological effects of close-order drill on human beings in general or within European
armies in particular. My remarks are derived from reflections on personal experi
ence—and surprise at my own response to drill during World War II.
Some military writers of the age hint at the power of drill and its relationship to
dancing. Cf. Maurice de Saxe, Reveries on the Art of War, trans. Thomas R. Phillips