Orderly (combat rules)
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the orderly formations of the infantry and , in some cases, the formation of the entire army were called order. Originally derived from the French term for the order issued for this purpose, the term soon also applied to the actual order of battle.
With the decline of the knight armies and the rise of the infantry from the middle of the 15th century, there were decisive changes in European tactics . The new stipulations for the formation and interaction of the various troop bodies in combat were referred to as orderly. Depending on the country of origin in which the combat rules were developed and introduced, the ordinances are differentiated.
Swiss orderly
In the Swiss orderly the tactical formation of the mercenaries and the interaction of pikemen and halberdiers in the quarter pile were regulated. She was the first orderly of this kind and did not yet provide any regulations for cooperation with musketeers or arquebusiers . The Gevierthaufen consisted of the vanguard , the violent heap as the strongest troops and the rearguard .
The introduction of firearms for individual soldiers (pistols, rifles), especially their technical improvement in the 16th century and above all the introduction of the musket , led to another fundamental change in European land warfare tactics. In particular, the introduction of pistols for the cavalry made it possible for the riders to ride within pistol range to the violence and fire into them without getting into the danger area of the pikes. Such an attack had nothing to counteract the violence with their polearms. The pikemen were now supplemented by musketeers who were able to drive out the firing cavalry. The question of how these two types of infantry should work together on the battlefield was the main subject of much thought in the 16th and 17th centuries and the ordinances that arose from them.
Spanish orderly, Tercio
She was also called the Burgundian Ordinance or Catholic Ordinance .
The most important innovation in the new army organization introduced by Charles V in Spain from 1536 on were the Tercios combat units, which were around 3,000 men . A pikemen's square initially consisting of eight companies was surrounded by a deep “hedge” of two companies of musketeers and / or arquebuses. The musketeers / arquebusiers were engaged in fire fighting with the opposing infantry and were protected by the pikemen, especially from the cavalry approaching.
The term of the Spanish orderly refers in the narrower sense to the chessboard-like, staggered arrangement of several Tercios (four as a brigade , at least seven as a double brigade ). In the course of time the proportion of polearms lost more and more weight compared to firearms. The defeat in the Battle of Rocroi in 1643 against a modern French army heralded the move away from the now too rigid order of battle in Spain. After the victory of the Bourbons in the War of the Spanish Succession , the change was also nominally taken into account in 1714 when the new regime transformed the old Tercios into modern regiments based on the French model.
The ranks within the Tercio companies counted up to and including the Capitán ( captain ) to the Oficiales Menores ( subaltern officers ). Depending on seniority and personal readiness for action, a simple soldier could be promoted to Cabo (NCO) after five years , to Sargento (Sergeant) after a further year , to Alférez (Ensign) after a total of eight years and to Capitán after eleven years . Promotion beyond that was unlikely for non-noble soldiers without political ties.
The command structure of the Tercios above the company level is characterized by special ranks, which differ from those in non-national Spanish infantry regiments and other types of troops (cavalry, artillery, etc.) of the Spanish armies. The commanding officer of a Tercios was the maestre de campo (literally "field master", comparable to a brigadier general or a colonel ). Subordinate to him was Sargento Mayor ( Colonel Sergeant ) who was in charge of drill training ; he was also deputy commander of the association. A commander of several Tercios at the same time was called Maestre de campo general ( General of the Infantry ), since 1540 the second highest rank of the Spanish army. The Sargento General ("General Field Sergeant") was his administrative officer and deputy; one or more general staff officers ( Teniente de Maestre de campo general , "Generalfeldmeister-Leutnant"; the rank corresponds to the field marshal lieutenant, which was later widespread in Habsburg countries ) advised and represented him in the command of the troops. The higher troop officers could, if requested, take part in the generals' council of war. The ranks above the Capitán were among the Oficiales Mayores ( staff officers ) or Cabos (roughly: "Chiefs"); these (with the exception of the Sargento Mayor ) were appointed by the king or the captain general ( captain general ), the commander in chief of the land forces concerned.
Since 1630 a Gobernador de las Armas y Ejército ("Army Governor", deputy Commander in Chief of the Army) ranked between the Maestre de campo general and the captain general; around 1640 the Sargento General de Batalla (about major general ) formed a step directly above the simple Maestre de campo de tercio .
The peculiarity of the Spanish orderly was not only in the tactical line-up, which was similar to or adapted by other contemporary land armies, but above all in the tight hierarchy and organization that it often derived from mercenary armies and organized much more freely in the system of company or regimental economy financed armies of other European powers. The Tercios were the first standing professional armies of modern times, administered by military officials and paid by the state, and their introduction in this sense represented a significant step towards modern armed forces.
Schematic representation of a Tercio
Tercio in an engraving by Merian
Spanish double brigade from Tercios
Battle of the White Mountain (1620); pikemen surrounded by musketeers can be seen on both sides (Spanish orderly)
Dutch orderly
Towards the end of the 16th century, as part of the Orange Army Reform , the Netherlands developed a new battle line-up in order to be able to use their larger number of firearms better. The musketeers were no longer placed as a hedge around a heap of pikemen, but both types of infantry in each unit side by side. Usually with the pikemen in the middle and musketeers and arquebusiers on both wings .
Swedish orderly
In the Thirty Years War developed Gustav Adolf the Dutch ordinance on. The infantry was no longer staggered so strongly according to the depth and the musketeers were placed in independent formations between or behind, but in the course of time also more and more in front of the pikemen. This change was made possible by technical improvements to the musket and the introduction of military training in the form of constant drills. At the same time it had become necessary due to the steady increase in the number of musketeers with a simultaneous decrease in the number of pikemen in the armies. One consequence was the suppression of hand-to-hand combat and a firefight that increasingly came to the fore. The decisive attack on the enemy, weakened by gun and musket fire, was no longer led by the pikemen, who gradually disappeared from the battlefield, but by the cavalry.
Prussian orderly
Even outside of the actual time of the orderlies, the infantry combat formations were called this for some time. An example of this is the Prussian orderly from the first half of the 18th century, which described the tactical formation and organization of the Prussian infantry and is considered the forerunner of modern regulations .
Thereafter, the term orderly was replaced by the terms battle or battle order.
French orderly
After the term was actually already obsolete, it came up again briefly to denote the special structure of the Napoleonic troops in divisions and army corps . The term French orderly was therefore less used to describe the formation of troops than the combination of different types of troops (infantry, cavalry and artillery) in more or less uniform but mixed troop bodies, which were no longer formed just for combat, but in peacetime persisted as administrative units.
See also
For further military meanings of orderly see orderly
literature
- Fernando González de León: The road to Rocroi: class, culture and command in the Spanish Army of Flanders, 1567-1659 . Brill Publishers (Leiden) 2009, ISBN 90-04-17082-0 .
- Georg Ortenburg: Weapons and the use of weapons in the age of the revolutionary wars . Koblenz 1988, ISBN 3-7637-5807-0 .
- Herbert Schwarz: Combat forms of infantry in Europe through 800 years . Munich 1977.