Battle Studies

{{Short description|Incomplete book by Ardant du Picq}} {{italictitle}} {{Use dmy dates |date=January 2026}} {{for|the 2009 John Mayer album|Battle Studies (album)}} thumb|right|alt=Charles Ardant du Picq|Charles Ardant du Picq '''''Battle Studies''''' is a book by Ardant du Picq, a French colonel, on the cohesion and behaviour of soldiers in battle. The work was never completed, but Du Picq had written many chapters completely and left sufficient notes behind to complete the book. He argued that the central experience of battle was terror and that the core question of tactics was how to have soldier maintain their cohesion and organisation despite that terror.

==Themes of the book== The theme of the book, according to Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch, is that "moral force" is the most powerful element in the strength of armies and the preponderating influence in the outcome of battles. In general form, he states:

===The goal of the army=== Combat is the object, the cause of being, and the supreme manifestation of an army. Every measure that does not keep combat as the object of the army is fatal. All the resources accumulated in time of peace, all the training, and all the strategic calculations must have the goal of combat.

===Man in combat=== *The human element is more important than theories. War is still more of an art than a science. One popular quote demonstrating this conclusion drawn from numerous battle studies states, "Nothing can wisely be prescribed in any army... without exact knowledge of the fundamental instrument, man, and his state of mind, his morale, at the instant of combat."<ref>Du Picq, Ardant, Battle Studies: Ancient and Modern Battle. In Roots of Strategy, Book 2. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1987. pg 65.</ref> *Great strategists and leaders of men are marked by inspiration. "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, are doomed to the worst errors.”

Du Picq's work attempts to deal with the principles of warfare as an empirical study, based on case studies of battles.

''Battle Studies'' became a key textbook in the French Army's École de Guerre in the years leading to World War I.

==References== {{Reflist}}

== Bibliography ==  {{refbegin|30em}} * {{Cite book |last=Ardant du Picq |first=C J J J |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=rjqhEAAAQBAJ}} |title=Battle studies |date=2017-02-13 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |isbn=978-0-7006-2392-1 |translator-last=Spiller |translator-first=Roger J }} * {{cite encyclopedia |last=Bonura |first=Michael |title=Ardant du Picq, Charles Jean Jacques Joseph (1819–1870) |date=2011 |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of War |publisher=Wiley |doi=10.1002/9781444338232.wbeow035 |isbn=978-1-4443-3823-2}} * {{Cite journal |last=Gat |first=Azar |date=1990 |title=Ardant du Picq's scientism, teaching and influence |journal=War & Society |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=1–16 |doi=10.1179/106980490790305658 |issn=0729-2473}} * {{Cite book |last=Gat |first=Azar |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=5Zj_aGsBCroC}} |title=A history of military thought: from the Enlightenment to the cold war |date=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-924762-2 }} * {{harvc |last=Spiller |first=Roger J |c=Introduction |in=Ardant du Picq |year=2017 |pages=xiii–l }} {{refend}}

==External links== *[http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=7294 Battle Studies], Ardant du Picq's book about soldiers reaction during battle. Free version on Project Gutenberg, translation by John N. Greely and Robert C. Cotton.

Category:19th-century books Category:Military strategy books Category:Unfinished books