I shall endeavor to fulfill this task in a few words, in order to complete what was published on this point twenty years ago in the Summary of the Art of War. The important question of the influence of musketry-fire in battles is not new: it dates from the reign of Frederick the Great, and particularly from the battle of Mollwitz, which he gained (it was said) because his infantry-soldiers, by the use of cylindrical rammers in loading their muskets, were able to fire three shots per minute more than their enemies.[55] The discussion which arose at this epoch between the partisans of the shallow and deep orders of formation for troops is known to all military students. The system of deployed lines in three ranks was adopted for the infantry; the cavalry, formed in two ranks, and in the order of battle, was deployed upon the wings, or a part was held in reserve. The celebrated regulation for maneuvers of 1791 fixed the deployed as the only order for battle: it seemed to admit the use of battalion-columns doubled on the center only in partial combats,--such as an attack upon an isolated post, a village, a forest, or small intrenchments.[56] The insufficient instruction in maneuvers of the troops of the Republic forced the generals, who were poor tacticians, to employ in battle the system of columns supported by numerous skirmishers. Besides this, the nature of the countries which formed the theaters of operations--the Vosges, Alps, Pyrenees, and the difficult country of La Vendée--rendered this the only appropriate system. How would it have been possible to attack the camps of Saorgio, Figueras, and Mont-Cenis with deployed regiments? In Napoleon's time, the French generally used the system of columns, as they were nearly always the assailants. In 1807, I published, at Glogau in Silesia, a small pamphlet with the title of "Summary of the General Principles of the Art of War," in which I proposed to admit for the attack the system of lines formed of columns of battalions by divisions of two companies; in other words, to march to the attack in lines of battalions closed in mass or at half-distance, preceded by numerous skirmishers, and the columns being separated by intervals that may vary between that necessary for the deployment of a battalion and the minimum of the front of one column. What I had recently seen in the campaigns of Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau had convinced me of the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of marching an army in deployed lines in either two or three ranks, to attack an enemy in position. It was this conviction which led me to publish the pamphlet above referred to. This work attracted some attention, not only on account of the treatise on strategy, but also on account of what was said on tactics.