GUIBERT, JACQUES ANTOINE HIPPOLYTE, COMTE DE (1743-1790), French general and military writer, was born at Montauban, and at the age of 13 accompanied his father, Charles Benoit, comte de Guibert (1715-1786), chief of staff to Marshal de Broglie, throughout the war in Germany, and won the cross of St. Louis and the rank of colonel in the expedition to Corsica His Essai general de tactique (1770) appeared in numerous subsequent editions and in English, German and even Persian translations (extracts also in Liskenne and Sauvan, Bibl. historique et militaire, 1845). His Defense du systeme de guerre moderne, a reply to his many critics (Neuchatel, is a reasoned and scientific defence of the Prussian method of tactics, which formed the basis of his work when in 1775 he began to co-operate with the count de St. Germain in a series of much needed and successful reforms in the French army. In 1777, however, St. Germain fell into disgrace, and his fall involved that of Guibert, who was promoted to the rank of marechal de camp and relegated to a provincial staff appointment. In his semi retirement he vigorously defended his old chief St. Germain against his detractors. On the eve of the Revolution he was recalled to the War Office, but in his turn he became the object of attack and he died, practically of disappointment, on May 6, 1790.
See Toulongeon, Eloge veridique de Guibert ; Madame de Stael, Eloge de Guibert; Bardin, Notice historique du general Guibert (1836) ; Flavian d'Aldeguier, Discours sur la vie et les ecrits du comte de Guibert (Toulouse, i855) ; Count Forestie, Biographie du comte de Guibert (Montauban, i855) ; Count zur Lippe, "Friedr. der Grosse and Oberst Guibert" (Militdr-Wochenblatt, 9 and io) .