Hello Mr. Cornwell, Big fan and have contacted you numerous times in the past. My question is, about the French Column formation. I was under the impression that the column was not actually used within musket range for the most part, until after 1807/08 when the quality of French Troops declined. I remember reading in Chandler's "campaign's of Napoleon" that the French in the revolutionary period deployed into a three rank line before the final assault. Tactics in that period are really so confusing, now I'm reading a book on the period that suggests that most of the battles were fought in loose skirmish order, but I cannot believe that for cavalry would have destroyed those troops. I guess we will never know for sure. Mark Anthony Savannah
The column was developed by the French Revolutionary armies at the beginning of the Revolutionary wars, i.e. around 1793. It wasn't a new formation, of course. Previously armies had used the three deep line to maximise firepower, and the French went on using that defensively right through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period - the British reduced it to two lines, thus broadening the arc of fire. The advantage of the column to the French was that it was a convenient formation for pushing a mass of semi-trained conscripts into attack - remember that the Revolutionary Army was conscripted, not a 'volunteer' force like every other professional army, and so it was less well trained. It also had a huge psychological effect on the enemy. Most battles were certainly NOT fought in loose skirmish order. Skirmishers were posted ahead of the line or column, but a whole infantry force in skirmish order would have been wiped out by cavalry in minutes. In an ideal world the column transformed itself into a line at the last moment, but that rarely happened under the impact of musketry.