Formerly, the duties of the chiefs of the staff were confined to the
necessary preparations for carrying the plan of the campaign, and
the operations resolved on by the general-in-chief, into effect.
In a battle, they were only employed in directing movements and
superintending their execution. But in the late wars, the officers
of the staff were frequently intrusted with the command of a column
of attack, or of large detachments, when the general-in-chief feared
to disclose the secret of his plans by the transmission of orders or
instructions. Great advantages have resulted from this innovation,
although it was long resisted. By this means, the staff have been
enabled to perfect their theory by practice, and they have acquired,
moreover, the esteem of the soldiers and junior officers of the
line, who are easily led to think lightly of their superiors, whom
they do not see fighting in the ranks. The generals who have held
the arduous situation of chief of the staff during the wars of the
Revolution, have almost always been employed in the different branches
of the profession. Marshal Berthier, who filled so conspicuously this
appointment to Napoleon, was distinguished by all the essentials of a
general. He possessed calm, and at the same time brilliant courage,
excellent judgment, and approved experience. He bore arms during half
a century, made war in the four quarters of the globe, opened and
terminated thirty-two campaigns. In his youth he acquired, under the
eye of his father, who was an engineer officer, the talent of tracing
plans and finishing them with exactness, as well as the preliminary
qualifications necessary to form a staff-officer. Admitted by the
Prince de Lambesq into his regiment of dragoons, he was taught the
skilful management of his horse and his sword--accomplishments so
important to a soldier. Attached afterward to the staff of Count
Rochambeau, he made his first campaign in America, where he soon began
to distinguish himself by his valor, activity and talents. Having at
length attained superior rank in the staff-corps formed by Marshal de
Segur, he visited the camps of the King of Prussia, and discharged the
duties of chief of the staff under the Baron de Bezenval.
During nineteen years, consumed in sixteen campaigns, the history
of Marshal Berthier’s life was little else but that of the wars of
Napoleon, all the details of which he directed, both in the cabinet
and the field. A stranger to the intrigues of politics, he labored
with indefatigable activity; seized with promptitude and sagacity
upon general views, and gave the necessary orders for attaining them
with prudence, perspicuity, and conciseness. Discreet, impenetrable,
modest; he was just, exact, and even severe, in everything that
regarded the service; but he always set an example of vigilance and
zeal in his own person, and knew how to maintain discipline, and to
cause his authority to be respected by every rank under his orders.