Moritz, the founder of the modern European army drill system
Zhang Jingshan Zhou Baoxin
Before the beginning of the 17th century, the history of European army training was still vague. Drilling day after day all year round, and even using spare time during battles, was considered neither necessary nor practical. By the 17th century, the Dutch took the lead in training
Major improvements were made in military management and daily affairs. They found that long-term repeated drills can make soldiers more obedient and increase the combat effectiveness of the army. The main figure who promoted the modern daily drill system of the army was Prince Moritz of Nassau.
Prince Moritz, state activist, commander and military reformer of the United Provincial Republic (Netherlands). "The Silent Man of Orange" William I? The second son of Orange. He was born in Dillen on November 13, 1567.
Fort, received a university education, majoring in mathematics and classical works. Moritz inherited his father's solemn conduct. After his father was assassinated in 1584, despite his youth, he was still elected president of the United Provincial Assembly. He was elected in November 1585
He was the governor of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and Zeeland. In 1586, he was granted the Dutch fiefdom and called himself King of Orange.
Prince Moritz had been fighting against the Spanish in the revolutionary army commanded by William I since his boyhood. In 1590, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Moritz was one of the most advanced military activists at the time. He was also a talented man.
and talented commander, but he received more praise as a military reformer and strategist than a tactician.
Faced with the problem of fighting the Spanish in the Low Countries, Moritz looked for examples in Roman history and tried to draw the essence of military technology from them. However, Prince Moritz did not blindly follow the Roman predecessors. He emphasized three things.
One thing that was not popular in European armies before him was the shovel. Roman soldiers in the past were used to using temporary earth walls to strengthen their camps. Moritz also built earth walls, especially for soldiers to surround enemy towns or fortresses.
Before his time, European armies did not pay much attention to digging and building walls. Avoiding danger or digging holes to hide behind walls was a sign of cowardice. Armies usually relied on labor recruited from nearby areas to accomplish most of what they deemed necessary.
The work of digging trenches. However, for Prince Moritz's troops, shovels were more powerful than swords or muskets. The besieging army systematically dug trenches and built walls to defend the outer line, which could prevent the enemy from relieving the siege.
Reinforcements attacked without relaxing the siege. Moritz's army followed this method to siege the city, and suffered less damage from the firepower of the defending enemy. At the same time, they continued to dig in, getting closer and closer to the enemy's trenches and walls until they could launch the final
In this way, the siege became a project, and shoveling and digging became the daily work of the siege soldiers. In the fortress warfare that was widely popular at the time, the Dutch army was the first to use trenches close to the enemy and opposite trenches, and tunnels.
and anti-tunnels. This brought the military engineering of the Dutch army to a considerable level. Moritz made a great contribution to the development of military engineering. Moreover, this heavy labor had a side effect, that is, it almost wiped out
The lazy habits and dissolute behavior of officers and soldiers.
In Western Europe, Moritz was the first to implement doctrine in the army. According to the doctrine, the army conducted systematic and uniform combat training and strengthened discipline. This was Moritz's second and most important innovation. He forced soldiers to
They practice loading and firing arquebuses; spearmen must practice spear-holding positions while advancing and in battle. This kind of training is not unprecedented. The army always needs to train new recruits, but previous instructors believed that once a man
When people learn to use weapons, the task is completed. This idea is not unreasonable. The difference between Moritz and his predecessors is that his approach is much more systematic. He integrated the rather complicated loading and shooting of the arquebus
The action is broken down into 42 single continuous actions, and each action is given a name and a command word. Since the soldiers move at the same time and in the same rhythm, everyone can be ready to launch at the same time. In this way, the volley is easy and
Naturally, creating a blast through the enemy ranks. What's more, soldiers can reload and fire much faster and are much less likely to overlook any important steps. As a result, the gun is more efficient than ever
.Therefore, Moritz accordingly increased the number of muskets in his troops.
He also regularized the troops. By training the soldiers to move in an orderly manner, the soldiers of the entire unit could move forward, retreat, left, and right in a prescribed manner, turning columns into horizontal columns, and then from horizontal columns into columns. Prince Moritz
The most important action in the drill is to march in the opposite direction. After a row of arquebusiers or musketeers has finished firing, they walk between the two rows of soldiers standing behind them and reload their bullets behind the queue. At the same time, the next row of gunners
Once the guns have been reloaded and the other platoons have fired and fallen back into position, the first platoon of gunners can begin the second volley without any hindrance or delay. In this way, a well-trained unit can fire like
The performance is a well-choreographed military ballet, with a series of volleys fired in rapid succession, so that before the enemy has time to wake up from the firepower of the first volley, another volley hits the target. The trick here is to choose the moment.
At the same time, it is also to prevent soldiers from escaping the battlefield when they turn their backs to the enemy to walk to the queue and reload. Repeated training to make every action semi-automatic can reduce the possibility of malfunction to a minimum.
The strict supervision of soldiers by a large number of officers and sergeants is also a necessary measure to make marching in the opposite direction practical and feasible.
Moritz's third reform made the drills more effective, and repeated drills in turn improved the effectiveness of the reforms. During his tenure as commander-in-chief of the United Provinces, Moritz and his brother William Louis implemented a number of military reforms. Moritz implemented
He took a series of important measures to improve the mobility of cavalry and artillery and strengthen their assault force, and established a new cavalry unit of mercenaries (cuirassiers) and light artillery. He streamlined the reorganization of troops and made each combat unit more suitable
For mobile warfare, he modeled the detachment form of the ancient Roman legions and divided the army into smaller tactical units than usual. A battalion consisted of 550 people, and the battalion was further divided into companies and platoons. Divided into such small units, it is very convenient to drill.
, one person's password can control the movements of all soldiers. In this small unit, personal connections can also be established from the commander to the new recruits. They can move flexibly on the battlefield, and can act independently.
They also cooperate with each other, because a clear series of orders can be passed from the general commanding the entire campaign to the sergeant leading each row of soldiers. Commanders at all levels in the command chain execute the orders of their superiors and convey the orders to
Lower-level officers and soldiers, and detailed explanations based on actual conditions. This reform heralded the emergence of modern battalions.
In this way, the army becomes an organism with a central nervous system that communicates with each other and can therefore respond sensitively and wisely to unexpected situations. Every action reaches a new level in terms of accuracy and speed. Each battalion
Movement on the battlefield and even the individual actions of soldiers when shooting and marching can be controlled and anticipated, which has not been possible before. A well-trained combat unit, each action meets the prescribed requirements,
It can increase the number of bullets fired at the enemy every minute in battle. The dexterity and firm will of a single infantryman have almost no effect; the bravery and courage of an individual have almost completely disappeared in the face of immutable routines. The military career appears
A new look has emerged, and profound changes have taken place in the daily life of the army. Troops trained in the Moritz style naturally show strong combat effectiveness in battles. After people realize this, even among the most conservative officers and gentlemen
, the informal and heroic military activities of the past have gradually disappeared.
High efficiency in battle is important, but it is not as important as the higher efficiency that well-trained troops have shown in defending cities and sieges. After all, soldiers spend almost all their time preparing to confront the enemy.
For the past armies, how to prevent the army from becoming restless and difficult to discipline while waiting has always been a problem. In cross-country marches, this problem can be easily solved, but when an army camped in one place
, if you do nothing for several days or months, morale is likely to be low and discipline will be loose. Drilling for a few hours a day is easy to organize, has obvious effects, and is easy to implement. Therefore, the discipline of the guard troops is easy to maintain.
The armies of ancient Greece and Rome also used this instinct to unite their soldiers and civilians. When Moritz reviewed the practices of the Roman legions and changed their drill methods to suit his era, he was actually managing his army
The method is based on ancient and time-tested European traditions.
The rigorously trained military is usually isolated from the society in which it is located to a considerable extent. Recruits recruited directly from the countryside only need a short psychological adaptation process to integrate into artificial grassroots organizations such as companies and platoons. Although the training seems to
It may seem monotonous and repetitive, but it firmly binds various people, often from the lowest levels of society, together to form a tight-knit group that can obey orders even in tense moments when their lives are clearly in danger.
Therefore, the new drill method turned the military unit into a specialized collective, in which novel, standardized, face-to-face relationships effectively replaced the traditional social grouping. Therefore, the artificial personnel composed of well-trained platoons and companies
Societies very quickly replaced the usual hierarchies based on martial skill and status.
After implementing a series of military reforms and establishing the first-class mercenary army at that time in a short period of time, Moritz became more active in the struggle against the Spanish invaders. From 1590 to 1594, Prince Moritz led him through rigorous training
The soldiers who had gone through this process recaptured dozens of fortified towns from the Spanish in one fell swoop. Every time they carried out attacks and sieges, their technical precision and speed of action were unprecedented. This included the capture of Breda and Sri Lanka in 1590.
Tenbergen, captured Deventer and Zutphen in the spring of 1591, Nijmegen on October 14, Stenwijk in 1593 and Groningen in 1594. He defeated the Spanish again and again and liberated
He invaded the Northern Netherlands and directed combat operations to the Southern Netherlands (Belgium). Prince Moritz became famous as a result.
Moritz's training methods were not secret. In 1596, his cousin and close collaborator Johannes II of Nassau commissioned a painter named Jacob de Guern to illustrate the new drill of arquebusiers and smoothbores.
The postures of the gunners and pikemen were illustrated one by one. In 1607, these illustrations were published in a book. Each posture illustration occupies a whole page of the folio, and is accompanied by the corresponding command. Trainees or ordinary soldiers can learn from the book.
How to practice.
In order to train well-trained officers, Moritz founded a military academy in 1619 - another first in Europe. Some of the graduates of this military academy served under King Gustav Adolf of Sweden.
service. In this way, the new Dutch training method was introduced into the Swedish army. The Swedes in turn passed on this new drill method to all other armies in Europe. The excellent results of this method have been successfully proven again and again. Protestantism
The country first accepted this innovation and passed it on to the French and finally to the Spaniards. The Spaniards still clung to their own traditions at first, but reality soon changed their views. In Rocru
In the Battle of Valencia (1643), the French army, which had been strictly trained by the new drill method, defeated the Spanish infantry in the wilderness. Since then, knowledgeable people in the European military circles have unanimously believed that the new drill method is definitely better than the Spanish training method.
superior.
After decades of passing from army to army, various related behavioral characteristics gradually formed around the central activity of drill, thus forming a unique military lifestyle. Among them, there are prostitution, gambling, alcoholism; and pride.
sense, ceremonial details, and valor. In short, European armies did not completely break away from old ways and practices, but they did relegate certain traditions of military conduct to the margins and confine more destructive behavior to their spare time.
Inside.
Drills can especially cultivate the spirit of unity among ordinary soldiers, even if they come from the lowest strata of society. Drilled soldiers hold overwhelming power. As long as there are well-trained troops to protect the royal privileges, then no matter whether it is a challenge to the royal power by aristocrats
, or the protests raised by the lower classes against obvious injustices, had no hope of success. Therefore, Europe began to enjoy a high degree of domestic peace that was previously unattainable, which promoted a substantial increase in wealth. In this way, on the European continent
In many regions, it is possible to rely on tax revenue to support a professional military without placing an undue burden on the national economy.
Another inevitable result of Prince Moritz's reforms was the stabilization of the war and social patterns that had just emerged in Europe. Standardized drills prerequisited standardized weapons. In 1599 Moritz himself found it necessary to require the troops under his command to
The army must be equipped with uniform firearms, otherwise his new system cannot function. The short-term effect of this standardization is to greatly reduce military expenses. Once only one caliber of musket projectiles are needed on the battlefield, there will be no shortage of supply. And
, now that every soldier can be trained according to the precise movements of standardized drills, reinforcing any attenuated unit becomes almost as simple as replenishing musket balls. In short, the soldiers, like their weapons, become a huge military machine
It has parts that can be replaced at will. It is obvious that managing such an army is easier than before, and it is more likely to achieve the desired results than before.
In the transitional stage between the two eras of feudalism and capitalism, Moritz, as commander-in-chief, played a significant role in the development of military scholarship. As Prince Moritz's training and management model prevailed throughout Europe, and Europe
The military continued to develop in terms of technological and organizational innovation, and Europeans began to become more and more clearly superior militarily to other peoples on the planet. By the 19th century, it had become easy for Europe to pursue global imperialism, and for Asia
, for Africa and Oceania, this means that endless disasters are coming.
Author: Zhang Jingshan, a master's student at the Academy of Military Science; Zhou Baoxin, an assistant professor in the Political and Engineering Teaching and Research Section of Shijiazhuang Army Command College