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A military column is a formation
Tactical formation

A tactical formation is the arrangement or deployment of moving military forces such as Infantry tactics, cavalry tactics, armoured fighting vehicle, military aircraft, or navy vessels....
 of that can be applied to individual soldiers marching together in one or more file
File (formation)

A file is a military term for a number of troops drawn up in line ahead, i.e. one behind the other in a column . The number of files is the measure of the width of a formation of troops in several rank one behind the other....
s in which the file is significantly longer than the width of ranks
Rank (formation)

A Rank is a line of military personnel, drawn up in line abreast .Commonly, troops called to 'On the right, fall in!' do so by forming in line abreast, determining their initial position in relation to a marker....
 in the formation. It is also applied to vehicles and naval vessels so positioned for tactical reasons, or during road movement.

Column formation has been used since ancient times. It has the advantage of being easier to manoeuvre than other formations in that it permits an army to follow the form of a road, thus increasing its movement speed.






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A military column is a formation
Tactical formation

A tactical formation is the arrangement or deployment of moving military forces such as Infantry tactics, cavalry tactics, armoured fighting vehicle, military aircraft, or navy vessels....
 of that can be applied to individual soldiers marching together in one or more file
File (formation)

A file is a military term for a number of troops drawn up in line ahead, i.e. one behind the other in a column . The number of files is the measure of the width of a formation of troops in several rank one behind the other....
s in which the file is significantly longer than the width of ranks
Rank (formation)

A Rank is a line of military personnel, drawn up in line abreast .Commonly, troops called to 'On the right, fall in!' do so by forming in line abreast, determining their initial position in relation to a marker....
 in the formation. It is also applied to vehicles and naval vessels so positioned for tactical reasons, or during road movement.

Column formation has been used since ancient times. It has the advantage of being easier to manoeuvre than other formations in that it permits an army to follow the form of a road, thus increasing its movement speed. However, column formations are very vulnerable to frontal and flank
Flanking maneuver

In military tactics, a flanking Maneuver warfare, also called a wiktionary:flank attack, is an attack on the sides of an opposing force....
 attack.

Napoleonic Wars


During the early stages of the French Revolutionary Wars
French Revolutionary Wars

The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states....
, battalion
Battalion

A battalion is a military unit of around 500-1500 men usually consisting of between two and seven company and typically commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel....
s in French armies often attacked in column formation in an attempt to drive through enemy lines by sheer weight of numbers. Against enemy units already weakened by the fire from skirmishers or artillery
Artillery

Artillery is a military Combat Arms which employs any apparatus, machine, an assortment of tools or instruments, a system or systems used as weapons for the discharge of large projectiles in combat as a major contribution of fire power within the overall military capability of an armed force....
, this was often successful. Later, during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts involving Napoleon I of France First French Empire and changing sets of European allies and opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815....
, French units would approach in column formation and deploy into line when close to the enemy. However, against the British they frequently failed to deploy into line before being engaged. During the Peninsular War
Peninsular War

The Peninsular War or Spanish War of Independence was a contest between First French Empire and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Kingdom of Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars....
, after the Battle of Sabugal
Battle of Sabugal

The Battle of Sabugal was an engagement of the Peninsular War which took place on 3 April 1811 between Anglo-Portuguese forces under Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and First French Empire troops under the command of Andr? Mass?na....
 (3 April 1811), Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Order of the Garter, Order of St Patrick, Order of the Bath, Royal Guelphic Order, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, Royal Society , was an Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the nineteenth century....
 wrote, "our loss is much less than one would have supposed possible, scarcely 200 men... really these attacks against our lines with columns of men are contemptible." These failings were still evident at the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo

In the Battle of Waterloo forces of the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte and Michel Ney were defeated by those of the Seventh Coalition, including a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Bl?cher and an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington....
 in 1815, prompting Wellington to comment, "They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way."

The military historian James R. Arnold argues that all armies of the period used column formations at times on the battlefield, the military historian Sir Charles Oman
Charles Oman

Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman was a British Military history of the early 20th century. His reconstructions of medieval battles from the fragmentary and distorted accounts left by chroniclers were pioneering....
 is credited with developing the theory that the French practically always attacked in heavy columns, and it is only now that this alleged error, propagated by other British and American authors, is being repudiated.

Column of companies

During the Peninsular War
Peninsular War

The Peninsular War or Spanish War of Independence was a contest between First French Empire and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Kingdom of Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars....
, British riflemen of Craufurd's Light Division marching to engage the enemy but uncertain of the presence of enemy cavalrymen in the area could adopt a formation called "column of companies." Each company would form into two files of about thirty ranks and march close to the company in front. If attacked by cavalry, they could easily bunch up, forming a schiltron
Schiltron

A schiltron is a group of soldiers wielding outward-pointing pike or other polearms, to ward off cavalry attacks. The term does not denote any particular shape or alignment of the formation, and is most often associated with Scottish pike formations during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the late 13th and early 14th centuries....
 of bayonet
Bayonet

A bayonet is a knife-, dagger-, sword-' or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit on or over the muzzle of a rifle barrel or similar weapon, effectively turning the gun into a spear....
s, which would be proof against unsupported cavalry.

Further reading

  • Deneu, Laurent see section on "3. The formations of battalions" subsection "C. The column."