In contrast to the great world wars of the twentieth century, eighteenth century warfare was limited in character, fought by rival states for restricted territorial gains and not for the subjugation of whole peoples or nations. It was conducted by professional armies and navies without the mobilization of men, economic resources, and popular opinion of entire nations that has characterized twentieth century war, and without the passion and hatred of the religious wars. Except in areas where military operations took place, the people in the warring nations carried on their everyday life as usual. The professional armies employed in this "formal" warfare reflected the society from which they sprang. Although Europe's titled nobles no longer exercised political power independent of their kings, they remained the dominant privileged class, proprietors of the great estates and leaders of the national armies. The great masses of people remained for the most part without property or voice in the government, either tilling the soil on the nobles' estates or working in the shops and handicraft industries in the towns. Absolute monarchy was the prevailing form of government in every European country save England and certain smaller states on the Continent. In England, where the constitutional power of Parliament had been successfully established over the king, Parliament was by no means a democratic institution but one controlled by the landed gentry and wealthy merchants. The military distinction nobles had formerly found in leading their own knights in battle they now sought as officers in the armies of their respective kings. Princes, counts, earls, marquises, and barons, men who held position by hereditary right, royal favor, or purchase, filled the higher commands, while "gentlemen" of lesser rank usually served as captains and lieutenants. Advancement to higher ranks depended as much on wealth and influence at court as on demonstrated merit on the battlefield. Eighteenth century officers were hardly professionals in the modern sense of the word, for they might well first enter the service as mere boys through inheritance or purchase of a commission, and, except for technical specialists in artillery and engineering, they were not required to attend a military school to train for their duties. As the officers came from the highest classes, so the men in the ranks came from the lowest. They were normally recruited for long terms of service, sometimes by force, from among the peasants and the urban unemployed, and more than a sprinkling of paupers, ne'er-do-wells, convicts, and drifters were in the ranks. Since recruiting extended across international boundaries, foreign mercenaries formed part of every European army. Discipline, not patriotic motivation, was the main reliance for making these men fight. Penalties for even minor offenses ran as high as a thousand lashes, and executions by hanging or firing squad were frequent. The habit of obedience inculcated on the drill ground carried over into battle where, it has often been said, the men advanced because they preferred the uncertainties of combat to the certainty of death if orders were disobeyed. Most of the significant European wars of the period were fought over terrain that was open, relatively flat, and thickly populated. Normally, fighting took place only during favorable weather and during daylight hours; rain or darkness quickly called a halt to a battle, and by December opposing armies usually retired to winter quarters where they awaited spring to resume hostilities. Road and river transportation systems were, for the time, highly developed, facilitating the movement of men and supplies. Food for men and forage for horses were usually available in the areas of military operations, but all supplies were customarily obtained by systematic and regular procedures, not by indiscriminate plunder. Each nation set up a series of fortresses or magazines along the line of march of its army in which replacement supplies and foodstuffs could be stored. Eighteenth century armies were composed predominantly of infantry, with cavalry and artillery as supporting elements. Because battles were usually fought in open country, cavalry could be employed to full advantage. As for artillery, it was used in both attack and defense, either in campaigns of maneuver or in siege warfare. Some eighteenth century commanders used the three arms skillfully in combination, but it was the clash of infantry that usually decided the issue. In the eighteenth century infantry was truly the "Queen of Battle." The standard infantry weapon of the time was the flintlock musket with bayonet. Probably the most famous model was Brown Bess, the one used in the British Army. Brown Bess had a smoothbore barrel 3 feet 8 inches long with a 14-inch bayonet and fired a smooth lead ball about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The musket was highly inaccurate since the barrel had no rifling and the charge necessarily fitted loosely, permitting the escape of gas and reducing the effect of the propelling charge. It misfired occasionally and was useless when the powder in the priming pan got wet. The rate of fire was, at best, about three rounds per minute. When the ball hit within its effective range, 150 to 200 yards, its impact was terrific, tearing ghastly holes in flesh and shattering bone, but the inaccuracy of the weapon practically precluded its use, even for volley fire, at ranges greater than 50 to ioo yards. The inefficiency of the smoothbore musket as a firearm made its attached bayonet almost as important as its firepower, and infantry relied on the bayonet for shock action against an enemy softened by musketry fire. Cavalrymen were variously armed with pistol and lance, carbine and sword, depending on the country and the time. Pistol and carbine were discharged at close range against the ranks of opposing infantry or cavalry, while lance and sword were used for close-in shock action. There were many different kinds of artillery. The larger pieces were mainly for siege warfare and were relatively immobile. Artillery used in the field was lighter and mounted on wheeled carriages pulled by men or horses. Whether siege or field, these artillery pieces were, like the muskets, smoothbore muzzleloaders, very limited in range and highly inaccurate. Loading and firing were even slower than in the case of the musket, for the cannon barrel had to be swabbed out after each round to prevent any residue of burning powder from causing a premature explosion. There was no traverse and the whole carriage had to be moved to change the direction of fire. Cannon fired mainly solid iron balls, or at shorter ranges, grapeshot and canister. Grapeshot was a cluster of small iron balls attached to a central system (thus resembling a bunch of grapes) and dispersed by the explosion of a propellent charge; canister consisted of loose pellets placed in a can and when fired had even greater dispersion than grape. The nature of the soldiers, their weapons, and the terrain go far to explain the tactics used. These tactics were usually designated linear tactics to distinguish them from earlier mass formations such as the Spanish Square and the column formations employed later by Napoleon. Linear tactics were first used by Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish king and military innovator, in the Thirty Years' War, and they came into general use in European armies in the later dynastic wars of Louis XIV of France with the invention of the socket bayonet. Frederick the Great of Prussia carried them to their ultimate state of perfection, and his armies were the most methodically ordered in Europe. In the mideighteenth century the Frederician system was the model that others imitated. In the employment of linear tactics, troops marched onto the battlefield in columns and then deployed into line. A line consisted of a number of battalions or regiments-the terms were then practically synonymous-formed three or more ranks deep. In the ranks the men stood shoulder to shoulder and delivered their fire. Loading, firing, and bayonet charge were all performed at command in a drill involving many separate motions. Firing, insofar as officers were able to maintain rigid discipline, was entirely by volley, the purpose being to achieve the greatest mass of firepower over a given area. The goal was always the "perfect volley." Individual, aimed fire, given the characteristics of the flintlock musket, was deemed to be of little value. Artillery was deployed in the line with the infantry, cavalry on the flanks or in the rear. Usually commanders also kept an infantry force in reserve for use at a critical point in the battle. In the traditional eighteenth century battle, both forces would be drawn up in similar formation, and the battle would be opened by artillery fire from both sides. In the midst of this fire, the attacking infantry would move forward, maintaining the rigid linear formation in which it was trained, stopping as frequently as necessary to dress its lines. At a range of 50 to 100 yards, the attacking line would halt on the command of its officers. At a second command, a volley would be fired and answered by the opposing line; or there might be a great deal of jockeying over who should fire first, for it was considered an advantage to take, not to give, the first volley and to deliver one's own answering volley at closer range. In any case, the exchange of volleys would continue until one side determined to try to, carry the field by bayonet or cavalry charge, usually committing its reserves in this action. If either side was able to carry the field, the victorious commander then sought to execute a successful pursuit, destroying the enemy's army; the defeated commander attempted to withdraw his force in a semblance of order to a fortress or other defensive position, there to reform and fight another day. Eighteenth century battles were bloody affairs. At Zorndorf in 1758, for instance, the victorious army of Frederick lost 38 percent of its effectives, the defeated Russians about half of theirs. Professional soldiers were difficult to replace for there was no national reservoir of trained manpower to draw on, and it took two years or more to train a recruit properly. Commanders, therefore, sparing of the blood of their soldiers, sought to avoid battle and to overcome the enemy by a successful series of maneuvers against his line of communications. They also tried to take advantage of terrain features and of fortified positions, to strike by surprise or against the flanks of the enemy, forcing him to realign his forces while fighting, and to employ artillery and cavalry to the greatest advantage in paving the way for infantry assault. Fortresses Fortresses, normally constructed along the frontiers to impede the advance of an invading army, played a vital role in these maneuvers. It was considered axiomatic that no army could leave a fortress in its rear athwart its line of communications, that any major fortified point had to be reduced by siege. By 1700 the arts of both fortification and siegecraft had been reduced to certain geometric principles by Marshal Sebastien Vauban, a distinguished soldier and engineer in the service of Louis XIV of France. Vauban's fortresses were star-shaped, with walls partially sunk in the earth and covered with earthen ramparts on which cannon could be mounted; projections or bastions with mutually supporting fields of fire jutted forth from the main walls; a ditch was dug around the whole and a second smaller wall erected in front of it, with earth also sloped against it to absorb the shock of cannon balls. Vauban's system for attacking this or any other type of fortified position was known as an approach by parallel lines. Once a fortress had been surrounded and outside aid cut off, batteries of siege artillery were brought up within about 600 yards of the fortress walls, the guns being so placed as to rake the lengths of the bastions with enfilade fire; behind these guns the first parallel trench was dug to protect the gunners and assault troops. Zigzag approach trenches were then dug forward about 200 yards to the points from which a second parallel was constructed, then the same process was repeated and a third parallel was dug. Infantry and siege artillery were moved forward as each parallel was completed until, in the third, they were beneath the outer wall of the fortress. From this vantage point the artillery could breach the main wall and the infantry could take the fortress by storm, but usually the fortress commander surrendered to avoid further bloodshed. Under Vauban's system the capture of a fortress by a superior besieging force was usually only a matter of time, and the siege was conducted, often in leisurely fashion, along lines as rigidly fixed as those of the formal battle in the open field. Perhaps the most indelible picture of formal eighteenth century warfare that has survived is one of French and British officers at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1746, bowing politely to each other and each inviting the other side to fire the first volley, thus starting the carnage that was to follow. This picture has a certain ludicrous quality about it, but there was method in their madness as there was in eighteenth century warfare generally. The eighteenth century army was adapted to the European environment of the time, to the political and social climate as well as to the geography and terrain. Men knowledgeable in military matters at the time firmly believed that no body of semi-trained citizens, however numerous and inspired, could stand before the disciplined ranks of professionals. If today we can see many of the weaknesses in the eighteenth century military system that were not so obvious to contemporaries its basic lack of flexibility, a paucity of true professional leadership, and its failure effectively to mobilize national resources for war-these perceptions result from a vastly different social and political environment. Back to Table of Contents Issue 1 Back to US Army Military History List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2005 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com