A military dictionary

by William Duane

In undertaking to give a work to the American people, the publication of either the French or English Dictionary, though it might equally profit the bookseller, would be only imposing upon the public, instead of giving the best information and the most recent and approved principles and improvements in the art of war: it was necessary therefore almost to re-write, and to augment to a vast bulk the quantity of information. The whole has been, therefore, modelled and adapted throughout to the modern principles of discipline and general tactics. So much of what is old has been retained as may give some correct ideas of the systems of other nations; and the body of information, as well as of words of reference, renders this the most ample and particular Military Dictionary that has been published in the language.

To the general mass has been added the useful little work called the Little Bombardier, or Pocket Gunner, originally compiled for the British artillerists from the French Manuel de l’Artilleur of Durtubie. The measures of extent and capacity, and the monies of all foreign nations: under the words Tactics, Military Schools, Topographical Depot, Money, Weights and Measures, Valor, and generally throughout the work will be found a vast body of new information, particularly adapted to the communication of correct knowlege to all who wish to comprehend military subjects.

A too prevalent error, and the most fatal if we should ever be engaged in war, and not acquire more perfect and general knowlege, is, that the art of war requires neither study nor much attention to what is called discipline; and this error has obtained a sort of sanctity from the triumphs of our undisciplined yeomanry over the British, Hanoverian, Wurtemburg, and Hessian veterans in our revolution. Undoubtedly without an examination into the causes of the triumphs in a more particular manner than general history presents, the assumption is very imposing, and adapted to flatter self-love and national pride.

These natural and often useful passions must, nevertheless, be restrained like all others within the bounds of reason; and, in order to avoid the danger which may flow from our prejudices, we must endeavor to consider our own circumstances with eyes as dispassionate as we should those of strangers. We must enquire, what was the state of military knowlege in the armies of the invaders; whether they exhibited any of the great qualities which constitute well disciplined troops or great generals; whether the whole course of their military transactions was not a series of blunders, produced by their ignorance of our people and country; and even in a great degree owing to the want of talents in the officers of the enemy, to supply by their genius and spirit of enterprize, the disadvantages under which they labored. It would require only an enumeration of a few facts to shew, that although the patience with which the American troops endured hardships and privations, afford glorious examples of the military virtues; that even these great virtues, conducted as they were, by a general who united in himself the military qualities of a Fabius and a Scipio, could not have had so much success were it not for the want of a good discipline, and the utter incapacity of the generals of the British army.

In the modern wars of the French revolution, the like truths have been demonstrated as in the American contest. The British armies had been merely taught the duties of parade, and when they came into the field, had to learn by hard fighting and severe defeats, that their officers were generally ignorant of the art of war; for they were beaten once more by raw troops ably conducted to the field by experienced officers, who possessed skill, who had made military science their study; and, above all, who knew how to take advantage of the incompetency of the British leaders.

Mankind in every country, educated in the same way, varies very little in those points which are adapted to military services. It must, therefore, in a great measure depend upon the education which is applied to military affairs, in the discipline of armies, whether they are victors or vanquished. All nations profess to have acted upon this opinion, though there seems not to be that attention paid to the subject, nor to education of any kind, which the acknowleged importance of the case calls for. This indifference or heedlessness has at times infected all nations, and may be considered as a disease, which if not cured at a certain stage, ensures destruction.

The triumphs of Spain before the peace of Vervins in 1598, is a most important part of history for the study of men fond of military enquiries; the infantry of Spain was then the first in Europe; we have seen in the years 1808 and 1809, that the extinction, by the neglect of military knowlege, has left Spain, with ten millions of people, an easy conquest. Austria and Prussia have successively shone preeminent on the military theatre of Europe. The daily parades at Berlin, which Frederic II. conducted himself for many years, and from which strangers were excluded, were only lessons of experiment and instruction by which he formed his own mind to the conviction of the power of rapid movement, and close evolutions by small divisions; divisions moving in different modes, and by different points, in apparent disorder but by the most exact laws, to one common point of action. Here it was that he contrived those methods which he accomplished in action afterwards, and which enabled him, with a force not equal to half the Austrian army, to baffle, defeat, and triumph over all Europe. It will be useful for the man of sense to consider, whether Frederic could have performed such wonders in the field, without this previous practice himself, and the previous discipline which rendered his armies of 40,000 as manageable as a battalion of 500 men. Perhaps we shall be told that Steuben’s tract renders all these considerations unnecessary.

The military triumphs of modern France have been ascribed to a multitude of causes; really, perhaps, the causes of her military successes may be reduced to two. First, the necessity which arose out of what has been preposterously called the balance of power in Europe, which under the pretence of maintaining an equality of nations, has been the real mask for reiterated wars, conquests, plunder, and desolation; Spain, Austria, and France, have been at different periods held up as aspiring to universal dominion; under the color of resisting the aggrandizement of either, they have been for two centuries constantly engaged in efforts to plunder each other. France, from her position, was from the passions of the age, forced to be prepared for the defensive; and in several successive wars had made conquests on her extremities, which rendered it daily more necessary to maintain a military establishment; and at length, after suffering great disasters, and thereby producing a succession of great generals, the passions and character of the people became military.

Taught by triumphs and disasters, the causes of success and failure, her generals and statesmen directed their attention to the perfection of all the branches of military institution; the management of weapons, the array of troops, the plans of marches, the supply of armies, the passage of rivers, and the simplification of every species of duty. Colleges were instituted, the sciences were enlisted in the military service, and it was difficult to tell in which class of citizens the greatest military enthusiasm prevailed....the nobles who alone could aspire to command, or the privates who composed the rank and file of armies.

It is to these institutions, through which the path to honor and renown lay, that France owes her present preeminence. Under several heads of this Dictionary will be found the facts upon which this opinion is sustained; other nations rather aped than emulated her institutions; while France pursued the spirit of the Romans who adopted every weapon which they found powerful in the hands of their enemies; France adopted the prolonged line of the Austrians, or abandoned it to pursue the concentric movements of Prussia; those echellons which under another name were among the manœuvres of Scipio and Gustavus Adolphus, and which so many have affected to laugh at as novelties, because they know neither their history nor their use; were recommended by Guibert in 1763, as the column had been before recommended by Folard; and each of whom had been calumniated and their tactics reprobated, by the enemies of innovation, or rather by the blockheads of their day, a class of beings of which some are to be found every where.