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BULOW, DIETRICH HEINRICH, FREIHERR VO...

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 795 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BULOW, See also:DIETRICH HEINRICH, FREIHERR VON (1757–1807) , Prussian soldier and military writer, and See also:brother of See also:General See also:Count F. W. Billow, entered the Prussian See also:army in 1773. Routine See also:work proved distasteful to him, and he read with avidity the See also:works of the See also:chevalier See also:Folard and other theoretical writers on See also:war, and of See also:Rousseau. After sixteen years' service he See also:left See also:Prussia, and endeavoured without success to obtain a See also:commission in the See also:Austrian army. He then returned to Prussia, and for some See also:time managed a theatrical See also:company. The failure of this undertaking involved Billow in heavy losses, and soon afterwards he went to See also:America, where he seems to have been converted to, and to have preached, Swedenborgianism. On his return to See also:Europe he persuaded his brother to engage in a See also:speculation for exporting See also:glass to the See also:United States, which proved a See also:complete failure. After this for some years he made a See also:precarious living in See also:Berlin by See also:literary work, but his debts accumulated, and it was under See also:great disadvantages that he produced his Geist See also:des Neueren Kriegssystems (See also:Hamburg, 1799) and Der Feldzug 1800 (Berlin, 18o1). His hopes of military employment were again.disappointed, and his brother, the future See also:field See also:marshal, who had stood by him in all his troubles, finally left him. After wandering in See also:France and the smaller See also:German states, he reappeared at Berlin in 1804, where he wrote a revised edition of his Geist des Neueren Kriegssystems (Hamburg, 18o5), Lehrsatze des Neueren Kriegs (Berlin, 1805), Geschichte des Prinzen Heinrich von Preussen (Berlin, 18o5), Neue Taktik der Neuern wie sie sein sollte (See also:Leipzig, 18o5), and Der Feldzug 1805 (Leipzig, 18o6). He also edited, with G.

H. von Behrenhorst (1733–1814) and others, Annalen des Krieges (Berlin, 18o6). These brilliant but unorthodox works, distinguished by an open contempt of the Prussian See also:

system, cosmopolitanism hardly to be distinguished from high See also:treason, and the See also:mordant See also:sarcasm of a disappointed See also:man, brought upon Billow the enmity of the See also:official classes and of the See also:government. He was arrested as insane, but medical examination proved him sane and he was then lodged as a prisoner in Colberg, where he was harshly treated, though See also:Gneisenau obtained some mitigation of his See also:condition. Thence he passed into See also:Russian hands and died in See also:prison at See also:Riga in r 8o7,probably as a result of See also:ill-treatment. In Billow's writings there is evident a distinct contrast between the spirit of his strategical and that of his See also:tactical ideas. As a strategist (he claimed to be the first of strategists) he reduces to mathematical rules the practice of the great generals of the 18th See also:century, ignoring " See also:friction," and manoeuvring his armies in vacuo. At the same time he professes that his system provides working rules for the armies of his own See also:day, which in point of fact were " armed nations," infinitely more affected by " friction " than the small dynastic and professional armies of the preceding See also:age. Billow may therefore be considered as anything but a reformer in the domain of See also:strategy. With more See also:justice he has been styled the " See also:father of See also:modern See also:tactics." He was the first to recognize that the conditions of See also:swift and decisive war brought about by the See also:French Revolution involved wholly new tactics, and much of his teaching had a profound See also:influence on See also:European warfare of the 19th century. His See also:early training had shown him merely the pedantic minutiae of See also:Frederick's methods, and, in the See also:absence of any troops capable of illustrating the real linear tactics, he became an enthusiastic supporter of the methods, which (more of See also:necessity than from See also:judgment) the French revolutionary generals had adopted, of fighting in small columns covered by skirmishers. Battles, he maintained, were won by skirmishers. " We must organize disorder," he said; indeed, every See also:argument of writers of the modern " extended See also:order " school is to be found mutatis mutandis in Billow, whose system acquired great prominence in view of the See also:mechanical improvements in armament.

But his tactics, like his strategy, were vitiated by the absence of " friction," and their dependence on the realization of an unattainable See also:

standard of bravery. See von See also:Voss, H. von Billow (KSln, 18o6) ; P. von Billow, Familienbuch der v. Billow (Berlin, 1859) ; Ed. von Billow, Aus dem Leben Dietrichs v. Billow, also Vermischte Schriften aus dem Nachlass von Behrenhorst (1845); Ed. von Billow and von See also:Rustow, Militarische and vermischte Schriften von Heinrich Dietrich v. Billow (Leipzig, 1853) ; See also:Memoirs by Freiherr v. Meerheimb in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1876), and " Behrenhorst and Billow " (Historische Zeitschrift, 1861, vi.) ; Max Jahns, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften, vol. iii. pp. 2133-2145 (See also:Munich, 1891); General von Cammerer (transl. von Donat), Development of Strategical See also:Science (See also:London, 1905), ch. i.

End of Article: BULOW, DIETRICH HEINRICH, FREIHERR VON (1757–1807)

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