Fighting in the Napoleonic Wars was in the continuity of the eighteenth century and even the two preceding ones. Major changes in weapons on a large scale would not occur before the years 1850. Generals and officers were still nurtured by the military writers of the eighteenth century, but among these writers some had envisioned what war could become if large-scale ‘operations’ were conducted and if armies grew in size. With the Revolution and the dictatorial power Napoleon inherited from it, France set the tone for waging war with more intensity, in the movement of armies as well as in tactics on the field of battle. Other powers simply had to follow, but interior conditions and social imperatives resulted in partly adaptations and half-measures.