Jean Charles, Chevalier Folard

Jean Charles, Chevalier Folard (February 13, 1669 – March 23, 1752), French soldier and military author, was born at Avignon.

His military ardour was first awakened by reading Caesar's Commentaries, and he ran away from home and joined the army. He soon saw active service, and, young as he was, wrote a manual on partisan warfare, the manuscript of which passed with Folard's other papers to Marshal Belleisle on the author's death.

In 1702 he became a captain, and aide-de-camp to the duke of Vendôme, then in command of the French forces in Italy. In 1705, while serving under Vendôme's brother, the Grand Prior, Folard won the Cross of St. Louis for a gallant feat of arms, and in the same year he distinguished himself at the battle of Cassano, where he was severely wounded. It was during his tedious recovery from his wounds that he conceived the tactical theories to the elucidation of which he devoted most of his life.

In 1706 he again rendered good service in Italy, and in 1708 distinguished himself greatly in the operations attempted by Vendôme and the duke of Burgundy for the relief of Lille, the failure of which was due in part to the disagreement of the French commanders; and it is no small testimony to the ability and tact of Folard that he retained the friendship of both. Folard was wounded at the battle of Malplaquet in 1709, and in 1711 his services were rewarded with the governorship of Bourbourg.

He saw further active service in 1714 Malta, under Charles XII of Sweden in the north, and under the duke of Berwick in the short Spanish War of 1719. Charles XII he regarded as the first captain of all time, and it was at that Folard began to formulate his tactical ideas in a commertary on Polybius. On his way back to France he was shipwrecked and lost all his papers, but he set to work at once to write his essays afresh, and in 1724 appeared his Nouvelles découvertes sur la guerre dans une dissertation sur Polybe, followed (1727–1730) by Histoire de Polybe traduite par . . . de Thuillier avec un commentaire de M. de Folard, Chevalier de l'Ordre de St Louis. Folard spent the remainder of his life in answering the criticisms provoked by the novelty of his theories. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1750.

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