As a major with the 16th Chasseur Battalion, Ardant du Picq served in Syria from August 1860 to June 1861 during the French intervention to restore order during Maronite-Druze sectarian violence.

[3] 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.

[4] As a primary inspiration to du Picq, fellow Périgueux native Marshal Thomas Bugeaud was responsible for supporting him in his calculating and objective view of military operations.

[5] His principal interest was in the moral and psychological aspects of battle; as he himself wrote of the battlefields of his day: "The soldier is unknown often to his closest companions.

Along with Carl von Clausewitz, he was a major influence in France after the defeat of the French army in the Franco-Prussian War, and their attention to psychological and behavioral factors in combat was judged to be supremely important.