After 1794 the system underwent but little radical change until the end of the Revolutionary period. Its regiments grew in military value month by month and attained their highest level in the great campaign of 1796. In 1795 the French forces (now all styled National Guard) consisted of 531,000 men, of whom 323,000 were infantry (100 3-battalion demi-brigades), 97,000 light infantry (30 demi-brigades), 29,000 artillery, 20,000 engineers and 59,000 cavalry. This novel army developed novel fighting methods, above all in the infantry. This arm had just received a new drill-book, as the result of a prolonged controversy (see INFANTRY) between the advocates of "lines" and "columns," and this drill-book, while retaining the principle of the line, set controversy at rest by admitting battalion columns of attack, and movements at the "quick" (100-120 paces to the minute) instead of at the "slow" march (76). On these two prescriptions, ignoring the rest, the practical troop leaders built up the new tactics little by little, and almost unconsciously. The process of evolution cannot be stated exactly, for the officers learned to use and even to invent now one form, now another, according to ground and circumstances. But the main stream of progress is easily distinguishable. Tactics. The earlier battles were fought more or less according to the drill-book, partly in line for fire action, partly in column for the bayonet attack. But line movements required the most accurate drill, and what was attainable after years of practice with regulars moving at the slow march was wholly impossible for new levies moving at 120 paces to the minute. When, therefore, the line marched off, it broke up into a shapeless swarm of individual firers. This was the form, if form it can be called, of the tactics of 1793--"horde-tactics," as they have quite justly been called--and a few such experiences as that of Hondschoote sufficed to suggest the need of a remedy. This was found in keeping as many troops as possible out of the firing line. From 1794 onwards the latter becomes thinner and thinner, and instead of the drill-book form, with half the army firing in line (practically in hordes) and the other half in support in columns, we find the rear lines becoming more and more important and numerous, till at last the fire of the leading line (skirmishers) becomes insignificant, and the decision rests with the bayonets of the closed masses in rear. Indeed, the latter often used mixed line and column formations, which enabled them not only to charge, but to fire close-order volleys--absolutely regardless of the skirmishers in front. In other words, the bravest and coolest marksmen were let loose to do what damage they could, and the rest, massed in close order, were kept under the control of their officers and only exposed to the dissolving influence of the fight