Guibert vs. Guibert: Competing Notions in the Essai général de tactique and the Défense du système de guerre modern

Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, the Comte de Guibert, was the Enlightenment-era author of two major books on military matters, the Essai générale de tactique and the Défense du système de guerre moderne. Historians still cite the first book as a foundational text for the wars of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. His second work, however, retracted most of his earlier ideas, and instead argued in favor of the “limited warfare” perfected by Frederick the Great of Prussia. This second work attracted little attention in its own time, and historians likewise have cast it as a text that calls into question Guibert’s reputation as the great prophet of Napoleon. This essay, however, argues that the Défense proved to be equally as prophetic as the Essai, and represents more of a continuation than a refutation of Guibert’s earlier ideas.