The end of the 18th century and the beginning of the next were marked by revolutions and furious wars. The military writer who made the biggest name for himself during this period was Jacques Antonie Hippolyte Comte du Guibert. His thoughts was formed by the Seven Years War in which he had participated. He sought to produce a system of war which would cover the entire subject both historically and philosophically (Creveld. M, The Art of War, 2002, pg 91).
The “Essai tactique génerale” was published in 1772 when Guibert was only 29 years old. His detailed recommendations concerning the shape of military formations, for example, he helped produce the ordinance of 1791 with which the French army fought the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Four propositions are outstanding and justify the high reputation he enjoyed among his contemporaries. First: to overcome the feebleness so characteristic of France’s conduct of the recent conflict future war should be waged, not merely with the aid of the standing army but on the basis of the united forces of the entire nation. Second: to make such participation possible, general conscription was to be introduced. Third: to enable the huge resulting armies to survive without ruining the treasury, the existing logistic system was to be reformed and war made to feed war. Fourth: those same huge armies were to move not in a single block, but in independent formations of all arms (Creveld. M, The Art of War, 2002, pg 91).

Guibert was one of the first who realised that an army could win over its opponents by patriotic vigour. However he did not distinguish between strategy and tactics. The term strategy was introduced during the same years by another French soldier scholar, Joly de Muizeroy. He tried to put right the defects which had become apparent during the Seven Years War and therefore he produced his own system. He defined tactics as “merely mechanical” and included the “composing and ordering of troops, as well as the manner of marching, manoeuvring and fighting” as expounded by Paysegur, de Saxe and others. On the other hand, strategy was concerned with the overall conduct of military operations against the enemy – a field which hitherto had been left almost entirely to the generals intuition.