Battle Studies; Ancient and Modern Battle

by Charles Jean Jacques Joseph Ardant du Picq

The military spirit was unknown to the Romans. They made no distinction between military and civil duties. I think that the military air dates from the time that the profession of arms became a private profession, from the time of the bravos, the Italian condottieri, who were more terrifying to civilians than to the enemy. When the Romans said "cedant arma togae," they did not refer to civil officials and soldiers; the civil officials were then soldiers in their turn; professional soldiers did not exist. They meant "might gives way to right."

Machiavelli quotes a proverb, "War makes thieves and peace has them hanged" The Spaniards in Mexico, which has been in rebellion for forty years, are more or less thieves. They want to continue to ply the trade. Civil authority exists no longer with them, and they would look on obedience to such an authority as shameful. It is easy to understand the difficulty of organizing a peaceful government in such a country. Half the population would have to hang the other half. The other half does not want to be hanged.

We are a democratic society; we become less and less military. The Prussian, Russian, Austrian aristocracies which alone make the military spirit of those states, feel in our democratic society an example which threatens their existence, as nobility, as aristocracy. They are our enemies and will be until they are wiped, out, until the Russian, Austrian and Prussian states become democratic societies, like ours. It is a matter of time.

The Prussian aristocracy is young. It has not been degenerated by wealth, luxury and servility of the court. The Prussian court is not a court in the luxurious sense of the word. There is the danger.

Meanwhile Machiavellian doctrines not being forbidden to aristocracies, these people appeal to German Jingoism, to German patriotism, to all the passions which move one people who are jealous of another. All this is meant to hide under a patriotic exterior their concern for their own existence as an aristocracy, as a nobility.

The real menace of the day is czarism, stronger than the czars themselves, which calls for a crusade to drive back Russia and the uncultured Slav race.

It is time that we understood the lack of power in mob armies; that we recall to mind the first armies of the revolution that were saved from instant destruction only by the lack of vigor and decision in European cabinets and armies. Look at the examples of revolutionaries of all times, who have all to gain and cannot hope for mercy. Since Spartacus, have they not always been defeated? An army is not really strong unless it is developed from a social institution. Spartacus and his men were certainly terrible individual fighters. They were gladiators used to struggle and death. They were prisoners, barbarian slaves enraged by their loss of liberty, or escaped serfs, all men who could not hope for mercy. What more terrible fighters could be imagined? But discipline, leadership, all was improvised and could not have the firm discipline coming down from the centuries and drawn from the social institutions of the Romans. They were conquered. Time, a long time, is needed to give to leaders the habit of command and confidence in their authority—to the soldiers confidence in their leaders and in their fellows. It is not enough to order discipline. The officers must have the will to enforce it, and its vigorous enforcement must instill subordination in the soldiers. It must make them fear it more than they fear the enemy's blows.

How did Montluc fight, in an aristocratic society? Montluc shows us, tells us. He advanced in the van of the assault, but in bad places he pushed in front of him a soldier whose skin was not worth as much as was his. He had not the slightest doubt or shame about doing this. The soldier did not protest, the propriety of the act was so well established. But you, officers, try that in a democratic army, such as we have commenced to have, such as we shall later have!

In danger the officer is no better than the soldier. The soldier is willing enough to advance, but behind his officer. Also, his comrades' skin is no more precious than is his, they must advance too. This very real concern about equality in danger, which seeks equality only, brings on hesitation and not resolution. Some fools may break their heads in closing in, but the remainder will fire from a distance. Not that this will cause fewer losses, far from it.

Italy will never have a really firm army. The Italians are too civilized, too fine, too democratic in a certain sense of the word. The Spaniards are the same. This may cause laughter, but it is true. The French are indeed worthy sons of their fathers, the Gauls. War, the most solemn act in the life of a nation, the gravest of acts, is a light thing to them. The good Frenchman lets himself be carried away, inflamed by the most ridiculous feats of arms into the wildest enthusiasm. Moreover he interprets the word "honor" in a fashion all his own. An expedition is commenced without sufficient reason, and good Frenchmen, who do not know why the thing is done, disapprove. But presently blood is spilled. Good sense and justice dictate that this spilled blood should taint those responsible for an unjust enterprise. But jingoism says "French blood has been spilled: Honor is at stake!" And millions of gold, which is the unit of labor, millions of men, are sacrificed to a ridiculous high-sounding phrase.