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Using the Gun: Manual Drill and theProliferation of Portable Firearms

Harald Kleinschmidt

XX hY did portable firearms proliferate in early modern EuropeanVV armies? On the face of it, the answer is that they did so becausethey became the weapon of the common soldier in the course of theeighteenth century. But this answer raises further questions. Which fac-tors and conditions permitted and made possible the use of firearms asthe weapon of the common soldier? Why did this occur in Europe, andwhy in the eighteenth century? These questions direct the focus of thisstudy to the complex interdependence of war, the "state" and "society."This interdependence touches upon a variety of substantive issues,among them military-civilian relations in the towns and the countryside;structures of military leadership; strategy; military politics; develop-ments in military technology; and the financing of war. These issueshave been dealt with in a large and growing body of scholarly studies.1But one issue has usually been overlooked and that concerns the simplequestion of the conditions under which infantrymen in post-fifteenth-century armies could have been drilled to handle their guns. The ques-

1. See Matthew S. Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime,1618-1789 (London: Macmillan, 1988); John Brewer'sThe Sinews of Power: War,Money,and the English State, 1688-1783 (London:Century Ilutchinson, 1988); thevolume of critical studies on the thesis of Brewer'sbook edited by Lawrence Stone,An Imperial State at War:Britainfrom 1689 to 1815 (London:Routledge, 1994); andPeter II. Wilson' s War,State, and Society in Wurttemberg,1677-1793 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995). For older titles, see Geoffrey Best, War and Soci-ety in RevolutionaryEurope, 1770-1870 (London:Macmillan,1982); GeorgeNormanClark,War and Society in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: CambridgeUniver-sity Press, 1958); Philippe Contamine, Guerre, etat et societe e la fin du MoyenAge(Paris:Mouton,1972); Andre Corvisier,Arm6es et societes en Europe de 1494 &1789(Paris: Presses universaitaires de France, 1976); J. V. Polisensky and FrederickSnider, Warand Society in Europe, 1618-1648 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1978).The Journal of Military fistory 63 (.July 1999): 601-30 ? Society for Military Hlistory * 601


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDTtion is crucial because it brings to the fore the very factors which shapedthe attitudes and patterns of behaviour of infantrymen who, more thananyone, made possible the interdependence of the "state," "society" andwar. This subject has usually been omitted from the research agenda ofstudents of military history because most of them have shared the eigh-teenth- and nineteenth-century view that training and drilling infantry-men was part and parcel of essentially unchanging lower tactics,2 or havetaken Marcel Mauss's and William McNeill's position that manual drillwas the training of certain basic techniques du corps common to allmankind.3 As long as these views prevailed, researching the details of thehistory of manual drill was both an uninteresting and an unnecessaryenterprise, since it seemed to have little bearing on larger questions.

The truth of these views is far from obvious, however. First, if man-ual drill were totally dependent on arms technology, it remains unclearhow certain forms of military drill could be borrowed from ancientGreek and Byzantine drill books by the armies of early modern Europe.Second, if manual drill was no more than a basic and ubiquitous tech-nique du corps, it is difficult to account for the simultaneous changesfrom the sixteenth to the eighteenth century in specific rules governingmilitary movements on the one hand and, on the other, bodily move-ments related to such activities as dancing and fencing. Third, if manualdrill were bereft of any real significance beyond lower tactics, it is diffi-cult to understand why, around A.D. 1600, certain territorial rulers-among them the earls of Nassau, the Count of the Palatinate, and theLandgrave of Hesse-Kassel-took a personal interest in reforms of man-ual drill; why they plunged into comparative studies of drill books andother sources on the manual drill of various ages for the purpose of com-posing new drill manuals themselves; or why they would invest consid-erable funds and effort in the organisation and promotion of manual drillamong the resident population of their territories.Questions of this kind seem to support the assumption that manualdrill has a history of its own. In the following presentation, I shall his-toricize manual drill and argue that the history of manual drill contains

2. See, among others, Franz Georg Anton Miller,Reine Taktik der Infanterie,Cavallerie und Artillerie, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Rosch, 1787-88); Ileinrich Adam Diet-rich von Biulow,Geist des neuen Kriegssystems, 3d ed. (Ilamburg:Campe, 1835);Ilans Delbriick, Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege (Berlin: Walther &Apolant, 1887).3. MarcelMauss,"DieTechniken des Korpers," n Mauss,Soziologie und Anthro-pologie, vol. 2 (Munich:flanser, 1975), 199-220 (first published in the Journal depsychologie normale 32 119351:271-93); WilliamMcNeill,Keeping Together n Time:Dance and Drill in Human History (Cambridge, Mass.: Ilarvard University Press,1995).602 * THE JOURNAL OF


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--Using the Gunimportant clues to an understanding of the complex interdependencebetween war, the "state" and "society." I shall do so by first categorisingmanual drill as a trained, patterned behaviour of soldiers, and then com-pare the rules underlying military patterns with the rules governingother groups' behavioural patterns between the sixteenth and eighteenthcenturies. My second point will be that patterns of military behaviourcorresponded closely with other behavioural patterns in early modernEurope, namely those current in dancing. Finally, I will suggest thatthese correlations greatly facilitated the proliferation of portablefirearms in the European armies, and I will support this proposition bycomparing European and non-European conditions for the proliferationof portable firearms. The comparison will highlight the culturally specificconditions of the European uses of the gun.

Behavior Patterns in European Manual DrillTowards the end of the sixteenth century, principles of manual drillin the European armies of Latin Christendom were derived from threesources. First, there was the legacy of ancient Greek and Roman militaryart; second, there was the lansquenet mode of fighting; and third, the

various insular traditions of military exercise which had come into prac-tice together with the use of the longbow. In this section, I will discusseach of these three types of sources before turning to the correlationsbetween manual drill and battle tactics, and then describe the changeswhich affected the practice of manual drill between the late sixteenthand the eighteenth century.The military art of antiquity was transmitted through two separatechannels of written tradition, one represented by the second-centuryA.D. Greek writer Ailianos4 and the sixth-century Byzantine writer Mau-rikios,5 the other canonised in the military writings of Flavius VegetiusRenatus,6 probably at the end of the fourth century A.D. With regard tomanual drill, the two traditions differed fundamentally. On the one hand,Ailianos and Maurikios provided details on manual and battalion drill,including words of command, as well as theoretical descriptions of bat-

4. Ailianos, Aelianus tacticus, "De instruendis aciebus," in Griechische Kriegs-schriftsteller, ed. II. Kochly and W. Ruistow,vol. 2 (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1855),201-471. An English edition appeared under the title, The Tacticks of Aelian, ed.John Bingham(1616; reprint, New York:DaCapoPress, 1968).5. Maurikios,Das Strategikon des Maurikios, ed. GeorgeT.Dennis (Vienna:Ver-lag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981).6. Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari, ed. Carl Lang (1885; reprint,Stuttgart:B. G. Teubner, 1967). New edition by Alf Onnerfors (Stuttgart:B. G. Teub-ner, 1995). Vegetius himself was not an original writer; his major known source wasFrontinus,Stratagemata, ed. R. I. Ireland(Leipzig:B. G. Teubner,1990).MILITARY IIISTORY * 603


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDTtle tactics. On the other hand, Vegetius focused on the organisation ofthe armed forces, battle tactics, fortifications, and siege warfare; withregard to manual drill, he confined himself to some rather sketchyremarks about the principles to be used for the instruction of soldiers.Specifically, Vegetius presented advice on how individual infantrymenshould train themselves in order to increase the physical strength oftheir bodies and, to that end, he suggested a number of physical exer-cises, among them swimming, digging, throwing the javelin, and jump-ing. One major difference between the two traditions of manual drill wasthat, within the Greek tradition, manual drill was centrally organisedand performed regularly according to precise rules, including prescribedwords of command, while the Vegetian tradition left the organisation ofmanual drill to the individual infantrymen. Another crucial differencewas that, within the Greek tradition, manual drill was directly connectedwith the handling of weapons whereas the Roman tradition regardedmanual drill as a physiological instrument to increase infantrymen'sphysical fighting power.In the Occident, these two traditions of manual drill were featuredmainly in the works of intellectuals up to the end of the sixteenth cen-tury.7 Ailianos's work was translated into Latin at the end of the fifteenthcentury but received no attention from practitioners of the military artuntil more than a century later. Likewise, even though Vegetius's workwas known and transcribed throughout the Middle Ages, only selectparts of it, and manual drill was not one of them, had any influence uponmilitary practice. Even the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century vernacularversions of Vegetius's work had little or no impact on military practice.9

7. Editio princeps of Ailianos in 1487, together with the work of Vegetius (seenote 6 above).8. Foster Ilallberg Sherwood, "Studies in Medieval Uses of Vegetius' Epitoma reimilitaris" (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1980); Charles R.Shrader, "The Ownership and Distribution of Manuscripts of the De re militari ofFlavius Vegetius Renatus before the Year 1300" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University,1976); Charles R. Shrader, "A I-landlist of Extant Manuscripts Containing the De ReMilitari of Flavius Vegetius Renatus," Scriptorium 33 (1979): 280-305.9. Among others, see Ludwig von Ilohenwang, trans., Von der Ritterschaft (1475;reprint, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1952); Jean deMehun, Li abregenenz noble homme Vegesce Flavie Rene des establissmenz aparte-

nanz a chevalerie, ed. Leena Lofstedt (Ilelsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakakatemia,1977); Christine de Pizan, L'art de chevalerie selon Vegece suivi du livre des faitsd'armes et de chevalerie (Paris: n.p., 1488) [translated in 1490 by William Caxton asThe Book of Fayttes of Armes and of Chyvalrye, ed. A. T. P. Byles (London: Early Eng-lish Text Society, 1932)1; Geoffrey Lester, ed., The Earliest English Translation ofVegetius' De Re Militari, ed. from Oxford Ms. Bodl. Douce 21 (IIeidelberg: C. WinterUniversitatsverlag, 1988).604 * THE JOURNAL OF


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Using the GunBy contrast, beginning with the 1590s, the Greek tradition emergedas a core element of military practice, and both of its distinguishing char-acteristics-namely use of words of command and the close interrelat-

edness between manual drill and the handling of weapons-became thedominant features of the organisation of manual drill up to the end of theeighteenth century. The option in favour of the Greek tradition of man-ual drill was greatly eased by the modes of fighting which had evolvedamong the lansquenets since the end of the fifteenth century. Already atthe turn of the sixteenth century, written and pictorial descriptions oftheir ways of fighting displayed features which were similar to someaspects of the Greek tradition. Fixed words of command were recordedby 1488 for the lansquenets, 10and they were shown to have used a for-mal drill method which was referred to in contemporary sources as the"snail formation."11By that was meant a movement of a band of pikemenwho, upon the command of their leader, would form a circle and marchby cadenced step in such a way that the ranks drifted gradually to theoutside of the circle. From a bird's eye perspective, the movementresembled a snail shell.12At one point, the group leader would commandthe pikemen to stop their movement and to point their pikes in onedirection, all at the same time. In the course of the sixteenth century,the " snail formation" became the hallmark of the lansquenets and wasfrequently practiced as a demonstration and training formation.13

10. Jean Molinet,Chroniques, ed. Jean AlexandreBuchon, vol. 2 (Paris:Verdiere,1828), 207-8.11. Ibid. See also, Willibald Pirckheimer, Bellum Suitense sive Helvetic-um(Zurich:Orell, 1737), 16-19, and the 1529 painting in Munich'sAlte Pinakothek byAlbrechtAltdorferrepresenting a battle of Alexander the Great. flarald Kleinschmidt,"An Early Case of Social Disciplining: The Lansquenet Mode of Fighting,"Historiajuris 4 (1995): i-xxix.12. The Latin wordused for the "snail formation"was testudo. It was more oftenused in the fifteenth century as a word for siege machines used against the walls ofcastles and towns. For a picture of such a machine, see Vegetius, De rei militari,reprinted in WilliamAnderson, Castles of Europe: From Charlemagne to the Renais-sance (London: Elek, 1970), 22. Likewise, Leonardo da Vinci designed a testudowhich was equipped with a little tower and a revolvinglooking glass. This equipmentallowed the crew to see where they were directing their vehicle.13. Sources are found in Ilarald Kleinschmidt, Tyrocinium militare (Stuttgart:Autorenverlag, 1989), 59-63; I-laraldKleinschmidt,"DieSchneckenformation und dieEntwicklungder Feuerwaffentaktikvon MaximilianI bis zu Elisabeth I,"Publication

du Centre Europeen d'Etudes Bourguignonnes 26 (1985): 105-12. The lansquenetmode of fightingwas developed under the influence of the Swiss style as it was prac-ticed during the second half of the fifteenth century. But the adaptation by the lan-squenets was ratherfree-form, and the Swiss never developed a fully fledged trainingformation nor became accustomed to the use of fixed words of command. See Rein-hardBaumann'sGeorgvon Frundsberg, 2d ed. (Munich:Stiddeutscher Verlag,1991),and Landsknechte: Ihre Geschichte und Kultur vom spdten Mittelalter bis zumMILITARY HISTORY * 605


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDTThe "snail formation," together with the words of command, alsosurfaced in Elizabethan England where it was fused with the medievalEnglish tradition of manual drill in the use of the longbow. Such drill had

been stipulated since the time of Edward III, and legislation to that effecthad continued well into the time of I-lenry VIII.14 Thus, since the four-teenth century, drill in the use of the longbow had been centrally organ-ised, had been closely intertwined with the use of a weapon, and hadsubjected the longbowmen to rigorous disciplinary codes.15 This impliesthat, like the training formation of the lansquenets, English longbow drillhad close parallels to the Greek tradition of manual drill although, in nei-ther case, can the Greek tradition be shown to have had an influence onits medieval equivalents.In sum, during the sixteenth century, the three traditions fromwhich principles of manual drill were drawn, namely the legacy ofancient Greek military art, the lansquenet mode of fighting, and themedieval English practice of longbow drills, converged to the extent thatthey allowed the conceptualisation of manual drill as an activity throughwhich bodily behaviour, modes of fighting, and the martial attitudes ofindividual soldiers could be subjected to institutional control. Hence-forth it became possible to define principles of manual drill in accor-dance with the wishes and desires of government officials. Initially,manual drill was most elaborate and most frequently practiced in Eng-land. 16Early in the Eighty Years'War,it spread to the Netherlands underthe auspices of the Earl of Leicester,17 where it was eagerly taken up by

DreiBigj&hrigen Krieg (Munich: C. I-I.Beck, 1994); Peter Burschel,Soldner im Nord-westdeutschland des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1994); Bert S. Ilall, Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe (Balti-more: Johns Ilopkins University Press, 1997); MartinNell, Die Landsknechte (1914;reprinted, Vaduz:Kraus, 1965); and Ernst Schubert, Fahrendes Volk im Mittelalter(Bielefeld: Verlagfur Regionalgeschichte, 1995), 415-27.14. Sources are found in Kleinschmidt,Tyrocinium militare, 75-82, 128-29; andKleinschmidt, "'Tragt die Spief3auf Englisch': Quellen zu den Ileeresreformen derOranier,"Nassauische Annalen 102 (1991): 67-85.15. Beyond that, Englishlongbowmen were unique in Europeas a tactical forma-tion whose structure emergedfrom the fact that as a lightly armed force they neededthe protection of cavalrymen.Throughoutthe MiddleAges, this interplaybetween thetwo arms was difficult to replicate elsewhere in Europe, much to the advantage ofEnglishmercenary forces which operated in Italy, and duringthe initial phases of theIhundredYears'War,much to the disadvantage of the Frenchside, which had trainedin vain to adopt English principles of tactical organisation. See Geoffrey Trease, TheCondottieri: Soldiers of Fortune (London: Thames and Iludson, 1970).16. Recorded by, among others, John Smythe, Instructions, Observations, andOrders Mylitarie (London:R. lohanes, 1595).17. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Lawe and Ordinances (London:Barker,1586), in Charles Grieg Cruikshank, ed., Elizabeth's Army, 2d ed. (Oxford:Claren-don Press, 1966), 298.606 * TIIE JOURNAL OF


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Using the Gunreform-minded members of the [louse of Orange together with a numberof their German relatives and Calvinist allies."'The Maurician reforms (so-called because of the patronage of Mau-rice of Orange) brought forth a redefinition of the principles of manualdrill. Specifically, armies were organised either as militia forces or asprofessional forces under the command of a territorial ruler; the armedforces were joined together into relatively small tactical formations intowhich pikemen and halbardiers, musketeers, and horsemen were even-tually integrated. The distribution of these tactical formations on thebattlefield followed regular geometrical patterns which were to beretained in battle action as long as possible. Individual infantrymen weresubjected to regularised drill through which they were taught to enactprescribed bodily movements with their arms whenever fixed words ofcommand were issued. They had to handle their weapons according todetailed prescriptions and fixed sequences of actions, with precision,speed, and in strict coordination with other soldiers in the same tacticalformation. Infantrymen were trained to coordinate their movementswith the other members of the tactical formation to the end that it wasmade mobile and flexible and could enact directed movements as awhole. Finally, soldiers were trained to execute commands literally,without reflecting upon or attempting to understand their purpose.'9In the long run, enforcing such patterns of well-ordered and self-constrained behavior required, first, the willingness of the members of

18. The Mauricianreforms have received some attention in the debates over theso-called "military revolution." Since the invention of this term by Michael Robertsin 1956, most participants in the debate have focused on matters of strategy andhigher tactics, whereas manualdrill has not been studied in detail in this context. SeeAndrew Ayton and J. L. Price, eds., The Medieval Military Revolution (London: I. B.Tauris, 1995); Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? (Atlantic Ilighlands, N.J.:Ilumanities Press, 1991); David Eltis, TheMilitary Revolution of the Sixteenth Cen-tury (London: TaurisAcademic Studies, 1995); Michael Duffy, ed., TheMilitary Rev-olution and the State (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1981); GeoffreyParker,TheMilitary Revolution, 2d ed. (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1996); MichaelRoberts, "The Military Revolution," in Roberts, Essays in Swedish History (London:Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967), 195-225; Roberts,The Swedish Imperial Experience(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1979); and CliffordJ. Rogers, ed., TheMil-itary Revolution Debate (Boulder,Colo.: WestwoodPress, 1995).19. Johann von Nassau-Siegen, Kriegsbuch, in WernerIlahlweg, ed., Die Heeres-reform der Oranier (Wiesbaden: Selbstverlagder Ilistorischen Kommission fur lies-sen und Nassau, 1973); Johann Jacobi von Wallhausen, Kriegskunst zu Fu13(Oppenheim: Galler, 1615); idem,Aul3BfhrlicheBeschreibung und Rettungzu Siegender in der Grafschafft Nassau unlangst angefangenen unnd bestellten loblichenKriegs- und Ritterschulen (1-lanau:n.p., 1616); idem, Manuale militare (Frankfurt:n.p., 1616); idem, Programma scholae militaris (Siegen: n.p., 1616); idem, Defensiopatriae oder Landtrettung (Frankfurt:Daniel & DavidAubrij& Clement Schleichen,1621).MILITARY HISTORY * 607


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDTthe lansquenet-type professional warrior bands to subject themselves tosome degree of government control and, second, the readiness of the res-ident population of nonmilitary professionals to undergo regular militarytraining and to do so under government supervision as well. The Mauri-cian reforms thus transformed armed forces into regularized, disciplinedorganizations which required choreographies for battle action. Conse-quently, warfare was turned into a planned, well-ordered activity. Admit-tedly, the Maurician principles failed to sink roots outside the UnitedNetherlands in the early seventeenth century because the well-orderedmilitia forces collapsed under the blows of the autonomous, professional,and less disciplined soldiery during the latter part of the Eighty Years'War, which overlapped with the Thirty Years' War. The enforcement ofthe principles of the Maurician reforms was a protracted and difficultprocess. Nevertheless, the seventeenth century did witness the estab-lishment of militia forces and the gradual transformation of theautonomous professional warrior bands into standing armies and theirsubjection to the authority of territorial rulers.20 Throughout the seven-teenth and much of the eighteenth century, a word frequently used todescribe such patterns of constrained behavior was "well-ordered," aterm which had variants and derivatives in the several European lan-guages.21These processes were accompanied by the adoption of the Eng-lish and Maurician principles of manual drill in virtually all Europeanarmies from Russia to Spain and from Sweden to the Italian peninsula.

20. This had already begun in the 1610s. See Louys de Montgomery, SeigneurdeCourbouson, La milice fran9oise (Paris: Fran9ois Ronsselet, 1610); GervaseMarkham,The Souldiers Accidence (London:n.p., 1625); Valentin Friderich, KriegsKunst zu FuB und eigentlicher Underricht mit sonderbarer Behendigkeit undgeschwinden Vortheil allerhand eydgenoBischer Schlachtordnungen zu machen(Bern: n.p., 1619); Kurtzer Begriff und Anleitung des Krieges Exercitij und Ubung(1615; reprinted,Bern:n.p., 1978). Cf. Joel Cornette,Le roi de guerre (Paris: EditionsPayot & Rivages, 1993); Andr6 Corvisier,Louvois (Paris: Fayard, 1983), 77-118;idem, Arme6es t societes en Europe, 119-20; WernerfIahlweg,Die HeeresreformderOranier und die Antike (1941; reprinted, Osnabruck: Biblio-Verlag, 1987); Klein-schmidt, lTyrociniummilitare, 96-149; John A. Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siecle: TheFrench Army, 1610-1715 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1997); Parker,Military Revolution, 6-44; I-lideo Shimpo, "Zurverfassungsgeschichtlichen Bedeu-tung des Landesdefensionswesens," Zeitschriftfiir historische Forschung 19 (1992):341-58; Winfried Schulze, Landesdefension und Staatenbildung (Vienna: Bohaus,1973); idem, "Die deutschen Landesdefensionen im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,"inJohannes Kunisch and Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, eds., Staatsverfassung undHeeresverfassung in der europaischen Geschichte der fruihen Neuzeit (Berlin:Duncker &Ilumblot, 1986), 129-49.21. Johann, Kriegsbuch, 614-15. See alsoJulius Bernhard von Rohr, Einleitungzur Ceremoniel-Wissenschaft der Privat-Personen (1782), ed. Gotthardt Fruhsorge(Weinheim: VCII, 1989), 198.

608 * THE JOURNAL OF


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l:J_sing the GunThe Maurician reformers and their early seventeenth-century part-ners consciously took up the three practical European traditions of man-ual drill and integrated them into a novel framework for the subjection

to government controlled manual drill of professional soldiers as well asthe resident population of nonmilitary professionals. They relied on thewritings of the Greek tactical authors, and on the lansquenet "snail for-mation," as well as the English practice of centralized drill.22They beganto make their principles explicit in formal drill books. These manualsspelled out in pictorial and written form rules for the movements mainlyof infantrymen and for the handling of their weapons. They were largelydevoted to the handling of pikes and portable firearms. These descrip-tions attained a uniform structure in most European armies, with wordsof command presented as a headline, subsequent written descriptions ofthe commanded movements and stances and, in many cases, pictures.More frequently in the seventeenth than in the eighteenth century, thepictures supplied additional information about details of the movementsand postures to be assumed. The manuals were usually printed anddevised for the use of captains who were to employ them to drill theirbattalions.23The Maurician reformers also insisted that manual drill should pre-pare infantrymen in peacetime for eventual battle action.24 To that end,they composed elaborate choreographies of precisely defined move-ments and postures with and without arms. Throughout the seventeenthcentury, four basic sequences were emphasized: first, the movementswhich individual soldiers had to carry out without arms; second, move-ments for the handling of portable firearms, mainly in loading and firing;third, movements for the handling of pikes, specifically while charging;and, fourth, movements to be carried out by the entire battalion. It wasexpected that the infantrymen would enact these choreographies as fre-quently as possible in battle in exactly the same way as they had prac-ticed them during drills. Hence seventeenth- and eighteenth-centurymanual drill was innately practical in the sense that the sequences ofdrill were held to be repeatable in battle.

22. Justus Lipsius, De milicia Romana liber quintus (Antwerp:Moretus, 1595);Franceso Patrizi, La militia Romana (Ferrara: n.p., 1583); Maurice of Orange,"Exercitie op de volgende woorden van commandmenten bij t'voetvolck gebruycke-lick" (1610), in llahlweg, Heeresreform, 287-91; Jakob de Gheyn, Wapenhandel-inghe van roers, musketen ende spiessen (1607), ed. J. B. Kist (Lochem: DeTijdstroom, 1971); Johann of Nassau, Kriegsbuch; Moritz of Ilesse-Kassel,Was sichunsere bestellte Kriegsrathe und Diener verhalten sollen, Ms. hass. qu. 73,Muhrhard'scheBibliothek der Stadt Kassel und Landesbibliothek-Gesamthochschul-bibliothek, Kassel (printed in Kassel, 1600), partly transcribed in Cod. Mil. fol. 65,WVurttembergische andesbibliothek, Stuttgart.23. Wallhausen,Scola militaris, 17-24.24. Johann, Kriegsbuch, 575-76.MILITARY HISTORY * 609


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IIARALDKLEINSCIIMIDTSuch beliefs rested on the assumption that soldiers could beminutely trained to execute their tasks and commands. They had to con-strain their movements, to refrain from "reasoning" about given com-

mands, and to confine themselves to the actions that had beencommanded. The drill manuals depicted soldiers as well-orderedinfantrymen who constrained their actions.25 Moreover, the use of theword "well-ordered" was an innovation which was closely intertwinedwith the Maurician reforms. This can be demonstrated from the follow-ing three pictures. Figure 1 features an advertising broadsheet used toattract volunteers into lansquenet bands. It shows the captain in theforeground and a "snail formation" marching in the background. Thus,an image of a lansquenet fighting force is conveyed which depicts its sol-diers as members of an autonomously organized group which is subjectto its own rules of patterned behavior.

Fig. 1: A lansquenet captain,from a 1587 broadsheet-' w D = -i_printed in the Ilague by Ilen-drik Goltzius and Jacques de

- Gheyn.

Exactly twenty years later, the same workshop issued a drill manualat the request of Maurice of Orange. The manual made explicit the prin-

25. Cf. Kleinschmidt,Il7rocinium militare, 68, 145.610 * THE JOURNAL OF


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______________ ____________________ _ T- Usingthe Gunciples of Maurician manual drill. Among others, it contained a picture ofa pikeman at parade rest (Figure 2).

Fig. 2: Pikeman from the drillmanual by Jakob de Geyn,Wapenhandelinghe van roers,musketen ende spiessen (TheIlague:n.p., 1607).

The pikeman is shown holding his pike with his right hand and withhis left arm akimbo. He looks straight ahead, holds his body upright andspreads his legs about two feet apart with his toes pointing in oppositedirections. The man is thus depicted as obeying orders, subjecting hisbodily behavior to the rules which had been prescribed for the drill.Little more than ten years later, Figure 3, showing a pikeman inaction appeared in another Dutch drill manual. Here, the thrusting pike-man is shown leaning slightly forward with his feet wide apart. Again, histoes point in opposite directions. He grabs the end of the pike with hisright hand stretched out to the back while he supports the shaft of thepike with his left hand immediately below his chin. Like the pikeman inGheyn's picture of 1607, Adam van Breen's pikeman of 1618 is shownexecuting commands through his bodily behavior. No particular effortwas made to demonstrate in the picture that the pikeman uses bodilyenergy for the purpose of executing the commanded movement. Instead,the picture highlights the rules which the pikeman is made to follow.Thus, the pictures in the early seventeenth-century drill manuals dis-MILITARY HISTORY * 611


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Fig. 3: Pikemanfrom the drillmanual by Adam van Breen,De nassauische wapen-han-delinge van schilt, spies, par-rier ende targe (The Ilague:AD i ~~~~~~~n.p.,618).

played infantrymen as well-ordered men capable of subjecting theirmovements and stances to patterns of constrained behavior.Thus, by the beginning of the seventeenth century, manual drill wasrepresented as a well-ordered pattern of constrained behavior in whichthe infantrymen were drilled to handle their arms, to enact commandedmovements with precision by themselves and as part of a battalion, andto do so under the control of central institutions of government. Even-tually, these patterns of constrained behavior evolved into the system oflinear tactics of the eighteenth century in which commanders wereexpected to execute minutely the general rules of the war game in detailand into which the common soldiers were to be integrated as if they wereparts of a neatly composed machine.2 The machine was regarded as a26. FrederickII, Kingof Prussia,"DasPolitische Testamentvon 1752," in RichardDietrich, ed., Politische Testamente der Hohenzollern (Munich:Deutscher Taschen-buch Verlag, 1981), 229. Cf. llenning Eichberg,Festung, Zentralmacht und Sozial-geometrie. Kriegsingenieurwesen in den Herzogtumern Bremen und Verden(Cologne: Bohlau, 1989). Johannes Kunisch, "Das Puppenwerk der stehendenIleere," Zeitschriftftir historische Forschung 17 (1990): 49-50.



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- Using the Gunwell-organized man-made assembly of smoothly cohering parts, whoseorder was perfectly in line with the principles of organization followed by"nature."27 In this respect, seventeenth- and eighteenth-centurymachines differed fundamentally from the steam engine technology ofthe Industrial Revolution.A typical eighteenth-century drill command read as follows:

It must be the first goal of the exercise to drill the man and to givehim the air of a soldier,so that the peasant in him is removed.Tothatend, the man has to be taught,first, how to keep his head erect,and not to one side and not to close his eyes; instead, when underarms, the man must look to the righthand with his head erect and,when parading,he must look straightinto one's eyes. Second, theman must marchstiff-leggedand not with bent knees, with his toespointed outward.Third,he shallkeephis body upright,neitherlean-ing backwardsnor with his belly stuck out to the front; instead, heshallpush out his breast and archhis back."28

Similar rules were prescribed for marching in rank and file and forstrolling out on liberty. A Saxon drill manual of 1776 stated that: "In allcircumstances a man must be required to walk with decency in thestreets, without swinging his arms, walking erect and stiff-legged with histoes pointed outwards."29Several other eighteenth-century drill manuals confirm that theoverall goal was that peasants ought to be drilled to accept and performspecific military stances and movements and that it was the goal of mil-itary drill to "transform" peasants into "blindly obedient soldiers" whowere capable of displaying a distinctly military behavior as the ruler's

men.3" It was also understood that this goal was to be accomplished by27. See, for example, Rene Descartes, "The Passions of the Soul" (1649), inDescartes, The Philosophical Writings, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1985), 539-40; Anthony Ashley Cooper,Earlof Shaftesbury, Characteristics ofMen, vol. 1, Sensus communis (1723) (Stuttgart:Frommann-Iloleboog, 1992),40-44, 48, 74-76; Johann Amos Comenius, "Didactica magna," in Comenius, Operadidactica omnia (Amsterdam:n.p., 1657), 5: 15.28. Exercir-Reglementftir die Koniglich PreuBische Infanterie (1743; reprinted,Osnabruiek:Biblio-Verlag,1976), section II:2, 7.29. Exercir-Reglementfair die Churftirstlich sachBische Infanterie (Dresden:Walther,1776), section IV:2, 13.30. Reglement vor die Koniglich Preufische Infanterie (1726; reprint, Osna-bruck: Biblio-Verlag,1969), sections 11/1,1112, -6, 1112-13,1118-19, IV/4, 2;MilitiaDiscipline (1733; reprinted, East Winthrop:n.p., 1975), 1; Regulament und Ord-nung, nach welchem sich gesambte unmittelbare Infanterie in den Hand-Griffenund Kriegs-Exercitien sowohl als in denen Kriegsgebrauchen gleichformig zuachten haben (Vienna: n.p., 1737), 13; Regulament und Ordnung, nach welchensich gesammtes Kaiserlich-KoniglichesFuB-Volck n denen Hand-Grieffenund allenanderen Kriegs-Exercitien .. . gleichf6rmig zu achten haben (Vienna:n.p., 1749),15, 89, 92 (reprinted, Osnabriick: Biblio-Verlag,1969), 229.MILITARY HISTORY * 613


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDTmeans of training and that, through the specificity of these stances andmovements, infantrymen were to acquire a distinguished "bon air,"namely the "air of a soldier."31 The term "air"then had a technicalmeaning which was different from the meanings of the related Frenchterms "mine" and "port.""Air"was defined as a "facial expression whichone chooses on particular occasions in order to display a particular pas-sion and of which, consequently, there are as many as there are pas-sions." That the air was taken to be changeable made it different fromthe "mine," understood as a permanent "facial expression," and the"port" as bodily comportment.32 Hence the term "air" allowed thechange of facial expressions to fit a variety of passions and was thus suit-able to a practice according to which persons were requested to changebehavioral patterns upon their entry into the armed forces. Manual drillwas the first means to organize this change under government control,and reviews were held for the purpose of demonstrating the result. Thispractice was a Europe-wide phenomenon in the eighteenth century, onewhich was not only followed in the armies of the larger territorial states,but also in those of the many lesser courts.During the 115 years between the end of the Thirty Years'War andthe end of the Seven Years'War, the taming of Bellona in Europe was afrequent, though hardly successful, undertaking for military theoristsand organizers alike. At the theoretical level, jurists and philosophersstrove to devise rules for war and to establish the conditions for a lastingpeace,33 while critics observed that wars continued to be waged and torequire unjustifiable sacrifices.34 Compilers of statistical handbooksmade efforts to collect data on the size and equipment of the armedforces of territorial rulers as well as on militarily relevant general fea-tures, such as population size, economic achievements, and availablenatural resources.35 These data were considered to be permanent andsubject to alteration only through exchange of territory as a result ofwarfare or hereditary succession. Consequently, an elaborate debate wasconducted among eighteenth-century scholars about whether it was just

31. Exercir-Reglement ftir die Kiniglich Preu13ische Infanterie, section 1112,1;Reglement vor die Koniglich Preuf3ische Infanterie, sections 1112,1. 1112,15.32. Rohr, Ceremoniel-Wissenschaft der Privat-Personen, 184.33. Among others, see Charles Irenee Castel Abbe de St-Pierre, Project pour ren-dre la paix perpetuelle en Europe (1713), ed. Simone Goyard-Fabre (Paris: Fayard,1986); Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Political Writings, ed. C. E. Vaughan, vol. 1(1915; reprinted, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), 364-96; Emer de Vattel, Le droitdes gens (1758), ed. Charles G. Fenwick (1916; reprinted, Geneva: Slatkine, 1983).34. See, for example, Fran9ois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, "Guerre," Dictionnairephilosophique, vol. 3 (1764), in Oeuvres completes, ed. Louis Moland, vol. 19 (1879;reprinted, Vaduz: Kraus, 1967), 318-22.35. Cf. Mohammed Rassem and Justin Stagl, eds., Statistik und Staatsbeschrei-bung in der Neuzeit (Paderborn: Schoningh, 1980).614 * THE JOURNAL OF


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Using the Gunto declare a preventive war if a neighboring ruler suddenly and withoutrecognizable threats increased the size of the armed forces under hiscontrol.36 A closely knit network of aristocratic military officers existedwho changed service freely and with ease among the major armies, andthereby prevented the existence of military secrets of any significance.Likewise, organizers and decision makers in the military and in pol-itics employed a mechanistic imagery which described their doings interms of the smooth operation of a machine.37 In consequence, acting inaccordance with the rules of the war game became ever more importantin warfare and the rigidity of manual drill increased. Infantrymen wereforced to enact ever more lengthy sequences of movements and stances,in some cases over two hundred movements just for the stance withoutarms or for the loading and firing of portable firearms.38 In many cases,the enactment of each movement was segmented into several partswhich were usually referred to as tempi. Regulations for the enactmentof each tempo were minutely described. Drilled infantrymen thusbecame too costly to serve only as cannon fodder, for drill was a time-consuming process, a well-drilled infantryman was difficult to replace,and even various systems of supernumeraries could not provide an end-less reservoir of easily replaceable infantrymen. Therefore, it was desir-able that the numbers of military war casualties should be reduced. In

36. Nicolaus Ilieronymus Gundling, "Erorterung der Frage, ob wegen deranwachsenden Macht der Nachbarn man den Degen entbl6ten k6nne," Gundlin-giana, Stiick 5 (1716; re-edited, Frankfurt:n.p., 1757); RHflexions ouchant l'equili-bre (N.p.: n.p., 1741), 10-15; Ludwig Martin Kahle, La Balance de l'Europeconside'ree comme la regle de la paix et de la guerre (Berlin: n.p., 1744); ChristianFriedrich Stisser, Freymiithige und bescheidene Erinnerungen wider des beriuhmtenGottingischen Professors, Herrn Doctor Kahle, Abhandlung von der BalanceEuropens als der vornehmsten Richtschnur des Krieges und Friedens. Fortsetzung(Leipzig: n.p., 1746), 29-34; David GeorgStrube, "Eine Prufungder ans Licht getrete-nen Reflexions touchant 1'Europe,"in Strube, Nebenstunden, vol. 2 (IIanover:Ritscher, 1747), 281-284; Vattel,Le droit des gens, 2: 41-43.37. Raimondo Montecuccoli, Kriegsbuch,1670 x 1680, Cod. S. n. 12033, AustrianNational Library, Vienna; Wenzel Anton Kaunitz-Rietberg, "Vortragdes Staatskan-zlers Kaunitz n der Conferenzsitzung vom August 1755," in Gustav Berthold Volz andGeorg Kiintzel, eds., PreuBische und Osterreichische Akten zur Vorgeschichte desSiebenjahrigen Krieges (1899; reprinted, Osnabruiek:Biblio-Verlag, 1965), 145,148-49, 154-56; FrederickII,"Anti-Machiavell"1739), in Werke,vol. 7 (Berlin: n.p.,1913), 110.

38. Erneuertes Reglement, Wornach es bey Unser ... in Unserm Furstenthumund Landen regulirten Land-Militzkunfftighin gehalten werden solle, 30 December1712, E 8 B, 138-1, Ilessisches Staatsarchiv, Darmstadt. The number of commandsfor stances, loading, and charging increased during the seventeenth and the earlyeighteenth centuries and then declined drastically throughout the rest of the eigh-teenth century; see Kleinschmidt, 7'yrociniummilitare, 203-11. Rules for battaliondrill contained additionalsequences.MILITARY HISTORY * 615


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fact, a decline occurred during the eighteenth century. Whereas it wascommon during the sixteenth century that almost 50 percent of the reg-ular combatants would die in battle, that number plummeted to less than10 percent in the eighteenth century (not counting irregular, specificallyguerrilla, troops).39This decrease was mainly a consequence of the elab-orate manoeuvres and evolutions which were designed for the avoidanceof regular battle and the reduction of casualties when regular battleswere fought.The Seven Years' War constitutes the point at which the principlesinforming linear tactics and the manual drill related to them began to becalled into question. During the war, reform-minded theorists began toclaim that conventional practices of manual drill were outmoded. One oftheir arguments was that the "stiffness" required for movement and pos-tures was counterproductive because it prevented infantrymen frommoving quickly and firing rapidly. During the 1770s, such argumentswere broadened into a fundamental criticism of the mechanistic princi-ples informing linear tactics and the belief in the calculability of the wargame. Critics insisted that manual drill should train infantrymen to actflexibly in the course of battle. Jacques Antoine Hippolyte de Guibert, forone, began to revise rules for movements without arms and demandedthat soldiers "shall not stand like a lifeless machine, but shall ratherresemble an animated picture which can begin to work and to move atany moment."41 Through the use of such phrases, Guibert explicitlyassociated the machine with motionlessness, which he no longer con-sidered a positive value. Instead, he believed that it was "natural" to cre-ate a tension between stances and the movements which were to followthem. In this way, Guibert called into question the hitherto ubiquitousbelief that stiff and constrained movements were "natural," and hedemanded that tensions that were to result in movements be recognized

as "natural." In sum, by the 1770s, the machine and "nature" had beenplaced in opposition to each other. Late eighteenth-century critics of lin-ear tactics called into question the previous belief that the patterns of39. Cf.Frederick,"DasPolitische Testament von 1752," 230-31. See ChristopherDuffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason (London: Routledge & KeganPaul, 1987), 11-18; Charles Ingrao, "Kameralismusund Militarismus im deutschenPolizeistaat. Der hessische Soldnerstaat," in Georg Schmidt, ed., Stande undGesellschaft im Alten Reich (Stuttgart:Franz Steiner, 1989); Theodore K. Rabb, The

Strugglefor Stability in Early Modern Europe (New York:Oxford University Press,1975), 122-23. On guerrilla warfare, see Jeremy Black, European Warfare,1660-1815 (New Ilaven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 237-39; JohannesKunisch,Der kleine Krieg (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1973).40. CampbellDalrymple,A Military Essay (London: D. Wilson, 1761), 67.41. Jacques Antoine Ilippolyte de Guibert, Essai gene'ral de tactique (London:n.p., 1772), 55.616 * THE JOURNAL OF


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Using the Gunconstrained behavior which had hitherto informed manual drill wouldallow the pursuit of planned war sequences, and they further raised thefundamental question of whether it made sense at all to compose elabo-rate military choreographies for drill. Instead, the critics demanded thatwarfare should be recognized as an antagonistic, incalculable, anddynamic activity as opposed to a smoothly operating static machine.In order to implement their demands, the aristocratic reformersrequested that the fixed sequences of movements and stances bereplaced by movements with and without arms which could be enactedat the discretion of the commanding officer at any time. Infantrymenwere henceforth expected to stand poised to undertake dynamic action.42These requests implied that the previously close interconnectednessbetween manual drill and battle action was severed. New goals wereassigned which focused on physical and moral education rather than ondirect preparation for battle.During the 1770s, the first drill manuals containing provisions forimplementing the reformers' demands appeared.43 In 1791, a new drillmanual was introduced in the French army in which the new rules ofand goals for manual drill were enforced with support by the mainly aris-tocratic officer corps. The results were that infantrymen became flexibleand dynamic actors, that manual drill began to follow the general prin-ciples of bodily behavior which were observed in humankind as a wholeand thereby paved the way for the socialization of war.44During theFrench Revolution, reforms were thus promoted which had been ontheir way for more than ten years before the revolution broke out.In this section, it has been my goal to historicize manual drill.Within the legacy of antiquity and the Middle Ages, I have isolated fourtraditions of manual drill; the Vegetian practice of strengthening the bod-ies of infantrymen; the ancient Greek and Byzantine manual and battal-ion drill; the self-controlled drill of the lansquenets as autonomous

42. Reglement concernant l'exercice et les maneouvres de l'infanterie (Paris:n.p., 1791). Cf. Samuel Anderson Covington, "The 'Comite Militaire'and the Leg-islative Reform of the French Army" (Ph.D. diss., University of Arkansas, 1976); JohnA. Lynn, Bayonets of the Republic (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996); ClaudiaOpitz, Militarreformzwischen Biirokratisierung und Adelsreaktion. Dasfranzesis-che Kriegsministerium und seine Reformen im Offizierskorps, 1760-1790 (Sig-maringen: Torbecke, 1994).43. Ordonnance du Roi pour regler l'exercice de ses troupes d'infanterie (Paris:Planches, 1776).44. Carl von Clausewitz, VomKriege (1832; re-edited, Frankfurt:Ullstein, 1980),Book I. Cf. Jean-Paul Bertaud, The Army of the French Revolution (Princeton, N.J.:Princeton University Press, 1988); Robert Sherman Quimby, The Background ofNapoleonic Warfare (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957); Gunther E.Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-versity Press, 1977).MILITARY HISTORY * 617


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDTwarrior bands; and the government-controlled exercises of the Englishlongbowmen who were trained for battle. I have tried to show that thethree latter traditions were tied together into a new framework for theorganization of manual drill in the context of the Maurician reforms,whereas the Vegetian tradition lingered on in a variety of theoretical aca-demic discourses. By way of the gradual implementation of the Mauri-cian reform and on the basis of the English longbow exercises, manualdrill became a means for the direct preparation for battle through theenactment of choreographies of stances and movements. Thesesequences were to be practiced in peacetime in order to be repeated inbattle, specifically for loading weapons and charging. Infantrymen wereexpected to execute given commands literally and without "reasoning."They had to confine their actions to what they had been ordered to doand they were to follow patterns of constrained behavior in their pos-tures and movements. These reforms occurred in the context of the con-ceptualization of war as a planned and calculated, well-ordered sequenceof actions in which infantrymen were to serve as parts of a smoothlyoperating machine. This mechanistic view of warfare informed the lineartactics which dominated in the eighteenth century up to the SevenYears' War. During the concluding decades of the century manual drillwas reorganized in such a way that fixed sequences of action were nolonger practiced and that infantrymen were expected to executedynamic movements. In consequence, manual drill was transformed intoan instrument for moral and physical education.In the following section, I will undertake to investigate the origin ofthe patterns of constrained behavior by means of a comparison betweenpatterned military behavior and other patterns of behavior, specificallyin dancing.

Comparative Nonmilitary Patterns of Ordered BehaviorParallels between patterns of behavior in dancing and manual drillwere first investigated by Marcel Mauss45and have recently been revis-ited in the work of August Nitschke and William McNeill.46Sources for patterns of dancing behavior are the dance manualswhich were popular at the courts by the fifteenth century. At the end of

45. Mauss,"DieTechniken des Korpers."46. August Nitschke, Bewegungen in Mittelalter und Renaissance (Dusseldorf:Schwann, 1987); idem, Kdrper in Bewegung (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1989); idem, "DerBeitrag einzelner Personen zu einem naturwissenschaftlich erkliirbaren sozialenWandel,"Saeculum 46 (1995): 312-13; McNeill,Keeping Together in Time. See alsoIlarald Kleinschmidt, "The Military and Dancing,"Ethnologia Europea 25 (1995):157-76; Volker Saftien,Ars saltandi (Ilildesheim: G. Olms, 1994).618 * THE JOURNAL OF


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Using the Gunthe following century, dance manuals began to make explicit certainrules for patterns of behavior, specifically for movements.47 The fif-teenth- and sixteenth-century court dances differed fundamentally fromthe dances which were then popular in the countryside. The latterallowed a large variety of movements and were regarded with contemptby aristocrats at the court and people living in towns and cities.48Dancers in the ballrooms of courts and in towns were credited witha specific "air" if they controlled their movements and subjected them-selves to patterns of constrained behavior. In many dance manuals of thelater seventeenth and the eighteenth century, one finds definitions of the" air" of dancers. Thus, a dancer exhibits a decent "air"

if he conducts his steps in accordance with the rules, accompanieshis steps with movements of the hands, the body and the head inaccordance with the rules, if the momentumforall his steps comesfrom within, that is from the emotions which come from his natureor his preferences,his status or family background,rankor profes-sion, andif he adaptsand colors them and applies to them theirbril-liance and ultimatepolish with good grace and appropriatedecencyin a naturalor trainedmanner.49Dancing as a well-ordered activity is best represented in the minuet.The very name of this dance expressed the concept of well-ordered

precision. Like trained infantrymen, dancers were to keep their bodiesstraight and upright while they were moving; they were to stiffen

47. Antonio Cornazzano, "Libro dell'arte del danzare" (1455), ed. C. Mazzi, LaBibliofilia 17 (1916): 1-30 (English version, The Book of the Artof Dancing [London:Dance Books, 19811). Cf. Otto Kinkeldey,A Jewish Dancing Master of the Renais-sance (re-edited, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Dance Ilorizons, 1966); MarcoFabritio Caroso daSermoneta,Nobilttidi dame (1605; reprinted, Bologna:Sala Bolognese, 1980), 13-14.Cf. Mark Franko, The Dancing Body in Renaissance Choreography (Birmingham,Ala.: Summa, 1986); Gabriele Klein,Frauen K6rper Tanz (Weinheim:Belz/Quadriga,1992), 98.48. See AlbrechtDiirer'sprint of dancing peasants, printed in: Fedja Anzelewsky,Durer (Erlangen:Mueller, 1988). Ilans Sachs expressed urban contempt for peasantdancers in his satirical song "Derpawern-tantz"(Peasant dance), in Sachs, Fabel undgut Schwenck, ed. Adelbert von Keller, n HlansSachs, Werke,vol. 5 (1870; reprinted,Ilildesheim: Olms, 1964), 279-81. Sebastian Brant, in his Das Narrenschiff (1494),ed. Elvira Pradel (Frankfurtam Main:Roderberg,1980), 170-71, criticized dancingconventionally on the grounds that it was sexually lascivious and corrupted morals.On the continuity of these perceptions of peasant dance in the seventeenth century,see Renate Ilaftlmeier-Seiffert,Bauerndarstellungen auf deutschen Flugblattern des17. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurtam Main:Lang, 1991).49. Johann Pasch, Beschreibung wahrer Tanzkunst (1707), ed. Kurt Petermann(Leipzig: Zentralantiquariatder DDR, 1978), 42. Pasch recognized three grades of the"air" of the dancer: the "air of quality,"the "mediocre air,"and the "common air."See KarlIleinz Taubert,Hofische Tanze (Mainz:Schott, 1968), 271-93.MILITARY HISTORY * 619


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDTtheir knees and to avoid "affected and unbecoming movements andgestures."51( n 1717, the following meticulous rule for the enactment ofdancing steps was published:

When, in any step, the dancerwishes to move his foot forward,hemust, first, keep the body on the front leg well-balancedwithoutmotion as if stiff on a pillar;second, he must raise the heel of theback foot from the floor with a slightly bent knee; third, he mustraise the foot completely and bend it; fourth, he must stretch thisfoot out to the front just above the floor at a distance of about onefoot and point the toes to the outside while keepingthe knee stiff;fifth,he must place the foot on the floorin the same way;and, sixth,he must move the entire body onto it.51According to this rule, steps were to be carried out in such a way thatonly those parts of the body were moved which were essential for theenactment of the steps, while all other parts of the body were to be keptstiff and upright. Thus, dancers were to move in a way which was simi-lar to the marching of infantrymen.Beyond the courtly ceremonies and festivals, dancing masters wereemployed for training aristocrats and members of the upper bourgeoisieof all ages in the art of proper conduct.52 They received support frompolitical philosophers, such as Justus Lipsius, who advocated an ethicsof self-constraint,53 and also from philosophers of education, such asJohn Locke, along with writers on ceremonies, such as Johann Bernhardvon Rohr. Both agreed that dancing served a didactic purpose whenyoung men and women were trained in it under the control of a dancingmaster.54 Dancing was also considered to be a valuable preparation formanual drill.55Such an aesthetic of well-ordered and constrained behav-ior has to be understood against the background of the mechanistic phi-

50. GottfriedTaubert,Rechtschaffener Tanzmeister (1717), ed. Kurt Petermann(Leipzig:Zentralantiquariatder DDR, 1976), 1: 411-12, 421.51. Ibid., 422-23.52. Pasch,Beschreibung wahrer Tanzkunst, 93-110, especially 107.53. Justus Lipsius, Politicorum sive civilis doctrinae libri sex (1594; reprinted,Amsterdam: Da Capo Press, 1970), 1-15. Cf. GerhardOestreich, "The MainPoliticalWork of Lipsius,"in Oestreich, Neostoicism and the Early ModernState, ed. lIelmutG. Koenigsbergerand Brigitta Oestreich (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1981), 39-56; Oestreich, Antiker Geist und moderner Stat bei Justus Lipsius, ed.II. E. II. N. Mout (Gottingen:Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht, 1989).54. John Locke, "On Education,"in Locke, Works, vol. 9. (1822; reprinted,Aalen:Scientia, 1963), 50; Johann Friedrich May, Die Kunst der verninftigenKinderzucht, vol. 1 (Ilelmstedt: n.p., 1757), 34-35.55. Pasch, Beschreibung wahrer Tanzkunst, 101; O' Cahill, Der vollkommeneOfficier (Frankenthal:n.p., 1787), 44-46; Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, "Vonder Tanzkunst oder Pantomime,"in Schubart, Vorlesungen uber Mahlerey, Kupfer-stecherkunst, Bildhauerkunst, Steinschneidekunst und Tanzkunst (Munich: Per-renon, 1777), 37-43.620 * THE JOURNAL OF


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_ITUsinghe Gunlosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which describedthe human body and the entire world through the static metaphor of themachine.56

Among the peasant population, however, the dancing styles of theearly sixteenth century remained popular well into the eighteenth cen-tury. These dances employed lavish and even ecstatic movements withrapid swings and high jumps. Although such country dances continuedto be commented on with contempt by the court aristocracy as well asthe upper bourgeoisie,57 no effort appears to have been made at that timeto subject peasant dancers to the effective control of central govern-ments.The patterns of behavior which were imposed upon infantrymen byway of military drill thus had their origin in the aristocratic world of thecourts and in the cities. They remained uncommon among the peasantfarming population. Hence, on the one hand, the armies served as thevehicles for the superimposition of aristocratic, well-ordered andmechanical patterns of behavior upon peasants in the form of the "bonair of the soldier" during the time they spent in garrison and at war. Onthe other hand, armies also became instruments of administrative cen-tralization in the hands of the more powerful territorial rulers on theContinent. When recruited for service, peasants were, at least temporar-ily, removed from the supervision and control of the seigneurial lords inthe countryside, as they were garrisoned in or near towns and cities orserved in the field. For one, King Frederick William I in Prussia ignoredmost complaints which were filed by Prussian seigneurial lords againstthe practice of recruiting peasants for service and, instead, insisted thatcantonment rules were properly executed.58However, the persistence throughout the seventeenth and much ofthe eighteenth century of the difference in behavioral patterns betweenthe courts and the cities on the one hand and the countryside on theother, also made possible other types of interaction. Beginning in the1760s, country dances like the waltz became popular in the cities, soft-

56. Descartes, "Passions of the Soul"; Thomas Ilobbes, Leviathan (London:Andrew Cooke, 1651), 1; BernardLamy, "Art of Speaking" (1676), in The Rhetoricsof Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Lamy, ed. John T. Ilarwood (Carbondale:SouthernIllinois University Press, 1986), 362; Shaftesbury,Characteristics of Men.57. Johann Khevenhiiller-Metsch,Theater, Feste und Feiern zur Zeit MariaTheresias, 1742-1776 (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie des Wis-senschaften, 1987). Khevenhiiller-Metschwas master of ceremonies under MariaTheresa and noted his experiences in a diary. William Ilogarth, The Analysis ofBeauty (1754), ed. Joseph Burke(Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1955), plate II.58. See Otto Busch, Militarsystem und Sozialleben im alten Preu$en (Frankfurt:Ullstein, 1981). Cf. I-lansBleckwenn, "Bauernfreiheitdurch Wehrpflicht-ein neuesBild der altpreufSischeArmee?"in Die Bewaffnung und Ausriustung der ArmeeF,riedrichsdes GroLen(Rastatt:Ileeresgeschichtliches Museum, 1986), 1-14.MILITARY IIISTORY * 621


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDTened the rules informing the minuet, and introduced elements of flexi-bility and increased mobility. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who wrotein praise of the waltz in 1774, remarked that it was a pleasure to dancebecause of the stimulating tensions that it created.59 Ballet masters fol-lowed suit. Not unlike Guibert, Jean-Jacques Noverre, who wasemployed as a ballet master at various courts at the end of the eighteenthcentury, described the bodies of dancers as being "in a continuous vibra-tion."60 Thus, towards the end of the eighteenth century, a sense ofdynamism and flexibility began to pervade aesthetics, which abolishedpreviously important behavioral distinctions and social barriers betweenthe courts, the towns and the countryside. In their place, a demand for"national" styles was heard.61 The newly acquired sense of dynamisminfluenced and greatly eased the military reforms which were going on atthe same time. That such dynamism provided not only for the socializa-tion of war, but also for the militarization of " national" societiesbecame explicit in the draft French constitution of 1793 which con-tained an article according to which every citizen had to undergo man-ual drill.62

Proliferation of Portable FirearmsIt remains to be shown concretely how the aesthetics of well-orderedand constrained behavior influenced the military. To that end, this sec-tion is devoted to a cross-cultural comparison of the conditions underwhich portable firearms were used, and it will be argued that the aes-thetics of well-ordered and constrained behavior eased the deploymentof portable firearms in Europe while it impeded their proliferation else-where.As far as Europe is concerned, it is well known that the proliferation

of portable firearms was slow during the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-turies, despite the massive growth in the numbers of combatants, andthat portable firearms remained secondary in importance to such offen-sive weapons as the pike and the longbow throughout this period. It isequally well recorded that the users of portable firearms as well as cross-59. Johann Wolfgangvon Goethe, Die Leiden des jungen Werther(1774), Insel-Ausgabe (Frankfurt, s.a.), 22-25. Cf. Gerhard Anton Ulrich Vieth, Versuch einerEnzyklopadie derLeibesubungen, vol. 2 (1795; reprinted,Frankfurt:Limpert, 1970),181.60. Jean-Georges Noverre, Briefe uber die Tanzkunst und uber die Ballette(1769), ed. KurtPetermann (Leipzig:Zentralantiquariatder DDR, 1981), 226.61. Ilenri Abbe Gregoire, "Address to the National Assembly," in Michel deCerteau, Une politique de la langue (Paris:Gallimard,1986), 300-317.62. French constitution of 1793, in Les constitutions de la France depuis 1789,ed. Jacques Godechot (Paris:Garnier-Flammarion,1970).



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Using the Gunbowmen were not initially regarded as infantrymen, but as members ofthe artillery, that they were integrated into tactical formations with pike-men and halbardiers only in the course of the sixteenth century, andthat those artillery forces which handled cannon remained autonomousunits of specialist artisans who were not integrated into tactical forma-tions until the end of the seventeenth century. Thus the lansquenetmode of fighting in autonomous units with patterns of constrainedbehavior was established in contexts where the pike and similar offen-sive weapons far outnumbered handguns and other portable firearmsand spread mainly in those sixteenth-century armies in which pikes andlongbows continued to be in use. That is to say that the period ofretarded proliferation of portable firearms overlapped with the timewhen, except in England, manual drill was practiced only in theautonomous forces which followed the lansquenet mode of fighting. It iswell known, finally, that during the seventeenth century portablefirearms began to outnumber pikes, which were ultimately abandoned atthe turn of the eighteenth century together with the ubiquitousness ofmanual drill. Hence the latter was contemporaneous with the wideninguse of portable firearms in European armies.Outside Europe, firearms had been in use in the Muslim world andin India as well as in China, Korea, and Japan since the Middle Ages.However, remarkably little strategic use was made of them beyond siegewarfare at that time and even after the beginning of the European expan-sion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.63 One factor in the slowincrease in the use of portable firearms outside Europe was technicaland initially related to difficulties in obtaining supplies from Europe,problems with the use of firearms in bad weather, and the lack of trainedspecialists for the handling of cannon and portable firearms.64

63. For a description, see Georg von Ehingen, Des Schwabischen Ritters Georgvon Ehingen Reisen nach der Ritterschaft (Stuttgart: Litterarischer Verein inStuttgart, 1842), 22-23, 24.64. These problems were spelled out by IIernan Cort6s, Letters from Mexico(New Ilaven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), 53, 59-60, 131-36, 156-57, 166,181, 186, 195-96, 199, 206, 214, 242, 256, 262, Ilernando Alvarado Tezozomoc,Cr6nica mexicana y codie Ramirez (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma deMexico, 1975), cap. 28, p. 310; Juan de Torquemada,Monarquia indiana, vol. 1(Mexico:Porr6a, 1975), Lib. II, cap. 85, p. 309; PeterMartyrd'Anghiera,TheDecadesof the Newe World or WestIndia (1555; reprinted, Ann Arbor: University of Michi-gan Press, 1966), fol. 4r-v.Cf. Urs Bitterli,Alte Welt-neue Welt (Munich:C. II. Beck,1992), 77-96; Ross Ilassig,Aztec Warfare: mperial Expansion and Political Control(Norman:University of OklahomaPress, 1988), 105-9, 207-11; idem, War and Soci-ety in Ancient Mesoamerica (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1992); David E. Stannard, American IIolocaust: The Conquest of the NewWorld(New York:Oxford University Press, 1992), 75-81.MILITARY HtlSTORY * 623


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDTAnother retarding factor was cost. This cost factor began to mattermost when and in areas where European penetration was undertakenmainly by private chartered trading companies. Since members of and

investors in these companies were determined to make profits fromtrade, the provision of firearms together with the keeping and manningof fortresses was burdensome because it obliged the trading companiesto invest in military personnel and equipment. Moreover, it became clearby the end of the seventeenth century that the maintenance of militarystrongholds could impede trade, because it provoked resentmentsamong the natives of the surrounding areas. According to one critic ofJosiah Child, who was governor of the English East India Company from1684 to 1686 and from 1688 to 1690, fortresses and the use of firearmsfrightened off the people with whom traders had to do business.65 Heconcluded that trading companies would do better without fortressesand even predicted, correctly, though somewhat prematurely, that theDutch East India Company would go bankrupt if they continued to keeptheir strongholds. The weight of such conclusions was strong enough toprovoke, as late as the 1740s, the defensive statement that the mainte-nance of fortresses in Africa was necessary for securing continuous ben-efits for British trade, particularly the trans-Atlantic slave trade.66The third factor emerged from social costs, that is the nonmaterialexpenses which result, among others, from changes of patterns of behav-ior among the soldiers who were commanded or expected to usefirearms. This factor was most relevant in areas where firearms weredeployed in local armies. In sixteenth-century Southeast and East Asia,the local use of firearms is attested by the fact that such arms were man-ufactured there.67 In Japan, the use of firearms grew out of archery war-

65. [Comment on] Josiah Child, "A Discourse concerning the East-India Trade,"in A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on the Most Interesting and Enter-taining Subjects ... Selectedfrom ... theLibraries ... of the Late Lord John Somers,ed. Walter Scott, vol. 10 (1813; reprinted, New York: AMS Press, 1965), 636-39.66. The Importance of Effectually Supporting the Royal Afican Company ofEngland Impartially Consider'd (London: M. Cooper, 1744), 2.67. The Portuguese kings were keen to receive information about arms and war-fare in Asia; in 1508, Manuel I instructed Diogo Lopes de Sequeira to report on thekinds of "artillery" which were known in Malacca. See Donald Ferguson, "Lettersfrom Portuguese Captives in Canton, Written in 1534 and 1536," Indian Antiquary,2d ser., 30 (1901): 421. When Portuguese seafarers were imprisoned in Canton andrecommended to their government various schemes for the bombarding of the city,the Portuguese government did not respond, even after one of its subjects, TomasPires, had died. See Ferguson, ibid., 31 (1902): 23, 29-30, 34, 56-57 (1536). TomasPires, Summa Oriental 1512-1515, ed. Armando Cortesao, vol. 1 (London: IlakluytSociety, 1944), 123.624 * THE JOURNAL OF


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U-- sing the Gunfare.68Archers were highly mobile individual fighters, usually mounted,and it was their principal purpose to hit a target with the greatest possi-ble precision and at the longest possible distance.69 Unlike cannon,which came to be used in Japan against fortresses, portable firearmswere expected to accomplish the same goals as bows. Late sixteenth-cen-tury Japanese manuscript drill manuals laid down rules for the handlingof portable firearms, which were employed for military use and for hunt-ing. Descriptions showedindividual arquebusierswho were expected toshoot with the same degreeof precision as archers and

who had to be able to firefrom a variety of standing,jz


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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDT --their comrades, and to stand or move under the volleys of arrows or thefire of their opponents. I-lence, warfare with portable firearms in theopen field required attitudes and actions which were fundamentallyopposed to the rules for manual drill which were prescribed in the drillmanuals.The social cost of the deployment of portable firearms seems to havebeen considered too high in Japan, for, after extensive use of portablefirearms for about two generations in the sixteenth century,70 they werebanned from the arsenals. Manual drill continued at a few places andfirearms were still used as hunting weapons as late as in the eighteenthcentury.71 Likewise, cannon and mortars were still being cast in the sev-enteenth century.72 But these continuities only confirm that patterns ofconstrained behavior did not then emerge as integral parts of Japaneseways of fighting, and thus it made little sense to keep portable firearmsin continuing use.Similar evidence has been recorded from late sixteenth-centuryChina. Again, portable firearms were used together with manual drill, therules for which were laid down in drill manuals. But portable firearmsfailed to achieve tactical significance in warfare.73Thus, the third factor reducing the significance of portable firearmsin overseas warfare arose from the high social costs of the enforcementof patterns of constrained behavior together with the deployment oflarge numbers of portable firearms. These social costs mattered because,up to the end of the eighteenth century, other weapons existed in EastAsia which offered tactical and strategic alternatives.

70. Some three thousand portable firearms are estimated to have been used atNagashino in 1575. See Sakai Teppo (Sakai: Sakaishi Ilakubutsukan, 1990), 109-14;Koji lizuka, Toyo e no shikaku to seiyo e no shikaku (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1974), 260-87;Stephen Morillo, "Guns and Government: A Comparative Study of Europe andJapan," Journal of World History 6 (1995): 75-105; Noel Perrin, Giving Up the Gun:Japan' s Reversion to the Sword (Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 1980). Perrin points tocultural preferences in the use of weapons but ignores bodily behavior.71. Fritz Opitz, "Die Lehensreform des Tokugawa Nariaki nach dem 'litachi Obi'des Fujita Toko" (Phil. diss., Munich, 1965), 46 n.2. The drill manual by (Pseudo-)Wilhelm Dilich, Kriegs-Schule (1689; reprinted, Magstadt: Bissinger, 1967), was usedin Mito in the eighteenth century as a means of instruction. A translation into Japan-ese was attempted, but failed because the translators mistook the German text of theoriginal for Dutch.72. See Walter Schmidlin, "Ulmer im Fernen Osten wahrend des 17. Jahrhun-derts," Mitteilungen des Vereinsftir Kunst und Altertum in Ulm und Oberschwaben29 (1934): 53-67.73. Ch'i Chi-kuang, Chi-hsiao hsin-shu, ed. and trans. Kai Werhahn-Mees, Praxisder chinesischen Kriegskunst (Munich: Bernard & Graefe, 1980), 110-74. Cf. JamesFerguson Millinger, "Ch'i Chi-kuang: A Study of Civil-Military Roles and Relations inthe Career of a Sixteenth-Century Warrior, Reformer, and Ilero" (Ph.D. diss., YaleUniversity, 1968).



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IIARALD KLEINSCIIMIDT - _constrained behavior onto the common infantrymen through regularmanual drill. In consequence, a gap occurred between, on the one side,patterns of self-constrained behavior to which peasants had to subjectthemselves in garrisons and in the field and, on the other, patterns offluid behavior current among the peasant population in the countryside.When peasants were drafted into the armed forces they had to adopt thepatterns of self-constrained behavior which were prescribed for the mil-itary, and when they returned to the countryside, they had to adaptthemselves again to the fluid patterns of behavior which were normalthere. This gulf persisted to the end of the eighteenth century.Beginning in the 1770s, the upper bourgeoisie began to appreciateand take over patterns of peasant behavior which were less constrained,allowed agility, and enabled individuals to enjoy tensions between posi-tions of rest and swift movements. Such dynamism was introduced intomilitary organization by the reformers who began to criticize the princi-ples informing linear tactics during and shortly after the Seven Years'War,and, in consequence, the previous rift between military and civilianpatterns of behavior narrowed. This process was enhanced early in the1790s, first in France and with support from the still mainly aristocraticofficer corps, and facilitated both the socialization of war and the milita-rization of society in the course of the nineteenth century.The superimposition of aristocratic patterns of self-constrainedbehavior onto the armed forces during the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies occurred simultaneously with the formation of linear tacticsand with the more efficient use of portable firearms. The rise of portablefirearms to become the weapon of choice of the common soldier wasthus closely connected in time with the superimposition of patterns ofself-constrained behavior upon the military under government control.Domestically, i.e., within the European polities of the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries, the spreading of patterns of self-constrainedbehavior was reflected in an ethics of self-constraint and a mechanisticaesthetics. Internationally, i.e., in European overseas relations, the lackof transferability of patterns of self-constrained behavior may have givento some European governments the tactical advantage they began toprofit from towards thle end of the eighteenth century.74The conclusions drawn here are predominantly negative. The his-tory of manual drill calls into question the belief that the efficiency ofcertain types of weapons depends mainly on factors of technology.

Hence, the decision to use or, for that matter, to give up the gun was notsolely due to the availability of technologies. Instead, it may be advanta-74. As Adam Smith noted in his work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes ofthe Wealth of Nations (1776), ed. R. II. Campbell,A. S. Skinner, and W. B. Todd,vol.2 (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1976), 699.

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- using the Gungeous to take into consideration such culturally specific social factors aspatterns of self-constrained behavior and such social costs as the sub-jection of the common soldier to rigorous government-controlled disci-pline, in order to disentangle the complex interrelationship between war,the "state" and "society." Rather than to superior technological quality,the proliferation of portable firearms in eighteenth-century Europeanarmies was due to the lack of fundamental technological change. Thecontinuously poor technical quality of portable firearms had to be com-pensated for by their deployment in large numbers, in well-orderedarmies, under an ethics of self-constraint and a mechanistic aesthetics.

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Documents

Military Drill 001