By the exertions of Seydlitz, the cavalry of Frederick was made superior to any other then existing or ever existing before it; and its bold riding, close order, dashing charge, and quick rallying have never yet been surpassed. The artillery was considerably lightened, so much that some of the heavy-calibred guns were not able to stand full charges, and had therefore to be abolished afterward. Yet the heavy artillery was still very slow and clumsy in its movements, owing to inferior and heavy carriages and imperfect organization. In battle, it took up its position from the first, and sometimes changed it for a second position, more in advance; but manoeuvring there was none. The light artillery, the regimental guns attached to the infantry, were placed in front of the infantry line, 50 paces in advance of the intervals of the battalions; they advanced with the infantry, the guns dragged by the men, and opened fire with canister at 300 yards. The number of guns was very large, from three to six guns per 1,000 men. The infantry, as well as the cavalry, were organized in brigades and divisions; but as there was scarcely any manoeuvring after the battle had begun, and as every battalion had to remain in its proper place in the line, these subdivisions had no tactical influence.

With the cavalry, a general of brigade might now and then, during a charge, have to act upon his own responsibility; but with the infantry such a case could never occur. This line formation, infantry in two lines in the centre, cavalry in two or three lines on the wings, was a considerable progress upon the deep formation of former days. It developed the full effect of infantry fire, as well as of the charge of cavalry, by allowing as many men as possible to act simultaneously; but its very perfection in this point confined the whole army, as it were, in a strait waistcoat. Every squadron, battalion, or gun had its regulated place in the order of battle, which could not be inverted or in any way disturbed without affecting the efficiency of the whole. On the march, therefore, everything had to be so arranged that when the army formed front again for encampment or battle, every subdivision got exactly into its correct place. Thus, any manoeuvres to be executed had to be executed with the whole army; to detach a single portion of it for a flank attack, to form a particular reserve for the attack, with superior forces, of a. weak point, would have been impracticable and faulty with such slow troops, fit only to fight in line, and with an order of battle of such stiffness.

Then, the advance in battle of such long lines was necessarily executed with consider-able slowness, in order to keep up the alignment. Tents followed the army constantly, and were pitched every night; the camp was slightly intrenched. The troops were fed from magazines, the halving establishments accompanying the army as much as possible. In short, the baggage and other train of the army were enormous, and hampered its movements to a degree unknown nowadays. Yet, with all these drawbacks, the military organization of Frederick the Great was by far the best of its day, and was eagerly adopted by all other European governments. The recruiting of the forces was almost everywhere carried on by voluntary enlistments, assisted by kidnapping; and it was only after very severe losses that Frederick had recourse to forced levies from his provinces. - When the war of the coalition against the French republic began, the French army was disorganized by the loss of its officers, and numbered less than 150,000 men. The numbers of the enemy were far superior; new levies became necessary, and were made to an immense extent, in the shape of national volunteers, of which in 1793 there must have been at least 500 battalions in existence.

These troops were not drilled, nor was there time to drill them according to the complicated system of line tactics, and to the degree of perfection required by movements in line. Every attempt to meet the enemy in line was followed by a signal defeat, though the French had far superior numbers. A new system of tactics became necessary. The American revolution had shown the advantage to he gained with undisciplined troops from extended order and skirmishing fire. The French adopted it, and supported the skirmishers by deep columns, in which a little disorder was less objectionable so long as the mass remained well together. In this formation they launched their superior numbers against the enemy, and were generally successful. This new formation and the want of experience of their troops led them to fight in broken ground, in villages and woods, where they found shelter from the enemy's fire, and where his line was invariably disordered; their want of tents, field batteries, etc, compelled them to bivouac without shelter, and to live upon what the country afforded them. Thus they gained a mobility unknown to their enemies, who were encumbered with tents and all sorts of baggage.

When the revolutionary war had produced in Napoleon the man who reduced this new mode of warfare to a regular system, combined it with what was still useful in the old system, and brought the new method at once to that degree of perfection which Frederick had given to line tactics, then the French were almost invincible, until their opponents had learned from them, and organized their armies upon the new model. The principal features of this new system are: the restoration of the old principle that every citizen is liable in case of need to be called out for the defence of the country, and the consequent formation of the army, by compulsory levies of greater or less extent, from the whole of the inhabitants; a change by which the numerical force of armies was at once raised to threefold the average of Frederick's time, and might in case of need be increased to larger proportions still. Then, the discarding of camp utensils, and of depen-dence for provisions upon magazines, and the introduction of the bivouac and of the rule that war feeds war, increased the celerity and independence of an army as much as its numer-ical force was raised by the rule of general liability to serve.