equal in fighting value, and war was consequently reduced to a set of
rules (not principles), since superiority was only to be gained by
methods, not by men. Soldiers such as Marlborough, who were superior to
these jejune prescriptions, met indeed with uniform success. But the
methods of the 18th century failed to receive full illustration, save by
the accident of a great captain's direction, even amidst the
circumstances for which they were designed. It is hardly to be wondered
at, therefore, that they failed, when forced by a new phase of
development to cope with events completely beyond their element. The
inner organization was not markedly altered. Artillery was still outside
the normal organization of the line of battle, though in the period
1660-1740 much was done in all countries to improve the material, and
above all to turn the _personnel_ into disciplined soldiers. Cavalry was
organized in regiments and squadrons, and armed with sabre and pistol.
Infantry had by 1703 begun to assume its three-deep line formation and
the typical weapons of the arm, musket and bayonet. Regiments and
battalions were the units of combat as well as organization. In the
fight the company was entirely merged in the higher unit, but as an
administrative body it still remained. As for the higher organization,
an army consisted simply of a greater or less number of battalions and
squadrons, without, as a rule, intermediate commands and groupings. The
army was arrayed as a whole in two lines of battle, with the infantry in
the centre and the cavalry on the flanks, and an advanced guard; the
so-called reserve consisting merely of troops not assigned to the
regular commands. It was divided, for command in action, into right and
left wings, both of cavalry and infantry, of each line. This was the
famous "linear" organization, which in theory produced the maximum
effort in the minimum time, but in practice, handled by officers whose
chief care was to avoid the expenditure of effort, achieved only
negative results. To see its defects one need only suppose a battalion
of the first line hard pressed by the enemy. A battalion of the second
line was directly behind it, but there was no authority, less than that
of the wing commander, which could order it up to support the first. All
the conditions of the time were opposed to tactical subdivision, as the
term is now understood. That the 18th century did not revive
_schiltrons_ was due to the new fire tactics, to which everything but
control was sacrificed. This "control," as has been said, implied not so
much command as police supervision. But far beyond any faults of
organization and recruiting, the inherent vice of these armies was, as
Machiavelli had pointed out two centuries previously, and as Prussia was
to learn to her cost in 1806, that once they were thoroughly defeated,
the only thing left to be done was to make peace at once, since there
was no other armed force capable of retrieving a failure.