Battle Studies; Ancient and Modern Battle Part 17

Such a formation prevents ready entry of the column into battle in case of necessity or surprise. The half-divisions not in the first line are brought up, the arms at the order, and they can furnish either skirmishers or a reserve for the first line which has been deployed as skirmishers.

At Leuctra, Epaminondas diminished, by one-half, the depth of his men; he formed square phalanxes of fifty men to a side. He could have very well dispensed with it, for the Lacedaemonian right was at once thrown into disorder by its own cavalry which was placed in front of that wing. The superior cavalry of Epaminondas overran not only the cavalry but the infantry that was behind it. The infantry of Epaminondas, coming in the wake of his cavalry finished the work. Turning to the right, the left of Epaminondas then took in the flank the Lacedaemonian line. Menaced also in front by the approaching echelons of Epaminondas, this line became demoralized and took to flight.

Perhaps this fifty by fifty formation was adopted in order to give, without maneuver, a front of fifty capable of acting in any direction.

At Leuctra, it simply acted to the right and took the enemy in the flank and in reverse.

Thick woods are generally pa.s.sed through in close column. There is never any opening up, with subsequent closing on the far side. The resulting formation is as confused as a flock of sheep.

In a march through mountains, difficult country, a bugler should be on the left, at the orders of an intelligent officer who indicates when the halt seems necessary for discipline in the line. The right responds and if the place has been judged correctly an orderly formation is maintained. Keep in ranks. If one man steps out, others follow. Do not permit men to leave ranks without requiring them to rejoin.

In the rear-guard it is always necessary to have pack mules in an emergency; without this precaution, considerable time may be lost. In certain difficult places time is thus lost every day.

In camp, organize your fatigue parties in advance; send them out in formation and escorted.

Definite and detailed orders ought to be given to the convoy, and the chief baggage-master ought to supervise it, which is rarely the case.

It is a mistake to furnish mules to officers and replace them in case of loss or sickness. The officer overloads the mule and the Government loses more thereby than is generally understood. Convoys are endless owing to overloaded mules and stragglers. If furnished money to buy a mule the officer uses it economically because it is his. If mules are individually furnished to officers instead of money, the officer will care for his beast for the same reason. But it is better to give money only, and the officer, if he is not well cared for on the march has no claim against the Government.

Always, always, take Draconian measures to prevent pillage from commencing. If it begins, it is difficult ever to stop it. A body of infantry is never left alone. There is no reason for calling officers of that arm inapt, when battalions although established in position are not absolutely on the same line, with absolutely equal intervals.

Ten moves are made to achieve the exact alignment which the instructions on camp movements prescribe. Yet designating a guiding battalion might answer well enough and still be according to the regulations.

Why are not night attacks more employed to-day, at least on a grand scale? The great front which armies occupy renders their employment more difficult, and exacts of the troops an extreme apt.i.tude in this kind of surprise tactics (found in the Arabs, Turcos, Spahis), or absolute reliability. There are some men whose knowledge of terrain is wonderful, with an unerring eye for distance, who can find their way through places at night which they have visited only in the day time.

Utilizing such material for a system of guides it would be possible to move with certainty. These are simple means, rarely employed, for conducting a body of troops into position on the darkest night. There is, even, a means of a.s.suring at night the fire of a gun upon a given point with as much precision as in plain day.

CHAPTER III

CAVALRY

1. Cavalry and Modern Appliances

They say that cavalry is obsolete; that it can be of no use in battles waged with the weapons of today. Is not infantry affected in the same way?

Examples drawn from the last two wars are not conclusive. In a siege, in a country which is cut off, one does not dare to commit the cavalry, and therefore takes from it its boldness, which is almost its only weapon.

The utility of cavalry has always been doubted. That is because its cost is high. It is little used, just because it does cost. The question of economy is vital in peace times. When we set a high value upon certain men, they are not slow to follow suit, and to guard themselves against being broken. Look at staff officers who are almost never broken (reduced), even when their general himself is.

With new weapons the role of cavalry has certainly changed less than any other, although it is the one which is most worried about.

However, cavalry always has the same doctrine: Charge! To start with, cavalry action against cavalry is always the same. Also against infantry. Cavalry knows well enough today, as it has always known, that it can act only against infantry which has been broken. We must leave aside epic legends that are always false, whether they relate to cavalry or infantry. Infantry cannot say as much of its own action against infantry. In this respect there is a complete anarchy of ideas. There is no infantry doctrine.

With the power of modern weapons, which forces you to slow down if it does not stop you, the advance under fire becomes almost impossible.

The advantage is with the defensive. This is so evident that only a madman could dispute it. What then is to be done? Halt, to shoot at random and cannonade at long range until ammunition is exhausted?

Perhaps. But what is sure, is that such a state of affairs makes maneuver necessary. There is more need than ever for maneuver at a long distance in an attempt to force the enemy to s.h.i.+ft, to quit his position. What maneuver is swifter than that of cavalry? Therein is its role.

The extreme perfection of weapons permits only individual action in combat, that is action by scattered forces. At the same time it permits the effective employment of ma.s.s action out of range, of maneuvers on the flank or in the rear of the enemy in force imposing enough to frighten him.

Can the cavalry maneuver on the battle field? Why not? It can maneuver rapidly, and above all beyond the range of infantry fire, if not of artillery fire. Maneuver being a threat, of great moral effect, the cavalry general who knows how to use it, can contribute largely to success. He arrests the enemy in movement, doubtful as to what the cavalry is going to attempt. He makes the enemy take some formation that keeps him under artillery fire for a while, above all that of light artillery if the general knows how to use it. He increases the enemy's demoralization and thus is able to rejoin his command.

Rifled cannon and accurate rifles do not change cavalry tactics at all. These weapons of precision, as the word precision indicates, are effective only when all battle conditions, all conditions of aiming, are ideal. If the necessary condition of suitable range is lacking, effect is lacking. Accuracy of fire at a distance is impossible against a troop in movement, and movement is the essence of cavalry action. Rifled weapons fire on them of course, but they fire on everybody.

In short, cavalry is in the same situation as anybody else.

What response is there to this argument? Since weapons have been improved, does not the infantryman have to march under fire to attack a position? Is the cavalryman not of the same flesh? Has he less heart than the infantryman? If one can march under fire, cannot the other gallop under it?

When the cavalryman cannot gallop under fire, the infantryman cannot march under it. Battles will consist of exchanges of rifle shots by concealed men, at long range. The battle will end only when the ammunition is exhausted.

The cavalryman gallops through danger, the infantryman walks. That is why, if he learns, as it is probable he will, to keep at the proper distance, the cavalryman will never see his battle role diminished by the perfection of long range fire. An infantryman will never succeed by himself. The cavalryman will threaten, create diversions, worry, scatter the enemy's fire, often even get to close quarters if he is properly supported. The infantryman will act as usual. But more than ever will he need the aid of cavalry in the attack. He who knows how to use his cavalry with audacity will inevitably be the victor. Even though the cavalryman offers a larger target, long range weapons will paralyze him no more than another.

The most probable effect of artillery of today, will be to increase the scattering in the infantry, and even in the cavalry. The latter can start in skirmisher formation at a distance and close in while advancing, near its objective. It will be more difficult to lead; but this is to the advantage of the Frenchman.

The result of improving the ballistics of the weapon, for the cavalry as for the infantry (there is no reason why it should be otherwise for the cavalry), will be that a man will flee at a greater distance from it, and nothing more.

Since the Empire, the opinion of European armies is that the cavalry has not given the results expected of it.

It has not given great results, for the reason that we and others lacked real cavalry generals. He is, it seems, a phenomenon that is produced only every thousand years, more rarely than a real general of infantry. To be a good general, whether of infantry or cavalry, is an infinitely rare thing, like the good in everything. The profession of a good infantry general is as difficult as, perhaps more difficult than, that of a good cavalry general. Both require calmness. It comes more easily to the cavalryman than to the foot soldier who is much more engaged. Both require a like precision, a judgment of the moral and physical forces of the soldier; and the morale of the infantryman, his const.i.tution, is more tried than is the case with the horseman.

The cavalry general, of necessity, sees less clearly; his vision has its limits. Great cavalry generals are rare. Doubtless Seidlitz could not, in the face of the development of cannon and rifle, repeat his wonders. But there is always room for improvement. I believe there is much room for improvement.

We did not have under the Empire a great cavalry general who knew how to handle ma.s.ses. The cavalry was used like a blind hammer that strikes heavily and not always accurately. It had immense losses. Like the Gauls, we have a little too much confidence in the "forward, forward, not so many methods." Methods do not hinder the forward movement. They prepare the effect and render it surer and at the same time less costly to the a.s.sailant. We have all the Gallic brutality.

(Note Marignano, where the force of artillery and the possibility of a turning movement around a village was neglected). What rare things infantry and cavalry generals are!

A leader must combine resolute bravery and impetuosity with prudence and calmness; a difficult matter!

The broken terrain of European fields no longer permits, we are told, the operation of long lines, of great ma.s.ses of cavalry. I do not regret it. I am struck more with the picturesque effect of these hurricanes of cavalry in the accounts of the Empire than with the results obtained. It does not seem to me that these results were in proportion to the apparent force of the effort and to the real grandeur of the sacrifices. And indeed, these enormous hammers (a usual figure), are hard to handle. They have not the sure direction of a weapon well in hand. If the blow is not true, recovery is impossible, etc. However, the terrain does not to-day permit the a.s.sembling of cavalry in great ma.s.ses. This compelling reason for new methods renders any other reason superfluous.

Nevertheless, the other reasons given in the ministerial observations of 1868, on the cavalry service, seems to me excellent. The improvement of appliances, the extension of battle fields, the confidence to the infantry and the audacity to the artillery that the immediate support of the cavalry gives, demand that this arm be in every division in sufficient force for efficient action.

I, therefore, think it desirable for a cavalry regiment to be at the disposal of a general commanding a division. Whatever the experiences of instruction centers, they can not change in the least my conviction of the merit of this measure in the field.

2. Cavalry Against Cavalry

Cavalry action, more than that of infantry, is an affair of morale.

Let us study first the morale of the cavalry engagement in single combat. Two riders rush at each other. Are they going to direct their horses front against front? Their horses would collide, both would be forced to their feet, while running the chance of being crushed in the clash or in the fall of their mounts. Each one in the combat counts on his strength, on his skill, on the suppleness of his mount, on his personal courage; he does not want a blind encounter, and he is right.

They halt face to face, abreast, to fight man to man; or each pa.s.ses the other, thrusting with the sabre or lance; or each tries to wound the knee of the adversary and dismount him in this way. But as each is trying to strike the other, he thinks of keeping out of the way himself, he does not want a blind encounter that does away with the combat. The ancient battles, the cavalry engagements, the rare cavalry combats of our days, show us nothing else.

Discipline, while keeping the cavalrymen in the ranks, has not been able to change the instinct of the rider. No more than the isolated man is the rider in the line willing to meet the shock of a clash with the enemy. There is a terrible moral effect in a ma.s.s moving forward.

If there is no way to escape to the right or to the left, men and horses will avoid the clash by stopping face to face. But only preeminently brave troops, equally seasoned in morale, alike well led and swept along, animated alike, will meet face to face. All these conditions are never found united on either side, so the thing is never seen. Forty-nine times out of fifty, one of the cavalry forces will hesitate, bolt, get into disorder, flee before the fixed purpose of the other. Three quarters of the time this will happen at a distance, before they can see each other's eyes. Often they will get closer. But always, always, the stop, the backward movement, the swerving of horses, the confusion, bring about fear or hesitation.

They lessen the shock and turn it into instant flight. The resolute a.s.sailant does not have to slacken. He has not been able to overcome or turn the obstacles of horses not yet in flight, in this uproar of an impossible about face executed by routed troops, without being in disorder himself. But this disorder is that of victory, of the advance, and a good cavalry does not trouble itself about it. It rallies in advancing, while the vanquished one has fear at its heels.

On the whole, there are few losses. The engagement, if there is one, is an affair of a second. The proof is that in this action of cavalry against cavalry, the conquered alone loses men, and he loses generally few. The battle against infantry is alone the really deadly struggle.

Like numbers of little cha.s.seurs have routed heavy cuira.s.siers. How could they have done so if the others had not given way before their determination? The essential factor was, and always is, determination.

The cavalry's casualties are always much less than those of the infantry both from fire and from disease. Is it because the cavalry is the aristocratic arm? This explains why in long wars it improves much more than the infantry.