Battle Studies; Ancient and Modern Battle Part 10

To insure success in the rude test of conflict, it is not sufficient to have a ma.s.s composed of valiant men like the Gauls or the Germans.

The ma.s.s needs, and we give it, leaders who have the firmness and decision of command proceeding from habit and an entire faith in their unquestionable right to command as established by tradition, law and society.

We add good arms. We add methods of fighting suitable to these arms and those of the enemy and which do not overtax the physical and moral forces of man. We add also a rational decentralization that permits the direction and employment of the efforts of all even to the last man.

We animate with pa.s.sion, a violent desire for independence, a religious fanaticism, national pride, a love of glory, a madness for possession. An iron discipline, which permits no one to escape action, secures the greatest unity from top to bottom, between all the elements, between the commanding officers, between the commanding officers and men, between the soldiers.

Have we then a solid army? Not yet. Unity, that first and supreme force of armies, is sought by enacting severe laws of discipline supported by powerful pa.s.sions. But to order discipline is not enough.

A vigilance from which no one may escape in combat should a.s.sure the maintenance of discipline. Discipline itself depends on moral pressure which actuates men to advance from sentiments of fear or pride. But it depends also on surveillance, the mutual supervision of groups of men who know each other well.

A wise organization insures that the personnel of combat groups changes as little as possible, so that comrades in peace time maneuvers shall be comrades in war. From living together, and obeying the same chiefs, from commanding the same men, from sharing fatigue and rest, from cooperation among men who quickly understand each other in the execution of warlike movements, may be bred brotherhood, professional knowledge, sentiment, above all unity. The duty of obedience, the right of imposing discipline and the impossibility of escaping from it, would naturally follow.

And now confidence appears.

It is not that enthusiastic and thoughtless confidence of tumultous or unprepared armies which goes up to the danger point and vanishes rapidly, giving way to a contrary sentiment, which sees treason everywhere. It is that intimate confidence, firm and conscious, which does not forget itself in the heat of action and which alone makes true combatants.

Then we have an army; and it is no longer difficult to explain how men carried away by pa.s.sions, even men who know how to die without flinching, without turning pale, really strong in the presence of death, but without discipline, without solid organization, are vanquished by others individually less valiant, but firmly, jointly and severally combined.

One loves to picture an armed mob upsetting all obstacles and carried away by a blast of pa.s.sion.

There is more imagination than truth in that picture. If the struggle depended on individuals, the courageous, impa.s.sioned men, composing the mob would have more chance of victory. But in any body of troops, in front of the enemy, every one understands that the task is not the work of one alone, that to complete it requires team work. With his comrades in danger brought together under unknown leaders, he feels the lack of union, and asks himself if he can count on them. A thought of mistrust leads to hesitation. A moment of it will kill the offensive spirit.

Unity and confidence cannot be improvised. They alone can create that mutual trust, that feeling of force which gives courage and daring.

Courage, that is the temporary domination of will over instinct, brings about victory.

Unity alone then produces fighters. But, as in everything, there are degrees of unity. Let us see whether modern is in this respect less exacting than ancient combat.

In ancient combat there was danger only at close quarters. If the troops had enough morale (which Asiatic hordes seldom had) to meet the enemy at broadsword's length, there was an engagement. Whoever was that close knew that he would be killed if he turned his back; because, as we have seen, the victors lost but few and the vanquished were exterminated. This simple reasoning held the men and made them fight, if it was but for an instant.

Neglecting the exceptional and very rare circ.u.mstances, which may bring two forces together, action to-day is brought on and fought out from afar. Danger begins at great distances, and it is necessary to advance for a long time under fire which at each step becomes heavier.

The vanquished loses prisoners, but often, in dead and in wounded, he does not lose more than the victor.

Ancient combat was fought in groups close together, within a small s.p.a.ce, in open ground, in full view of one another, without the deafening noise of present day arms. Men in formation marched into an action that took place on the spot and did not carry them thousands of feet away from the starting point. The surveillance of the leaders was easy, individual weakness was immediately checked. General consternation alone caused flight.

To-day fighting is done over immense s.p.a.ces, along thinly drawn out lines broken every instant by the accidents and the obstacles of the terrain. From the time the action begins, as soon as there are rifle shots, the men spread out as skirmishers or, lost in the inevitable disorder of a rapid march, [28] escape the supervision of their commanding officers. A considerable number conceal themselves; [29]

they get away from the engagement and diminish by just so much the material and moral effect and confidence of the brave ones who remain. This can bring about defeat.

But let us look at man himself in ancient combat and in modern. In ancient combat:--I am strong, apt, vigorous, trained, full of calmness, presence of mind; I have good offensive and defensive weapons and trustworthy companions of long standing. They do not let me be overwhelmed without aiding me. I with them, they with me, we are invincible, even invulnerable. We have fought twenty battles and not one of us remained on the field. It is necessary to support each other in time; we see it clearly; we are quick to replace ourselves, to put a fresh combatant in front of a fatigued adversary. We are the legions of Marius, fifty thousand who have held out against the furious avalanches of the Cimbri. We have killed one hundred and forty thousand, taken prisoner sixty thousand, while losing but two or three hundred of our inexperienced soldiers.

To-day, as strong, firm, trained, and courageous as I am, I can never say; I shall return. I have no longer to do with men, whom I do not fear, I have to do with fate in the form of iron and lead. Death is in the air, invisible and blind, whispering, whistling. As brave, good, trustworthy, and devoted as my companions may be, they do not s.h.i.+eld me. Only,--and this is abstract and less immediately intelligible to all than the material support of ancient combat,--only I imagine that the more numerous we are who run a dangerous risk, the greater is the chance for each to escape therefrom. I also know that, if we have that confidence which none of us should lack in action, we feel, and we are, stronger. We begin more resolutely, are ready to keep up the struggle longer, and therefore finish it more quickly.

We finish it! But in order to finish it, it is necessary to advance, to attack the enemy, [30] and infantryman or troopers, we are naked against iron, naked against lead, which cannot miss at close range.

Let us advance in any case, resolutely. Our adversary will not stand at the point-blank range of our rifle, for the attack is never mutual, we are sure of that. We have been told so a thousand times. We have seen it. But what if matters should change now! Suppose the enemy stands at point-blank range! What of that?

How far this is from Roman confidence!

In another place we have shown that in ancient times to retire from action was both a difficult and perilous matter for the soldier.

To-day the temptation is much stronger, the facility greater and the peril less.

Now, therefore, combat exacts more moral cohesion, greater unity than previously. A last remark on the difficulty of obtaining it will complete the demonstration.

Since the invention of fire arms, the musket, the rifle, the cannon, the distances of mutual aid and support have increased among the different arms. [31]

Besides, the facility of communications of all kinds permits the a.s.sembling on a given territory of enormous forces. For these reasons, as we have stated, battle fields have become immense.

Supervision becomes more and more difficult. Direction being more distant tends more often to escape from the supreme commanders and the subordinate leaders. The certain and inevitable disorder, which a body of troops always presents in action, is with the moral effect of modern appliances, becoming greater every day. In the midst of the confusion and the vacillation of firing lines, men and commanding officers often lose each other.

Troops immediately and hotly engaged, such as companies and squads, can maintain themselves only if they are well-organized and serve as supports or rallying points to those out of place. Battles tend to become now, more than they have ever been, the battles of men.

This ought not to be true! Perhaps. But the fact is that it is true.

Not all troops are immediately or hotly engaged in battle. Commanding officers always try to keep in hand, as long as possible, some troops capable of marching, acting at any moment, in any direction. To-day, like yesterday, like to-morrow, the decisive action is that of formed troops. Victory belongs to the commander who has known how to keep them in good order, to hold them, and to direct them.

That is incontrovertible.

But commanders can hold out decisive reserves only if the enemy has been forced to commit his.

In troops which do the fighting, the men and the officers closest to them, from corporal to battalion commander, have a more independent action than ever. As it is alone the vigor of that action, more independent than ever of the direction of higher commanders, which leaves in the hands of higher commanders available forces which can be directed at a decisive moment, that action becomes more preponderant than ever. Battles, now more than ever, are battles of men, of captains. They always have been in fact, since in the last a.n.a.lysis the execution belongs to the man in ranks. But the influence of the latter on the final result is greater than formerly. From that comes the maxim of to-day: The battles of men.

Outside of the regulations on tactics and discipline, there is an evident necessity for combating the hazardous predominance of the action of the soldier over that of the commander. It is necessary to delay as long as possible, that instant which modern conditions tend to hasten--the instant when the soldier gets from under the control of the commander.

This completes the demonstration of the truth stated before: Combat requires to-day, in order to give the best results, a moral cohesion, a unity more binding than at any other time. [32] It is as true as it is clear, that, if one does not wish bonds to break, one must make them elastic in order to strengthen them.

CHAPTER VII

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY WHAT WOULD BE NECESSARY TO COMPLETE IT

Any other deductions on this subject must come from the meditations of the reader. To be of value in actual application such deductions should be based upon study of modern combat, and that study cannot be made from the accounts of historians alone.

The latter show the action of troop units only in a general way.

Action in detail and the individual action of the soldier remain enveloped in a cloud of dust, in narratives as in reality. Yet these questions must be studied, for the conditions they reveal should be the basis of all fighting methods, past, present and future.

Where can data on these questions be found?

We have very few records portraying action as clearly as the report on the engagement at the Pont de l'Hopital by Colonel Bugeaud. Such stories in even greater detail, for the smallest detail has its importance, secured from partic.i.p.ants and witnesses who knew how to see and knew how to remember, are what is necessary in a study of the battle of to-day.

The number of killed, the kind and the character of wounds, often tell more than the longest accounts. Sometimes they contradict them. We want to know how man in general and the Frenchman in particular fought yesterday. Under the pressure of danger, impelled by the instinct for self-preservation, did he follow, make light of, or forget the methods prescribed or recommended? Did he fight in the manner imposed upon him, or in that indicated to him by his instinct or by his knowledge of warfare?

When we have the answers to these questions we shall be very near to knowing how he will conduct himself to-morrow, with and against appliances far more destructive to-day than those of yesterday. Even now, knowing that man is capable only of a given quant.i.ty of terror, knowing that the moral effect of destruction is in proportion to the force applied, we are able to predict that, to-morrow less than ever will studied methods be practicable. Such methods are born of the illusions of the field of fire and are opposed to the teachings of our own experience. To-morrow, more than ever, will the individual valor of the soldier and of small groups, be predominant. This valor is secured by discipline.

The study of the past alone can give us a true perception of practical methods, and enable us to see how the soldier will inevitably fight to-morrow.

So instructed, so informed, we shall not be confused; because we shall be able to prescribe beforehand such methods of fighting, such organization, such dispositions as are seen to be inevitable. Such prescriptions may even serve to regulate the inevitable. At any rate they will serve to reduce the element of chance by enabling the commanding officer to retain control as long as possible, and by releasing the individual only at the moment when instinct dominates him.

This is the only way to preserve discipline, which has a tendency to go to pieces by tactical disobedience at the moment of greatest necessity.