Charles Ardant of Picq

Charles Ardant of Picq (Périgueux, October 19th 1821 - Metz, August 18th 1870) was a Colonel French and a military theorist.

Biography

Charles, Jean, Jacques, Joseph Ardant of Picq were born the October 19th 1821 with Périgueux, in a family which did not have a particular military tradition. Impassioned by the history, it enters to the Military Special Ecole of Saint-Cyr military school, the November 15th 1842 and second lieutenant leaves there. October 1st 1844, it is affected with the 67e regiment of infantry of line with Lyon. It is named lieutenant on May 15th 1848 and captain on August 15th 1852, it is affected with the 9th battalion of hunter to foot on December 25th 1853. He takes part in the Crimean War of March 29th 1854 at May 27th 1856. He is made prisoner with Sébastopol, on September 8th 1855 at the time of the attack on the bastion central and released on December 13rd. February 15th, 1856, it is promoted major, affected with the 100e regiment of infantry of line, then with the 16th battalion of hunters to foot on March 17th, 1856. From September 1860 at June 1861, it takes part in the countryside of Syria. January 23rd 1863, it is transferred to the 37e regiment of infantry of line then on January 16th 1864 with the 55e regiment with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. It takes share with repression in Algérie of 1864 with 1866. February 27th 1869, it takes the command of the 10th regiment of infantry of line with Limoges (6th Army corps, the 1st Division, 1st Brigade) with the rank of colonel. It is seriously wounded with Longeville-the-Metz on August 15th 1870, a fractured leg and the thigh opened by a glare of shell. He dies in the military hospital of Metz on August 18th, 1870.

Doctrines

The essence of the doctrines of Charles Ardant of Picq is expressed in the book Études on the Combat published in 1880 at Hachette and Dumaine. This work of approximately 380 pages is articulated around two chapters, one on the old war, the other on the modern war. They are followed of two minor and added again appendices, one on fires of Infanterie, the other on companies of the center device. The book is concluded by a unit from letters and the result from the questionnaires which it forwarded to soldiers. Its governing idea consists in showing that the combat rests above all on the human being and in particular on its psychology “thus Study the man in the combat because it is him which makes reality”. Indeed, for him, the defeat is before a a whole psychological rupture due in particular to the fear and which generates the disorder, confusion and panic. To fight against this fear and to take the ascending one, it is necessary to educate the moral fiber of the soldiers through the discipline, confidence and solidarity. The victory is thus based on an education of the soldier who must be firmly ordered by Officiers convinced of their role. Ardant of Picq thus places deliberately from the point of view very different that from the military thought dominant for the time, still heavily marked by the epopee Napoleonean and based on the superiority of the number and the means. It is not deprived besides to criticize the theory of the “big battalions”. Its approach is at the same time very scientist and very modern since it extracts his conclusions from questionnaires which it diffuses near the officers, warrant officers and soldiers “having made the war”.

Importance of its doctrines today

Holding of the “offensive at all costs” which guides the French Army during the initial months of the First World War took again on their account the theory of ascending psychological; but they forgot an essential aspect of the thought of Ardant of Picq, it is that fire keep silent and that the modern combat is a remote combat which refuses the body with body.

After 140 years, Ardant of Picq is a particularly modern and relevant military thinker by the vision which it has of warlike violence and the psychology of the combatant. Its “microstrategic” prospect, sight of the combatant, slice on the “macrostrategic” approaches which privilege the operation of the masses and the numbers. Its place thus remains dominating in the military libraries, in particular at the Anglo-Saxons.

Bonds

Charles Ardant of Picq, Studies on the Combat , Hatchet and Dumaine, 1880 Library Gallica

Random links: