Editing Maurice de Saxe (section)

==Writings==

Saxe's work on the art of war, {{lang|fr|Mes Rêveries}} (''My Reveries''), was published after his death in 1757.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bellum.nu/literature/desaxe001.html |title=Reveries on the Art of War |first=Field Marshal Herman Maurice |last=de Saxe |year=1757 |location=London |access-date=May 11, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080205095610/http://www.bellum.nu/literature/desaxe001.html |archive-date=February 5, 2008 }}</ref> Described by [[Thomas Carlyle|Carlyle]] as "a strange military farrago, dictated, as I should think, under [[opium]]", it was praised by [[Frederick the Great]] and described by [[Bernard Montgomery|Lord Montgomery]], more than two centuries later, as "a remarkable work on the art of war".

A common theme of the 18th century [[Age of Enlightenment]] was to emphasise the [[scientific method]] and the idea every activity could be expressed in terms of a universal system.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gay |first=Peter |url=https://archive.org/details/enlightenmentint02gayp |title=The Enlightenment: An Interpretation |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-393-00870-8 |url-access=registration}}</ref> In one sense, {{lang|fr|Mes Rêveries}} followed this by subjecting "military affairs to reasoned criticism and intellectual treatment, and the ensuing military doctrines were perceived as forming a definitive system".<ref>{{cite book|author=Manabrata Guha|title=Reimagining War in the 21st Century: From Clausewitz to Network-Centric Warfare|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rKFky404cuAC|access-date=6 December 2012|year=2011|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-56166-2|page=24}}</ref> Written following [[Prussia]]n expansion during the [[War of the Austrian Succession]], Saxe rejected their rigid discipline; arguing the French character was fundamentally different and their tactics should reflect that, he advocated the use of a deep order or {{lang|fr|[[ordre profond]]}}, rather than relying on firearms.<ref>{{citation|title= From Myth-Conceived to Myth-Understood: France's Revolutionary Ordre Profond Revisited|url=http://ordreprofond.blogspot.ca/|first=Bryan L.|last= Smith|date= Spring 2012 }}</ref>

However, {{lang|fr|Mes Rêveries}} also challenged French military orthodoxy in arguing for a greater focus on mobile warfare, rather than fortifications; this was partly a legacy of [[Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban|Vauban]] (1633–1707), who had revolutionised this field but adherence to his principles meant French engineers became ultra-conservative. As early as 1701, [[John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough]] argued winning one battle was more beneficial than taking 12 fortresses; Saxe followed this line but his argument was given increased weight by French losses in the 1756–1763 [[Seven Years' War]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Picon |first=Antoine |title=Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment |date=2001 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-57958-246-3 |editor-last=Delon |editor-first=Michel |page=540}}</ref>

Saxe's {{lang|fr|Lettres et mémoires choisis}} (''Selected Letters and Memoirs'') appeared in 1794. His letters to his sister [[Anna Karolina Orzelska]], the Duchess of [[Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck]], preserved at [[Strasbourg]], were destroyed by the bombardment of that place in 1870.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} Thirty copies had, however, been printed from the original.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}