GAULLE Charles de. Autograph manuscript, [Du Commandement, circa 1918?]; approximately 35 pages small in-4. Drafts for an essay on command, unpublished. This theoretical work, which has been extensively crossed out and corrected, was written between 1918 and 1920, perhaps during the period of the German prison camps. Unpublished, it is an interesting reflection on command and the art of command. There are two distinct sets, both on small square paper: * First version, heavily crossed out and corrected: 19 leaves collected under a double sheet serving as a cover (round-shaped stain: ink bottle or coffee cup?), numbered from 1 (and 1 bis) to 17 (including a 10 bis), written mainly on the recto (with a few versos written). Important passages have been crossed out. Let us quote the beginning: "1° Definition of command, explanation of the definition. To command: with a view to an end, to use men and things. The object and raison d'être of command is practical action. Practical, i.e. with the aim of achieving the end, the category to which the leader belongs. For an industrial manager, it's production; for an orchestra conductor, it's a concert; for a soldier, it's war. Practical action is not permanent. The industrialist doesn't produce, the conductor doesn't give concerts, the soldier doesn't fight - all the time. But apart from practical action, there is training, instruction. Command therefore consists of taking action and instructing to take action. A leader is a man of action and an instructor"... The booklet ends as follows: "In social functions where gain is not the usual end of the leader's authority, and especially in the military social function, human experience intervenes to determine him to elaborate rational conceptions. This is done through regulations. The first purpose of a speciality's regulations is to determine the capabilities of that speciality: personnel and equipment, in other words to establish what the leader can expect of it and consequently also what he must not ask of it". * Second version, in violet ink, on 13 sheets (3 of which are also written on the back), numbered 1 to 6, 6B, 6C, 6, 6 bis, and 7 to 9. The first leaf is an applied and expanded cleanup of the beginning of the previous quire, the rest is heavily crossed out and corrected, with passages crossed out. The beginning, numbered I, begins as a summary: "Definitions. Command in general. The general order of actions. The nature of actions. In a hierarchy, the order and nature of actions det. by themselves. Practical action. The characteristics of practical action: type; size; form. The operations of practical action: conception, preparation, execution. To command is: to use people and things for a purpose. The social function of a category of men determines the order of actions that are the raison d'être and the general object of their activity. Example. For an industrialist, the general order of these actions is Manufacturing. For a conductor, the Concert. For a military man: War"... And de Gaulle concludes (p. 8-9): "The form of practical action is determined by the way in which the group that carries it out behaves. The practical action of a division attacking such and such a part of the enemy position at such and such a time takes its form from the role played by the artillery, the disposition of the infantry, the use of the engineers, and so on. In the practical action of a group, it is generally agreed that there are 3 phases: conception, preparation and execution. In each of these 3 phases, the role of the leader is different. We should look at each of these phases in turn and the role that the leader should play in them.