 Although comparatively little is known of his life, Ardant du Picq's small corpus of writings has earned him a place in the ranks of great military theorists.Before du Picq began his famous manuscripts, the French military relied heavily upon the writings of former Chief of Staff Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini when it came to warfare.Before his death, du Picq had already published "Combat antique" (ancient battle), which was later expanded from his manuscripts into the classic "Etudes sur les combat