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"Austrian Third Rank as Skirmishers?" Topic


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JeffsaysHi08 Sep 2009 2:29 a.m. PST

Kevin may well have a point from the above as by rumour Rachel was quite well schooled in French. :>

Ruchel, however, head of the Prussian Reform Commission (odd thing to have if rigidly Frederikan), at Jena successfully threw back the French skirmishers with his own distinctly non-Frederikan 2 rank line infantry only to be overwhelmed by cavalry, artillery and infantry in line after a protracted fight.

The Bavarians chose in 1805 (> 1 year before Jena) to copy the Prussian manuals on light infantry training which they reckon were updated from the Hessian & Prussian experience in the Champagne campaign. That would be an odd thing to do considering their alliance with France unless the Bavarian military considered the Prussian theory had greater merit than anything available from the French.

Undoubtedly the French had more practise at this kind of thing, along with all other parts of fighting battles, though.

von Winterfeldt08 Sep 2009 5:42 a.m. PST

A not so suprising turn of topic.


To boil down the fact that the Prussians lost the battles of Jena, Auerstedt or Halle due to lack of skirmishung or fighting in tactics resembling the 7YW – is a extreme simplification avoiding to see what realy happened.

The fact is – the Prussians were strategically outfought – and therefore lost.

At Jena the French had a superiortiy in numbers and at Auerstedt there was a complete brake down in the chain of commands with Brunswicks early fatal wound.

But this is entirely a different story – and is different to the original question.

One has to remember – the French did learn their art of skirmishing from the Austrians and from the Prussians and not the other way round.

1968billsfan08 Sep 2009 11:18 a.m. PST

A question:

Did the revolutionary French have any success in reforming or commanding the units which broke down into the skirmish swarm or were they just lost for the rest of the battle?

A comment:
There were some quotes above from some early American writers about how skirmishing was invented in America. I think this was just bombastic homeland-glorification by patriotic writers, proud of their new, new country and a bit devoid of common sense. There were a lot of such books written- don't take them at face value with repect to accurately defining what-was. I'm sure that the AWI experience did emphasize the use of light troops to Europeans and helped support its proponents. But even in the US, the key battles (Saratoga, Yorktown, Brooklyn, Germantown, Boston, Cowpens, Guilfort Courthouse) were dominated by formed troops in line of battle.

McLaddie08 Sep 2009 1:30 p.m. PST

1968billsfan:

I agree. Many of the conclusions about the influence of the AWI on European skirmish practices and tactics is down-right silly and has no relationship to reality that I can see.

There are a number of battles where that was quite true. Yet others, where portions or all of the tirailleurs were experienced or trained light troops, they were able to call them back and reform, as early as 1794 with the Armee du Nord. John Lynn in his Bayonets of the Republic discusses that.

Light infantry and skirmishers did influence the battles of Saratoga, Yorktown, Germantown and Brandywine, for that matter. General Money, in his letter to the Duke of York specifically mentions Saratoga and the light infantry/rifle-armed skirmishers in his arguments to create British light infantry units.

However, the idea that Europeans had no idea how to skirmish before the AWI is non-sense. There is little evidence that the British, French and German experiences of the war created some new understanding. If anything the skirmishing experiences during the AWI were used by Europeans to support existing arguments for light infantry and skirmish practices, not reinvent them or even improve them. Between 1783 and 1792, a great deal of experience was lost and it took the British until 1802-3 to begin to re-establish a light infantry arm.

Best Regards,

Bill H.

Major Snort08 Sep 2009 2:34 p.m. PST

Bill wrote:

"If anything the skirmishing experiences during the AWI were used by Europeans to support existing arguments for light infantry and skirmish practices"

I agree, but it should also not be forgotten that the 1792 British Regulations were partly a backlash against "loose files and American scramble".

The British had fought the AWI largely in open order, not as the close order automatons that some would have us believe. Dundas believed that this style of fighting was unsustainable in mainland europe with large cavalry formations waiting to pounce.

It took a while to get the balance right.

Graf Bretlach08 Sep 2009 3:45 p.m. PST

Just to add to the earlier theme, the French officially formed a light company (chasseur) in every line bataillon in January 1757, these fought for the duration of the war only to be disbanded at the end. (Susane, histoire de l'infantrie)

SHS – are you in exile again?

PS
All Susane volumes are now available on google plus duplicates.

Steven H Smith08 Sep 2009 4:07 p.m. PST

Yup! They don't like:

"Big Al" is NOT a "naughty" word, but "censorship" IS.

Almost 40 posts and only one (modified) made it through.

Think of all the "new" books you missed.

<;^}

Kevin Kiley08 Sep 2009 5:00 p.m. PST

Gentlemen,

Using the model of the War of the Revolution as an inspiration for the skirmish tactics developed by the French that were used during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic period cannot be substantiated. The French expeditionary force that served in North America was relatively small and the French experiments in Normandy with the new skirmish tactics took place before Rochambeau came to the US in 1780.

Sincerely,
K

Kevin Kiley08 Sep 2009 5:23 p.m. PST

'One has to remember – the French did learn their art of skirmishing from the Austrians and from the Prussians and not the other way round.'

That is incorrect. You have to differentiate between what type of skirmishing, who was doing it, and the circumstances. Skirmishing has been done by armies since before the Romans. However, you cannot equate the employment of light troops in combat before 1792 with the major change that took place in the French army after 1792 with the start of the French Revolutionary Wars.

Before 1792, specifically in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years War (1756-1763), the use of light troops (the Grenz by the Austrians and the various Free Corps employed by the French and the Prussians) was overwhelmingly in the 'petite guerre' of ambushes, raids, and other such operations. Seldom if ever were these light troops, who were not regulars, employed on the battlefield and not in conjunction with regular troops on the battlefield. These irregulars roamed the flanks of the armies and in their rear areas and not on the battlefields of the main armies.

The Austrian irregulars were the first to be employed in this manner. Both the Prussians and French formed irregular units to combat the Grenz and both at about the same time (1744). Concurrently, two French officers, Folard and de Saxe in their writings advocated the employment of columns on the battlefield supported by large numbers skirmishers. The Austrians and Prussians were not thinking along the same lines. What happened on the French side was the evolution of the tactical system that was employed by regulars on the battlefield coordinating skirmishers and formed troops, all of them regulars. This was the first time this was done in Europe. Other French advocates of this new system were de Broglie, Mesnil-Durand, and others. One of Folard's admirers was Louis N. Davout. De Broglie experimented with the advocated columns and skirmishers as an offensive weapon in the mid-to-late 1770s in Normandy and Metz and the advocates of this system brought the tactics back when the shooting started in 1792. The French did not learn or copy this system from either the Prussians or the Austrians. It was the allies who had to modify/change their tactical systems in order to combat the new French tactical system.

'To boil down the fact that the Prussians lost the battles of Jena, Auerstedt or Halle due to lack of skirmishung or fighting in tactics resembling the 7YW – is a extreme simplification avoiding to see what realy happened.'

That hasn't been done here. What has been said is the Prussians were tactically inferior to the French in 1806 along with organizationally and administratively, along with their training being inferior as well as their artillery and engineer arms.

'The fact is – the Prussians were strategically outfought – and therefore lost.'

I would submit that you cannot be outfought strategically. You can be outmaneuvered startegically and put at a disadvantage strategically, but when the actual fighting begins, that is in the realm of tactics. The Prussians were outfought tactically in 1806.

'At Jena the French had a superiortiy in numbers and at Auerstedt there was a complete brake down in the chain of commands with Brunswicks early fatal wound.'

While the Prussians were outnumbered at Jena, about 40,000 of the French were not committed to the action and not all were on the field when the shooting started. The Prussians were outgeneraled and outfought.

An army that is efficiently organized and has a valid chain of command should not fall apart when the commander is put out of action. That is more an excuse for the Prussians than a single reason for the Prussian defeat. The bottom line is the main Prussian army was outfought and badly defeated by a French corps less than half the strength of the Prussian army on the field.

Sincerely,
K

Steven H Smith08 Sep 2009 5:37 p.m. PST

That is incorrect.

Big Al

50 Dylan CDs and an Icepick08 Sep 2009 5:52 p.m. PST

[While the Prussians were outnumbered at Jena, about 40,000 of the French were not committed to the action and not all were on the field when the shooting started. ]

[The bottom line is the main Prussian army was outfought and badly defeated by a French corps less than half the strength of the Prussian army on the field.]

At Auerstädt the Prussians never had their full strength engaged at any given point, but rather went into battle segmented and piecemeal. The French III Corps never had to face the full might of the theoretically-available Prussian numbers, with Davout's situation somewhat analogous to Lee's at Antietem, give or take an opaque fog.

Surely if your argument for the French at Jena is valid (i.e., that Napoleon's outnumbering the Prussians isn't relevant because he never brought most of that strength to bear)… then it is valid, also for the Prussians at Auerstädt, n'est-ce pas?

(For that matter, we might consider: How well would the French III Corps have done at Auerstädt, had Davout been shot in the head in the first hour or so?)

I don't think anybody would bother making excuses for the Prussian army in 1806… After all, the Prussians themselves didn't. They knew a disaster when they saw one. But I don't see any reason to make excuses for Napoleon, either. Numbers matter. There was no way that Prussia was going to win that war, unless God Almighty came down and rolled a bunch of sixes.

McLaddie08 Sep 2009 6:20 p.m. PST

Kevin wrote:

The bottom line is the main Prussian army was outfought and badly defeated by a French corps less than half the strength of the Prussian army on the field.

Kevin:
Not to take anything away from the French victory at Jena or Auerstadt, The Prussian army at Jena was outnumbered throughout the battle, partly because Hohenlohe was quite happy to let his divisional commanders be defeated piecemeal. But the Prussians were outnumbered 2-1 or more through out the battle:

6:00 am Tauentzien fought against Lannes entire Corps, the Guard artillery and St. Hilaire's division of Soult's Corps.

@12,000 against nearly 30,000. They lasted three hours

10:00am Holtendorf fought against St. Hilaire's Division and Soult's corps cavalry

@5,000 against 12,000 or more.

10:30 am Garwert's and parts of Pritwitz's and Zechwitz's divisions against Lannes, Desjardin's Division of Augereau, an elite corps of Ney's Corps, with Soult and Augereau and Ney's other divisions feeding into the battle on the flanks.

@15,000 against 30,000 or more, depending on the point between 10:30 and 1:00 you pick to count--and that is engaged. Hohenlohe had 5,000 or more of Niesemeuschel's brigade sitting idle on the Prussian right beyond for the entire battle.

There was no time in which the Prussians even had parity, let alone faced half their strength.

Bill H.

Kevin Kiley08 Sep 2009 6:43 p.m. PST

Bill,

That was a generalship problem and a violation of the Principle of War of mass.

It should also be noted that Davout's III Corps didn't arrive at the same time at Auerstadt either. However, he was general-enough to get all of his troops there as soon as he could. Bedford Forrest's point should be well taken (get there first with the most men).

Sincerely,
K

McLaddie08 Sep 2009 7:36 p.m. PST

"That was a generalship problem and a violation of the Principle of War of mass."

Kevin:
Well, there's no doubt about that! Hohenlohe worked pretty hard to lose the battle in a number of ways. It just happened that most of the French showed up on Hohenlohe's doorstep, while most of the Prussians knocked on Davout's door, but both Napoleon and Davout played the game far better.

Bill

von Winterfeldt09 Sep 2009 1:24 a.m. PST

Anybody with a random knowledge about military history can comprehend why a mere French corps outfought a Prussian army of 5 division -in case I remeber correctly – because right at the beginning – the Prussian cic was mortally wounded and from then on – there was no longer any cohesion of command.

So poor commanding, poor staff work – and not bad skirmishing are the reasons of the defeats at Auerstedt and Jena and nothing else.

A good point for a wargamer who could smash with a central control 3e corps – would be an interesting scenario.

von Winterfeldt09 Sep 2009 11:19 p.m. PST

By the way new studies about the Prussian Army of the 7YW and point out that the old stereotype thinking about this army is wrong in many aspects and the like the army of 1806 was not a lineas army of the 7YW.

So – one has two options – cling to clichées or stay open for knowledge.

see also

link

JeffsaysHi10 Sep 2009 3:54 a.m. PST

What !!!
Please tell me its not going to be revealed the 7YW Prussian tactics were the tactics of 1806.
Somebodies going to be rolling round the floor laughing at that one.

Steven H Smith10 Sep 2009 6:04 a.m. PST

Jeff,

Are you voting 'clichées'? <;^}

Big Al

MichaelCollinsHimself10 Sep 2009 6:22 a.m. PST

How can you tell the difference when it comes to the voting?

McLaddie10 Sep 2009 6:24 a.m. PST

JeffsaysHi wrote:

What !!!
Please tell me its not going to be revealed the 7YW Prussian tactics were the tactics of 1806.
Somebodies going to be rolling round the floor laughing at that one.

I don't think that was what vW was suggesting, only that the Prussian tactics of the SYW weren't what is often portrayed.

On the other hand, serious historians insisted that Prussian tactics in 1806 were the tactics of the 7YW and no one was on the floor laughing… though they should have been.

Steven H Smith10 Sep 2009 7:32 a.m. PST

MCH,

Afganistan voting rules. <;^}

Big Al

MichaelCollinsHimself10 Sep 2009 8:01 a.m. PST

Oh No!

I was lost for just a moment there, but agreed, it wasn`t what Mr. Winterfeldt was saying…

Actually, I`ve been thinking about doing Auerstaedt for a while now with a friend or two, but I would very sportingly volunteer to play the Prussian… even if it means not having as many command options as the French, or if getting shot early on means not being able to do very much at all!

McLaddie11 Sep 2009 11:46 a.m. PST

Desert Fox: Jan?

You wanted to know about the use of *all* the Austrian 3rd rank and why there was often a call for only 1/3 of the rank to be used.

This was fairly standard for any skirmish force. 1/3 was committed to the skirmish line, and the rest was in reserve. The entire line was dedicated to skirmishing, but the majority of the 3rd rank was normally held back as a reserve. It was typical for a skirmish line to run through their ammo very quickly [compared to a formed unit] and that required reserves to replace the skirmishers when they depleted their ammo.

Even such experienced units as the 17th Legere in 1806, ran out of ammo both at Saalfeld and Jena, and had to be pulled from the line before their Prussian counterparts were, though both sides reported being low on ammo.

So, the Austrians could and did commit the entire 3rd rank to skirmishing. It is just a question of what role the different sections were playing, first team or the reserves.

I haven't been accepted on the General de Brigade forum yet, or I would have answered there.

Bill H.

Kevin Kiley12 Sep 2009 3:25 p.m. PST

'Yup! They don't like:
"Big Al" is NOT a "naughty" word, but "censorship" IS.'

It isn't censorship. It's respect for the publishing rights and copyrights of others.

Sincerely,
K

Steven H Smith12 Sep 2009 3:35 p.m. PST

"It isn't censorship. It's respect for the publishing rights and copyrights of others."

Yup, there he goes again, not a clue as to what he speaks about, but speak he does. Nothing new there! <;^}

With even greater sincerity,

Big Al

Grognard178912 Sep 2009 3:47 p.m. PST

Gentlemen,

If I can call some of you that on this forum. In the words of Jaquim Phoneix in Gladiator "I'm vexed, terribly vexed" by the unanswered missing link question about the AWI's possible evolutionary influence on French Revolutionary light infantry tactics, and the change over from Ancien Regime Fredrician Tactics to the Revolutionary tactics as well. Then I did some more research and some thinking and resolved upon this hypothesis;

The French tactics of this period are difficult to pinpoint as terrain, battle conditions and sizes of armies, skill of commanders and the troops varied tremendously.

Whereas Fredrician "petite guerre" had merely been a complement to regular warfare, operational skirmishing could amount to a substitute for regular warfare. It not only thwarted allied campaign plans, it also subjected their small armies to a rate of attrition which they could not sustain for long. Though the attritional nature of operational skirmishing produced results, it took much time. The strategy of annihilation (Carnot's policy) called for rapid as well as crushing blows. With increasing experience and battleworthiness of revolutionary armies, operational skirmishing, the stopgap measure of a tactically inferior army, could be relegated to a secondary role. By 1794, the French armies were tactically efficient enough to rely on operational art and open battles, a conduct of warfare which corresponded more closely to the strategy of annihilation."

Carnot, was the military expert who played the major role in implementing the strategy of annihilation during this era, often this is attributed to Brogilie, Guibert and Napoleon himself.

He advised the combination of operational skirmishing on a broad front followed by a concentrated breakthrough. He insisted on massing superior numbers for battle. He suggested bypassing fortresses rather than wasting time in besieging them. He demanded attacking and pursuing an enemy relentlessly until his forces were destroyed. He encouraged army commanders to coordinate their movements in order to render mutual support and to trap the enemy. Carnot's operational principles can be summarized as economy of force, deception, surprise, concentration, speed and annihilation. Apart from giving detailed instructions to commanders of field armies, he consistently preached these principles.

Carnot's operational ideas are most concisely expressed in the "Systeme General des Operations Militaires", 2 Feb, 1794, CC, IV, pp. 279-83.

It is vital not to confuse tactical skirmishing with operational skirmishing: operational skirmishing is the conduct of operations with considerable bodies of regular troops in broken country in order to avoid battle on open ground (used during the AWI). The mode of combat used in operational skirmishing was the combination of tactical skirmishing, columns of attack and field fortifications.

Carnot combined operational skirmishing and operational art. Operational skirmishing along the whole front left the enemy uncertain where the main blow would be struck and forced him to disperse his forces in a cordon. This cordon would then be broken by two or more armies advancing side by side like divisions. This approach threatened both flanks of the enemy army simultaneously. If the enemy split his army into two in order to meet the threats on each flank, the numerically superior armies would drive the enemy back in a series of battles and pursuits. If the enemy would stand his ground, both pincers would close and render his annihilation certain. The campaigns of 1794 in Belgium and 1795 and 1796 in Southern Germany were planned along those lines."

Therefore, an attack in broken country, called for infantry in columns of attack preceded by skirmishers, whereas defense in open country called for infantry in line, supported by artillery and skirmishers, the flanks protected by cavalry. The combined tactical result of divisional organization, all-arms combat, mobile artillery and ordre mixte (Brogolie, Gribeauval, Guibert, Carnot) was an army which could fight a dynamic battle in any kind of terrain, render strong positions vulnerable and restore the superiority of the attack. This concept would allow for the overcoming of the nature of Fredrician indecisiveness and attritional battles.

As soon as he took power on Nov. 9, 1799 (18th Brumaire), Napoleon recalled Carnot to France, named him Inspector of War, and placed him in charge of the recruitment and training of officers, as well as of the reorganization of the French Army in Germany. But because it was impossible to orient Napoleon to republican ideas, away from a monarchical regime, because of his infantile approach to the arts of war, Carnot resigned in October 1800. During his stay in office, he still attempted to indicate the direction which reforms should take, especially in the domain of education.

Benjamin Franklin, whose efforts to secure French support for the American Revolution are well known, fought against such nostalgic defenders of feudalism in America and in Europe. Less well known, is that he reorganized the French Leibnizians, and trained Lazare Carnot. Carnot, the ``moralist,'' was a happy man. His wine cellar full of Burgundy wine, his poetry, his jokes, all show that in him, morality did not rhyme with morosity. Carnot studied at a school run by the Oratorian Fathers, where he was taught the work of Leibniz, before pursuing his studies under the direction of another pupil of the Oratorians, Gaspard Monge. The latter was the pedagogical director of the school of military engineering at Mézière. His educational method deeply influenced a whole generation of European scientists.

In 1783-84, Carnot came into contact with Franklin's Parisian circles, and began the fundamental political endeavor which was to determine his later activities. In his ``Essay on Machines,''(fn8) Carnot defined himself as a Leibnizian, in the broadest sense of the term. Society can only progress through the scientific study of technological innovation, he maintained. It was from that standpoint that Carnot would establish the new bases for a study of mechanics, defined as the search for the best possible way for a machine to transform the energy flux. This conception is opposite to fixed Cartesian analysis. The true science of thermodynamics was born.(fn9)

At about the same time, Carnot helped his friends the Montgolfier brothers, in their experiments on the first aerostatic balloons, the development of which inflicted a terrible defeat on those who claimed that man would never achieve mastery over nature and vanquish its laws, notably that of gravity. Carnot went even further, and, the following year, after the launching and ascent of a montgolfière, in 1784, he presented to the Academy of Sciences a memorandum on the ways in which balloons could be directed with engines, and perhaps even a steam engine:

``It is heat which, producing systolic and diastolic expansion in the balloon, must give the impulsion to the wheels…. You must note, in passing, gentlemen, how many arms will be spared in manufacturing, when the mechanics of fire are better known…. Within ten years, this will produce astonishing revolutions in the [mechanical] arts.''(fn10)

Carnot later collaborated with inventor Robert Fulton on naval propulsion with steam engines, and on the use of submarines to beat the British fleet. ``It is a newborn child!'' Franklin exclaimed, when he saw the experiments.(fn11) It is from these beginnings, that hydrodynamics and aerodynamics were developed, proceeding from a conception of man fundamentally opposed to that of Voltaire and Rousseau.

If man wants to progress, he must create new forms of energy of greater and greater densities. This implies precise social and political considerations which Carnot was to elaborate in his first writings, ``Eloge de Vauban'' (``In Praise of Vauban'') (1784) and ``Memoire sur les Places Fortes'' (``Memorandum on Fortifications'') (1788).

In those two works, Carnot for the first time clearly presents his idea of a republican nation-state, and that idea is very different from simple anti-monarchism. Republicanism can take diverse institutional forms, among them, the American model of parliamentary democracy. Carnot used the work of French military engineer Sébastian Le Prestre de Vauban, to present his own credo on the necessity for the spiritual and material progress of the labor force.

This was the cornerstone of the reforms Carnot later introduced, notably when he reorganized the army. Like Vauban, Carnot was not attacking the king, so much as he was attacking the court, that gathering of lazy and parasitical aristocrats who ruined the French economy.

Late in 1792, Carnot and his friends prepared themselves for a seizure of power, so as to stop the destruction of France. Carnot's military strategy is a model which is useful to study, because it was a republican political approach to the art of war, on the part of a man who had thoroughly grasped the links among science, the economy, technology, and a victorious military strategy. His reforms are all the more remarkable, in that he succeeded in bringing them about amidst anarchy, economic collapse, and foreign invasion.

From his earliest writings on military strategy (notably in his work on Vauban), Carnot enunciated a concept of the art of war which is very important, though underrated by his biographers. He stressed the connections among defense works, the reorganization of economic production, and the large-scale utilization of modern technologies. This understanding of the necessity of using a superior culture to vanquish the enemy made Carnot the organizer of victory, not merely a brilliant tactician. He considered war from a global political standpoint. At the same time, he constantly improved on his tactical approach, always using the most advanced concepts available. Thus, for example, he took some advice from the great strategist Guibert, a man with whom he had had disagreements in 1784, to resolve several aspects of military deployments.

It is this clear strategic political vision which Napoleon--being a good captain, as opposed to a great strategist, one who only sought to accumulate victories on the battlefield, without an overall political conception--sorely lacked.

Therefore I deem Lazare Carot 1753: Lazare Carnot is born in Burgogne (May 13) the definitive missing link.

To better understand the AWI Republican mindset influence better than I can explain it see;

link

CM

Kevin Kiley13 Sep 2009 4:47 a.m. PST

Carnot was an engineer officer, the highest rank he achieved was chef de bataillon in the army until Napoleon promoted him to flag rank (general officer) in 1814 and he took command at Hamburg.

Which work did you quote from for your posting? It talks about Carnot in the third person. Carnot wrote books on engineering subjects and was not noted as a tactician. He was a member of the Committee of Public Safety and as the military member was responsible for operations. He was also a Representative on Mission with the field armies.

In 1800 he was appointed temporary Minister of War during the Marengo campaign as Berthier, who was the Minister of War, was named commander of the Army of the Reserve for operations in Switzerland and Northern Italy.

I don't believe that Carnot served in North America during the War of the Revolution. Berthier and other officers did, but the 'link' you have established is tenuous at best. It was de Broglie, Gribeauval, Rochambeau, Mesnil-Durand and others who developed the new tactics and tactical doctrine, not Carnot. The catalyst for the new tactical system was being defeated by the Prussians repeatedly during the Seven Years' War, not service in North America.

Sincerely,
K

Kevin Kiley13 Sep 2009 4:59 a.m. PST

Correction: Carnot commanded at Antwerp, not Hamburg. Sorry about that.

I have a real problem giving credit to an article that begins by quoting Lyndon Larouche, who as far as I know is not an historian. In my opinion that doesn't lend historic credence to what follows. Isn't he a convicted felon?

Sincerely,
K

Grognard178913 Sep 2009 7:37 a.m. PST

Kevin,

Carnot did serve in the Committee of Public Safety, but was placed on a list out of political necessity for survivability in those tenuous of times. Although he he never was pleased about being associated with such characters (Robspierre, Danton, Marat, Barras, etc…) as during the terror.

The Struggle For A Republic During The Revolution

We must keep in mind the ideas put forth by Franklin, Carnot, and their friends, in order to define more precisely what tendency stood behind which idea during the Revolution. It is only in that way that we will have in our possession the criteria indispensable to understand the role of Carnot in the creation of the first republican army capable of crushing foreign enemy forces, operating in coordination with French royalists, which were technically far superior.

From the beginning of the Revolution, two broad tendencies fought for power. There was the ``American'' tendency, as it was called--that of Lafayette, Thomas Paine, and others--which did not so much seek the establishment of a new regime, as the implementation of an economic and social policy modelled on that of the American Revolution. The opposing tendency was a British-protected and -directed tendency: the House of Orléans and their lackeys, Danton, Marat, et al.

The latter essentially wanted to create a liberal monarchy of the British type, and to sweep away the last remaining Colbertists who had fought for France's independence and economic growth. The House of Orléans never endeavored to organize anything positive, or to work with the progress-oriented social forces, which would have meant at least maintaining the existing moral and political level of the population, if not increasing it. Rather, they wanted a destabilization, and all they needed for that was the rabble. Carnot, who ceaselessly fought to safeguard the highest spirit in the French population, described the various factions this way:

``Barras was of that faction which horrified me, always; that faction which first sought to put Orléans on the throne; which, not having succeeded, conceived of working for its own ends, and which ended by splitting into two others: one, the Danton faction, which predominated among the Cordeliers, and the other, the Robespierre faction, which predominated among the Jacobins and the Paris Commune; the latter faction, so opposite from the republican system, came to exalt its principles when it saw that it could take advantage of it, to put itself at the head of the Republic. I was equally the enemy of the Cordeliers and of the Jacobins…. I had the same aversion for Danton and Robespierre, but, as a member of the Committee of Public Safety, I was alleged to belong to the latter's faction, without it being known that I denounced it ceaselessly for its cruelty and its tyranny.'' (fn6)

This is a rather undiplomatic description of the revolutionaries! Most historians see through the Orléans' gameplan, but few admit that the ``revolutionary ideas'' of Danton, Marat, and Hébert were only the fruits of a deliberate attempt at a destabilization, whose aim was certainly not the improvement of the French population's mental and material conditions. After a series of provocations, such as the Champ de Mars shooting (July 17, 1791) had weakened the tendency of Lafayette, Carnot and the friends of the Engineering School of Mézières were elected to the Legislative Assembly, and attempted to build a movement which would be sufficiently powerful to take leadership over the unfolding events.

For the ``city-builders,'' this was their chance to form a government that would, among other things, give priority to education, so as to increase the productive powers of society. This question of education, as we have seen, had already played a leading role in the struggles that preceded the Revolution.

This question now became the dividing line between republicans and destabilizers. The reason, to which we shall return, was simple. The attacks against the ongoing need for improvements in the knowledge of citizens can come from the ``right'' or the ``left.'' The ideology of the feudal lord, for whom man is a beast, fit only for manual labor, was also that of the ``progressive'' Voltaire.

One has to understand the struggle of ideals that were going on during the French Revolution. Basically the struggle to create a totally new mindset for a country, similar to what we're currently experiencing in the modern day GWOT in both IRAQ and Afghanistan, and you can see the issues we're having there.

The Education Of The Citizenry

In the new Legislative Assembly, Carnot was elected to the Committee for Public Instruction, where he elaborated a reorganization of the entire pedagogical and educational system. But the aim of Marat, Danton, and company was quite the opposite. Suffice it to recall the famous statement, ``the republic has no use for scientists,'' declared by the judges who condemned the great chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, or the even more vile diatribes of Marat against the Academy of Sciences (an Academy which had had the ``poor taste'' to refuse the candidacy of Marat, who had been found to be a charlatan, a few years earlier):

``Bread is taken from the poor and given to clowns and vile plotters [Academicians]. Persons contribute to their desire for enjoyments, their taste for idleness. These do-nothings, these parasites … met 11,409 times, published 380 eulogies, approved 3,954 experiments, all on new recipes for cosmetics, pomade for the hair, ointments for foot sores.''

Or elsewhere:

``I am denouncing here the epitome of charlatans, Lavoisier, son of a peasant, would-be chemist, pupil of a Genevan speculator, the greatest intriguer of the century.''

The reforms envisioned by Carnot and his friends required time and a certain political tranquillity. That was why the Orléans incited the Parisian populace into a revolt and ``permanent revolution.'' It was the insurrectional Commune, originating from the 48 sections of the left-wing sans culottes of the capital, which practically imposed upon the Legislative Assembly the quasi-dictatorship of Danton during the day of Aug. 10, 1792. Danton was completely under the sway of the sensualists, the circles of Choderlos de Laclos (author of Dangerous Liaisons) and of the Marquis de Silley, who manipulated Laclos's propensity for infantile ``pure passion.''

Danton was an avowed advocate of an Orléanist monarchy and for an alliance with England. In July 1793, suspected of trading intelligence with the English, the Convention threw him off the Committee of Public Safety. Carnot describes the climate created by the Dantonists and Marat's enraged hordes:

``A generation comes after us, whose education has been abandoned for three years; were that generation to linger in that state of affairs a bit more, it would no longer be capable of enjoying liberty…. To pursue such a path would transform the French nation into a horde of savages.''(fn17)

To fight those hordes of modern savages, Carnot presented in March 1793 a new constitutional project. In contrast to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens, Carnot proposed a Declaration of the Rights of Citizens, because, he explains, men can only exist under the social form of citizens. This difference is reinforced by the fact that the Declaration of 1789 did not really define what a citizen of the Republic is, but spewed out mere generalities on liberty as such. Carnot, on the contrary, specified in a few articles how the Rights and Duties of the Citizen of the State must be defined:

* ``Article VII: Every citizen is born a soldier….
* ``Article VIII: Society has the right to demand that any citizen be instructed in a useful profession…. It also has the right to establish a mode of national education to prevent the evils which could be inflicted upon it by ignorance or the corruption of morals.
* ``Article IX: Each citizen has the reciprocal right to expect from society the means of acquiring the knowledge and instruction which can contribute to his happiness in his particular profession and to public usefulness in the employment his fellow citizens may wish him to fulfill.''

Those essential republican notions were left out of the 1789 Declaration. The continued emphasis on the need to educate the citizenry is the prime goal of Carnot and of his collaborators.

This is essentially the same thing we're trying to do in these countries today. Stability is needed by the government in order to institute a change of mindset. Basically it's Nationalism and devotion to the (State, Motherland, Fatherland, etc…), but not socialism.

Carnot, `Organizer Of Victory'

Late in 1792, Carnot and his friends prepared themselves for a seizure of power, so as to stop the destruction of France. Carnot's military strategy is a model which is useful to study, because it was a republican political approach to the art of war, on the part of a man who had thoroughly grasped the links among science, the economy, technology, and a victorious military strategy. His reforms are all the more remarkable, in that he succeeded in bringing them about amidst anarchy, economic collapse, and foreign invasion.

From his earliest writings on military strategy (notably in his work on Vauban), Carnot enunciated a concept of the art of war which is very important, though underrated by his biographers. He stressed the connections among defense works, the reorganization of economic production, and the large-scale utilization of modern technologies. This understanding of the necessity of using a superior culture to vanquish the enemy made Carnot the organizer of victory, not merely a brilliant tactician. He considered war from a global political standpoint. At the same time, he constantly improved on his tactical approach, always using the most advanced concepts available. Thus, for example, he took some advice from the great strategist Guibert, a man with whom he had had disagreements in 1784, to resolve several aspects of military deployments. It is this clear strategic political vision which Napoleon--being a good captain, as opposed to a great strategist, one who only sought to accumulate victories on the battlefield, without an overall political conception--sorely lacked.

From the moment Carnot undertook a tour to reorganize the armies, he realized how disastrous the situation was, because of the stupidity of the revolutionary leaders. In a report sent from the Pyrenees in 1793, he described to his compatriots in the Convention, the demoralization of the older officers, the uselessness of the anarchist volunteers; he proposed a few measures, and put forth some sound advice:

``Among the objects which have been drawn to our attention, none have deserved more than roads and navigation canals; without them … it is impossible for agriculture and the [mechanical] arts to prosper…. Everywhere it is easy to do, instruction spreads, industry awakens…. Citizens, we have rarely written to you without mentioning the need for public instruction; it is because everywhere those needs are manifest by the expression of the liveliest impatience.''

After having explained the reorganization necessary for victory, he concluded:

``A yearly status of France must be written up by scientists and craftsmen who would be sent everywhere, in every locality…. Everything which those scientists could gather on the state of the population, on agriculture, on mines, manufactures, communications, production, commerce, and generally everything under the heading of political economy, combined with observations, reflections, and projects they think could contribute to the greatest prosperity for the state.''(fn18)

After the Pyrenees, he was sent to reorganize the Northern Front, where he had to face an even worse situation. There again, he reorganized what he could, then gave some strategic advice:

``It is shameful to stay on the defensive, when you have available 10,000 men, against 6,000…. The enemy should perish right there, if we run things properly. Instead of acting on the flank or the rear of the enemy, we always take him head-on; that is the best way to be sure you are always beaten.''(fn19)

Carnot realized more and more clearly that he could not rebuild the army, if strategic decisions were not made, or if bad strategic decisions were made, by Danton and company. To win militarily, first there had to be the political will to win, and, second, the army, logistics, production, etc., had to be revamped to further that objective.

When Carnot and Prieur de la Côte d'Or acceded to the Committee of Public Safety on Aug. 14, 1793 and took the military operations in hand, the situation was practically desperate; the British had blocked Dunkirk; Maubeuge was besieged; Valenciennes had just capitulated; Lyons and Marseilles had revolted; the insurrection in the Vendée was going on; Saumur had just fallen; and Toulon would soon be handed over to the British fleet. In the interior, the Hébertists and Dantonists were provoking successive waves of terror.

As soon as he acceded to power, Carnot surrounded himself with the greatest scientists of the time, to reorganize military supplies and logistics. It is not accidental that they all came from Mézière: the mathematician Alexandre Vandermonde, the engineer and geometer Gaspard Monge, the chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal, the industrialist and metallurgist Jean-Claude Perrier, the chemist Claude Berthollet, Victor Dupin, the chemist Antoine-Franc@alois de Fourcroy. These constituted a group which reorganized the military sector, as well as education and the economy. In a five-month period, despite the fact that the revolutionary sans culottes were carrying out intensive sabotage, they succeeded in turning around the military situation.

The French army became at the same time the model for, and the nightmare of, enemy troops. For the first time, the brilliant ideas of Niccolò Machiavelli were realized on a grand scale: The first republican national militia had been formed, and was triumphing. In less than a year, the internal situation in the country also changed: Hébert fell in March 1794, and a few days later, the Dantonists, and, finally, Robespierre was overthrown the 9th of Thermidor (July 27), and was executed the next day with 20 of his partisans.

I emphasize paragraph 2, and this quote "To win militarily, first there had to be the political will to win, and, second, the army, logistics, production, etc., had to be revamped to further that objective." The exact same thing which has been needed by the U.S. military, for example Vietnam and currently the GWOT. Paragraph 2 because it is often thought that Napoleon studied and organized;

de Broglie, Gribeauval, Rochambeau, Mesnil-Durand and others who developed the new tactics and tactical doctrine, not Carnot.

While in fact it was Carnot who saw and implemented these changes;

Carnot enunciated a concept of the art of war which is very important, though underrated by his biographers. He stressed the connections among defense works, the reorganization of economic production, and the large-scale utilization of modern technologies. This understanding of the necessity of using a superior culture to vanquish the enemy made Carnot the organizer of victory, not merely a brilliant tactician. He considered war from a global political standpoint. At the same time, he constantly improved on his tactical approach, always using the most advanced concepts available. Thus, for example, he took some advice from the great strategist Guibert, a man with whom he had had disagreements in 1784, to resolve several aspects of military deployments.

As for the AWI connection;

Carnot's operational ideas are most concisely expressed in the "Systeme General des Operations Militaires", 2 Feb, 1794, CC, IV, pp. 279-83.

Carnot: Beat the English with Flanking Operations
From Lazare Carnot's ``General System for Military Operations in the Next Campaign,''

January. 30, 1794:

All the armies of the Republic must act offensively, but not everywhere with the same extension of their means. Decisive blows must be delivered at two or three points only; otherwise, we would have to spread out our forces rather uniformly on all borders, and the campaign would end, on each, with a few advantages that would not be enough to prevent the enemy from starting up again next year, while the resources of the Republic would be totally drained.

The point where everyone thinks we should deliver the major blows is the North [held by the British], because that's where the enemy, already master of a portion of our territory, himself is directing the largest portion of his forces; that is where he is in the best position to threaten Paris and carry off its provisions; lastly, that's where he is most easily attacked, since it is open country, far from the city, where the enemy has no strongholds, where our armies could live at his expense, and where there exist the seeds of insurrection, which successes could develop.

The army of the North is therefore where we should principally fix our attention….

There remains discussion of operations that must be undertaken by the armies of the Coast of Brest and those of Cherbourg, which we should consider as acting as one. These armies have three objectives to fulfill: 1) finish the war in the Vendé 2) guard the coastline; 3) carry out a projected landing on the shores of England. For the first, we need light cavalry, several massed infantry corps, and very little artillery; for the second, good garrisons in the forts and good guard corps on the coasts; for the third, the same arrangements as the second, with a numerous and ever-ready flotilla.

It should be noted, on the subject of this landing, that even were we unable to carry it out this year, the preparations alone would hold all the English naval forces in check during the campaign, and would prevent them from attempting anything substantial elsewhere. They would force the English to have a considerable land army on foot, which puts their constitution in great danger, drains their finances, and prevents them from bringing help to the Low Countries. It is therefore essential to push forward the preparations with all possible vigor and to be ready to take advantage of the first opportunity to carry it out.

To the system laid out above, we need add several general rules, which had been taken as basic in all the ordinances of the Committee for Public Safety on military operations.

These general rules are to always act en masse and offensively, to maintain a discipline in the armies that is severe, but not nitpicking; to always leave the troops out of breath, without exhausting them; to leave behind no more than is absolutely indispensable to guard a place; to make frequent changes in the garrisons and residences of the general staff and temporary commandants, so as to break up the plots which proliferate as a result of staying too long in the same place, and which give rise to the treachery that hands the defenders over to the enemy; to exercise the greatest vigilance at the guardposts; to obligate general officers to visit these very often; to engage in bayonet combat on every occasion; and to constantly pursue the enemy to his complete destruction….

It is vital not to confuse tactical skirmishing with operational skirmishing: operational skirmishing is the conduct of operations with considerable bodies of regular troops in broken country in order to avoid battle on open ground (Such as practied during the AWI). The mode of combat used in operational skirmishing was the combination of tactical skirmishing, columns of attack and field fortifications.

Benjamin Franklin, whose efforts to secure French support for the American Revolution are well known, fought against such nostalgic defenders of feudalism in America and in Europe. Less well known, is that he reorganized the French Leibnizians, and trained Lazare Carnot. Carnot, the ``moralist,'' was a happy man. His wine cellar full of Burgundy wine, his poetry, his jokes, all show that in him, morality did not rhyme with morosity. Carnot studied at a school run by the Oratorian Fathers, where he was taught the work of Leibniz, before pursuing his studies under the direction of another pupil of the Oratorians, Gaspard Monge. The latter was the pedagogical director of the school of military engineering at Mézière. His educational method deeply influenced a whole generation of European scientists.

As soon as he took power on Nov. 9, 1799 (18th Brumaire), Napoleon recalled Carnot to France, named him Inspector of War, and placed him in charge of the recruitment and training of officers, as well as of the reorganization of the French Army in Germany. But because it was impossible to orient Napoleon to republican ideas, away from a monarchical regime, because of his infantile approach to the arts of war, Carnot resigned in October 1800. During his stay in office, he still attempted to indicate the direction which reforms should take, especially in the domain of education.

From 1802 to 1804, Carnot was practically alone in fighting Napoleon's imperial ambitions. He declared in a speech to the Senate:

``We are called upon to pass judgment on the formal proposition to reestablish the monarchical system and to crown the First Consul [Napoleon] with imperial hereditary dignity. I voted against the idea of consul for life. I would similarly vote against the reestablishment of the monarchy…. It is not on account of the nature of their governments that the great republics lacked stability: It is because, being improvised amid turmoil, it is always euphoria which led to their establishment. Only one was the work of philosophy; calmly organized, this republic persists, full of wisdom and vigor. The United States of America presents this phenomenon, and every day its prosperity grows in leaps which strike other nations with admiration and astonishment.

``Thus it was reserved for the New World to teach the Old that one can live peacefully under the reign of liberty and equality.''

After that speech, one can easily understand how Carnot was able to devote himself to the education of his son Sadi Carnot, and to his work in the scientific section of the institute which he had created in 1795.

Carnot explicitly referred to the American model. In 1804, for example, Carnot gave a speech against Napoleon, during which he explained that the latter could have chosen America and George Washington as models, but unfortunately had preferred Rome and Julius Caesar.

In 1814, when Napoleon's stupidity and the quality of the Prussian generals who had understood Carnot's teachings, brought about the collapse of the empire, Carnot saw that France was in danger. Despite his 60 years, he went back into service, and was named governor of the city and garrison of Anvers. He defended the town with such brilliance, that it alone did not fall into enemy hands. His prowess so struck the Prussians that they spared his life when he finally stopped defending the town, under orders of the new King Louis XVIII.

Napoleon, upon his return from exile on the island of Elba, named Carnot interior minister for the ``Hundred Days.'' Immediately, Carnot created, on April 10, 1815, the Council of Industry and Welfare, which brought together the men of the Defense Committee of 1793: Chaptal, Berthollet, and Monge, as well as the Duc de la Rochefoucault-Liancourt, Ternant, d'Arcet. The program, rapidly drawn up by Chaptal, principally consisted in gathering the scientific, technical, and industrial capacities of the nation to encourage industry by means of innovation and economic assistance. By allocating a bonus of 50,000 francs to the inventors of any new industrial machine, Chaptal and La Rochefoucault-Liancourt promoted the education of workers and peasants.

In May 1815, Carnot passed a law that called for the generalized extension of primary schools. That law (the Enseignement Mutuel) read, in part:

``When the Americans of the United States decided on the location for a town, or even a village, their first concern was to bring a teacher there, at the same time that they brought in the instruments of agriculture; grasping as they did--those men of good sense, students of Franklin, of Washington--that what is as pressing for the true needs of man, as clearing the land, raising a roof, and clothing oneself, is to cultivate one's intelligence. But, when in Europe, the inequality of fortunes, the consequence of a grand society, leave men in such inequality of means, how can we invite the most numerous class of society to become educated? Education without morality would be … even more dangerous than ignorance. So, how can we raise the morality at the same time as the education of the largest possible number of men? Here is the problem which deserves to occupy the friends of humanity, and which Your Majesty would resolve by establishing a good primary education. In France, 2 million children clamor for that education…. Through those means, the greatest part of the generation moves forward in the benefits of primary education, the true means of elevating all the individuals of the human race to the dignity of man. What is in question here, is not to turn them out as small-time scientists or courtiers; it is to give to each the appropriate enlightenment…. In every part of political economy, great art consists in accomplishing a lot with little means…. Hence … it is to make children educators of one another for moral behavior as well as intellectual learning…. The master is thus multiplied by his young representatives.''(fn34)

Grognard178913 Sep 2009 8:01 a.m. PST

It was not Carnot who served in the AWI, but the influence of Bejamin Franklin and other French officers who'd participated in the AWI that returned to France and served in the Revolutionary Armies that once again served under and helped influenced Carnot. These are officers such as;

The Etats Militaires from 1777 to 1783, which I have studied, present in this respect the most shocking inexactitudes; the names there are so altered that they often mislead the researches of the historian instead of facilitating them. In the impossibility which I found of rectifying them all, I have contented myself in working out lists of the officers, following after the notices on the regiments, from the fitats Militaires, and indicating as often as possible the probable rectifications.

My researches in this direction have caused me to discover unexpected names, which have since reappeared with distinction in the events of this century. It is thus that, without speaking of La Fayette, de Segur, de Rochanibeau, de Noailles, de Broglie, de Saint Simon, de Mirabeau, de Lameth, and many others to whom their birth assured a high social position, I have found and been able to follow the trace of the Berthiers, of de Menou, Miollis, Dumas, Gantheaurae, Truguet, Pichegru, MacMahon, and many others, who, unknown when they per formed their first military service in America, afterwards be came celebrated among their countrymen.

It has, unfortunately, not always been possible for me to procure precise information about the conduct during the war of these personages, as nothing had as yet brought them to public notice. But my investigations have sometimes borne fruit, and I have the hope that I shall have furnished to biographers and historians useful information. It also seemed to me interesting to follow to the end of their career, these men whom a generous impulse had brought, in their youth, to the succor of the revolted colonies. I have thus been led to complete a few biographical notices, written at first only with reference to the expedition.

But little attention, moreover, was paid to acquired rights and to merit at the Court of Versailles, where everything was at the discretion of the favorites of the day. I have been able to convince myself that the promotion of the officers was due to an arbitrary will or to intrigue. While a soldier of some value could not reach the grade of petty officer until after twenty years of service, the nobles obtained at once this title, and could become colonels in less than four years. A few of them became lieutenants at fifteen years of age, like Chastel- lux, or even at nine, like Custine. They left their regiments, traveled according to their fancy, even carried on regular war where it pleased them, without troubling themselves about the functions that were attributed to their rank. 2 Their advancement was not retarded on that account ; they found, if necessary, on their return, a place as officier reformed But talent and courage were of small weight in the scale of royal favors.

Source; The French in America during the war of independence of the United …, Volume 1 By Thomas Willing Balch

link

The key to the Carnot link is here; a small but most significant connection of this whole AWI thread idea. The Journal of Claude Blanchard

link

And on that note I rest my case!

McLaddie13 Sep 2009 9:17 a.m. PST

Grognard:

Your thesis is that Carnot and French officers incorporated skirmish tactics learned in the AWI. That the French development of skirmish tactics was encouraged by their AWI experiences isn't questioned. The issue is whether the AWI tactics themselves shaped French skirmish tactics.

Digging through all the quotes, is your first premise is that Carnot, because of his connection with Ben Franklin, learned of American skirmish tactics?

Franklin, however brilliant, was in Europe for most of the AWI, and knew few details of the military operations, let alone the actual skirmish tactics employed. Saratoga was seen as a great victory, but the actual campaign, and indeed any of the AWI campaigns and battles bear little relationship to Carnot's vision of war.

You quote the following:

Carnot combined operational skirmishing and operational art. Operational skirmishing along the whole front left the enemy uncertain where the main blow would be struck and forced him to disperse his forces in a cordon. This cordon would then be broken by two or more armies advancing side by side like divisions. This approach threatened both flanks of the enemy army simultaneously. If the enemy split his army into two in order to meet the threats on each flank, the numerically superior armies would drive the enemy back in a series of battles and pursuits.

How do you see Carnot's strategy of war being influenced by the AWI and Ben Franklin? You haven't provided anything to suggest that other than the two men met.

As for the use of masses of skirmishers, French General Saint-Cyr commented on these masses:

We have had success in 1793, with a war of tirailleurs. This novelty…first caused great success. But our enemy finally understood the weakness and the vices of this system. By 1794 it was all over. All that was gained from untrained troops á la débandage was now contrary to their initial success.

Your second premise is that a number of officers, soon to become prominent in the Napoleonic wars, were officers with the French army in America during the AWI, and this experience was applied to the French skirmish tactics: In other words, AWI skirmish tactics became French skirmish tactics to some degree.

Of these officers named--La Fayette, de Segur, de Rochanibeau, de Noailles, de Broglie, de Saint Simon, de Mirabeau, de Lameth, Berthiers, of de Menou, Miollis, Dumas, Gantheaurae, Truguet, Pichegru, and MacMahon-- which ones had any influence on or relationship to light infantry operations? Which of these men make any statement referring to AWI skirmish tactics and its influence on French developments? Of the group only LaFayette claimed to have influenced [he said 'created'] French skirmish tactics, and the French military community scoffed at that assertion. LaFayette was never in a position to actually do that, even if he wanted to.

Your case hasn't been made. The link between French and American skirmish tactics hasn't been demonstrated at all.

And speaking of links, the last two you gave:

Blach's book on the French participation in the AWI:

Did you read it? Nowhere does he make any connection between the French tactics post-1789 and the AWI. His conclusion is that the AWI influences were to spur on the ideas of revolution, not skirmish tactics.

And the other, The Journal of Claude Blanchard. It is the account of a Commissary visiting Boston in 1780.

There is no question that the AWI had an impact on French thinking about any number of things, including skirmishing. That's not the issue here. Did the skirmish tactics and methods used by American colonists between 1775 and 1783 helped shape French skirmish tactics during the French Revolution? You hasn't been really addressed that, let alone proven it.

You have to show more than Carnot met Ben, or that famous French generals were present during the AWI. There has to be some connection shown or expressed between the AWI tactics and the French tactics, to state that French skirmish tactics were, at least in part, learned in America a decade earlier.

Grognard178913 Sep 2009 10:15 a.m. PST

I've never said, or meant that the AWI tactics were included in whole in the French Revolutionary Armies, only what I believe I have proven that French officers that served during the AWI brought that knowledge back to France with them and more than likely relayed the successes in tactics which the colonials had against the British. Carnot was the mastermind of putting all these theories into practice;

Blanchard was a link between AWI and Carnot. I'm sure there were others as well. Carnot's training camps similar to Frederick's in 1750's would be a good place to examine what exactly became incorporated on the battlefield.

link

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Remember I'm just the messenger. Historical facts speak for themselves.

McLaddie13 Sep 2009 12:58 p.m. PST

've never said, or meant that the AWI tactics were included in whole in the French Revolutionary Armies, only what I believe I have proven that French officers that served during the AWI brought that knowledge back to France with them and more than likely relayed the successes in tactics which the colonials had against the British. Carnot was the mastermind of putting all these theories into practice
[Italics mine]

Grognard:
I don't think you had to go to all that trouble to prove that French officers brought back knowledg of the AWI. No one disputed that in the first place.

the key words here are 'more than likely'. What would make it 'more than likely' if you could point out where AWI "theories" of skirmish tactics were 'put into practice' by Carnot--or show up in French skirmish operations at all.

Remember I'm just the messenger. Historical facts speak for themselves.

Yes, they can. The problem is that the facts are saying what you are. What 'theories' from the AWI, new to France, were brought back by the French officers and implimented by Carnot or the French anywhere. The facts would have establish:

1. The theories fo skirmish warfare unique to the AWI.
2. Which military men adovated those specific theories
and
3. Where those theories are 'put into practice.'

The facts you have presented haven't done any of those things. They have established:

1.That a number of French officers that fought in the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars were officers in the AWI.
2. That Carnot talked to Ben Franklin and had access to those French officers.
3. That Carnot develop very specific operational plans for the French army in the first years of the French Revolution.
4. That the plans involved skirmishing on a massive scale before and during battle.

That's it. Said facts talking.

10th Marines13 Sep 2009 3:32 p.m. PST

'Carnot was the mastermind of putting all these theories into practice'

Interesting theory, but it is just that. Carnot controlled fourteen separate armies from Paris, but he did not hold a field command nor did he have practical experience in the tactical handling of troops. Further, he was not involved in the tactical experiments of the 1770s in either Normandy or Metz. You have not shown, nor have your sources, that Carnot did that. In short, you have failed to prove your theory or to make it at least credible. And whether or not Carnot knew Franklin is immaterial since Franklin was not a soldier and was not in the field during the American War of the Revolution.

Sincerely,
K

1968billsfan13 Sep 2009 3:51 p.m. PST

getting back to the Austrians……

Grognard178914 Sep 2009 12:14 p.m. PST

Digging through all the quotes, is your first premise that Carnot, because of his connection with Ben Franklin, learned of American skirmish tactics?

No, only that he was taught the Leibnizian mindset by Franklin's school. This therefore gave him a penchant for America (So called Greek, Democratic mindest – Ameriphobe if you will. Bear in mind the colonials by avoiding open pitched battles initially, ultimately defeat the British (The greatest empire at the time.)

Benjamin Franklin, whose efforts to secure French support for the American Revolution are well known, fought against such nostalgic defenders of feudalism in America and in Europe. Less well known, is that he reorganized the French Leibnizians, and trained Lazare Carnot. Carnot, the ``moralist,'' was a happy man. His wine cellar full of Burgundy wine, his poetry, his jokes, all show that in him, morality did not rhyme with morosity. Carnot studied at a school run by the Oratorian Fathers, where he was taught the work of Leibniz, before pursuing his studies under the direction of another pupil of the Oratorians, Gaspard Monge. The latter was the pedagogical director of the school of military engineering at Mézière. His educational method deeply influenced a whole generation of European scientists

Source: link

Perhaps more research needs to be done on Gaspard Monge?

We must keep in mind the ideas put forth by Franklin, Carnot, and their friends, in order to define more precisely what tendency stood behind which idea during the Revolution. It is only in that way that we will have in our possession the criteria indispensable to understand the role of Carnot in the creation of the first republican army capable of crushing foreign enemy forces, operating in coordination with French royalists, which were technically far superior.

Source: Claus Telp: "The Evolution of Operational Art 1740-1813" From Frederick the Great to Napoleon"

Whereas Fredrician "petite guerre" had merely been a complement to regular warfare, operational skirmishing could amount to a substitute for regular warfare (i.e. open battles as practiced in Europe during the SYW, and later, and as mainly practiced by the British army during the AWI.).

Source: Claus Telp: "The Evolution of Operational Art 1740-1813" From Frederick the Great to Napoleon"

It is vital not to confuse tactical skirmishing with operational skirmishing: operational skirmishing is the conduct of operations with considerable bodies of regular troops in broken country in order to avoid battle on open ground (Such as practied during the AWI). The mode of combat used in operational skirmishing was the combination of tactical skirmishing, columns of attack and field fortifications.

Source: Claus Telp: "The Evolution of Operational Art 1740-1813" From Frederick the Great to Napoleon"

I draw your attention to these lines;

It not only thwarted allied campaign plans, it also subjected their small armies to a rate of attrition which they could not sustain for long. Though the attritional nature of "operational skirmishing" produced results, it took much time.

While the "Levee en Masse" allowed the French Armies to replenish rapidly, initially during the Revolutionary period.

link

The strategy of annihilation (Carnot's policy) called for rapid as well as crushing blows.

KEY EMPHASIS;

"With increasing experience and battleworthiness of revolutionary armies, "operational skirmishing", the stopgap measure of a tactically inferior army, could be relegated to a secondary role."

Source: Claus Telp: "The Evolution of Operational Art 1740-1813" From Frederick the Great to Napoleon"

Initially it was needed out of the necessity of poorly trained & quality troops. (Exactly as it was in North America during the AWI). Later the Colonial army did exactly the same as below;

By 1794, the French armies were tactically efficient enough to rely on operational art and open battles, a conduct of warfare which corresponded more closely to the strategy of annihilation.

Source: Claus Telp: "The Evolution of Operational Art 1740-1813" From Frederick the Great to Napoleon"

And European warfare in general. The exact tactics used by the British Armies in North America and initially avoided by the Colonials using "operational skirmishing" as mentioned above.

Carnot, was the military expert who played the major role in implementing the strategy of annihilation during this era, often this is attributed to Brogilie, Guibert and Napoleon himself.

The Carnot tie to Brogolie, Guibert, Blanchard, Etc..

Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert ( 1743 – May 6, 1790), French general and military writer, was born at Montauban,

"and at the age of thirteen accompanied his father, Charles Bénoit, comte de Guibert (1715-1786), "chief of staff to Marshal de Broglie," throughout the war in Germany, and won the cross of St Louis and the rank of colonel in the expedition to

"Corsica" (1767).

As mentioned as a possible observation of such "operational skirmishing" by Guibert in a previous post in this thread.

My researches in this direction have caused me to discover unexpected names, which have since reappeared with distinction in the events of this century. It is thus that, without speaking of La Fayette, de Segur, de Rochanibeau, de Noailles,

de Broglie,

de Saint Simon, de Mirabeau, de Lameth, and many others to whom their birth assured a high social position, I have found and been able to follow the trace of the Berthiers, of de Menou, Miollis, Dumas, Gantheaurae, Truguet, Pichegru, MacMahon, and many others, who, unknown when they per formed their first military service in America, afterwards be came celebrated among their countrymen.

Source; The French in America during the war of independence of the United …, Volume 1 By Thomas Willing Balch

Broglie Comte, and Duc were actually brothers;

link

Charles-Louis-Victor, prince de Broglie (22 September 1756 – 27 June 1794), was a French soldier and politician.
The eldest son of Victor-François, 2nd duc de Broglie,

"Victor-Fran?ois, 2nd duc de Broglie was a France aristocrat and soldier and a marshal of France. He served with his father, Francois-Marie, 1st duc de Broglie, at Battle of San Pietro and battle of Guastalla, and in 1734 obtained a colonelcy…."

the prince de Broglie attained the rank of maréchal de camp in the army. He adopted revolutionary opinions, served with the Marquis de La Fayette and the Comte de Rochambeau, The Prince was a member of the Jacobin Club

The Jacobin Club was the largest and most powerful political club of the French Revolution. It originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles as a group of Brittany deputies to the Estates-General of 1789 of 1789….
, and sat in the National Constituent Assembly
National Constituent Assembly

The National Constituent Assembly was formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789, during the first stages of the French Revolution. It dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the French Legislative Assembly….
after the French Revolution

Broglie through Guibert, and Blanchard all knew and surely talked with Carnot.

Carnot enunciated a concept of the art of war which is very important, though underrated by his biographers. He stressed the connections among defense works, the reorganization of economic production, and the large-scale utilization of modern technologies. This understanding of the necessity of using a superior culture to vanquish the enemy made Carnot the organizer of victory, not merely a brilliant tactician. He considered war from a global political standpoint. At the same time, he constantly improved on his tactical approach, always using the most advanced concepts available. Thus, for example, he took some advice from the great strategist Guibert, a man with whom he had had disagreements in 1784, to resolve several aspects of military deployments.

Source: Claus Telp: "The Evolution of Operational Art 1740-1813" From Frederick the Great to Napoleon"

More investigation of their disagreements is probably needed.

Claude Blanchard, chief commissary of Rochambeau's army in America during the revolutionary war. Claude Blanchard was a native of Angers, and with the celebrated Carnot represented Arras in the Legislative Assembly of France. He was afterward chief commissary to the army of the Sambre and Meuse, then to the army of the Interior, and lastly to the Hotel des Invalides where he died in 1802.

Source: The Journal of Claude Blanchard, Commissary of the French Auxiliary Army sent to the United States during the American Revolution, 1780-1783, Translated from a French Manuscript by William Duane, and edited by Thomas Balch. Albany: J.Munsell. 1876. [fcp. 4to.pp. xvi-}-207.]

An influence of the "operational art" being relayed back to Europe of which I'm surely not the only believer

link

As mentioned previously we need to see what was adopted and implemented by Carnot in his training camps.

Gunther Rothenburg pp. 114 – 115 states:

link

But in the end this may be the reason we will never find corroborating evidence at the higher levels which we seek vindication.

When Scharnhorst wrote in his review that there was not much newin Ewalds book, he betrayed either a superficial reading or a failure to grasp the notion of a new kind of warfare that emerges out of Ewald's writing. But Scharhorst only echoed the general feelings of the military elite of the times concerning the American War. This opinion is exemplified by Frederick the Great who remarked that the "people who come back from America imagine that they know all there is to know about war, and yet they have to start learning war all over again in Europe" The British military "headstrong leadership" would try throughout the war to force light troops to fight like line infantry at "close quarters while at a disadvantage". In keeping with European norms, the professional French officers too tended to disregard the fighting capabilities of the American militia, while grudgingly admitting that American soldiers were "harder", more patient than Europeans". Thus any transfer of practical experiences from America to Europe had to come on the level of junior officers. It was the writings of officers like Ewald, Lieutenants Adam Ludwig (von) Ochs and Johan (von) Hinrichs, Andreas Emmerich, and Englishmen like John Graves Simcoe or the Polish volunteer Tadeusz Kosciusko that these experiences were brought to the attention of a European audience.Through their daily combat experience they sensed the connection between the political and military aspects of the war, and the role armed civilians could play in future armed conflicts. As they rose to the rank of general in the various armies of Europe they shaped organization, tactics, and training in the light infantry of their services. Once the French Revolutionary wars had broken out, their experiences came in good stead, and Prussian General George Wilhelm Freiherr von Valentini was forced to admit that "in all cases of close contact with the enemy the Hessian officers knew more than ours". They had a certain knowledge of the art of war "which these brave men had acquired in a different part of the world".

Yet modern military historians long accepted Scharnhorst's verdict, not only on Ewald, but on the impact of the American Revolutionary War on Europe as well."

I thank you for your responses but believe from now on I'll do a little more research on my own.

CM

McLaddie14 Sep 2009 1:07 p.m. PST

CM:

If you look at these two quotes I think you will see what I am talking about and a possible direction for your research:

It is vital not to confuse tactical skirmishing with operational skirmishing: operational skirmishing is the conduct of operations with considerable bodies of regular troops in broken country in order to avoid battle on open ground (Such as practied during the AWI). The mode of combat used in operational skirmishing was the combination of tactical skirmishing, columns of attack and field fortifications.

There is little indication that American forces purposely fought in broken terrain to avoid battle in open ground. Did Washington, Gates or others do this? The terrain was certainly a factor, but seldom specifically chosen to avoid battle in open ground.

Even at Saratoga, the actual battle was in a clearing… And the riflemen in the woods only a small force compared to the formed American troops.

Also, this 'operational' set of tactics was never a mode advocated by the Colonists or the American army. It is a little confusing to have 'tactical skirmishing' in combination with columns of attack and field fortifications as something new from the AWI, let alone done in broken terrain. And there is some confusion between tactical and operational skirmishing in just the description.

As most ALL battlefield skirmishing in the SYW centered on broken terrain and field works, I don't see this as particularly unique to the AWI. And regardless of the size of the light force, they purposely avoided battles in open terrain.

It not only thwarted allied campaign plans, it also subjected their small armies to a rate of attrition which they could not sustain for long. Though the attritional nature of "operational skirmishing" produced results, it took much time.

That description fits the Austrian, French and Russian 'petite guerre' tactics on an operational level during the SYW. In fact, that was the main arena for light troops in the SYW: Operational.

And finally:

It was the writings of officers like Ewald, Lieutenants Adam Ludwig (von) Ochs and Johan (von) Hinrichs, Andreas Emmerich, and Englishmen like John Graves Simcoe or the Polish volunteer Tadeusz Kosciusko that these experiences were brought to the attention of a European audience.Through their daily combat experience they sensed the connection between the political and military aspects of the war, and the role armed civilians could play in future armed conflicts. As they rose to the rank of general in the various armies of Europe they shaped organization, tactics, and training in the light infantry of their services. Once the French Revolutionary wars had broken out, their experiences came in good stead, and Prussian General George Wilhelm Freiherr von Valentini was forced to admit that "in all cases of close contact with the enemy the Hessian officers knew more than ours". They had a certain knowledge of the art of war "which these brave men had acquired in a different part of the world".

First of all, ALL of those men you list described the Traditional 'petite guerre' as their focus in their writing:
That means Ewald, Lieutenants Adam Ludwig (von) Ochs and Johan (von) Hinrichs, Andreas Emmerich, and Englishmen like John Graves Simcoe or the Polish volunteer Tadeusz Kosciusko that these experiences were brought to the attention of a European audience.

All of these men were advocates of light troops--in the traditional 'petite guerre' arena, operational and tactical. A number of them advocated close cooperation with formed troops. NONE of them advocated the strategy and Tactics you ascribe to Carnot.

And that last quote. If you read Valentini, he is noting the Hessians' skills as individual skirmishers acquired in the colonies, not some new and previously unknown set of tactics gleaned from the AWI.

Again, there is no doubt that the AWI experiences were used by Europeans, but the lessons were used to improve the methods of the traditional 'petite guerre', not include some new system at the operational level. Every one of those writers say as much--even Simcoe and Graves.

In any research, that is what you would have establish:

That Carnot and the French operational and battlefield tactics [at some point] mirrored those employed in the AWI and were different in some discernible way from the SYW operational tactics, and some contemporary makes that connection.

Good luck.

10th Marines14 Sep 2009 5:43 p.m. PST

Wasn't Thomas Balch an American historian who lived between ca 1820 and ca 1880?

What source material did he use and what experience did he have either as an historian or a soldier or both?

Seems to me from what has been posted Balch did not understand what 'petite guerre' was and how light troops were employed during the War of the Revolution.

Further, he doesn't seem to understand either Carnot's role during the French Revolutionary Wars and certainly does not understand operations with light troops and the difference between tactics and the operational art.

Sincerely,
K

DELETEDNAME106 Oct 2009 3:59 p.m. PST

Bill H.,

Sorry, this took a while to write.

Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon,‎ by Rory Muir (1988), page 51
"By 1813 the Austrians had virtually given up, believing that the great bulk of their infantry lacked the training and aptitude needed for the the role. As Radetzky observed in September 1813, 'fighting en tirailleure [skirmishing] should be done only in a very restricted fashion because neither the Russians nor we have mastered the manière de tirailleur.'"
This passage in Muir is footnoted as follows:
"Quoted in Gunther E. Rothenberg, Napoleon's Greatest Adversaries: The Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army (London, Batsford, 1982), p.184. Austria had, of course, lost her traditional source of light infantry when Napoleon annexed Croatia (part of the Illyrian Provinces) in 1809."

In Rothenberg (page 111 in later edition, page 184 in the first edition), the text reads:
"Rigidly controlled and regimented, the Austrian skirmishers rarely were the equal to the French. Some observers blamed this on national aptitude. The able Radetzky, probably the best young general to come out of these wars, observed ruefully that ''operations en tirailleure can only be conducted in a very limited manner because we do not understand this kind of fighting.' A German officer, on the other hand, argued that it was not national character but 'too much drill' that made the Austrians less effective skirmishers than the French."

Only the parts in bold are the Radetzky material. The rest is not. Incidentally, "en tirailleure" is mangled French. It should be "en tirailleur". Also, "manière de tirailleur" is not actually idiomatic French. It appears only in these English-language books, as far as I know.

The British Light Infantry Arm 1790-1815, by David Gates (1987) has the version as per Muir (who himself cites Rothenburg, who has the other version). Redcoat: the British soldier in the age of horse and musket‎ by Richard Holmes (2002) also has this version. Both spell "tirailleur" correctly, though Muir and Rothenburg do not.

Once There Were Titans: Napoleon's Generals and Their Battles 1800-1815‎ by Kevin Kiley (2007) offered a paraphrase that expanded the quote attributed to Radetzky with an assertion of his "belief" and "the conclusion".
"The Austrian General Radetzky observed that neither the Austrians nor the Russians understood fighting in open order and believed that skirmishers could be used in a very small, limited way. The conclusion that was reached was that the Austrians were not the equal of the French when fighting in open order."

All these trace to a citation something like "KAV Alte Feldakten 1813 Deutschland Hauptarmee F/10 436b". I can find no prior citation of this source prior to the anglophone authors listed above – first in 1982 or 1987 (depending on which version you are looking at). Since they have substantially different versions, I assume both Gates and Rothenburg saw the text in the original language.

"KAV" is a little odd. Better would be something like "Österreichisches Staatsarchiv / Kriegsarchiv Wien", but these are all written by anglophones who call the place "Vienna". For a document in September, one would have expected "Faszikel IX" (not "F/10", as they are monthly and should use Roman numerals), but perhaps the piece was filed by date of receipt, or lumped in with Leipzig documents, or some such. The number "436b" tells us that it was about the 437th document of the month under the given heading. Specifically, the "b" should indicate that the document was inserted in the sequence sometime after the original transfer of documents from the war ministry to the archives. Good "Germanic" organization skills!

In any case, the Radetzky quote is from a General Staff Order (that's what's in those document files), from the staff of the Army of Bohemia. It was not an analytical comment, not a summary judgment voiced in retrospect, not a considered opinion, not a part of a staff history, nor anything similar. I have no idea what the original document said, not least because it is quoted in two different versions. The Gates version looks much more plausible to me, although it appeared in print some 5 years after the Rothenburg version. Still unless we have the original (in German? in French for the benefit of the Russians?), we really have no idea of the exact meaning (or of who mangled the French language). What we do know is that it applied (only) to the Army of Bohemia just before Leipzig.

What we also do know is the size of the "specialist" light infantry of the Army of Bohemia, which amounted overall to 317 battalions, 167 squadrons and 72 batteries outside of the Russian/Prussian Guard.
With the Austrian divisions -
-- 5 Austrian Jager battalions
-- 10 Grenz battalions
With the Graf Vitgenshteyn -
-- 16 Russian Jager battalions (all still in the process of rebuilding with conscripts after the 1812 and early 1813 campaign)
-- 1 Prussian Schützen battalion (equivalent)
Total of 32 battalions, or about 10% of the infantry

The specialist light infantry arm was clearly very understrength (and mostly raw recruits for the Russians). The usual Russian ratio was 33% light infantry. So, whatever Radetzky ordered, it was aimed mostly at the use of recently re-built, rather ill-trained conscript "heavy" "line" infantry units in the skirmishing role. There is no general comment being made, no comparison to the French, no element of national characteristics that can obviously and clearly taken as Radetzky's meaning (re-read the text in bold above), unless one has already decided (in advance) that this is what you wish he had said.

The Russians understood the problem and played along. The Graf Raevskiy detached whole Grenadier regiments (experienced, selected men) from the Reserve to act as skirmishers and help make up a more typical ratio. Assumedly Radetzky approved, right ?

Frayer

JeffsaysHi07 Oct 2009 5:36 a.m. PST

Fantastic, that really does put that quote in proper context.

It is made specifically for one certain corps of troops who were inexperienced and yet to master/understand their combat role as effectively as they needed to.

It is not a considered declaration on the entire Austrian and Russian armies of the entire Napoleonic period.

Thanks.
(Just wish I had time and access to dig out the original – but at least we know what & where it is)

von Winterfeldt07 Oct 2009 5:52 a.m. PST

One should maybe not rely enitrely on works by Rothenberg or Kiley.

Archduke Charles is discussing the issue about skirmishers already in an essay in 1806 and advocates the restricted use of skirmishers – in complete accordance with the French tirailleurs de marche et de combat.

McLaddie07 Oct 2009 11:50 a.m. PST

Frayer:

Thank you very much. From my small efforts to track down the quote, it seemed that the authors were referencing each other and I never saw a primary source for the quote. And from what you say, it still isn't to be seen.

Your conclusion on the Radesky quote makes sense based on where it is stored. There is more than one account in the Krieg 1809 of Radesky himself deploying large numbers of skirmishers [line troops, no less] , so it was difficult for me to believe he'd had a change of heart in 1813 when the Austrians had more battlefield experience by then.

It is a good example of taking one quote and from it building a summation of an entire army's tactics…


Best Regards,

Bill H.

McLaddie07 Oct 2009 11:53 a.m. PST

von Winterfeld wrote:

One should maybe not rely enitrely on works by Rothenberg or Kiley.

Archduke Charles is discussing the issue about skirmishers already in an essay in 1806 and advocates the restricted use of skirmishers – in complete accordance with the French tirailleurs de marche et de combat.

VW:
Archduke Charles was saying the same thing in 1796--as well as a number of other Austrian generals. Russian and British officers, and even French generals expressed the need to avoid deploying two many skirmishers. From the many times such cautions were made during the Napoleonic wars, it would seem deploying too many skirmishers was an epidemic problem for Napoleonic Armies…

Bill H.

McLaddie07 Oct 2009 5:07 p.m. PST

…it would seem deploying too many skirmishers was an epidemic problem for Napoleonic Armies…


Well, perhaps just an endemic problem…

Defiant07 Oct 2009 5:30 p.m. PST

it would seem deploying too many skirmishers was an epidemic problem for Napoleonic Armies…

I look at it from a different angle, I see it as simple military evolution going through the throws of agony and growing pains as the process evolves or metamorphosis…it is inevitable that eventually as technology improves and weapon accuracy becomes more deadly that the human response to this is for the men to eventually compensate by spreading out or more aptly, thin out.

Only problem is, Cavalry and the threat they posed to this process is what caused the agony.


Shane

von Winterfeldt07 Oct 2009 10:47 p.m. PST

The problem was – to find the right balance.

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