Battle Studies; Ancient and Modern Battle Part 23

Nevertheless fire-arms improved; they became more effective and tended to replace the pike. The use of the pike obliged the soldier to remain in ranks, to fight only in certain cases, and exposed him to injury without being able to return blow for blow. And, this is exceedingly instructive, the soldier had by this time an instinctive dislike of this arm, which often condemned him to a pa.s.sive role. This dislike necessitated giving high pay and privilege to obtain pikemen. And in spite of all at the first chance the soldier threw away his pike for a musket.

The pikes themselves gradually disappeared before firearms; the ranks thinned to permit the use of the latter. Four rank formation was used, and fire tried in that order, by rank, by two ranks, upright, kneeling, etc.

In spite of these attempts, we see the French army in combat, notably at Fontenoy, still using fire at will, the soldier leaving ranks to fire and returning to load.

It can be stated, in spite of numerous attempts at adoption, that no fire at command was used in battle up to the days of Frederick.

Already, under William, the Prussian infantry was noted for the rapidity and continuity of its fire. Frederick further increased the ability of his battalions to fire by decreasing their depth. This fire, tripled by speed in loading, became so heavy that it gave Prussian battalions a superiority over others of three to one.

The Prussians recognized three kinds of fire, at a halt, in advancing, and in retreat. We know the mechanics of fire at a halt, the first rank kneeling. Of fire in advancing Guibert says: "What I call marching fire, and which anybody who thinks about it must find as ill advised as I do, is a fire I have seen used by some troops. The soldiers, in two ranks, fire in marching, but they march of course at a snail's pace. This is what Prussian troops call fire in advancing.

It consists in combined and alternating volleys from platoons, companies, half battalions or battalions. The parts of the line which have fired advance at the double, the others at the half step."

In other methods of fire, as we have said, the Prussian battalion was in three ranks; the first kneeling. The line delivered salvos, only at command.

However, the theory of executing fire by salvo in three ranks did not bother Frederick's old soldiers. We will see presently how they executed it on the field of battle.

Be that as it may, Europe was impressed with these methods and tended to adopt them. D'Argenson provided for them in the French army and introduced fire at command. Two regulations prescribing this appeared, in 1753 and 1755. But in the war which followed, Marshal de Broglie, who undoubtedly had experience and as much common sense as M.

D'Argenson, prescribed fire at will. All infantry in his army was practiced in it during the winter of 1761-1762.

Two new regulations succeeded the preceding, in 1764 and 1776. The last prescribed fire in three ranks at command, all ranks upright. [48]

Thus we come to the wars of the Revolution, with regulations calling for fire at command, which was not executed in battle.

Since these wars, our armies have always fought as skirmishers. In speaking of our campaigns, fire at command is never mentioned. It was the same under the Empire, in spite of numerous essays from the Boulogne school and elsewhere. At the Boulogne school, fire at command by ranks was first tried by order of Napoleon. This fire, to be particularly employed against cavalry--in theory it is superb--does not seem to have been employed Napoleon says so himself, and the regulations of 1832, in which some influence of soldiers of the Empire should be found, orders fire in two ranks or at will, by bodies of men, to the exclusion of all others.

According to our military authority, on the authority of our old officers, fire at command did not suit our infantry; yet it lived in the regulations. General Fririon (1822) and de Gouvion-Saint-Cyr (1829) attacked this method. Nothing was done. It remained in the regulations of 1832, but without being ordered in any particular circ.u.mstances. It appeared there for show purposes, perhaps.

On the creation of the cha.s.seurs d'Orleans, fire by rank was revived.

But neither in our African campaigns nor in our last two wars in the Crimea and Italy can a single example of fire at command be found. In practice it was believed to be impracticable. It was known to be entirely ineffective and fell into disrepute.

But to-day, with the breech-loading rifle, there is a tendency to believe it practicable and to take it up with new interest. Is this more reasonable than in the past? Let us see.

5. Methods of Fire Used in the Presence of the Enemy; Methods Recommended or Ordered But Impractical.

Use and Efficacy of Fire at Command

Undoubtedly at the Potsdam maneuvers the Prussian infantry used only salvos executed admirably. An unbelievable discipline kept the soldier in place and in line. Barbaric punishments were incorporated in the military code. Blows, the whip, executions, punished the slightest derelictions. Even N.C.O.'s were subjected to blows with the flat of the sword. Yet all this was not enough on the field of battle; a complete rank of non-commissioned officer file closers was also needed to hold the men to their duty.

M. Carion-Nisas said, "These file-closers hook their halberds together and form a line that cannot be broken." In spite of all this, after two or three volleys, so says General Renard, whom we believe more than charitable, there is no power of discipline which can prevent regular fire from breaking into fire at will.

But let us look further, into Frederick's battles. Let us take the battle of Mollwitz, in which success was specifically laid to fire at command, half lost, then won by the Prussian salvos.

"The Austrian infantry had opened fire on the lines of the Prussians, whose cavalry had been routed. It was necessary to shake them to insure victory. The Austrians still used wooden ramrods. Their fire came slowly, while the Prussian fire was thunderous, five or six shots to the rifle per minute. The Imperial troops, surprised and disconcerted by this ma.s.sed fire, tried to hurry. In their hurry many broke their fragile ramrods. Confusion spread through the ranks, and the battle was lost."

But, if we study actual conditions of the period, we see that things did not happen in such an orderly sequence.

Firing started, and it is said that it was long and deadly. The Prussians iron ramrods gave them the advantage 'over an enemy whose ramrods were wooden, harder to manipulate and easily broken. However, when the order to advance was given to the Prussians, whole battalions stood fast; it was impossible to budge them. The soldiers tried to escape the fire and got behind each other, so that they were thirty to forty deep.

Here are men who exhibit under fire an admirable, calm, an immovable steadiness. Each instant they hear the dead heavy sound of a bullet striking. They see, they feel, around them, above them, between their legs, their comrades fall and writhe, for the fire is deadly. They have the power in their hands to return blow for blow, to send back to the enemy the death that hisses and strikes about them. They do not take a false step; their hands do not close instinctively on the trigger. They wait, imperturbably, the order of their chiefs--and what chiefs! These are the men who at the command "forward," lack bowels, who huddle like sheep one behind the other. Are we to believe this?

Let us get to the truth of the matter. Frederick's veterans, in spite of their discipline and drill, are unable to follow the methods taught and ordered. They are no more able to execute fire at command than they are to execute the ordered advance of the Potsdam maneuver field.

They use fire at will. They fire fast from instinct--stronger than their discipline--which bids them send two shots for one. Their fire becomes indeed, a thunderous roll, not of salvos, but of rapid fire at will. Who fires most, hits most, so the soldier figures. So indeed did Frederick, for he encouraged fire in this same battle of Mollwitz; he thereafter doubled the number of cartridges given the soldier, giving him sixty instead of thirty.

Furthermore, if fire at command had been possible, who knows what Frederick's soldiers would have been capable of? They would have cut down battalions like standing grain. Allowed to aim quietly, no man interfering with another, each seeing clearly--then at the signal all firing together. Could anything hold against them? At the first volley the enemy would have broken and fled, under the penalty of annihilation in case they stayed. However, if we look at the final result at Mollwitz, we see that the number of killed is about the same on the side that used fire at command as on the side that did not. The Prussians lost 960 dead, the Austrians 966.

But they say that if fire was not more deadly, it was because sight-setting was then unknown. What if it was? There was no adjustment of fire perhaps, but there were firing regulations; aiming was known. Aiming is old. We do not say it was practiced; but it was known, and often mentioned. Cromwell often said, "Put your confidence in G.o.d, my children, and fire at their shoe-laces."

Do we set our sights better to-day? It is doubtful. If the able soldiers of Cromwell, of Frederick, of the Republic and of Napoleon could not set their sights--can we?

Thus this fire at command, which was only possible rarely and to commence action, was entirely ineffective.

Hardy spirits, seeing the slight effect of long range firing in battle, counselled waiting till the enemy was at twenty paces and driving him back with a volley. You do not have to sight carefully at twenty paces. What would be the result?

"At the battle of Castiglione," says Marshal Saxe, "the Imperial troops let the French approach to twenty paces, hoping to destroy them by a volley. At that distance they fired coolly and with all precautions, but they were broken before the smoke cleared. At the battle of Belgrade (1717) I saw two battalions who at thirty paces, aimed and fired at a ma.s.s of Turks. The Turks cut them up, only two or three escaping. The Turkish loss in dead was only thirty-two."

No matter what the Marshal says, we doubt that these men were cool.

For men who could hold their fire up to such a near approach of the enemy, and fire into ma.s.ses, would have killed the front rank, thrown the others into confusion, and would never have been cut up as they were. To make these men await, without firing, an enemy at twenty or thirty paces, needed great moral pressure. Controlled by discipline they waited, but as one waits for the roof to fall, for a bomb to explode, full of anxiety and suppressed emotion. When the order is given to raise the arms and fire the crisis is reached. The roof falls, the bomb explodes, one flinches and the bullets are fired into the air. If anybody is killed it is an accident.

This is what happened before the use of skirmishers. Salvos were tried. In action they became fire at will. Directed against troops advancing without firing they were ineffective. They did not halt the dash of the a.s.sault, and the troops who had so counted on them fled demoralized. But when skirmishers were used, salvos became impossible.

Armies who held to old methods learned this to their cost.

In the first days of the Revolution our troops, undrilled and not strictly disciplined, could not fight in line. To advance on the enemy, a part of the battalion was detached as skirmishers. The remainder marched into battle and was engaged without keeping ranks.

The combat was sustained by groups fighting without formal order. The art was to support by reserves the troops advanced as skirmishers. The skirmishers always began the action, when indeed they did not complete it.

To oppose fire by rank to skirmishers was fools' play.

Skirmishers necessarily opposed each other. Once this method was adopted, they were supported, reinforced by troops in formation. In the midst of general firing fire at command became impossible and was replaced by fire at will.

Dumouriez, at the battle of Jemmapes, threw out whole battalions as skirmishers, and supporting them by light cavalry, did wonders with them. They surrounded the Austrian redoubts and rained on the cannoneers a hail of bullets so violent that they abandoned their pieces.

The Austrians, astounded by this novel combat method, vainly reinforced their light troops by detachments of heavy infantry. Their skirmishers could not resist our numbers and impetuosity, and presently their line, beaten by a storm of bullets, was forced back.

The noise of battle, the firing, increased; the defeated troops, hearing commands no longer, threw down their arms and fled in disorder.

So fire in line, heavy as it may be, cannot prevail against the power of numerous detachments of skirmishers. A rain of bullets directed aimlessly is impotent against isolated men profiting by the slightest cover to escape the fire of their adversaries, while the deployed battalions offer to their rifles a huge and relatively harmless target. The dense line, apparently so strong, withers under the deadly effect of the fire of isolated groups, so feeble in appearance.

(General Renard.)

The Prussians suffered in the same way at Jena. Their lines tried fire at command against our skirmishers. You might as well fire on a handful of fleas.

They tell us of the English salvos at Sainte-Euphemie, in Calabria, and later in Spain. In these particular cases they could be used, because our troops charged without first sending out skirmishers.

The battle of Sainte-Euphemie only lasted half an hour; it was badly conceived and executed, "And if," says General Duhesme, "the advancing battalions had been preceded by detachments of skirmishers who had already made holes in enemy ranks, and, on close approach, the heads of columns had been launched in a charge, the English line would not have conserved that coolness which made their fire so effective and accurate. Certainly it would not have waited so long to loose its fire, if it had been vigorously hara.s.sed by skirmishers."

An English author, treating of the history of weapons, speaks of the rolling fire, well directed, of the English troops. He makes no mention of salvos. Perhaps we were mistaken, and in our accounts have taken the fire of a battalion for the formal battalion fire at command of our regulations.

The same tendency appears more clearly in the work on infantry of the Marquis de Chambray, who knew the English army well. He says that the English in Spain used almost entirely fire in two ranks. They employed battalion fire only when attacked by our troops without skirmishers, firing on the flanks of our columns. And he says "The fire by battalion, by half battalion and by platoon is limited to the target range. The fire actually most used in war is that in two ranks, the only one used by the French." Later he adds "Experience proves fire in two ranks the only one to be used against the enemy." Before him Marshal Saxe wrote "Avoid dangerous maneuvers, such as fire by platoon, which have often caused shameful defeats." These statements are as true now as then.

Fire at command, by platoon, by battalion, etc., is used in case the enemy having repulsed skirmishers and arrived at a reasonable range either charges or opens fire for effect himself. If the latter, fire is reciprocal and lasts until one or the other gives way or charges.

If the enemy charges, what happens? He advances preceded by skirmishers who deliver a hail of bullets. You wish to open fire, but the voices of your officers are lost. The noise of artillery, of small arms, the confusion of battle, the shrieks of the wounded, distract the soldiers' attention. Before you have delivered your command the line is ablaze. Then try to stop your soldiers. While there is a cartridge left, they will fire. The enemy may find a fold of ground that protects him; he may adopt in place of his deployed order columns with wide intervals between, or otherwise change his dispositions. The changing incidents of battle are hidden by smoke and the troops in front, from the view of the officers behind. The soldiers will continue to fire and the officers can do nothing about it.