Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert (1743–1790)
Essai général de tactique, précédé d’un discours sur l’état actuel de la politique et de la science militaire en Europe…
Tome premier, Paris: Chez Barrois l’aîné, Libraire pour l’Art militaire, 1802
Acton.d.53.101, Plate III

Guibert served with the French army during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), and set out to reform it after experiencing in person the devastating defeat at the hands of Frederick the Great of Prussia at Rossbach. His Essai général de tactique, published in 1772 and often reprinted and translated, inaugurated a hugely influential theory of organisation and tactics; these doctrines were later embodied in a series of official regulations which underpinned the operations of Napoleon’s armies. In the Essai, Guibert emphasized that the Prussians regarded superiority in musketry as decisive in combat. This plate demonstrates how troops formed in line could focus their fire on particular sections of an opposing force.