The revolutionary method of arming the entire population was subjected to certain limitations and chiefly as regards the excusing of the well to do, and in this form became common to most of the great continental countries. Prussia alone sought by its militia system to make the entire force of its people available for military purposes. Prussia was the first state to provide its entire infantry with the latest weapons, and to place officers in the rear, since between 1830 and 1860 trained officers leading their troops had played an unimportant part. The results of 1866 were largely due to these innovations. In the Franco Prussian War two armies came into contact both of which had their officers in the rear and which both used substantially the same tactics as in the time of the old smooth bore flintlocks. The Prussians however by the introduction of company columns had made an attempt to discover a method of fighting more suitable to the new system of arming. But on the 18th of August at St. Privat the Prussian guard which employed the company column formation lost the most part of five regiments, over a third of its strength in two hours (176 officers and 5114 men) after which the company column form of battle order came in for no less criticism than the battalion column form and the line formation. Every attempt to oppose a solid formation to the fire of the enemy was thereafter abandoned. The battle was thereafter, on the German side, carried on by dense swarms of riflemen into which the columns dissolved under the fire of the enemy spontaneously, without orders from the superior officers, and this was, in fact, the only possible method of advance under fire. The private soldier was again cleverer than his officer; he had discovered the only form of fighting formation, and set himself to follow it in spite of the resistance of his leaders.