Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/386

Rh 362 it to his subordinates to work out the development with such local skill as the circumstances permit. Nevertheless, it would be rash to say that, as incidents of a great campaign, many battles may not be fought, the effect of which on the conduct of the general operations will be very decisive, where comparatively small numbers are engaged. For the conduct of these at least there are many lessons to be gathered from the tactical experiences of earlier wars. In the taking up of positions it may be assumed gene rally that the conditions to be sought are freedom for manoeuvre, free scope for fire both of artillery and infantry, and, as a rule, for that end gentle glacis slopes like those of St Privat and Gravelotte, rather than precipitous heights like that of the Red Hill at Spicheren. There is nothing as to which war experience and popular assumptions differ more than as to the relative strength of different positions. As a rule, steep heights give a great deal of cover from fire. Their lower slopes can only be seen from the edge, and that edge cannot be held because it is completely exposed to the enemy s fire from many points below. Tt is better to have a difficult climb than to be shot by a bullet. It has constantly happened that positions have fallen because the defenders have trusted to physical difficulties of access rather than to the effect of ground upon the use of arms for their defence. Whatever tends to oblige an enemy to debouch on a narrow front against a wide front of fire is most valuable to the defence ; but it is upon considerations like these of the use of arms that the strength of a position must be determined. Similarly, whatever tends to facilitate communication between one part and another of your own troops, and to cause an enemy to separate his, adds greatly to the strength of your position. The element of time also has here, as in the province of strategy, to be always taken into account. Where ground tends to make movements slow and difficult, there it will be safe to economize men by employing small forces, in order to gain time for decisive blows in other directions. Whatever in an enemy s rear will prevent his safe retreat, and therefore either locally or throughout a position will make successful attack decisive, is greatly in favour of the army which, whether at first on the defen sive or offensive, can attack an enemy in such a position. The application of these principles is almost infinite in its variety. It is impossible here to do more than indicate their general character. The proposition has been advanced that it would be best to meet the effort of an assailant to outflank a position by employing detached bodies to manoeuvre outside the posi tion, so that when an assailant has committed himself to an outflanking movement, and has moved up his enveloping troops, the detached body could fall upon these unexpectedly from their rear. Twice during the -1870 campaign the Germans designed a movement of this kind. In neither case was there an opportunity for putting it to the test. Such a movement successfully executed could hardly fail to have great results. On the other hand, a well-handled cavalry, searching all the country round prior to an action, might not improbably discover the isolated corps placed for the purpose, and in that case it ought not to be difficult for the assailant to keep it apart from the main army and to destroy it. A proposal of a somewhat kindred kind, but involving a different principle, was made by Sir E. Hamley as a de duction from the 1870 campaign, and was applied in practice by the Russians in Asia in 1877. He suggested that the defensive strength of comparatively small bodies was now so great that a general would be tempted to detach, or to connect with his main body only by a tele graphic wire, a body of troops, who, passing round an enemy to be attacked, should take up a strong position in [TACTICS. his rear, and should thus become the anvil on which the main assailing army should act as hammer, grinding the enemy between them to powder. This was actually done by the Russians, who in October 1877 destroyed Moukhtar Pasha s army by this very means. Both these forms of operation the detached force to the flank and the detached force to the rear partake of the nature of the attempt of Napoleon to destroy the allied armies, after the battle of Dresden in 1813, by pre viously detaching Vandamme to intercept their retreat. As a matter of fact, that manoeuvre was one of the most disastrous that Napoleon ever attempted, but the disaster was probably due to a failure of Napoleon s own wonted activity arising from illness. The telegraph might then have made a very great difference in the result of the operation. In any case, these suggestions indicate pos sibilities of action, due to the present condition of arms and of science, which may have much wider application in the hands of skilful commanders. Everything will depend on their execution, and on the skill with which they are met. It may at least be asserted that, with the possibilities of such manoeuvres being employed against him, it will ordinarily be extremely rash for a general to commit himself to the actual turning movement by which he wheels up a portion of his army to attack an exposed flank, without having searched the ground with his cavalry far beyond the point which he proposes to assail. This was actually done by the German cavalry under express orders from headquarters, prior to and during the great turning movement at the battle of Gravelotte. Marches. The principles regulating the marches of armies which Marches. precede battles are determined by the conditions of a modern battle itself. As a rule nowadays the cavalry of an army will be certainly pushed far forward in advance of the main body. There fore, with the exception of small parties of horsemen employed as orderlies, for keeping up the connexion between one pnrt of an army and another, and to aid the infantry in the immediate work of local security, the marching body will in ordinary country consist of artillery and infantry. The tendency for every action to begin by artillery fire continually leads more and more to the pushing forward of that arm to the front of the column, only sufficient infantry being placed before it on the road to give pro tection in case of sudden attack, and to furnish the necessary troops for the defence of the guns at the beginning of an action. The exact order of march will therefore necessarily vary with the character of the country through which the army moves. In very mountainous districts, in which collision with an enemy may occur at any moment, it may be necessary to push forward infantiy instead of cavalry. In all cases where mountain defiles have to be passed, detached infantry must gain possession of the heights before the main body enters the defile. Since the great object of all marches is to deliver the army in fighting order on the battle-field, it is necessary that the force should not be dispersed too widely on the march, but it is quite as necessary with large bodies of troops that the march should not be made ixpon too few roads. An army corps with its attendant waggons occupies in depth about 25 miles on a single road. As under most circumstances a day s march is about 13 or 14 miles, it is clear that, if an army corps were moving in the ordinary road formation on a single road, the rear of the column would scarcely be able to arrive on the same day that the head of the column was lir.st involved in action. Nor is it always possible to place the whole of the fighting force in front and to leave the whole mass of waggons in rear. Ambulances and surgeons at least, as well as ammunition columns, are required at the very moment of battle. Therefore it is advisable to employ as many roads as possible that are within con venient reach of one another. The difference between the lengths of march that have been done by troops mder favourable and un favourable conditions is so great that it is impossible to fix any specific length as the march that can xnider all circumstances bo relied on. Good spirits, good roads, high training, and favourable weather on the one hand, and depression, deep mud, storms, and want of marching condition on the other, are elements that must be taken into account in all such matters. Of the difficulties which a large number of troops marching on a single road encounter a striking illustration is afforded by an incident of the 1866 cam paign. According to the Austrian official account, the men marched eight abreast in order to diminish the length of road occupied. Yet, though this unusually wide marching front was taken up by