The 1791 Charter: The Grammar of the System
The Battle of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805), painted by the artist J. Beaufort
French infantry formations have existed and been known individually for a long time. But it wasn't a human being who compiled them into a system, with a vocabulary of formations and rules for transitioning between them. It was a document.
Rules The 1791 battle didn't explain how to win, nor did it contain the secret of Napoleon's triumphs. It did something more modest and important: it provided a language in which any order could be given. In a matter of minutes, the same battalion could become a line, a dense column, or a square bristling in all directions. This reversibility was the whole point of the undertaking.
Dictionary of Formations
The 1791 Drill Regulations codified the repertoire of formations and the rules for transitions between them; it underpinned all infantry training, both during the Revolution of the 1790s and under the Napoleonic Empire. The basic tactical unit was the battalion. It was the unit that transitioned from one form to another, and its formations were used to measure proficiency. The vocabulary of this language was small and therefore reliable: four basic formations, each with its own purpose.
Expanded formation, or line (ordre déployé), the battalion lined up in ranks along the front. This was the main form of firefighting, the regulation depth of which was three ranks. Column (column) built units in depth, one after the other, and served primarily for marching and maneuvering. Square (square.) rolled the battalion into a square, facing the front in all four directions, against the cavalry, which could only crush the open flank or rear, and the square simply did not have them. Finally, the loose formation (ordre dispersé) sent shooters forward-tirailleurs, scattered in front and on the flanks.
These marksmen deserve a special mention. Unlike the line soldier, who fired an impersonal volley at the general enemy, the marksman in open order fired with precision: he hid behind the terrain, selecting his target—an officer, an artilleryman, a noncommissioned officer. Thus, he methodically wore down the enemy's dense formation, while remaining a difficult target himself. Where the 18th-century line relied on the density of barrels, the open order brought the marksmanship of the individual back into battle. Four formations—that's the entire vocabulary. It's of little use, however, until you learn to string words together into phrases.
This drawing illustrates a French tactic during the Napoleonic Wars known as the "mixed order" (l'ordre mixte)
Transitions decide everything
The value of the 1791 regulations wasn't in the formations themselves, as every European army knew their general outlines. It was in the rules and speed of marches. This is where the art of war actually began. Columns, for example, varied in front width and purpose. Column by division (par division) marched in front of a whole division, in two companies placed side by side, and was wider and shorter. The column by platoons (par peloton) advanced in a single-company formation: twice as wide as the divisional columns and, with the same number of men, twice as deep. The columns also differed in density: at a close range, the units were drawn together almost closely, while at a deployment range, they maintained sufficient intervals between them to allow them to form a line at the right moment.
A caveat is necessary here, without which it is easy to get lost. Division (division) According to the drill regulations, a battalion is simply a pair of companies, an element within a battalion. It should not be confused with a division, a large military unit of thousands of men (which will be discussed in a separate discussion about the reform of army organization). One French word, two incomparable scales. The regulations refer to the smaller one.
The choice of formation at any given moment depended on the mission, the terrain, the threat, and the battalion's own training. But the real focus of training wasn't the formation itself. It was the transition: how quickly and smoothly the column deployed into a line, how quickly the line folded into a square, and how quickly the square extended into a column for the march. Here, seconds and habits honed to the point of automaticity were decisive. The army that reformed faster gained momentum even before the first shot was fired.
The image depicts a panorama of the Battle of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805), also known as the "Battle of the Three Emperors." Napoleon employed deep column tactics combined with loose formations of skirmishers. The painting shows dense infantry blocks (battalion columns), which ensured maneuverability and the power of bayonet thrusts.
Column is a verb
Of all the vocabulary, it's the column that's most often misunderstood. It's imagined as a combat formation, a dense mass advancing on the enemy. In reality, a column isn't about standing still and pressing. It's a form of movement and readiness, whose value wasn't measured by striking power, but by the ability to transform into something else at any moment. In a column, a battalion marched, maneuvered, and closed with the enemy. But the point of closing was, as a rule, to deploy into a line just before contact and meet the enemy with fire.
This is most clearly seen in the example of the attack column (colonne d'attacque), a battalion column with a divisional front, whose internal organization was specifically designed for rapid deployment. Units were positioned so that, on command, the outermost units would move to the right and left of the center, drawing the battalion into line in a matter of seconds. And when faced with a sudden cavalry threat, the same column would almost instantly close into a square. It was a flexible structure, pre-designed for transformation. A charge by the column itself, without deploying, also occurred, but as one of several possible solutions, not as a universal law. The column carried within itself not the intention to ram, but the possibility of choice.
When grammar meets myth—and a lack of people
This demonstrates the fragility of the most common myth of these wars. It's as if the French habitually threw a dense column directly into the line of fire and paid for it with piles of bodies under fire. The image is striking, but the regulations and combat reports tell a different story: the column was primarily a maneuverable, pre-battle formation, and its goal was most often to turn into a line before the clash. The outcome of a column-line engagement was essentially determined by one thing: whether the column had time to turn around. If it did, its own fire, the support of riflemen, and artilleryIf not, it would be a narrow target against a broad front capable of firing along its entire length.
This was the basis of the British line's tactics. Encountering a French column that hadn't yet formed into a deployed formation, it would unleash a volley, which the French could only respond to with fire from a few front ranks. Furthermore, the British traditionally formed in two ranks rather than three, and with the same number of soldiers, they obtained a longer line capable of fielding more guns.
In 1813, the French infantry officially adopted this two-line formation. The date speaks volumes: the defeat of 1812 was behind them. The transition was forced: after catastrophic losses, trained soldiers were becoming increasingly scarce, and two ranks instead of three allowed for a longer firing line, while occupying the same distance with fewer men. While the army gained in line length, it lost in stability against cavalry. But there was little choice. The rules of formation had not changed, but something else had: there were fewer and fewer living, trained soldiers capable of enforcing them.
As for the image of the column-battering ram, it was cemented by 19th-century military historians, most notably Charles Oman, who described Napoleon's tactics as a frontal assault of dense columns, smashing into British fire. The image was clear and almost always consistent. Later studies of battle reports restored its lost complexity: the column, it turns out, more often sought to turn around than to ram.
The 1791 regulations provided the French army with a precise set of formations and rules for combining them. But any regulations without a trained battalion that could regroup without hesitation were a dead letter. By 1813, such battalions were becoming increasingly rare, and the wealth of instructions found less and less application. How these formations converged in actual combat, how infantry, cavalry, and artillery worked together, will have to be examined separately.
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