PICQ, Charles Ardant du.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Étude du combat d'après l'antique. First edition, privately printed in 100 copies, presentation copy, inscribed on the half-title, "À l'ami d'Alaux [?], Ardant".Following this treatise on ancient battle tactics, Du Picq worked on a treatise on modern battle. He died in the Franco-Prussian war, and the treatises were posthumously combined as Études sur le combat, published in 1880. He argued that modern firepower required disciplined professional troops, favouring defence over close formations and bayonet charges. His work remained little known until the second edition of 1903, which "had an immediate impact and turned Battle Studies into a much admired classic. The book sold five more editions before the outbreak of the First World War. It was cited by everybody from both the older and younger generations of French military authors... du Picq was certainly popular and influential in the decade before the war" (Gat, p. 12). The 1921 English-language edition introduced his ideas to Anglo-American military thought and presented du Picq "as the spiritual mentor of the new French school headed by Marshal Foch" (Gat, p. 13); Foch contributed an introduction.The recipient is uncertain. It is possibly the writer Gustave d'Alaux (1816-1885), author of L'empereur Soulouque et son empire (1856) on the Haitian military leader. More likely, it is the Pierre Alaux recorded as a maréchal de logis in the 1er régiment de spahis in Algeria (Journal militaire officiel, 1874); Du Picq served

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