Battle Studies; Ancient and Modern Battle Part 24

All this has been said already, has been gone into, and fire at command has been abandoned. Why take it up again? It comes to us probably from the Prussians. Indeed the reports of their general staff on their last campaign, of 1866, say that it was very effectively employed, and cite many examples.

But a Prussian officer who went through the campaign in the ranks and saw things close up, says, "In examining the battles of 1866 for characteristics, one is struck by a feature common to all, the extraordinary extension of front at the expense of depth. Either the front is spun out into a single long thin line, or it is broken into various parts that fight by themselves. Above all the tendency is evident to envelop the enemy by extending the wings. There is no longer any question of keeping the original order of battle. Different units are confused, by battle, or even before battle. Detachments and large units of any corps are composed of diverse and heterogeneous elements. The battle is fought almost exclusively by columns of companies, rarely of half-battalions. The tactics of these columns consists in throwing out strong detachments of skirmishers. Gradually the supports are engaged and deployed. The line is broken, scattered, like a horde of irregular cavalry. The second line which has held close order tries to get up to the first promptly, first to engage in the fight, also because they suffer losses from the high shots directed at the first line. It suffers losses that are heavy as it is compact and supports them with impatience as it does not yet feel the fever of battle. The most of the second line then forces entry into the first, and, as there is more room on the wings, it gravitates to the wings. Very often even the reserve is drawn in, entirely, or so largely that it cannot fulfill its mission. In fact, the fighting of the first two lines is a series of combats between company commands and the enemy each command faces. Superior officers cannot follow on horseback all the units, which push ahead over all sorts of ground.

They have to dismount and attach themselves to the first unit of their command met. Unable to manipulate their whole command, in order to do something, they command the smaller unit. It is not always better commanded at that. Even generals find themselves in this situation."

Here is something we understand better. It is certainly what occurs.

As for the instances cited in the general staff reports, they deal with companies or half-battalions at most. Not withstanding the complacency with which they are cited, they must have been rare, and the exception should not be taken as establis.h.i.+ng a rule.

6. Fire at Will--Its Efficacy

Thus fire at command, to-day as in the past, is impractical and consequently not actually used in battle. The only means employed are fire at will and the fire of skirmishers. Let us look into their efficacy.

Competent authorities have compiled statistics on this point.

Guibert thinks that not over two thousand men are killed or wounded by each million cartridges used in battle.

Ga.s.sendi a.s.sures us that of three thousand shots only one is a hit.

Piobert says that the estimate, based on the result of long wars, is that three to ten thousand cartridges are expended for each man hit.

To-day, with accurate and long range weapons, have things changed much? We do not think so. The number of bullets fired must be compared with the number of men dropped, with a deduction made for the action of artillery, which must be considered.

A German author has advanced the opinion that with the Prussian needle rifle the hits are 60% of the shots fired. But then how explain the disappointment of M. Dreyse, the happy inventor of the needle rifle, when he compared Prussian and Austrian losses. This good old gentleman was disagreeably astonished at seeing that his rifle had not come up to his expectations.

Fire at will, as we shall presently show, is a fire to occupy the men in the ranks but its effect is not great. We could give many examples; we only cite one, but it is conclusive.

"Has it not been remarked," says General Duhesme, "that, before a firing line there is raised a veil of smoke which on one side or the other hides the troops from view, and makes the fire of the best placed troops uncertain and practically without effect? I proved it conclusively at the battle of Caldiero, in one of the successive advances that occurred on my left wing. I saw some battalions, which I had rallied, halted and using an individual fire which they could not keep up for long. I went there. I saw through the smoke cloud nothing but flashes, the glint of bayonets and the tops of grenadier's caps.

We were not far from the enemy however, perhaps sixty paces. A ravine separated us, but it could not be seen. I went into the ranks, which were neither closed nor aligned, throwing up with my hand the soldiers' rifles to get them to cease firing and to advance. I was mounted, followed by a dozen orderlies. None of us were wounded, nor did I see an infantryman fall. Well then! Hardly had our line started when the Austrians, heedless of the obstacle that separated us, retreated."

It is probable that had the Austrians started to move first, the French would have given way. It was veterans of the Empire, who certainly were as reliable as our men, who gave this example of lack of coolness.

In ranks, fire at will is the only possible one for our officers and men. But with the excitement, the smoke, the annoying incidents, one is lucky to get even horizontal fire, to say nothing of aimed fire.

In fire at will, without taking count of any trembling, men interfere with each other. Whoever advances or who gives way to the recoil of his weapon deranges the shot of his neighbor. With full pack, the second rank has no loophole; it fires in the air. On the range, s.p.a.cing men to the extremity of the limits of formation, firing very slowly, men are found who are cool and not too much bothered by the crack of discharge in their ears, who let the smoke pa.s.s and seize a loophole of pretty good visibility, who try, in a word, not to lose their shots. And the percentage results show much more regularity than with fire at command.

But in front of the enemy fire at will becomes in an instant haphazard fire. Each man fires as much as possible, that is to say, as badly as possible. There are physical and mental reasons why this is so.

Even at close range, in battle, the cannon can fire well. The gunner, protected in part by his piece, has an instant of coolness in which to lay accurately. That his pulse is racing does not derange his line of sight, if he has will power. The eye trembles little, and the piece once laid, remains so until fired.

The rifleman, like the gunner, only by will-power keeps his ability to aim. But the excitement in the blood, of the nervous system, opposes the immobility of the weapon in his hands. No matter how supported, a part of the weapon always shares the agitation of the man. He is instinctively in haste to fire his shot, which may stop the departure of the bullet destined for him. However lively the fire is, this vague reasoning, unformed as it is in his mind, controls with all the force of the instinct of self preservation. Even the bravest and most reliable soldiers then fire madly.

The greater number fire from the hip.

The theory of the range is that with continual pressure on the trigger the shot surprises the firer. But who practices it under fire?

However, the tendency in France to-day is to seek only accuracy. What good will it do when smoke, fog, darkness, long range, excitement, the lack of coolness, forbid clear sight?

It is hard to say, after the feats of fire at Sebastopol, in Italy, that accurate weapons have given us no more valuable service than a simple rifle. Just the same, to one who has seen, facts are facts.

But--see how history is written. It has been set down that the Russians were beaten at Inkermann by the range and accuracy of weapons of the French troops. But the battle was fought in thickets and wooded country, in a dense fog. And when the weather cleared, our soldiers, our cha.s.seurs were out of ammunition and borrowed from the Russian cartridge boxes, amply provided with cartridges for round, small calibered bullets. In either case there could have been no accurate fire. The facts are that the Russians were beaten by superior morale; that unaimed fire, at random, there perhaps more than elsewhere, had the only material effect.

When one fires and can only fire at random, who fires most hits most.

Or perhaps it is better said that who fires least expects to be hit most.

Frederick was impressed with this, for he did not believe in the Potsdam maneuvers. The wily Fritz looked on fire as a means to quiet and occupy the undependable soldiers and it proved his ability that he could put into practice that which might have been a mistake on the part of any other general officer. He knew very well how to count on the effect of his fire, how many thousand cartridges it took to kill or wound an enemy. At first his soldiers had only thirty cartridges.

He found the number insufficient, and after Mollwitz gave them sixty.

To-day as in Frederick's day, it is rapid random fire, the only one practicable, which has given prestige to the Prussians. This idea of rapid fire was lost after Frederick, but the Prussians have recovered it to-day by exercising common sense. However our veterans of the Empire had preserved this idea, which comes from instinct. They enlarged their vents, scornful of flare backs, to avoid having to open the chamber and prime. The bullet having a good deal of clearance when the cartridge was torn and put in the gun, with a blow of the b.u.t.t on the ground they had their arms charged and primed.

But to-day as then, in spite of skill acquired in individual fire, men stop aiming and fire badly as soon as they are grouped into platoons to fire.

Prussian officers, who are practical men, know that adjustment of sights is impracticable in the heat of action, and that in fire by volleys troops tend to use the full sight. So in the war of 1866 they ordered their men to fire very low, almost without sighting, in order to profit by ricochets.

7. Fire by Rank Is a Fire to Occupy the Men in Ranks

But if fire at will is not effective, what is its use? As we have already said its use is to occupy the men in the ranks.

In ordinary fire the act of breathing alone, by the movement it communicates to the body greatly annoys men in firing. How then can it be claimed that on the field of battle, in rank, men can fire even moderately well when they fire only to soothe themselves and forget danger?

Napoleon said "The instinct of man is not to let himself be killed without defending himself." And indeed man in combat is a being in whom the instinct of self preservation dominates at times all other sentiments. The object of discipline is to dominate this instinct by a greater terror of shame or of punishment. But it is never able entirely to attain this object; there is a point beyond which it is not effectual. This point reached, the soldier must fire or he will go either forward or back. Fire is then, let us say, a safety vent for excitement.

In serious affairs it is then difficult, if not impossible, to control fire. Here is an example given by Marshal Saxe:

"Charles XII, King of Sweden, wished to introduce into his infantry the method of charging with the bayonet. He spoke of it often, and it was known in the army that this was his idea. Finally at the battle of ---- against the Russians, when the fighting started he went to his regiment of infantry, made it a fine speech, dismounted before the colors, and himself led the regiment to the charge. When he was thirty paces from the enemy the whole regiment fired, in spite of his orders and his presence. Otherwise, it did very well and broke the enemy. The king was so annoyed that all he did was pa.s.s through the ranks, remount his horse, and go away without saying a word."

So that, if the soldier is not made to fire, he will fire anyway to distract himself and forget danger. The fire of Frederick's Prussians had no other purpose. Marshal Saxe saw this. "The speed with which the Prussians load their rifles," he tells us, "is advantageous in that it occupies the soldier and forbids reflection while he is in the presence of the enemy. It is an error to believe that the five last victories gained by the nation in its last war were due to fire. It has been noted that in most of these actions there were more Prussians killed by rifle fire than there were of their enemies."

It would be sad to think the soldier in line a firing machine. Firing has been and always will be his princ.i.p.al object, to fire as many shots in as short a time as possible. But the victor is not always the one who kills the most; he is fortunate who best knows how to overcome the morale of his enemy.

The coolness of men cannot be counted on. And as it is necessary above all to keep up their morale one ought to try above all to occupy and soothe them. This can best be done by frequent discharges. There will be little effect, and it would be absurd to expect them to be calm enough to fire slowly, adjust their ranges and above all sight carefully.

8. The Deadly Fire Is the Fire of Skirmishers

In group firing, when the men are grouped into platoons or battalions, all weapons have the same value, and if it is a.s.sumed to-day that fire must decide engagements, the method of fighting must be adopted which gives most effect to the weapon. This is the employment of skirmishers.

It is this cla.s.s of fire, indeed, which is deadliest in war. We could give many examples but we shall be content with the two following instances, taken from General Duhesme.

"A French officer who served with the Austrians in one of the recent wars," says General Duhesme, "told me that from the fire of a French battalion one hundred paces from them, his company lost only three or four men, while in the same time they had had more than thirty killed or wounded by the fire of a group of skirmishers in a little wood on their flank three hundred paces away."

"At the pa.s.sage of the Minico, in 1801, the 2nd battalion of the 91st received the fire of a battalion of Bussi's regiment without losing a man; the skirmishers of that same organization killed more than thirty men in a few minutes while protecting the retreat of their organization."

The fire of skirmishers is then the most deadly used in war, because the few men who remain cool enough to aim are not otherwise annoyed while employed as skirmishers. They will perform better as they are better hidden, and better trained in firing.

The accuracy of fire giving advantages only in isolated fire, we may consider that accurate weapons will tend to make fighting by skirmishers more frequent and more decisive.

For the rest, experience authorizes the statement that the use of skirmishers is compulsory in war. To-day all troops seriously engaged become in an instant groups of skirmishers and the only possible precise fire is from hidden snipers.