ABSTRACT
A certain mythology grew up around the use of open order tactics, although it was never as extravagant as the celebration of the bayonet and the column. Open order tactics constituted a mode of combat altogether different from the more formalized tactics of line, column, and square. The essence of skirmishing was its emphasis upon the individual. Proper performance rested upon his personal initiative. The greatly increased use of tirailleurs during the war of 1792 cannot be ascribed to the adoption of a more effective rifled specialist's weapon by French light infantry. The charateristics of the eighteenth-century smoothbore musket exerted a dual influence on infantry tactics. The extent to which combat as tirailleurs remained the province of a small elite corps of light infantry specialists and the extent to which it became generalized among all French infantry says something about the nature of the French soldier and the nature of combat as tirailleurs.
