Revolution was already represented by one-half only of French soldiers,
the actual steadiness and manoeuvring power of the _Grande Armee_ had
attained its highest level. The army at this time was organized into
brigades, divisions and corps, the last-named unit being as a rule a
marshal's command, and always completed as a small army with all the
necessary arms and services. Several such corps (usually of unequal
strength) formed the army. The greatest weakness of the organization,
which was in other respects most pliant and adaptable, was the want of
good staff-officers. The emperor had so far cowed his marshals that few
of them could take the slightest individual responsibility, and the
combatant staff-officers remained, as they had been in the 18th century,
either confidential clerks or merely gallopers. No one but a Napoleon
could have managed huge armies upon these terms; in fact the marshals,
from Berthier downwards, generally failed when in independent commands.
Of the three arms, infantry and cavalry regiments were organized in much
the same way as in Frederick's day, though tactical methods were very
different, and discipline far inferior. The greatest advance had taken
place in the artillery service. Field and horse batteries, as organized
and disciplined units, had come into general use during the
Revolutionary wars, and the division, corps and army commanders had
always batteries assigned to their several commands as a permanent and
integral part of the fighting troops. Napoleon himself, and his
brilliant artillery officers Senarmont and Drouot, brought the arm to
such a pitch of efficiency that it enabled him to win splendid victories
almost by its own action. As a typical organization we may take the III.
corps of Marshal Davout in 1806. This was formed of the following
troops:--
Cavalry brigade--General Vialannes--three regiments, 1538 men. Corps
artillery, 12 guns.
1st Division--General Morand--five infantry regiments in three
brigades, 12 guns, 10,820 men.
2nd Division--General Friant--five regiments in three brigades, 8
guns, 8758 men.
3rd Division--General Gudin--four regiments in three brigades, 12
guns, 9077 men.
A comparison of this _ordre de bataille_ with that of a modern army
corps will show that the general idea of corps organization has
undergone but slight modification since the days of Napoleon. More
troops allotted to departmental duties, and additional engineers for the
working of modern scientific aids, are the only new features in the
formal organization of a corps in the 20th century. Yet the spirit of
1806 and that of 1906 were essentially different, and the story of the
development of this difference through the 19th century closes for the
present the history of progress in tactical organization.