Often the implementation of organisational technologies revolutionise systems and performance. Sometimes quite cheaply. William H. McNeill identifies the introduction of systematic drill to European warfare by the Dutch Maurice of Nassau in 1585. This changed organised violence in Europe and paved the way for the modern routines of Military Drill.
Constant and repetitive drilling is not new. The Spartans for instance structured their society around organised violence which meant their citizenry was constantly being trained and drilled in methods of warfare. This was such a large part of peacetime Spartan society that the soldiers enjoyed going to war as it was a kind of holiday. Their commanders would not work them so hard as they wanted them rested for battle.
European armies up until Maurice used drill to train their soldiers but drilling didn't extend past that. Once the soldiers or militia knew their weapons it was assumed they were right to go and no further training was conducted. Drilling was only used for initial training.
Warfare at the time involved establishing garrisons, sieges and often waiting for a well-defended keep to break from hunger, thirst or disease. The problem was that the army conducting the siege was usually a rabble. Since the soldiers had nothing to do they would indulge themselves in debauchery and drunkenness. Maurice did not like this.
To keep his army active he re-introduced the spade and repetitive drilling. What happened was that his army became very cohesive, very efficient, healthier and took less casualties. Maurice made it very systematic too. McNeill writes:
He [Maurice] analysed the rather complicated movements required to load and fire matchlock guns into a series of forty-two separate, successive moves and gave each move a name and appropriate word of command. His soldiers could then be taught to make each movement in unison, responding to a shouted word of command.This was so effective that Maurice increased the numbers of guns in his army and reduced the number of pikemen. It can be argued that this drilling paved the way for the modern regular army. A small well drilled military unit was now sufficient to put down most revolutions of citizens bearing arms. The Vinegar Hill battles in Ireland and Australia are a good example of this. In 1804 a small contingent of the Rum Corps numbering twenty-nine put down a rebellion of two hundred and thirty well armed convicts. Drilling was the difference and overcame larger numbers.
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