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Special pages :
Bivouac
| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 29 September 1857 |
Reproduced from The New American Cyclopaedia
Source : Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 18
Bivouac (Fr., probably from Ger. bei and Wache[1]), an encampment of troops by night in the open air, without tents, each soldier sleeping in his clothes, with his arms by his side. In the warfare of the ancients, the troops were protected by tents, as by movable cities. In mediaeval times, castles and abbeys were opened to feudal and princely armies as they marched by. The popular masses who, impelled by religious enthusiasm, precipitated themselves in the crusades into Asia, formed rather a mob than an army, and all but the leading knights and princes and their immediate followers bivouacked upon the ground, like the wild nomadic tribes who roam the plains of Asia. With the return of regular warfare tented camps again reappeared, and were common in Europe during the last 2 centuries. But in the gigantic Napoleonic wars it was found that rapid movements were of more importance than the health of soldiers, and the luxury of tents disappeared from the fields of Europe, excepting sometimes in the case of the English armies. Entire armies bivouacked around fires, or, if the neighborhood of the enemy rendered it necessary, without fires, sleeping upon straw, or perhaps upon the naked ground, a part of the soldiers keeping guard. Among historical bivouacs none has been more celebrated by poetry and painting than that of the eve of the battle of Austerlitz.[2]