Napoleon believed in speed, Wellington in terrain.
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The Column, whether by company or division, was a maneuver formation, which wheeled and formed (hollow) square up to 3 times faster than a line (French regulations of 1791 gave respectively 30 sec. and 100 sec. for forming square). In emergency a masse or closed-column square could often be formed even faster to defend against cavalry, a maneuver favoured by the Austrians, Prussians and Russians from their experience against the nomadic horsemen of the steppe.
