History of the Art of War Within the Framework of Political History: The Modern Era:

500 Pages·1985·9.581 MB·English

by  Hans Delbruck

HISTORY OF
THE ART OF WAR
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HISTORY OF
THE A RT OF WAR
Within the Framework
of Political History
By HANS DELBRÜCK
Volume IV
THE MODERN ERA
Translated from the German
by Walter J. Renfroe, Jr.
Contributions in Military History, Number 39
GREENWOOD PRESS
Weslporl, Connecticut • London, England
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
(Revised for volume 4)
Delbrück, Hans, 1848-1929.
History of the art of war within the framework of
political history.
(Contributions in military history, ISSN 0084-9251
no. 9, 20, 26, 39)
Translation of: Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen
der politischen Geschichte.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
CONTENTS: v. 1. Antiquity.—v. 2. The Germans.—[etc.J
—v. 4. The Modern Era.
1. Military art and science—History. 2. Naval art
and science—History. 3. War—History. I. Title.
II. Series: Contributions in military history ;
no. 9, [etc.]
U27.D34213 1975 355'.009s [355'.009] 72-792
ISBN 0-8371-6365-X (v. I : lib. bdg.)
ISBN 0-8371-8165-8 (v. 4 : lib. bdg.)
English language edition copyright © 1985 by Walter J. Renfroe.J r.
Originally published in German under the title Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der
politischen Geschichte.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced,
by any process or technique, without the express written consent
of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-792
ISBN: 0-8371-8165-8
ISSN: 0084-9251
Translation first published in 1985
Greenwood Press
A division of Congressional Information Service, Inc.
88 Post Road West
Westport, Connecticut 06881
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Table of Contents
Translator’s Foreword viii
Preface ix
Volume IV
The Modern Era
BOOK I
The Nature of the Military in the Renaissance
I. The Establishment of a European Infantry 3
II. Firearms 23
III. Tactics of the Spear Units 53
IV. Internal Organization of the Mercenary Armies 59
V. Individual Battles 73
VI. Machiavelli 101
BOOK II
The Period of the Wars of Religion
I. The Transformation of Knights into Cavalry 117
II. Increase in Numbers of Marksmen.
Refinement of Infantry Tactics 147
III. Maurice of Orange 155
IV. Gustavus Adolphus 173
V. Cromwell 185
VI. Individual Battles 193
BOOK III
The Period of Standing Armies
General Remarks 223
I. France 227
ii. Brandenburg-Prussia 241
vi Contents
III. Drills. Changes in Tactics in the Eighteenth Century 269
IV. Strategy 293
V. Strategic Sketches and Individual Battles 319
VI. Frederick as a Strategist 369
BOOK IV
The Period of National Armies
I. Revolution and Invasion 387
II. The Revolutionary Armies 395
Generals of the Republic and Napoleon’s Marshals 417
III. Napoleonic Strategy 421
IV. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Clausewitz 449
Index 457

Translator’s Foreword
This translation of the fourth and last volume of Hans Delbrück’s
Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte com­
pletes my task of translating the four volumes written by Delbrück per­
sonally. This volume was originally published in Berlin in 1920.
I have followed the same guidelines here as in my translations of the
first three volumes. It should be noted that, in the many references to
strategy, I have translated Ermattungs-Strategie as “strategy of attrition,”
and Niedenverfungs-Strategie as “strategy of annihilation,” the same terms
I used in the preceding volumes. While some readers may prefer other
terminology, I believe the meaning is clear in each case.
In the occasional references to the varying minimum requirements for
the height of soldiers, it should be remembered that the foot and inch
were not standard measurements throughout Europe, and a height mea­
surement of 5 feet, 7 inches, for example, is not the equivalent of those
figures in British or American usage.
Once again I am indebted to Dr. Everett L. Wheeler for his translations
of the Latin passages appearing in the text.
Finally, I take heartfelt pleasure in expressing my gratitude to my wife
Ruth, who not only wrote out the translation of each of the last three
volumes as I dictated but also bore the long ordeal with great patience.
Preface
This fourth and last volume of the History of the Art of War is appearing
in the year in which the greatest of all wars has just ended. The research
for this volume was practically complete in 1914, and the work was in
large part already composed at that time. But the storm into which we
were plunged, instead of spurring me on to complete this task and finish
this subject, as one might have imagined, drew my attention away from
it. I interrupted my work, only to bring it finally to completion without
constructing a bridge between it and the present. Whenever it is a question
in this book of the conditions of our time, this means the period before
the World War, in which I was actually writing, and occasionally also
the period in which I myself gained practical knowledge of warfare. (In
1867 I became a soldier and was discharged in 1885 as a first lieutenant
of reserves.)
Originally, I planned to have my work finish with the German wars
of unification and to add a presentation of the development of the Na­
poleonic strategy into that of Moltke. But I dropped this idea, since it
would have led directly into the problems of the World War, which are
not yet sufficiently well defined for a scholarly treatment in the spirit of
this work. That does not mean that I would not risk devoting any con­
sideration at all to the latest period but only that it cannot yet be done
in the systematic, detached manner which a work of this kind requires.
Consequently, this work ends with Napoleon and his contemporaries.
The continuation up to the present time, however, is already at hand,
even though in another form. What I have to say and have been able to
say concerning the phenomena of military history of the later nineteenth
century, especially about Moltke’s strategy and the events of the World
War, has been written in individual articles and in the three volumes of
the collection War and Politics, 1914 to 1918 {Krieg und Politik, 1914 his
1918), which are being published at the same time as this book. The
Moltke articles appear in the collection Recollections, Articles, and Speeches
(Erinnerungen, Aufsätze und Reden), supplemented by an article con­