BULOW, DIETRICH HEINRICH, FREIHERR VON (1757 1807), Prussian soldier and military writer, and brother of Gen eral Count F. W. Billow; entered the Prussian army in 1773 and remained in the service for 16 years. He wrote Geist des Neueren Kriegssystems (Hamburg, 1799 ; revised ed., 1805) and Der Feldzug 1800 (18o1), Lehrsdtze des Neueren Kriegs Ge schichte des Prinzen Heinrich von Preussen (1805), Neue Taktik der Neuern wie sie sein sollte (1805), and Der Feldzug 1805 (18°6). He also edited, with G. H. von Behrenhorst and others, Annalen des Krieges 0806). These brilliant but un orthodox works, distinguished by an open contempt of the Prus sian system, cosmopolitanism hardly to be distinguished from high treason, and the mordant sarcasm of a disappointed man, brought upon Billow the enmity of the official classes and of the Government. He was arrested as insane, but medical examination proved him sane and he was then lodged as a prisoner in Col berg, where he was harshly treated, though Gneisenau obtained some mitigation of his condition. Thence he passed into Russian hands and died in prison at Riga in 1807, probably as a result of ill-treatment.
Billow has often been styled the "father of Modern tactics." His early training had shown him merely the pedantic minutiae of Frederick's methods, and, in the absence of any troops capable of illustrating the real linear tactics, he became an enthusiastic supporter of the methods, which (more of necessity than from judgment) the French revolutionary generals had adopted, of fighting in small columns covered by skirmishers. Battles, he ,maintained, were won by skirmishers. "We must organize dis order," he said; indeed, every argument of writers of the modern "extended order" school is to be found mutatis mutandis in Billow, whose system acquired great prominence in view of the mechan ical improvements in armament. But his tactics, like his strategy, were vitiated by his absence of "friction," and their dependence on the realization of an unattainable standard of bravery.
See von Voss, H. von Billow (Köln, 18o6) ; P. von Billow, Familien buch der v. Billow (5859) ; Ed. von Billow, Aus dem Leben Dietrichs v. Billow, also Vermischte Schriften aus dem Nachlass von Behren horst (1845) ; Ed. von Billow and von Rustow, Militarische and vermischte Schriften von Heinrich Dietrich v. Billow (1853).