FROM
Jean Colin was bom in 1864 and after joining the French army became a lecturer at the Ecole de Guerre. His lectures and historical studies , including critical assessments of Napoleon and of the offensive school , provoked considerable controversy. He was promoted general of a brigade after the outbreak of World War I and was killed in 1917.
Colin became a leading critic of the orthodox "Napoleonic" school in France.
It is in battle, the essential act of war, that moral forces act most powerfully and have their preponderant effect. We cannot repeat this too insistently. But whatever we may write about moral forces will not endow with them the man who has none. It is possible to write reams on the part played by decision, ardour, coolness, and all the qualities proper to a leader, but it is not of great profit to do so. . . .
The advantage of the offensive in battle is obvious: it disorganizes the enemy, upsets his plans and combinations; the assailant, to some extent, imposes on him his initiative, his will. And yet of Napoleon's adversaries those who adopted the defensive suffered less grave reverses than those bold persons who opposed their offensive to his. The Moskowa and Waterloo are examples of this. As a matter of fact the law is not the same for all: it is above all necessary that a general should adopt a role proportionate to his capacity, a plan that he feels himself able to follow out methodically amidst dangers, surprise, friction, accidents of all sorts. . . .
The defensive-offensive form succeeded, however, with Wellington in Spain against generals like Soult and Mass^na. This enables us to conclude that no exclusive solution can be adopted, and that although we consider the offensive form combined with a wing attack as preferable, we cannot pronounce formally either against frontal attacks or against the defensive. The one essential is to appreciate correctly one's own value and that of one's adversary.
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Jean Colin
It is not only the intervention of governments that is to be feared; it is above all the intervention of peoples. This is due to thoughtless passions, and in consequence is usually unreasonable. It imposes unseasonable battles and shameful capitulations.
The numerous and passionate proletariats of great capitals send armies to their ruin, and, above all, it is in their name that armies are sent to their ruin; in their name that a Napoleon III is obliged to remain on the frontier with 240,000 men against 500,000; that a MacMahon is forced to hurl himself into the abyss.
Though the populace does not always impose such disastrous operations, it always assigns an exaggerated importance to the capital. Sometimes, as in 1870-1, it becomes the object of active operations, distracting the attention of generals from what ought to be their only care—victory in the field; sometimes it obliged them to give battle before a capital, instead of postponing the decision.
Far from provoking or exploiting the populace, the duty of political authorities is to pacify, and, if necessary, to suppress popular movements. Once war has begun, the general entrusted with command and possessing the confidence of the nation should act in all freedom/'
—L. Pope-Hennessy (translator)