Tag: French Army

Social and Military Institutions – Ardant du Picq

Synopsis:

In his analysis of French military institutions, Ardant du Picq advances a formula for institutional transformation which emphasizes a balance of pay, leisure, and “sociability.” According to du Picq, a synthesis of high pay and leisure may attract as well as retain higher quality officers. Likewise, increased sociability from top to bottom within units offers a disciplinary backstop vis-à-vis cohesion.

Excerpts:

“Armies are toys (in peace) in the hands of princes. If princes know nothing of them, which is the usual way, they disorganize them. If they do understand them, like Prussia, they prepare their armies for war.

“Man is merely a friend of equality but a lover of domination. He is easily persuaded to take the shadow for the substance.

“As the military spirit in France is waning, it must be replaced by well-paid noncommissioned and commissioned officers. Good pay establishes position in a democracy, and today no one turns to the army because it is poorly paid.

“The leisure of army life attracts three out of four officers, laziness if you like. This is the objective fact. If you make an officer into a schoolboy all his life he will send his profession to the devil if he can, and those who can will generally be those who have received the best education.

“French sociability creates cohesion more quickly than could be created among troops of other nations. Organization and discipline do the same, but with a proud people like the French, a rational organization united by French sociability can often obtain results without employing the coercion of discipline.

*All excerpts have been taken from Battle Studies, University Press of Kansas.

The Relation of Diplomacy to War – Antoine-Henri Jomini

Synopsis:

The American military has long been bewitched operationally and strategically by Antoine-Henri Jomini’s formulaic approach to warfare. The universality of the Jominian consciousness is so well established other strategic schools usually operate beside it – or as a passing veneer above its perpetual architecture. Likewise, Jomini’s geopolitical and diplomatic wisdom is usually less pronounced – but does offer some strategic bull’s-eyes.

Excerpts:

“War is always to be conducted according to the great principles of the art; but great discretion must be exercised in the nature of the operations to be undertaken, which should depend upon the circumstances of the case.

“In an offensive movement, scrupulous care must be exercised not to arouse the jealousy of any other state which might come to the aid of the enemy. It is a part of the duty of a statesman to foresee this chance, and to obviate it by making proper explanations and giving proper guarantees to other states.

“…if the principles of strategy are always the same, it is different with the political part of war, which is modified by the tone of communities, by localities, and by the characters of men at the head of states and armies.

“All history teaches that no enemy is so insignificant as to be despised and neglected by any power, however formidable.

“The love of conquest, however, was not the only motive with Napoleon: his personal position, and his context with England, urged him to enterprises the aim of which was to make him supreme.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Art of War, BiblioBazaar.