1. Masses—Deep Columns.

Study of the effect of columns brings us to the consideration of mass operations in general. Read this singular argument in favor of attacks by battalions in close columns: "A column cannot stop instantly without a command. Suppose your first rank stops at the instant of shock: the twelve ranks of the battalion, coming up successively, would come in contact with it, pushing it forward.... Experiments made have shown that beyond the sixteenth the impulsion of the ranks in rear has no effect on the front, it is completely taken up by the fifteen ranks already massed behind the first.... To make the experiment, march at charging pace and command halt to the front rank without warning the rest. The ranks will precipitate themselves upon each other unless they be very attentive, or unless, anticipating the command, they check themselves unconsciously while marching."

But in a real charge, all your ranks are attentive, restless, anxious about what is taking place at the front and, if the latter halts, if the first line stops, there will be a movement to the rear and not to the front. Take a good battalion, possessed of extraordinary calmness and coolness, thrown full speed on the enemy, at one hundred and twenty steps to the minute. To-day it would have to advance under a fire of five shots a minute! At this last desperate moment if the front rank stops, it will not be pushed, according to the theory of successive impulses, it will be upset. The second line will arrive only to fall over the first and so on. There should be a drill ground test to see up to what rank this falling of the pasteboard figures would extend.

Physical impulse is merely a word. If the front rank stops it will let itself fall and be trampled under foot rather than cede to the pressure that pushes it forward. Any one experienced in infantry engagements of to-day knows that is just what happens. This shows the error of the theory of physical impulse—a theory that continues to dictate as under the Empire (so strong is routine and prejudice) attacks in close column. Such attacks are marked by absolute disorder and lack of leadership. Take a battalion fresh from barracks, in light marching order; intent only on the maneuver to be executed. It marches in close column in good order; its subdivisions are full four paces apart. The non-commissioned officers control the men. But it is true that if the terrain is slightly accidented, if the guide does not march with mathematical precision, the battalion in close column becomes in the twinkling of an eye a flock of sheep. What would happen to a battalion in such a formation, at one hundred paces from the enemy? Nobody will ever see such an instance in these days of the rifle.

If the battalion has marched resolutely, if it is in good order, it is ten to one that the enemy has already withdrawn without waiting any longer. But suppose the enemy does not flinch? Then the man of our days, naked against iron and lead, no longer controls himself. The instinct of preservation controls him absolutely. There are two ways of avoiding or diminishing the danger; they are to flee or to throw one-self upon it. Let us rush upon it. Now, however small the intervals of space and time that separate us from the enemy, instinct shows itself. We rush forward, but ... generally, we rush with prudence, with a tendency to let the most urgent ones, the most intrepid ones, pass on. It is strange, but true, that the nearer we approach the enemy, the less we are closed up. Adieu to the theory of pressure. If the front rank is stopped, those behind fall down rather than push it. Even if this front rank is pushed, it will itself fall down rather than advance. There is nothing to wonder at, it is sheer fact. Any pushing is to the rear. (Battle of Diernstein.)

To-day more than ever flight begins in the rear, which is affected quite as much as the front.

Mass attacks are incomprehensible. Not one out of ten was ever carried to completion and none of them could be maintained against counter-attacks. They can be explained only by the lack of confidence of the generals in their troops. Napoleon expressly condemns in his memoirs such attacks. He, therefore, never ordered them. But when good troops were used up, and his generals believed they could not obtain from young troops determined attacks in tactical formation, they came back to the mass formation, which belongs to the infancy of the art, as a desperate resort.

If you use this method of pressing, of pushing, your force will disappear as before a magician's wand.

But the enemy does not stand; the moral pressure of danger that precedes you is too strong for him. Otherwise, those who stood and aimed even with empty rifles, would never see a charge come up to them. The first line of the assailant would be sensible of death and no one would wish to be in the first rank. Therefore, the enemy never merely stands; because if he does, it is you that flee. This always does away with the shock. The enemy entertains no smaller anxiety than yours. When he sees you near, for him also the question is whether to flee or to advance. Two moral impulses are in conflict.

This is the instinctive reasoning of the officer and soldier, "If these men wait for me to close with them, it means death. I will kill, but I will undoubtedly be killed. At the muzzle of the gun-barrel the bullet can not fail to find its mark. But if I can frighten them, they will run away. I can shoot them and bayonet in the back. Let us make a try at it." The trial is made, and one of the two forces, at some stage of the advance, perhaps only at two paces, makes an about and gets the bayonet in the back.

Imagination always sees loaded arms and this fancy is catching.

The shock is a mere term. The de Saxe, the Bugeaud theory: "Close with the bayonet and with fire action at close quarters. That is what kills people and the victor is the one who kills most," is not founded on fact. No enemy awaits you if you are determined, and never, never, never, are two equal determinations opposed to each other. It is well known to everybody, to all nations, that the French have never met any one who resisted a bayonet charge.

The English in Spain, marching resolutely in face of the charges of the French in column, have always defeated them.... The English were not dismayed at the mass. If Napoleon had recalled the defeat of the giants of the Armada by the English vessels, he might not have ordered the use of the d'Erlon column.

BlÜcher in his instructions to his troops, recalled that the French have never held out before the resolute march of the Prussians in attack column....

Suvaroff used no better tactics. Yet his battalions in Italy drove us at the point of their bayonets.

Each nation in Europe says: "No one stands his ground before a bayonet charge made by us." All are right. The French, no more than others, resist a resolute attack. All are persuaded that their attacks are irresistable; that an advance will frighten the enemy into flight. Whether the bayonet be fixed or in the scabbard makes no difference....

There is an old saying that young troops become uneasy if any one comes upon them in a tumult and in disorder; the old troops, on the contrary, see victory therein. At the commencement of a war, all troops are young. Our impetuosity pushes us to the front like fools ... the enemy flees. If the war lasts, everybody becomes inured. The enemy no longer troubles himself when in front of troops charging in a disordered way, because he knows and feels that they are moved as much by fear as by determination. Good order alone impresses the enemy in an attack, for it indicates real determination. That is why it is necessary to secure good order and retain it to the very last. It is unwise to take the running step prematurely, because you become a flock of sheep and leave so many men behind that you will not reach your objective. The close column is absurd; it turns you in advance into a flock of sheep, where officers and men are jumbled together without mutual support. It is then necessary to march as far as possible in such order as best permits the action of the non-commissioned officers, the action of unity, every one marching in front of eye-witnesses, in the open. On the other hand, in closed columns man marches unobserved and on the slightest pretext he lies down or remains behind. Therefore, it is best always to keep the skirmishers in advance or on the flanks, and never to recall them when in proximity to the enemy. To do so establishes a counter current that carries away your men. Let your skirmishers alone. They are your lost children; they will know best how to take care of themselves.

To sum up: there is no shock of infantry on infantry. There is no physical impulse, no force of mass. There is but a moral impulse. No one denies that this moral impulse is stronger as one feels better supported, that it has greater effect on the enemy as it menaces him with more men. From this it follows that the column is more valuable for the attack than the deployed order.

It might be concluded from this long statement that a moral pressure, which always causes flight when a bold attack is made, would not permit any infantry to hold out against a cavalry charge; never, indeed, against a determined charge. But infantry must resist when it is not possible to flee, and until there is complete demoralization, absolute terror, the infantry appreciates this. Every infantryman knows it is folly to flee before cavalry when the rifle is infallible at point-blank, at least from the rider's point of view. It is true that every really bold charge ought to succeed. But whether man is on foot or on horseback, he is always man. While on foot he has but himself to force; on horseback he must force man and beast to march against the enemy. And mounted, to flee is so easy. (Remark by Varney).

We have seen then in an infantry mass those in rear are powerless to push those in front unless the danger is greater in rear. The cavalry has long understood this. It attacks in a column at double distance rather than at half-distance, in order to avoid the frightful confusion of the mass. And yet, the allurement of mathematical reasoning is such that cavalry officers, especially the Germans, have seriously proposed attacking infantry by deep masses, so that the units in rear might give impulse to those in front. They cite the proverb, "One nail drives the other." What can you say to people who talk such nonsense? Nothing, except, "Attack us always in this way."

Real bayonet attacks occurred in the Crimean war. (Inkermann). 40 They were carried out by a small force against a larger one. The power of mass had no influence in such cases. It was the mass which fell back, turned tail even before the shock. The troops who made the bold charge did nothing but strike and fire at backs. These instances show men unexpectedly finding themselves face to face with the enemy, at a distance at which a man can close fearlessly without falling out on the way breathless. They are chance encounters. Man is not yet demoralized by fire; he must strike or fall back.... Combat at close quarters does not exist. At close quarters occurs the ancient carnage when one force strikes the other in the back.

Columns have absolutely but a moral effect. They are threatening dispositions....

The mass impulse of cavalry has long been discredited. You have given up forming it in deep ranks although cavalry possesses a speed that would bring on more of a push upon the front at a halt than the last ranks of the infantry would bring upon the first. Yet you believe in the mass action of infantry!

As long as the ancient masses marched forward, they did not lose a man and no one lay down to avoid the combat. Dash lasted up to the time of stopping; the run was short in every case. In modern masses, in French masses especially, the march can be continued, but the mass loses while marching under fire. Moral pressure, continually exerted during a long advance, stops one-half of the combatants on the way. To-day, above all in France, man protests against such use of his life. The Frenchman wants to fight, to return blow for blow. If he is not allowed to, this is what happens. It happened to Napoleon's masses. Let us take Wagram, where his mass was not repulsed. Out of twenty-two thousand men, three thousand to fifteen hundred reached the position. Certainly the position was not carried by them, but by the material and moral effect of a battery of one hundred pieces, cavalry, etc., etc. Were the nineteen thousand missing men disabled? No. Seven out of twenty-two, a third, an enormous proportion may have been hit. What became of the twelve thousand unaccounted for? They had lain down on the road, had played dummy in order not to go on to the end. In the confused mass of a column of deployed battalions, surveillance, difficult enough in a column at normal distances, is impossible. Nothing is easier than dropping out through inertia; nothing more common.

This thing happens to every body of troops marching forward, under fire, in whatever formation it may be. The number of men falling out in this way, giving up at the least opportunity, is greater as formation is less fixed and the surveillance of officers and comrades more difficult. In a battalion in closed column, this kind of temporary desertion is enormous; one-half of the men drop out on the way. The first platoon is mingled with the fourth. They are really a flock of sheep. No one has control, all being mixed. Even if, in virtue of the first impulse, the position is carried, the disorder is so great that if it is counter-attacked by four men, it is lost.

The condition of morale of such masses is fully described in the battle of Caesar against the Nervii, Marius against the Cimbri. 41

What better arguments against deep columns could there be than the denials of Napoleon at St. Helena?

2. Skirmishers—Supports—Reserves—Squares

This is singular. The cavalry has definite tactics. Essentially it knows how it fights. The infantry does not.

Our infantry no longer has any battle tactics; the initiative of the soldier rules. The soldiers of the First Empire trusted to the moral and passive action of masses. To-day, the soldiers object to the passive action of masses. They fight as skirmishers, or they march to the front as a flock of sheep of which three-fourths seek cover enroute, if the fire is heavy. The first method, although better than the second, is bad unless iron discipline and studied and practical methods of fighting insure maintaining strong reserves. These should be in the hands of the leaders and officers for support purposes, to guard against panics, and to finish by the moral effect of a march on the enemy, of flank menaces, etc., the destructive action of the skirmishers.

To-day when the ballistic arm is so deadly, so effective, a unit which closes up in order to fight is a unit in which morale is weakened.

Maneuver is possible only with good organization; otherwise it is no more effective than the passive mass or a rabble in an attack.

In ancient combat, the soldier was controlled by the leader in engagements; now that fighting is open, the soldier cannot be controlled. Often he cannot even be directed. Consequently it is necessary to begin an action at the latest possible moment, and to have the immediate commanders understand what is wanted, what their objectives are, etc.

In the modern engagement, the infantryman gets from under our control by scattering, and we say: a soldier's war. Wrong, wrong. To solve this problem, instead of scattering to the winds, let us increase the number of rallying points by solidifying the companies. From them come battalions; from battalions come regiments.

Action in open order was not possible nor evident under Turenne. The majority of the soldiers that composed the army, were not held near at hand, in formation. They fought badly. There was a general seeking for cover. Note the conduct of the Americans in their late war.

The organization of the legion of Marshal Saxe shows the strength of the tendency toward shock action as opposed to fire action.

The drills, parades and firing at Potsdam were not the tactics of Old Fritz. Frederick's secret was promptitude and rapidity of movement. But they were popularly believed to be his means. People were fond of them, and are yet. The Prussians for all their leaning toward parade, mathematics, etc., ended by adopting the best methods. The Prussians of Jena were taken in themselves by Frederick's methods. But since then they have been the first to strike out in a practical way, while we, in France, are still laboring at the Potsdam drills.

The greater number of generals who fought in the last wars, under real battle conditions, ask for skirmishers in large units, well supported. Our men have such a strong tendency to place themselves in such units even against the will of their leaders, that they do not fight otherwise.

A number of respectable authors and military men advocate the use of skirmishers in large bodies, as being dictated by certain necessities of war. Ask them to elucidate this mode of action, and you will see that this talk of skirmishers in large bodies is nothing else but an euphemism for absolute disorder. An attempt has been made to fit the theory to the fact. Yet the use of skirmishers in large bodies is absurd with Frenchmen under fire, when the terrain and the sharpness of the action cause the initiative and direction to escape from the commanders, and leave it to the men, to small groups of soldiers.

Arms are for use. The best disposition for material effect in attack or defense is that which permits the easiest and most deadly use of arms. This disposition is the scattered thin line. The whole of the science of combat lies then in the happy, proper combination, of the open order, scattered to secure destructive effect, and a good disposition of troops in formation as supports and reserves, so as to finish by moral effect the action of the advanced troops. The proper combination varies with the enemy, his morale and the terrain. On the other hand, the thin line can have good order only with a severe discipline, a unity which our men attain from pride. Pride exists only among people who know each other well, who have esprit de corps, and company spirit. There is a necessity for an organization that renders unity possible by creating the real individuality of the company.

Self-esteem is unquestionably one of the most powerful motives which moves our men. They do not wish to pass for cowards in the eyes of their comrades. If they march forward they want to distinguish themselves. After every attack, formation (not the formation of the drill ground but that adopted by those rallying to the chief, those marching with him,) no longer exists. This is because of the inherent disorder of every forward march under fire. The bewildered men, even the officers, have no longer the eyes of their comrades or of their commander upon them, sustaining them. Self-esteem no longer impels them, they do not hold out; the least counter-offensive puts them to rout.

The experience of the evening ought always to serve the day following; but as the next day is never identical with the evening before, the counsel of experience can not be applied to the latter. When confused battalions shot at each other some two hundred paces for some time with arms inferior to those of our days, flight commenced at the wings. Therefore, said experience, let us reËnforce the wings, and the battalion was placed between two picked companies. But it was found that the combat methods had been transformed. The elite companies were then reassembled into picked corps and the battalion, weaker than ever, no longer had reËnforced wings. Perhaps combat in open order predominates, and the companies of light infantrymen being, above all, skirmishers, the battalion again is no longer supported. In our day the use of deployed battalions as skirmishers is no longer possible; and one of the essential reasons for picked companies is the strengthening of the battalion.

The question has been asked; Who saved the French army on the Beresina and at Hanau? The Guard, it is true. But, outside of the picked corps, what was the French army then? Droves, not troops. Abnormal times, abnormal deeds. The Beresina, Hanau, prove nothing to-day.

With the rapid-firing arms of infantry to-day, the advantage belongs to the defense which is completed by offensive movements carried out at opportune times.

Fire to-day is four or five times more rapid even if quite as haphazard as in the days of muzzle loaders. Everybody says that this renders impossible the charges of cavalry against infantry which has not been completely thrown into disorder, demoralized. What then must happen to charges of infantry, which marches while the cavalry charges?

Attacks in deep masses are no longer seen. They are not wise, and never were wise. To advance to the attack with a line of battalions in column, with large intervals and covered by a thick line of skirmishers, when the artillery has prepared the terrain, is very well. People with common sense have never done otherwise. But the thick line of skirmishers is essential. I believe that is the crux of the matter.

But enough of this. It is simple prudence for the artillery to prepare the infantry action by a moment's conversation with the artillery of the enemy infantry. If that infantry is not commanded by an imbecile, as it sometimes is, it will avoid that particular conversation the arguments of which would break it up, although they may not be directed precisely in its direction. All other things being equal, both infantries suffer the same losses in the artillery duel. The proportion does not vary, however complete the artillery preparation.

One infantry must always close with another under rapid fire from troops in position, and such a fire is, to-day more than ever, to the advantage of the defense. Ten men come towards me; they are at four hundred meters; with the ancient arm, I have time to kill but two before they reach me; with rapid fire, I have time to kill four or five. Morale does not increase with losses. The eight remaining might reach me in the first case; the five or six remaining will certainly not in the second.

If distance be taken, the leader can be seen, the file-closers see, the platoon that follows watches the preceding. Dropping out always exists, but it is less extensive with an open order, the men running more risks of being recognized. Stragglers will be fewer as the companies know each other better, and as the officers and men are more dependable.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to get the French infantry to make use of its fire before charging. If it fires, it will not charge, because it will continue to fire. (Bugeaud's method of firing during the advance is good.) What is needed, then, is skirmishers, who deliver the only effective fire, and troops in formation who push the skirmishers on, in themselves advancing to the attack.

The soldier wants to be occupied, to return shot for shot. Place him in a position to act immediately, individually. Then, whatever he does, you have not wholly lost your authority over him.

Again and again and again, at drill, the officers and non-commissioned officer ought to tell the private: "This is taught you to serve you under such circumstances." Generals, field officers, ought to tell officers the same thing. This alone can make an instructed army like the Roman army. But to-day, who of us can explain page for page, the use of anything ordered by our tactical regulations except the school of the skirmisher? "Forward," "retreat," and "by the flank," are the only practical movements under fire. But the others should be explained. Explain the position of "carry arms" with the left hand. Explain the ordinary step. Explain firing at command in the school of the battalion. It is well enough for the school of the platoon, because a company can make use thereof, but a battalion never can.

Everything leads to the belief that battle with present arms will be, in the same space of time, more deadly than with ancient ones. The trajectory of the projectile reaching further, the rapidity of firing being four times as great, more men will be put out of commission in less time. While the arm becomes more deadly, man does not change, his morale remains capable of certain efforts and the demands upon it become stronger. Morale is overtaxed; it reaches more rapidly the maximum of tension which throws the soldier to the front or rear. The rÔle of commanders is to maintain morale, to direct those movements which men instinctively execute when heavily engaged and under the pressure of danger.

Napoleon I said that in battle, the rÔle of skirmishers is the most fatiguing and most deadly. This means that under the Empire, as at present, the strongly engaged infantry troops rapidly dissolved into skirmishers. The action was decided by the moral agency of the troops not engaged, held in hand, capable of movement in any direction and acting as a great menace of new danger to the adversary, already shaken by the destructive action of the skirmishers. The same is true to-day. But the greater force of fire arms requires, more than ever, that they be utilized. The rÔle of the skirmisher becomes preËminently the destructive role; it is forced on every organization seriously engaged by the greater moral pressure of to-day which causes men to scatter sooner.

Commanders-in-chief imagine formed battalions firing on the enemy and do not include the use of skirmishers in drill. This is an error, for they are necessary in drill and everywhere, etc. The formed rank is more difficult to utilize than ever. General Leboeuf used a very practical movement of going into battle, by platoons, which advance to the battle line in echelon, and can fire, even if they are taken in the very act of the movement. There is always the same dangerous tendency toward mass action even for a battalion in maneuver. This is an error. The principles of maneuver for small units should not be confused with those for great units. Emperor Napoleon did not prescribe skirmishers in flat country. But every officer should be reduced who does not utilize them to some degree.

The rÔle of the skirmisher becomes more and more predominant. He should be so much the more watched and directed as he is used against more deadly arms, and, consequently, is more disposed to escape from all control, from all direction. Yet under such battle conditions formations are proposed which send skirmishers six hundred paces in advance of battalions and which give the battalion commander the mission of watching and directing (with six companies of one hundred and twenty men) troops spread over a space of three hundred paces by five hundred, at a minimum. To advance skirmishers six hundred paces from their battalion and to expect they will remain there is the work of people who have never observed.

Inasmuch as combat by skirmishers tends to predominate and since it becomes more difficult with the increase of danger, there has been a constant effort to bring into the firing line the man who must direct it. Leaders have been seen to spread an entire battalion in front of an infantry brigade or division so that the skirmishers, placed under a single command, might obey a general direction better. This method, scarcely practicable on the drill-ground, and indicating an absolute lack of practical sense, marks the tendency. The authors of new drills go too far in the opposite direction. They give the immediate command of the skirmishers in each battalion to the battalion commander who must at the same time lead his skirmishers and his battalion. This expedient is more practical than the other. It abandons all thought of an impossible general control and places the special direction in the right hands. But the leadership is too distant, the battalion commander has to attend to the participation of his battalion in the line, or in the ensemble of other battalions of the brigade or division, and the particular performance of his skirmishers. The more difficult, confused, the engagement becomes, the more simple and clear ought to be the roles of each one. Skirmishers are in need of a firmer hand than ever to direct and maintain them, so that they may do their part. The battalion commander must be entirely occupied with the rÔle of skirmishers, or with the rÔle of the line. There should be smaller battalions, one-half the number in reserve, one-half as skirmisher battalions. In the latter the men should be employed one-half as skirmishers and one-half held in reserve. The line of skirmishers will then gain steadiness.

Let the battalion commander of the troops of the second line entirely occupy himself with his battalion.

The full battalion of six companies is to-day too unwieldy for one man. Have battalions of four companies of one hundred men each, which is certainly quite sufficient considering the power of destruction which these four companies place in the hands of one man. He will have difficulty in maintaining and directing these four companies under the operation of increasingly powerful modern appliances. He will have difficulty in watching them, in modern combat, with the greater interval between the men in line that the use of the present arms necessitates. With a unified battalion of six hundred men, I would do better against a battalion of one thousand Prussians, than with a battalion of eight hundred men, two hundred of whom are immediately taken out of my control.

Skirmishers have a destructive effect; formed troops a moral effect. Drill ground maneuvers should prepare for actual battle. In such maneuvers, why, at the decisive moment of an attack, should you lighten the moral anxiety of the foe by ceasing his destruction, by calling back your skirmishers? If the enemy keeps his own skirmishers and marches resolutely behind them, you are lost, for his moral action upon you is augmented by his destructive action against which you have kindly disarmed yourself.

Why do you call back your skirmishers? Is it because your skirmishers hinder the operation of your columns, block bayonet charges? One must never have been in action to advance such a reason. At the last moment, at the supreme moment when one or two hundred meters separate you from the adversary, there is no longer a line. There is a fearless advance, and your skirmishers are your forlorn hope. Let them charge on their own account. Let them be passed or pushed forward by the mass. Do not recall them. Do not order them to execute any maneuver for they are not capable of any, except perhaps, that of falling back and establishing a counter-current which might drag you along. In these moments, everything hangs by a thread. Is it because your skirmishers would prevent you from delivering fire? Do you, then, believe in firing, especially in firing under the pressure of approaching danger, before the enemy? If he is wise, certainly he marches preceded by skirmishers, who kill men in your ranks and who have the confidence of a first success, of having seen your skirmishers disappear before them. These skirmishers will certainly lie down before your unmasked front. In that formation they easily cause you losses, and you are subjected to their destructive effect and to the moral effect of the advance of troops in formation against you. Your ranks become confused; you do not hold the position. There is but one way of holding it, that is to advance, and for that, it is necessary at all costs to avoid firing before moving ahead. Fire opened, no one advances further.

Do you believe in opening and ceasing fire at the will of the commander as on the drill ground? The commencement of fire by a battalion, with the present arms especially, is the beginning of disorder, the moment where the battalion begins to escape from its leader. While drilling even, the battalion commanders, after a little lively drill, after a march, can no longer control the fire.

Do you object that no one ever gets within two hundred meters of the enemy? That a unit attacking from the front never succeeds? So be it! Let us attack from the flank. But a flank is always more or less covered. Men are stationed there, ready for the blow. It will be necessary to pick off these men.

To-day, more than ever, no rapid, calm firing is possible except skirmish firing.

The rapidity of firing has reduced six ranks to two ranks. With reliable troops who have no need of the moral support of a second rank behind them, one rank suffices to-day. At any rate, it is possible to await attack in two ranks.

In prescribing fire at command, in seeking to minimize the rÔle of skirmishers instead of making it predominate, you take sides with the Germans. We are not fitted for that sort of game. If they adopt fire at command, it is just one more reason for our finding another method. We have invented, discovered the skirmisher; he is forced upon us by our men, our arms, etc. He must be organized.

In fire by rank, in battle, men gather into small groups and become confused. The more space they have, the less will be the disorder.

Formed in two ranks, each rank should be still thinner. All the shots of the second line are lost. The men should not touch; they should be far apart. The second rank in firing from position at a supreme moment, ought not to be directly behind the first. The men ought to be echeloned behind the first. There will always be firing from position on any front. It is necessary to make this firing as effective and as easy as possible. I do not wish to challenge the experiences of the target range but I wish to put them to practical use.

It is evident that the present arms are more deadly than the ancient ones; the morale of the troops will therefore be more severely shaken. The influence of the leader should be greater over the combatants, those immediately engaged. If it seems rational, let colonels engage in action, with the battalions of their regiment in two lines. One battalion acts as skirmishers; the other battalion waits, formed ready to aid the first. If you do not wish so to utilize the colonels, put all the battalions of the regiment in the first line, and eventually use them as skirmishers. The thing is inevitable; it will be done in spite of you. Do it yourself at the very first opportunity.

The necessity of replenishing the ammunition supply so quickly used up by the infantry, requires engaging the infantry by units only, which can be relieved by other units after the exhaustion of the ammunition supply. As skirmishers are exhausted quickly, engage entire battalions as skirmishers, assisted by entire battalions as supports or reserves. This is a necessary measure to insure good order. Do not throw into the fight immediately the four companies of the battalion. Up to the crucial moment, the battalion commander ought to guard against throwing every one into the fight.

There is a mania, seen in our maneuver camps, for completely covering a battle front, a defended position, by skirmishers, without the least interval between the skirmishers of different battalions. What will be the result? Initially a waste of men and ammunition. Then, difficulty in replacing them.

Why cover the front everywhere? If you do, then what advantage is there in being able to see from a great distance? Leave large intervals between your deployed companies. We are no longer only one hundred meters from the enemy at the time of firing. Since we are able to see at a great distance we do not risk having the enemy dash into these intervals unexpectedly. Your skirmisher companies at large intervals begin the fight, the killing. While your advance companies move ahead, the battalion commander follows with his formed companies, defilading them as much as possible. He lets them march. If the skirmishers fight at the halt, he supervises them. If the commanding officer wishes to reËnforce his line, if he wants to face an enemy who attempts to advance into an interval, if he has any motive for doing it, in a word, he rushes new skirmishers into the interval. Certainly, these companies have more of the forward impulse, more dash, if dash is needed, than the skirmishers already in action. If they pass the first skirmishers, no harm is done. There you have echelons already formed. The skirmishers engaged, seeing aid in front of them, can be launched ahead more easily.

Besides, the companies thrown into this interval are a surprise for the enemy. That is something to be considered, as is the fact that so long as there is fighting at a halt, intervals in the skirmish lines are fit places for enemy bullets. Furthermore, these companies remain in the hands of their leaders. With the present method of reËnforcing skirmishers—I am speaking of the practical method of the battlefield, not of theory—a company, starting from behind the skirmishers engaged, without a place in which to deploy, does not find anything better to do than to mingle with the skirmishers. Here it doubles the number of men, but in doing so brings disorder, prevents the control of the commanders and breaks up the regularly constituted groups. While the closing up of intervals to make places for new arrivals is good on the drill ground, or good before or after the combat, it never works during battle.

No prescribed interval will be kept exactly. It will open, it will close, following the fluctuations of the combat. But the onset, during which it can be kept, is not the moment of brisk combat; it is the moment of the engagement, of contact, consequently, of feeling out. It is essential that there remain space in which to advance. Suppose you are on a plain, for in a maneuver one starts from the flat terrain. In extending the new company it will reËnforce the wings of the others, the men naturally supporting the flanks of their comrades. The individual intervals will lessen in order to make room for the new company. The company will always have a well determined central group, a rallying point for the others. If the interval has disappeared there is always time to employ the emergency method of doubling the ranks in front; but one must not forget, whatever the course taken, to preserve good order.

We cannot resist closing intervals between battalions; as if we were still in the times of the pikemen when, indeed, it was possible to pass through an interval! To-day, the fighting is done ten times farther away, and the intervals between battalions are not weak joints. They are covered by the fire of the skirmishers, as well covered by fire as the rest of the front, and invisible to the enemy.

Skirmishers and masses are the formations for action of poorly instructed French troops. With instruction and unity there would be skirmishers supported and formation in battalion columns at most.

Troops in close order can have only a moral effect, for the attack, or for a demonstration. If you want to produce a real effect, use musketry. For this it is necessary to form a single line. Formations have purely moral effect. Whoever counts on their material, effective action against reliable, cool troops, is mistaken and is defeated. Skirmishers alone do damage. Picked shots would do more if properly employed.

In attacking a position, start the charge at the latest possible moment, when the leader thinks he can reach the objective not all out of breath. Until then, it has been possible to march in rank, that is under the officers, the rank not being the mathematical line, but the grouping in the hands of the leader, under his eye. With the run comes confusion. Many stop, the fewer as the run is shorter. They lie down on the way and will rejoin only if the attack succeeds, if they join at all. If by running too long the men are obliged to stop in order to breathe and rest, the dash is broken, shattered. At the advance, very few will start. There are ten chances to one of seeing the attack fail, of turning it into a joke, with cries of "Forward with fixed bayonet," but none advancing, except some brave men who will be killed uselessly. The attack vanishes finally before the least demonstration of the foe. An unfortunate shout, a mere nothing, can destroy it.

Absolute rules are foolish, the conduct of every charge being an affair requiring tact. But so regulate by general rules the conduct of an infantry charge that those who commence it too far away can properly be accused of panic. And there is a way. Regulate it as the cavalry charge is regulated, and have a rearguard in each battalion of non-commissioned officers, of most reliable officers, in order to gather together, to follow close upon the charge, at a walk, and to collect all those who have lain down so as not to march or because they were out of breath. This rearguard might consist of a small platoon of picked shots, such as we need in each battalion. The charge ought to be made at a given distance, else it vanishes, evaporates. The leader who commences it too soon either has no head, or does not want to gain his objective.

The infantry of the line, as opposed to elite commands, should not be kept in support. The least firm, the most impressionable, are thus sent into the road stained with the blood of the strongest. We place them, after a moral anxiety of waiting, face to face with the terrible destruction and mutilation of modern weapons. If antiquity had need of solid troops as supports, we have a greater need of them. Death in ancient combat was not as horrible as in the modern battle where the flesh is mangled, slashed by artillery fire. In ancient combat, except in defeat, the wounded were few in number. This is the reply to those who wish to begin an action by chasseurs, zouaves, etc.

He, general or mere captain, who employs every one in the storming of a position can be sure of seeing it retaken by an organized counter-attack of four men and a corporal.

In order that we may have real supervision and responsibility in units from companies to brigades, the supporting troops ought to be of the same company, the same battalion, the same brigade, as the case may be. Each brigade ought to have its two lines, each battalion its skirmishers, etc.

The system of holding out a reserve as long as possible for independent action when the enemy has used his own, ought to be applied downwards. Each battalion should have its own, each regiment its own, firmly maintained.

There is more need than ever to-day, for protecting the supporting forces, the reserves. The power of destruction increases, the morale remains the same. The tests of morale, being more violent than previously, ought to be shorter, because the power of morale has not increased. The masses, reserves, the second, the first lines, should be protected and sheltered even more than the skirmishers.

Squares sometimes are broken by cavalry which pursues the skirmishers into the square. Instead of lying down, they rush blindly to their refuge which they render untenable and destroy. No square can hold out against determined troops.... But!

The infantry square is not a thing of mechanics, of mathematical reasoning; it is a thing of morale. A platoon in four ranks, two facing the front, two the rear, its flanks guarded by the extreme files that face to the flank, and conducted, supported by the non-commissioned officers placed in a fifth rank, in the interior of the rectangle, powerful in its compactness and its fire, cannot be dislodged by cavalry. However, this platoon will prefer to form a part of a large square, it will consider itself stronger, because of numbers, and indeed it will be, since the feeling of force pervades this whole force. This feeling is power in war.

People who calculate only according to the fire delivered, according to the destructive power of infantry, would have it fight deployed against cavalry. They do not consider that although supported and maintained, although such a formation seem to prevent flight, the very impetus of the charge, if led resolutely, will break the deployment before the shock arrives. It is clear that if the charge is badly conducted, whether the infantry be solid or not, it will never reach its objective. Why? Moral reasons and no others make the soldier in a square feel himself stronger than when in line. He feels himself watched from behind and has nowhere to flee.

3. Firing

It is easy to misuse breech-loading weapons, such as the rifle. The fashion to-day is to use small intrenchments, covering battalions. As old as powder. Such shelter is an excellent device on the condition, however, that behind it, a useful fire can be delivered.

Look at these two ranks crouched under the cover of a small trench. Follow the direction of the shots. Even note the trajectory shown by the burst of flame. You will be convinced that, under such conditions, even simple horizontal firing is a fiction. In a second, there will be wild firing on account of the noise, the crowding, the interference of the two ranks. Next everybody tries to get under the best possible cover. Good-by firing.

It is essential to save ammunition, to get all possible efficiency from the arm. Yet the official adoption of fire by rank insures relapsing into useless firing at random. Good shots are wasted, placed where it is impossible for them to fire well.

Since we have a weapon that fires six times more rapidly than the ancient weapon, why not profit by it to cover a given space with six times fewer riflemen than formerly? Riflemen placed at greater intervals, will be less bewildered, will see more clearly, will be better watched (which may seem strange to you), and will consequently deliver a better fire than formerly. Besides, they will expend six times less ammunition. That is the vital point. You must always have ammunition available, that is to say, troops which have not been engaged. Reserves must be held out. This is hard to manage perhaps. It is not so hard to manage, however, as fire by command.

What is the use of fire by rank? By command? It is impracticable against the enemy, except in extraordinary cases. Any attempt at supervision of it is a joke! File firing? The first rank can shoot horizontally, the only thing required; the second rank can fire only into the air. It is useless to fire with our bulky knapsacks interfering so that our men raise the elbow higher than the shoulder. Learn what the field pack can be from the English, Prussians, Austrians, etc.... Could the pack not be thicker and less wide? Have the first rank open; let the second be checkerwise; and let firing against cavalry be the only firing to be executed in line.

One line will be better than two, because it will not be hindered by the one behind it. One kind of fire is practicable and efficient, that of one rank. This is the fire of skirmishers in close formation.

The king's order of June 1st, 1776, reads (p. 28): "Experience in war having proved that three ranks fire standing, and the intention of his majesty being to prescribe only what can be executed in front of the enemy, he orders that in firing, the first man is never to put his knee on the ground, and that the three ranks fire standing at the same time." This same order includes instructions on target practice, etc.

Marshal de Gouvion-Saint Cyr says that conservatively one-fourth of the men who are wounded in an affair are put out of commission by the third rank. This estimate is not high enough if it concerns a unit composed of recruits like those who fought at LÜtzen and Bautzen. The marshal mentions the astonishment of Napoleon when he saw the great number of men wounded in the hand and forearm. This astonishment of Napoleon's is singular. What ignorance in his marshals not to have explained such wounds! Chief Surgeon Larrey, by observation of the wounds, alone exonerated our soldiers of the accusation of self-inflicted wounds. The observation would have been made sooner, had the wounds heretofore been numerous. That they had not been can be explained only by the fact that while the young soldiers of 1813 kept instinctively close in ranks, up to that time the men must have spaced themselves instinctively, in order to be able to shoot. Or perhaps in 1813, these young men might have been allowed to fire a longer time in order to distract them and keep them in ranks, and not often allowed to act as skirmishers for fear of losing them. Whilst formerly, the fire by rank must have been much rarer and fire action must have given way almost entirely to the use of skirmishers.

Fire by command presupposes an impossible coolness. Had any troops ever possessed it they would have mowed down battalions as one mows down corn stalks. Yet it has been known for a long time, since Frederick, since before Frederick, since the first rifle. Let troops get the range calmly, let them take aim together so that no one disturbs or hinders the other. Have each one see clearly, then, at a signal, let them all fire at once. Who is going to stand against such people? But did they aim in those days? Not so accurately, possibly, but they knew how to shoot waist-high, to shoot at the feet. They knew how to do it. I do not say they did it. If they had done so, there would not have been any need of reminding them of it so often. Note Cromwell's favorite saying, "Aim at their shoe-laces;" that of the officers of the empire, "Aim at the height of the waist." Study of battles, of the expenditure of bullets, show us no such immediate terrible results. If such a means of destruction was so easy to obtain, why did not our illustrious forbears use it and recommend it to us? (Words of de Gouvion-Saint-Cyr.)

Security alone creates calmness under fire.

In minor operations of war, how many captains are capable of tranquilly commanding their fire and maneuvering with calmness?

Here is a singular thing. You hear fire by rank against cavalry seriously recommended in military lectures. Yet not a colonel, not a battalion commander, not a captain, requires this fire to be executed in maneuvers. It is always the soldier who forces the firing. He is ordered to shoot almost before he aims for fear he will shoot without command. Yet he ought to feel that when he is aiming, his finger on the trigger, his shot does not belong to him, but rather to the officer who ought to be able to let him aim for five minutes, if advisable, examining, correcting the positions, etc. He ought, when aiming, always be ready to fire upon the object designated, without ever knowing when it will please his commander to order him to fire.

Fire at command is not practicable in the face of the enemy. If it were, the perfection of its execution would depend on the coolness of the commander and the obedience of the soldier. The soldier is the more easily trained.

The Austrians had fire by command in Italy against cavalry. Did they use it? They fired before the command, an irregular fire, a fire by file, with defective results.

Fire by command is impossible. But why is firing by rank at will impossible, illusory, under the fire of the enemy? Because of the reasons already given and, for this reason: that closed ranks are incompatible with fire-arms, on account of the wounding caused by the latter in ranks. In closed ranks, the two lines touching elbows, a man who falls throws ten men into complete confusion. There is no room for those who drop and, however few fall, the resulting disorder immediately makes of the two ranks a series of small milling groups. If the troops are young, they become a disordered flock before any demonstration. (Caldiero, Duhesme.) If the troops have some steadiness, they of themselves will make space: they will try to make way for the bullets: they will scatter as skirmishers with small intervals. (Note the Grenadier Guards at Magenta.)42

With very open ranks, men a pace apart, whoever falls has room, he is noticed by a lesser number, he drags down no one in his fall. The moral impression on his comrades is less. Their courage is less impaired. Besides, with rapid fire everywhere, spaced ranks with no man in front of another, at least permit horizontal fire. Closed ranks permit it hardly in the first rank, whose ears are troubled by the shots from the men behind. When a man has to fire four or five shots a minute, one line is certainly more solid than two, because, while the firing is less by half, it is more than twice as likely to be horizontal fire as in the two-rank formation. Well-sustained fire, even with blank cartridges, would be sufficient to prevent a successful charge. With slow fire, two ranks alone were able to keep up a sufficiently continuous fusillade. With rapid fire, a single line delivers more shots than two with ancient weapons. Such fire, therefore, suffices as a fusillade.

Close ranks, while suitable for marching, do not lend themselves to firing at the halt. Marching, a man likes a comrade at his side. Firing, as if he felt the flesh attracting the lead, he prefers being relatively isolated, with space around him. Breech-loading rifles breed queer ideas. Generals are found who say that rapid firing will bring back fire at command, as if there ever were such a thing. They say it will bring back salvo firing, thus permitting clear vision. As if such a thing were possible! These men have not an atom of common sense.

It is singular to see a man like Guibert, with practical ideas on most things, give a long dissertation to demonstrate that the officers of his time were wrong in aiming at the middle of the body, that is, in firing low. He claims this is ridiculous to one who understands the trajectory of the rifle. These officers were right. They revived the recommendations of Cromwell, because they knew that in combat the soldier naturally fires too high because he does not aim, and because the shape of the rifle, when it is brought to the shoulder, tends to keep the muzzle higher than the breech. Whether that is the reason or something else, the fact is indisputable. It is said that in Prussian drills all the bullets hit the ground at fifty paces. With the arms of that time and the manner of fighting, results would have been magnificent in battle if the bullets had struck fifty paces before the enemy instead of passing over his head.

Yet at Mollwitz, where the Austrians had five thousand men disabled, the Prussians had over four thousand.

Firing with a horizontal sector, if the muzzle be heavy, is more deadly than firing with a vertical sector.

4. Marches. Camps. Night Attacks.

From the fact that infantry ought always to fight in thin formation, scattered, it does not follow that it ought to be kept in that order. Only in column is it possible to maintain the battle order. It is necessary to keep one's men in hand as long as possible, because once engaged, they no longer belong to you.

The disposition in closed mass is not a suitable marching formation, even in a battalion for a short distance. On account of heat, the closed column is intolerable, like an unventilated room. Formation with half-distances is better. (Why? Air, view, etc.)

Such a formation prevents ready entry of the column into battle in case of necessity or surprise. The half-divisions not in the first line are brought up, the arms at the order, and they can furnish either skirmishers or a reserve for the first line which has been deployed as skirmishers.

At Leuctra, Epaminondas diminished, by one-half, the depth of his men; he formed square phalanxes of fifty men to a side. He could have very well dispensed with it, for the Lacedaemonian right was at once thrown into disorder by its own cavalry which was placed in front of that wing. The superior cavalry of Epaminondas overran not only the cavalry but the infantry that was behind it. The infantry of Epaminondas, coming in the wake of his cavalry finished the work. Turning to the right, the left of Epaminondas then took in the flank the Lacedaemonian line. Menaced also in front by the approaching echelons of Epaminondas, this line became demoralized and took to flight. Perhaps this fifty by fifty formation was adopted in order to give, without maneuver, a front of fifty capable of acting in any direction. At Leuctra, it simply acted to the right and took the enemy in the flank and in reverse.

Thick woods are generally passed through in close column. There is never any opening up, with subsequent closing on the far side. The resulting formation is as confused as a flock of sheep.

In a march through mountains, difficult country, a bugler should be on the left, at the orders of an intelligent officer who indicates when the halt seems necessary for discipline in the line. The right responds and if the place has been judged correctly an orderly formation is maintained. Keep in ranks. If one man steps out, others follow. Do not permit men to leave ranks without requiring them to rejoin.

In the rear-guard it is always necessary to have pack mules in an emergency; without this precaution, considerable time may be lost. In certain difficult places time is thus lost every day.

In camp, organize your fatigue parties in advance; send them out in formation and escorted.

Definite and detailed orders ought to be given to the convoy, and the chief baggage-master ought to supervise it, which is rarely the case.

It is a mistake to furnish mules to officers and replace them in case of loss or sickness. The officer overloads the mule and the Government loses more thereby than is generally understood. Convoys are endless owing to overloaded mules and stragglers. If furnished money to buy a mule the officer uses it economically because it is his. If mules are individually furnished to officers instead of money, the officer will care for his beast for the same reason. But it is better to give money only, and the officer, if he is not well cared for on the march has no claim against the Government.

Always, always, take Draconian measures to prevent pillage from commencing. If it begins, it is difficult ever to stop it. A body of infantry is never left alone. There is no reason for calling officers of that arm inapt, when battalions although established in position are not absolutely on the same line, with absolutely equal intervals. Ten moves are made to achieve the exact alignment which the instructions on camp movements prescribe. Yet designating a guiding battalion might answer well enough and still be according to the regulations.

Why are not night attacks more employed to-day, at least on a grand scale? The great front which armies occupy renders their employment more difficult, and exacts of the troops an extreme aptitude in this kind of surprise tactics (found in the Arabs, Turcos, Spahis), or absolute reliability. There are some men whose knowledge of terrain is wonderful, with an unerring eye for distance, who can find their way through places at night which they have visited only in the day time. Utilizing such material for a system of guides it would be possible to move with certainty. These are simple means, rarely employed, for conducting a body of troops into position on the darkest night. There is, even, a means of assuring at night the fire of a gun upon a given point with as much precision as in plain day.