Battle Studies; Ancient and Modern Battle Part 14

If national vanity and pride were not so touchy about recent occurrences, still pa.s.sionately debated, numerous lessons might be drawn from our last wars. Who can speak impartially of Waterloo, or Waterloo so much discussed and with such heat, without being ashamed?

Had Waterloo been won, it would not have profited us. Napoleon attempted the impossible, which is beyond even genius. After a terrible fight against English firmness and tenacity, a fight in which we were not able to subdue them, the Prussians appear. We would have done no better had they not appeared, but they did, very conveniently to sustain our pride. They were confronted. Then the rout began. It did not begin in the troops facing the Prussians but in those facing the English, who were exhausted perhaps, but not more so than their enemies. This was the moral effect of an attack on their right, when they had rather expected reinforcements to appear. The right conformed to the retrograde movement. And what a movement it was!

Why do not authorities acknowledge facts and try to formulate combat methods that conform to reality? It would reduce a little the disorder that bothers men not warned of it. They jump perhaps from the frying pan into the fire. I have known two colonels, one of them a very brave man, who said, "Let soldiers alone before the enemy. They know what to do better than you do." This is a fine statement of French confidence!

That they know better than you what should be done. Especially in a panic, I suppose!

A long time ago the Prince de Ligne justified battle formations, above all the famous oblique formation. Napoleon decided the question. All discussion of formations is pedantry. But there are moral reasons for the power of the depth formation.

The difference between practice and theory is incredible. A general, who has given directions a thousand times on the battle field, when asked for directions, gives this order, "Go there, Colonel." The colonel, a man of good sense, says, "Will you explain, sir? What point do you want me to guide on? How far should I extend? Is there anybody on my right? On my left?" The general says, "Advance on the enemy, sir. It seems to me that that ought to be enough. What does this hesitation mean?" But my dear general, what are your orders? An officer should know where his command is, and the command itself should know. s.p.a.ce is large. If you do not know where to send your troops, and how to direct them, to make them understand where they are to go, to give them guides if necessary, what sort of general are you?

What is our method for occupying a fortified work, or a line? We have none! Why not adopt that of Marshal Saxe? Ask several generals how they would do it. They will not know.

There is always mad impatience for results, without considering the means. A general's ability lies in judging the best moment for attack and in knowing how to prepare for it. We took Melegnano without artillery, without maneuver, but at what a price! At Waterloo the Hougoumont farm held us up all day, cost us dear and disorganized us into a mad mob, until Napoleon finally sent eight mortars to smash and burn the chateau. This is what should have been done at the commencement of the general attack.

A rational and ordered method of combat, or if not ordered, known to all, is enough to make good troops, if there is discipline be it understood. The Portuguese infantry in the Spanish War, to whom the English had taught their method of combat, almost rivalled the English infantry. To-day who has formulated method? Who has a traditional method? Ask the generals. No two will agree.

We have a method, a manner rather, that accords with the national tendency, that of skirmishers in large numbers. But this formation is nowhere formulated. Before a campaign it is decried. Properly so, for it degenerates rapidly into a flock of lost sheep. Consequently troops come to the battle field entirely unused to reality. All the leaders, all the officers, are confused and unoriented. This goes so far that often generals are found who have lost their divisions or brigades; staff officers who have lost their generals and their divisions both; and, although this is more easily understood, many company officers who have lost their commands. This is a serious matter, which might cost us dear in a prolonged war in which the enemy gains experience.

Let us hope that experience will lead us, not to change the principle, but to modify and form in a practical way our characteristic battle method of escaping by advancing. The brochure of the Prince of Prussia shows that, without having fought us, the Prussians understand our methods.

There are men such as Marshal Bugeaud who are born warriors in character, mental att.i.tude, intelligence and temperament. They recommend and show by example, such as Colonel Bugeaud's battles in 1815 at the Hospital bridge, tactics entirely appropriate to their national and personal characters. Note Wellington and the Duke of York among the English. But the execution of tactics such as Bugeaud's requires officers who resemble their commanders, at least in courage and decisions. All officers are not of such temper. There is need then of prescribed tactics conforming to the national character, which may serve to guide an ordinary officer without requiring him to have the exceptional ability of a Bugeaud. Such prescribed tactics would serve an officer as the perfectly clear and well defined tactics of the Roman legion served the legion commander. The officer could not neglect them without failing in his duty. Of course they will not make him an exceptional leader. But, except in case of utter incapacity they will keep him from entirely failing in his task, from making absurd mistakes. Nor will they prevent officers of Bugeaud's temper from using their ability. They will on the contrary help them by putting under their command men prepared for the details of battle, which will not then come to them as a surprise.

This method need not be as completely dogmatic as the Roman. Our battle is too varying an affair. But some clearly defined rules, established by experience, would prevent the gross errors of inefficients. (Such as causing skirmishers to fall back when the formed rank fires, and consequently allowing them to carry with them in their retreat, the rank itself.) They would be useful aids to men of coolness and decision.

The laying down of such tactics would answer the many who hold that everything is improvised on the battle field and who find no better improvisation than to leave the soldier to himself. (See above.)

We should try to exercise some control over our soldiers, who advance by flight (note the Vendeans) or escape by advancing, as you like. But if something unexpected surprises them, they flee as precipitately.

Invention is less needed than verification, demonstration and organization of proper methods. To verify; observe better. To demonstrate; try out and describe better. To organize, distribute better, bearing in mind that cohesion means discipline. I do not know who put things that way; but it is truer than ever in this day of invention.

With us very few reason or understand reason, very few are cool. Their effect is negligible in the disorder of the ma.s.s; it is lost in numbers. It follows that we above all need a method of combat, sanely thought out in advance. It must be based on the fact that we are not pa.s.sively obedient instruments, but very nervous and restless people, who wish to finish things quickly and to know in advance where we are going. It must be based on the fact that we are very proud people, but people who would all skulk if we were not seen, and who consequently must always be seen, and act in the presence of our comrades and of the officers who supervise us. From this comes the necessity for organizing the infantry company solidly. It is the infantryman on whom the battle has the most violent effect, for he is always most exposed; it is he therefore who must be the most solidly supported. Unity must be secured by a mutual acquaintanceship of long standing between all elements.

If you only use combat methods that require leaders without fear, of high intelligence, full of good sense, of esprit, you will always make mistakes. Bugeaud's method was the best for him. But it is evident, in his fight at the Hospital bridge that his battalion commanders were useless. If he had not been there, all would have been lost. He alone, omnipresent, was capable of resolute blows that the others could not execute. His system can be summed up in two phrases; always attack even when on the defensive; fire and take cover only when not attacked. His method was rational, considering his mentality and the existing conditions, but in carrying it into execution he judged his officers and soldiers by himself and was deceived. No dogmatic principles can be drawn from his method, nor from any other. Man is always man. He does not always possess ability and resolution. The commander must make his choice of methods, depending on his troops and on himself.

The essential of tactics is: the science of making men fight with their maximum energy. This alone can give an organization with which to fight fear. This has always been true.

We must start here and figure mathematically. Mathematics is the dominant science in war, just as battle is its only purpose. Pride generally causes refusal to acknowledge the truth that fear of being vanquished is basic in war. In the ma.s.s, pride, vanity, is responsible for this dissimulation. With the tiny number of absolutely fearless men, what is responsible is their ignorance of a thing they do not feel. There is however, no real basis but this, and all real tactics are based on it. Discipline is a part of tactics, is absolutely at the base of tactics, as the Romans showed. They excelled the Gauls in intelligence, but not in bravery.

To start with: take battalions of four companies, four platoons each, in line or in column. The order of battle may be: two platoons deployed as skirmishers, two companies in reserve, under command of the battalion commander. In obtaining a decision destructive action will come from skirmishers. This action should be directed by battalion commanders, but such direction is not customary. No effect will be secured from skirmishers at six hundred paces. They will never, never, never, be nicely aligned in front of their battalions, calm and collected, after an advance. They will not, even at maneuvers. The battalion commander ought to be advanced enough to direct his skirmishers. The whole battalion, one-half engaged, one-half ready for any effort, ought to remain under his command, under his personal direction as far as possible. In the advance the officers, the soldiers, are content if they are merely directed; but, when the battle becomes hot, they must see their commander, know him to be near. It does not matter even if he is without initiative, incapable of giving an order. His presence creates a belief that direction exists, that orders exist, and that is enough.

When the skirmishers meet with resistance, they fall back to the ranks. It is the role of reserves to support and reinforce the line, and above all, by a swift charge to cut the enemy's line. This then falls back and the skirmishers go forward again, if the advance is resumed. The second line should be in the formation, battalions in line or in column, that hides it best. Cover the infantry troops before their entry into action; cover them as much as possible and by any means; take advantage of the terrain; make them lie down. This is the English method in defense of heights, instanced in Spain and at Waterloo. Only one bugle to each battalion should sound calls. What else is there to be provided for?

Many haughty generals would scream protests like eagles if it were suggested that they take such precautions for second line battalions or first line troops not committed to action. Yet this is merely a sane measure to insure good order without the slightest implication of cowardice. [39]

With breech-loading weapons, the skirmishers on the defensive fire almost always from a p.r.o.ne position. They are made to rise with difficulty, either for retreat or for advance. This renders the defense more tenacious....

CHAPTER II

INFANTRY

1. Ma.s.ses--Deep Columns.

Study of the effect of columns brings us to the consideration of ma.s.s 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 ma.s.sed 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, antic.i.p.ating 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? n.o.body 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 s.p.a.ce 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, pa.s.s 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.

Ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sailant 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 ma.s.s. 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.

Blucher 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 un.o.bserved 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 ma.s.s. 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 than in an infantry ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s. And yet, the allurement of mathematical reasoning is such that cavalry officers, especially the Germans, have seriously proposed attacking infantry by deep ma.s.ses, 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 ma.s.s had no influence in such cases. It was the ma.s.s 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....