Atlantic Politics, Military Strategy and the French and Indian War by Richard Hall

Author:Richard Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Petite Guerre in Europe: The Experiences of the British Army

When the British Army deployed to America in 1755 it did so with an ardent belief in the supremacy of the regular way of war that had led it to victory at iconic battles such as Blenheim, Dettingen and Culloden. The most enduring image of eighteenth-century European warfare is of two formally arrayed opponents fighting a chess-piece style battle that was epitomized by ordered volleys of musketry, intricate formations and cavalry charges that were carefully coordinated by the officers of each opposing army. It is this school of war that dominates contemporary paintings of the period and was supposedly intertwined with ideals of “chivalry and honor”; principles to which all armies were expected to adhere. 79 This meant that, in theory at least, the excesses of the horrific religious wars that blighted Europe in the seventeenth century could be curtailed.

This was always a rather romantic representation of eighteenth-century combat and is only part of the history of warfare during this period. Indeed, running parallel to this formal, official mode of war was a far nastier, brutal and indiscriminate strain. The French called this fighting style petite guerre, or small war, and it was something all European armies would have been familiar with at this time. For most, petite guerre was the antithesis of regular war. Unlike the parade-ground encounters of grand battles such as Fontenoy or Malplaquet, petite guerre focused on raids against enemy detachments, ambushes of isolated outposts, and the devastation of the infrastructure of one’s enemy—fields, towns, villages and so on. It also included the use of terror tactics against civilians, and it was towards this most vulnerable segment of the population that the most barbaric excesses were often committed. The use of torture, rape and murder were the chilling by-products of petite guerre.

Despite the traditional notion of eighteenth-century warfare as a gentleman’s pursuit, with petite guerre confined to the more criminal elements of opposing armies, the truth, by the middle of the 1700s, was that this particular brand of warfare had become central to the strategic thinking of nearly all major European armies. Indeed, some of Europe’s most famous battles had already witnessed a growing role for irregular units whose worth had been proven to the commanders who often deployed them ahead of (and as auxiliaries to) large, regular armies. Prior to, and during, the epic battle of Fontenoy, for example, the fields and villages surrounding that battlefield were crammed with mercenary irregular troops—Pandurs, Grassins and the like. The latter, an important element within the French army, were instrumental in deciding the outcome of this engagement. 80

Within most European armies, therefore, there existed, by the mid-1700s, specific doctrines concerned with the prosecution of irregular war. In France, notable figures such as the Marshal Saxe, Francois de la Croix and Thomas Auguste de Grandmaison had all contributed to the adaptation of irregular tactics into the French army. Saxe himself would, paradoxically, theorize about ways to counter such forces, having

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