Battle Studies | Page 5

unknown trustee and unacknowledged
prophet, triumphed then at our expense. The disaster that carried with it
his sincere and revivifying spirit, left in the tomb of our decimated
divisions an evidence of the necessity for reform. When our warlike
institutions were perishing from the lack of thought, he represented in
all its greatness the true type of military thinker. The virile thought of a
military thinker alone brings forth successes and maintains victorious
nations. Fatal indolence brought about the invasion, the loss of two
provinces, the bog of moral miseries and social evils which beset
vanquished States.
The heart and brain of Ardant du Picq guarded faithfully a worthy but
discredited cult. Too frequently in the course of our history virtues are

forsaken during long periods, when it seems that the entire race is
hopelessly abased. The mass perceives too late in rare individuals
certain wasted talents--treasures of sagacity, spiritual vigor, heroic and
almost supernatural comprehension. Such men are prodigious
exceptions in times of material decadence and mental laxness. They
inherit all the qualities that have long since ceased to be current. They
serve as examples and rallying points for other generations, more
clear-sighted and less degenerate. On reading over the extraordinary
work of Ardant du Picq, that brilliant star in the eclipse of our military
faculties, I think of the fatal shot that carried him off before full use had
been found for him, and I am struck by melancholy. Our fall appears
more poignant. His premature end seems a punishment for his
contemporaries, a bitter but just reproach.
Fortunately, more honored and believed in by his successors, his once
unappreciated teaching contributes largely to the uplift and to the
education of our officers. They will be inspired by his original views
and the permanent virtue contained therein. They will learn therefrom
the art of leading and training our young soldiers and can hope to
retrieve the cruel losses of their predecessors.
Ardant du Picq amazes one by his tenacity and will power which,
without the least support from the outside, animate him under the trying
conditions of his period of isolated effort.
In an army in which most of the seniors disdained the future and
neglected their responsibilities, rested satisfied on the laurels of former
campaigns and relied on superannuated theories and the exercises of a
poor parade, scorned foreign organizations and believed in an acquired
and constant superiority that dispenses with all work, and did not
suspect even the radical transformations which the development of
rifles and rapid-fire artillery entail; Ardant du Picq worked for the
common good. In his modest retreat, far from the pinnacles of glory, he
tended a solitary shrine of unceasing activity and noble effort. He
burned with the passions which ought to have moved the staff and
higher commanders. He watched while his contemporaries slept.
Toward the existing system of instruction and preparation which the

first blow shattered, his incorruptible honesty prevented him from
being indulgent. While terrified leaders passed from arrogance or
thoughtlessness to dejection and confusion, the blow was being struck.
Served by his marvelous historical gifts, he studied the laws of ancient
combat in the poorly interpreted but innumerable documents of the past.
Then, guided by the immortal light which never failed, the feverish
curiosity of this soldier's mind turned towards the research of the laws
of modern combat, the subject of his preference. In this study he
developed to perfection his psychological attainments. By the use of
these attainments he simplified the theory of the conduct of war. By
dissecting the motor nerves of the human heart, he released basic data
on the essential principles of combat. He discovered the secret of
combat, the way to victory.
Never for a second did Ardant du Picq forget that combat is the object,
the cause of being, the supreme manifestation of armies. Every measure
which departs therefrom, which relegates it to the middle ground is
deceitful, chimerical, fatal. All the resources accumulated in time of
peace, all the tactical evolutions, all the strategical calculations are but
conveniences, drills, reference marks to lead up to it. His obsession was
so overpowering that his presentation of it will last as long as history.
This obsession is the rôle of man in combat. Man is the incomparable
instrument whose elements, character, energies, sentiments, fears,
desires, and instincts are stronger than all abstract rules, than all
bookish theories. War is still more of an art than a science. The
inspirations which reveal and mark the great strategists, the leaders of
men, form the unforeseen element, the divine part. Generals of genius
draw from the human heart ability to execute a surprising variety of
movements which vary the routine; the mediocre ones, who have no
eyes to read readily therein, are doomed to the worst errors.
Ardant