Strains on Europe's Bureaucratization of Violence 165
over more and more aspects of French military administration, even
though opposition to such a transformation did not disappear.^24
Rival tactical systems were put to the test of field maneuvers in
1778, and even though the partisans of each system disagreed about
what had been proved, by degrees enough consensus was achieved to
permit the French ministry of war to issue a new and more flexible
tactical manual in 1791. It remained standard throughout the revolu
tionary wars. The new regulations authorized column, line, and skir
mishers on the battlefield, according to circumstance and the judg
ment of the commander. Other European armies had mostly gone
over to Prussian tactics after Frederick the Great’s brilliant victories in
the Seven Years War.^25 As a result, the French revolutionary infantry
was able to move about on the battlefield faster and more freely than
armies adhering to the rigid battle line favored by Frederick II, and
could even operate effectively in rough and broken terrain.
Linear tactics required open fields in which to deploy; and when
variegated cropping began to dictate enclosure, the landscape of west
ern Europe became increasingly inhospitable to the old tactics. Too
many fences, hedgerows, and ditches got in the way to permit a battle
line two or three miles in length to form, much less to move. The
French field exercises of 1778 were held in Normandy, in a region
where hedgerows and open fields met and mingled. French experience
thus took account of this transformation of west European landscapes,
whereas further east, around Berlin or Moscow, open fields remained
well suited to the old tactics.
Skirmishing had first attained prominence in European warfare
thanks to the Austrian army. Maria Theresa incorporated the militia
that had long guarded the Turkish border against local raiding parties
into her field army during the War of the Austrian Succession. These
wild “Croats,” when deployed irregularly ahead of the line of battle,
proved very formidable, harassing the enemy rear, interfering with
supply convoys, and disturbing deployment of the enemy line with
- Cf. Emile G. Leonard, L’armée et ses problèmes au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1958); Louis
Mention, Le comte de Saint-Germain et ses réformes. 1775–1777 (Paris, 1884); Albert
Latreille, L’armée et la nation à la fin de l'ancien régime: les derniers ministres de guerre de
la monarchie (Paris, 1914); Jean Lambert Alphonse Colin, L’infanterie au XVIIIe siècle:
La tactique (Paris, 1907).
- Great Britain set the fashion in 1757. Cf. Rex Whitworth, Field Marshal Lord
Ligonier: A Story of the British Army. 1702–1770 (Oxford, 1958), p. 218. The United
States did the same by importing Baron von Steuben to drill the Continental Army in
