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Jean Charles, Chevalier de Folard

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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CHEVALIER DE (1669-1752), French soldier and military author, was born at Avignon on the 13th of February 1669. His military ardour was first awakened by reading Caesar's Commentaries, and he ran away from home and joined the army. He soon saw active service, and, young as he was, wrote a manual on partisan warfare, the manuscript of which passed with Folard's other papers to Marshal Belleisle on the author's death. In 1702 he became a captain, and aide-decamp to the duke of Vendome, then in command of the French forces in Italy. In 1705, while serving under Vendome's brother, the Grand Prior, Folard won the cross of St Louis for a gallant feat of arms, and in the same year he distinguished himself at the battle of Cassano, where he was severely wounded. It was during his tedious recovery from his wounds that he conceived the tactical theories to the elucidation of which he devoted most of his life. In 1706 he again rendered good service in Italy, and in 1708 distinguished himself greatly in the operations attempted by Vendome and the duke of Burgundy for the relief of Lille, the failure of which was due in part to the disagreement of the French commanders; and it is no small testimony to the ability and tact of Folard that he retained the friendship of both. Folard was wounded at Malplaquet in 1709, and in 1711 his services were rewarded with the governorship of Bourbourg. He saw further active service in 1714 in Malta, under Charles of Sweden in the north, and under the duke of Berwick in the short Spanish War of 1719.1719. Charles he regarded as the first captain of all time, and it was at Stockholm that Folard began to formulate his tactical ideas in a commentary on Polybius. On his way back to France he was shipwrecked and lost all his papers, but he set to work at once to write his essays afresh, and in 1724 appeared his Nouvelles Decouvertes sur la guerre dans une dissertation de Polybe, followed (1727-1730) by Histoire de Polybe traduite par. .. de Thuillier avec un commentaire. .. de M. de Folard, Chevalier de l'Ordre de St Louis. Folard spent the remainder of his life in answering the criticisms provoked by the novelty of his theories. He died friendless and in obscurity at Avignon in 1752.

An analysis of Folard's military writings brings to light not a connected theory of war as a whole, but a great number of independent ideas, sometimes valuable and suggestive, but far more often extravagant. The central point of his tactics was his proposed column formation for infantry. Struck by the apparent weakness of the thin line of battle of the time, and arguing from the 'µ(30Xov or cuneus of ancient warfare, he desired to substitute the shock of a deep mass of troops for former methods of attack, and further considered that in defence a solid column gave an unshakable stability to the line of battle. Controversy at once centred itself upon the column. Whilst some famous commanders, such as Marshal Saxe and Guido Starhemberg, approved it and put it in practice, the weight of military opinion throughout Europe was opposed to it, and eventually history justified this opposition. Amongst the most discriminating of his critics was Frederick the Great, who is said to have invited Folard to Berlin. The Prussian king certainly caused a precis to be made by Colonel von Seers, and wrote a preface thereto expressing his views. The work (like others by Frederick) fell into unauthorized hands, and, on its publication (Paris, 1760) under the title Esprit du Chev. Folard, created a great impression. "Thus kept within bounds," said the prince de Ligne, "Folard was the best author of the time." Frederick himself said tersely that "Folard had buried diamonds in a rubbish-heap." Thus began the controversy between line and column formations, which long continued and influenced the development of tactics up to the most modern times. Folard's principal adherents in the 28th century were Joly de Maizeroy and Menil Durand.

See Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de M. le Chevalier de Folard (Paris and Regensburg, 1753), and for a detailed account of Folard's works and those of his critics and supporters, Max Jahns, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften, vol. ii. pp.1478-1493(Munich and Leipzig, 1890) .