Nouvelles decouvertes sur la guerre dans une dissertation suer Polybe....Seconde edition revue par l'auteur de FOLARD Jean Charles de - 1724

Brussels: Francois Foppens, second edition , 1724. xxx and 272 pages. 3 folding woodcuts. Contemporary calf; the raised bands on the spine are slightly rubbed; the title label is missing and an ink title has been substituted. First published in Paris in 1723. Several later editions claim to be the second edition. This pirate edition, although it was next to be published after the first edition, was certainly neither authorised nor reviewed by the author. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Folard served under Vendome in Italy and at Malplaquet where he was wounded. On the conclusion of peace he enlisted under Charles XII of Sweden for whom he developed an exagerated respect. He appears to have read Polybius at his mentor's suggestion. He combined Polybius' ideas about phalanx warfare with the Swedish king's doctrine of shock to suggest that the thin firing lines of the 18th Century could be bested by dense masses of troops advancing in column. His book made no impact in France and Folard died in obscurity in 1752. But his ideas met with the guarded approval of Frederick the Great who decided that Folard 'had buried diamonds in a rubbish heap' and ordered Colonel Seers to make a precis. It was this precis, published in Paris in 1760 under the title 'Esprit du chevalier Folard', which was to establish Folard's reputation.