L'Artillerie Francaise (1665-1765): Naissance d'une Arme (review)

Military historians are essentially in agreement that the Seven Years' War marked the nadir in the history of France's royal military establishment. Swept from the seas by the Royal Navy, losers of both India and Canada, given the "bum's rush" by Frederick at Rossbach, and mocked by its own Enlightened philosophes, a humiliated military began a series of reforms that would provide the revolutionary generals with the raw materials they needed to fight all Europe for a quarter century.

As usual there is broad truth in this interpretation, but a detailed account of this period reveals considerable nuance in the story. Frédéric Naulet has provided such nuance in his discussion of the development of the French artillery. Here the usual emphasis centers on the pre-Revolutionary work of Jean-Baptiste Vacquette de Gribeauval, whose reforms shaped Napoleon's artillery. To provide the context of this development Naulet begins with an overview of the artillery arm in the mid-seventeenth century, then lays out the arm's evolution, dividing his account into, first, a discussion of the technical development of artillery, along with the on-going theoretical debate over tactical concepts, and then summarizing how the French artillery was actually employed in its various roles in siegecraft as well as on the battlefield.

Naulet asserts that the French at the end of the seventeenth century possessed the finest artillery arm in Europe, well-equipped and staffed by an officer corps with its own technical school. This predominance was lost by the time of the Seven Years' War. The author attributes the decline of this arm to two principal causes: the first was financial; Louis XIV and his ministers spent prodigiously on their artillery, so essential to soldiers like Vauban in the taking and holding of fortified places. The financial woes bequeathed France by her Sun King meant that such massive expenditures ended after the War of the Spanish Succession. The second reason for the artillery's decline was related to the on-going debate over the emphasis to be given to firepower or mobility in the designing and casting of guns. While the French opted for mobility by reducing the weight of their smaller caliber field pieces, they were unprepared for the dramatically increased battlefield role artillery played in the Seven Years' War, crucial in defense or in preparing an attack. To facilitate this role, countries like Prussia and Austria had reduced the weight of their heavier fieldpieces, like the eight- and 12-pounders that became the backbone of effective fire support. Failure to emulate this approach rendered the French artillery ineffective and outclassed for much of the war.

Based on over four hundred files in the French military archives alone, Naulet's work is an excellent account of the development of an increasingly important combat arm, and provides much needed context within which to understand the French Army in the last days of the Old Regime. The volume is graced by a number of statistical tables, charts, battlefield maps, and a glossary of technical artillery terms. An important and useful book.