Louis Charles de la Bourdonnais published
Nouveau Traité du jeu des Échecs (1833) the year before his visit to London. The text offers what must be one of the earliest formulations of the
element of time as a principle of strategy.
Dès le commencement d'une partie, l'on ne saurait trop recommander aux amateurs de s'attacher surtout à gagner des temps; c'est en gagnant des temps que l'on parvient, soit à renfermer les pièces de l'adversaire qui vous laissent alors un champ libre pour former et suivre une attaque, soit à avancer ses pions de manière à arriver le premier à dame. (3-4)
My ability to read French is nonexistent, but happily Cary Utterberg has translated this paragraph in his excellent
De la Bourdonnais versus McDonnell, 1834 (2005).
At the start of a game, players should pay particular attention to the use of tempi; for by gaining time the opponent's pieces may be contained, leaving you a free field on which to develop and carry out an attack, or to work toward advancing a pawn to its queening square. (18)
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