BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg W. Sage 1891 UE149 .Mirisge'""'^ "'^ .„„ 3 1924 030 758 571 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030758571 INTERNATIONAL SERIES EDITED BY CAPTAIN ARTHUR L. WAGNKR, Sixth Infantry, U. S. Army; Instructor'in Art of War at the U.S. Infantry and Cavalry School, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Cavalry ^^j^ Infantry CAPTAIN F. N. MAUDE, R.E. AUTHOR OF "lyCtters on Tactics and Organization," "The Evolution of Modern Drill-Books," Etc. No. 4. Kansas City, Mo. hroson-klmberly publishing co. 1014-1016 Wyandotte St. Copyright, 1896, by HUDSON-KIMBERLT FOB. CO. Kansas City,, Mo. CONTENTS. I. Cavalry versus Infantry in the Napoleonic Era. II. Short Service and Discipline. III. The Napoleonic Conscription. IV. The Old Peninsular Army. V. The Home Army. VI. The Wars of Frederick the Great. VII. Tactics of Opposing Forces before the First Silesian War. VIII. Seydlitz and the Prussian Cavalry. IX. General Marbot's Memoirs. X. Attack or Defense. XI. The Prussian Cavalry in 1815. XII. General von der Marwitz's Second Cavalry Pamphlet. XIII. The Berlin-Vienna Race. XIV. General von Rosenberg's Hints on Recruit Training and Riding. XV. Tlje same, concluded. EDITOR'S PREFACE. Captain Maude is so well known to American militan' readers that no further introduction seems necessary. It is sufficient to say that the essays here presented were originally published in the Civil and Military Gazette, of Lahore, India, and that their military value and interest are such that they are deemed well worth preservation in book form. The views expressed by Captain Maude are original and fearless; and whether accepted in their entirety by the reader or not, they can not be perused without benefit by any thinking soldier. U. S. Infantry and Cavalry School, December 1, 1896. CAVALRY VERSUS INFANTRY IN THE NAPOLEONIC ERA. Were it. not that for the last century and more we in England have always sinned against the axiom that the tactics of an army should be based on the racial character istics of the men who compose it, I should apologize for re- ferring to the old truism again. Unfortunately for us, the record of our tactical literature, with few exceptions, and of our drill regulations and instructions for umpires, with even fewer, show that the axiom has never been applied to our own case. Therefore it seems opportune to call attention to how the great heresy, that cavalry cannot charge un- shaken infantry, first arose amongst us; for unquestionably had it not been an already accepted one with our generals and staff, even before the introduction of the breech-loader, that the usefulness of cavalry on the battle-field was a thing of the past, the cavalry would not so tacitly have accepted their position as has actually been the case. The origin of the doctrine is briefly this. At the close of the great Napo- leonic struggle it had become an accepted article of faith, notably in the French Army, but pretty generally also in all continental cavalries, that horses could not be got to face the bayonets of a square, let alone its Are. And we, being almost entirely destitute of a militay literature of our own, accepted this dictum tacitly, without stopping to enquire lo Cavalry vs. Infantry. whether our own cavalry had experienced this dilBculty with their mounts or not. What little tactical literature we possessed, which we owed almost entirely to the pens of infantry officers, bore out this idea pretty fully, for the record of our infantry against French cavalry was so high, though not quite as high as these authors would have had us believe, that there was at least some justification for the idea, provided always that infantry were infantry and cavalry cavalry all the world over, no matter from what nation they originally were raised — a premise which I entirely decline to accept If, ' therefore, it can be shown, as I believe it can, that whatever may have been the case as regards French cavalry against British infantry, it was emphatically not the case with the r61es reversed, and if further the reasons why things hap- pened as they did in the former case can be clearly shown, I imagine that a great part of the opposition displayed by modem Britsh umpires and tacticians to the proposed method of employing cavalry masses in battle nowadays will be considerably diminished. Let us trace the historical development of the subject. At the close of the Seven Years' War the Prussian cavalry were the absolute arbiters of the battle-field, wherever the nature of the ground gave them a fair show. Seydlitz at Rozbach, the Baireuth Dragoons at Hohenfriedberg with their record of 66 stand of colors, 4,000 prisoners, and 5 guns, are known to almost every officer who has passed for his majority— nay, even to every cadet fresh out of Sandhurst. But the exploits of our own regiments in the Low Countries, In the Napoleonic Era. ii forty years after, aad in the Peninsula, are better linown frequently in the ranlcs than amongst the officers, though the names of the actions are all there on the regimental plate and on their standards, where they have them for all to read. How many officers, even in the regiments that took part in it, know anything of the action of "Villiers en Couclie" on the 24th of April, 1793, where two British and two Austrian squadrons broke and dispersed a huge square consisting of six battalions of French infantry, killing and wounding 900 men and capturing 400 more with 5 guns. As my authority, the late Major-General Mitchell, remarks: "There was no appearance then of the new light that has since broken in upon the horses, and rendered tbem so conscious of the danger to be apprehended from the fire of musketry as to make them bear their reluctant riders far away from the bayonets of the infantry." How many more know anything of the battle of Cateau Cambresis, fought two days later, where an Austrian regiment of Cuirassiers, together with nine squadrons of British cavalry, rivalled the Prussians at Rozbach by routing and dispersing the infantry and artillery of a French corps 27,000 strong, and destroying some 3,000 of them, besides capturing 22 guns; and later in the day, when a second column of the French was charged by four British and two Austrian squadrons, and defeated with a loss of 1,000 men and 10 guns. The total loss of the cavalry for the day being 16 officers and 380 men, and that of the enemy 5,000 men and 32 guns. And these charges, too, it must be remembered, were delivered against infantry equal in armament, but most decidedly superior in morale, to any- 12 Cavalry vs. Infantry. thing, in the way of infantry the French succeeded in put- ting into the field between 1809 and 1814. The Peninsula War furnishes altogether eight examples of British cavalry charging French infantry, not counting skirmishes; and out of these eight charges, five were suc- cessful, two failures,. attributable to the nature of the ground, and one undisguised or unaccounted-for disaster. I have no space to give them all in detail, but will take one simple instance as showing the power which our cavalry possessed even under the most unfavorable circumstances. It is the third charge in the day of Salamanca, Le Marchant's Heavy Brigade against steady French infantry, and is quoted from the account of a warm partisan of the infantry, who wrote under the signature of A. Z. shortly after the events: "The nature of the ground, which was am open wood of evergreen oaks, and which grew more obstructed as the cavalry advanced, had caused the men of the three regiments to become a good, deal mixed in each other's ranks; and the front being ait the same time constantly changing as the right was brought forward, the whole had now crowded into a solid line without any intervals. In this order, but with- out any confusion, they pressed rapidly forward upon another French brigade, which, taking advantage of the -trees, had formed a 'colonne serr6e' and stood awaiting the ■charge. These men reserved their fire with much coolness till the cavalry came within twenty yards, when they poured it in with a deadly and tremendous effect upon the concen- trated mass of men and horses. In the Napoleonic Era. 13 "The gallant Le Marchant and Captain White of his staff were killed, Colonel Elley was wounded, and it is thought that nearly one-third of the dragoons came to the ground; but as the remainder maintained sufficient command of their horses to dash forward, they succeeded in breaking the French ranks and dispersing them in utter confusion over the field." The writer's object is to prove the invulnerability of an infantry square. To my mind he proves the exact opposite, for he admits that they were cool and tried soldiers who took every advantage of the ground, and who were in even a better formation, as regards volume of fire on a given front, than they would have been in ordinary square; and yet they were powerless to stop the rush of cavalry blown and dis- organized by previous fighting and sadly hampered by the ground: and all this even if the one-third brought to the ground is admitted. Unfortunately for A. Z., the losses of the regiments, as officially sent in, do not tally with his as- sertion, for in the whole day's fighting the brigade only lost 4 officers, 94 men, and 14^0 horses killed and wounded, of whom only 23 men and 68 horses belonged to the first cate- gory, and the strength of the brigade could not have been much less on the morning of the action than 1,000 sabers. Now, almost at the same period, what were the French cav- alry doing? They had actually fallen sO' low that it was an accepted axiom with the Cuirassiers — the pick of the army — to charge only at a trot, and when they exceeded that pace it was only because the horses took the law into their own hands and fairly ran away, sometimes towards the 14 Ca.vai,ry vs. Infantry. enemy, sometimes in a contrary direction. Considerable doubt has been thrown on this statement of late years in England, but I think it can be shown to be an incontestable fact. Not only have we Jomini's statement that it was the case, but here is the description of the charge of the Cuir- assiers at Eckmiihl, from the pen of a Wiirtemberg cavalry colonel, Graf von Bismarck, who rode alongside them in this attack ,with his own regiment: "Meanwhile the Cuirassier Divisions had followed at a trot, and met the attack of the Austrian Keserve cavalry in so brilliant a fashion that the infantry of Lannes' corps halted to cheer them .... The Curiassiers laid special stress on riding boot to boot, and never moved at a faster pace than the trot One heard constantly from their ranks the oflScers speaking to their men, not commanding, 'Serrez, Cuiras- siers, serrez.' Just before closing with the enemy, the gen- erals and colonels again repeated the command — 'En avamt. Marche, marche! which was repeated by all the men, but the pace was never increased. This 'en avant' was only the French equivalent of the Russian 'Hurrah!' " Von Bismarck, whose work on cavalry tactics was translated into English by Captain Beamish of the King's German Legion (which, by the way, is about the best book on cavalry in the English language prior to the date of about 1875 and is to be found in the Library of the United Service Institution at Simla, from whose shelves it appears to have been only twice removed since it came there), and who, though a German, was a warm admirer of many French things and had fought by their side for many years, quotes In the Napoleonic Era. 15 this example not in the least as a point to be ayoided, but otherwise — so far had the Germans fallen from the tradi- tions of Frederick the Great. But worse was still to come. General Mitchell quotes some characteristic exploits (?) of the French cavalry in 1813, from which I borrow the following somewhat con- densed instances of the combat of irregular horse against these same famed Cuirassiers of Napoleon, which deserve to be framed, glazed, and hung up in every barrack-room as examples of the way how not to do things. Here is the first : "While we (the Don Cossacks) were yet engaged in driving back the advanced parties, a mass of cavalry, greatly exceeding us in number, advanced in haste from the town, and drew up in our front; they were formed in 'column of squadrons,' and as the skirmishers fell back, we soon had nothing but this heavy mass in front of us. Though the Cossacks could gain little in a contest with so large a force, it was equally evident that still less was to be risked in as- sailing them; so that, urged on, partly by their natural in- stinct, and partly by command, they pushed forward to the a;ttack. The French advanced at a short trot to meet us, and under the apprehension, probably, that the Russians would attempt to dash into the intervals between the squad- rons, these were closed up to quarter distance. Thus formed, they bore directly on the center* of our line, which instantly opened out, the Cossacks throwing themselves on the flank and rear of the hostile columns; and the French, finding no enemy to contend with in front, soon halted, whilst the war- 1 6 Cavai^ry vs. Infantry. riors of the Don kept firing into the mass or spearing the flanlj; files. "The French had by this time got into such complete confusion that they could undertake no evolution of any kind, and the Cosisacks, on their side totally unable to move in compact order, never thought of dispersing by a bold on- set the helpless mob they were assailing. The flank files of the French having faced outwards, and their rear files having gone to the right about, the whole party sprung their carbines, and a regular, if not very destructive, fusil- lade ensued, which lasted for half an hour. At the end of that time the heads of some infantry columns, accompanied . by artillery, were seen advancing, and the first shots from the latter released the French from their unpleasant pre- dicament; the whole swarm of Cossacks vanishing. It was perfectly evident that a want of skill in maneuvering, and a total ignorance of the real nature of cavalry action, bad in- duced the French to crowd together into column. One- third of their number, well and bravely led, would have driven the three regiments of Cossacks from the field with perfect ease. This action also gave proofs of the utter unfit- ness of the Cossacks for anything like a home charge, as well as of the little that can be effected by their loose and irregu- lar mode of fighting." Here is another example, which occurred about a momth later, even more instructive, as showing how much the French relied on their mounted fire: --V "While the Cossacks were forming up, the French also completed their movement; their entire body, except a feeble In the Napoleonic Era. 17 reserve behind, 'en muraille' in a single line without intervals. The Cossacks threw themselves upon the unwieldy mass, and were received by a sharp fire from the enemy's carbines ; the French had not even drawn their sabers. The Russians at first gave way before this fire; and whilst they were again forming for a second onset, a movement was observed in the enemy's lines. I expected that we were to be attacked; but I was mistaken, for the French only wheeled outwards with a view to gain ground for the necessary intervals between their squadrons, and having effected this, they again wheeled up. The object of this change of formation •r was, I suppose, to prevent their flanks from being turned, a mode of attack the Cossacks adopt instinctively on all occasions. The Cossacks were pretty sharply told not to shrink from the fire of the carbines, and officers rode behind the line with orders to cut down the first man who should fall back. Several squadrons were also appointed to turn the enemy during the front attack. These orders were punctually obeyed. The Cossacks pressed in upon the French and surrounded their squadrons; and I had here an opportunity of seeing several of the enormous dragoons, who had fired their carbines at us, cut down or speared before they could put sword in hand. At first the French defended themselves as well as men could do when contending at a halt against active, moving enemies; but some of the squadrons having turned, the rest gradually followed their example. The reserve also, instead of ad- vancing to support the front line, only joined the flight, so that in a short time the entire plain was covered with scat- 1 8 Cavairy vs. Infantry. tered horsemen. Not a single lialf isquadron was to be seen together; it was a complete chase, during which most of those who were afterwards taken fell from tiheir horses. The defeat of the French on this occasion was entirely owing to their inability to move, and to the want of confi- dence in their own prowess naturally resulting from such a deficiency." One other iositance deserves to be quoted as showing how cavalry that could move dealt with the Ooissacks. It is still the same eye-witness speaking : "As we approached some hillocks, and while very care- lessly driving the French before us, a regiment of Chasseurs that had been concealed by the ground suddenly made their appearance. Fortunately for us, they attacked only at a trot and in column of squadiroms, so that we easily evaded their onset. The officer commanding the Cossacks had at the beginning of the action left half his men behind asi a re- serve — an arrangement which again brought the line to a stand; for, as soon as this second line joined us, the French halted, threw out skirmishers, and, going to the right about, returned at a trot, followed by the whole swarm of Cossacks. We had thus advanced some distance when we perceived another body of their cavalry advancing at a sharp trot against our left; they appeared to be two squadrons of the Hussars of Alsace. To meet them our commanding officer wheeled up a division and remained with the right and cen- ter fronting the Chasseurs, who had again halted and re- formed. The Hussars then sounded the gallop, and two squadrons, hitherto concealed by the leading squadrons. In the Napoleonic Era. 19 dashed out to either flank, wheeled into line, and the whole threw themselves at full gallop, without firing a single shot, upon us; in two minutes not a Cossack remained on the field." There are many more interesting examples in General Mitchell's book which my space prevents me from quoting. I can only draw attention to his concluding remaxks. He "Let us recollect that the cavalry who, in column and at a trot, attacked such feeble troops (i e., the Cossacks), and afterwards formed a kind of solid mob, in order to repel them by the fire of their carbines; who drew up in line to contend in regular fusillade with the same foes; who forgot that they had sabers by their sides, and thought only of their spurs when retiring; that these men, who, to say nothing more, charged at a trot, a^nd fled at a gallop, were the soldiers of Napoleon, fought perhaps under his very eye, and had certainly been trained according to his regulations; and we can form some siort of idea of the views on cavalry warfare prevalent in the Imperial Army." These three illustrations refer only to cavalry versus cavalry, but I could give page after page of similar examples of their action against infantry, notably their celebrated charges against our squares at Waterloo; and with this evidence before them, I appeal to all officers of the British Army, whether cavalry or infantry, whether it is right or fair that deductions drawn from the deeds of such troops can be legitimately applied to the descemdants of those who rode with Le Marchant at Salamanca, or with Ponsonby and the Union Brigade at Waterloo. 20 Cavalry vs. Infantry. Of course, if it is once admitted that even in the old days of flint-lock muskets, infantry were unassailable by cavalry, all prospect for their successful employment in the future falls to the ground; but I submit that, whatever may have been the state of the case as regards French cavalry agaimst British infantry, no case whatever is made out by history when the rules were reversed. In the account of the charge at Salamanca, quoted above, it is distinctly shown that our cavalry, even when broken and disorganized by two previous attacks, and still further hampered by diificult ground and trees, could yet bear down perfectly steady French troops, who retained their courage isufflciently to give their assail- ants a volley at twenty yards; and it is maintained that no such shattering death-dealing wave of Are oan be reasonably expected from any troops likely to be attacked on the battle- field of to-day. As modern infantry tactics stand, a square is an almost inconceivable formation; instead of it only long lines of more or less shaken skirmishers are to be met with : and allowing that the point-blank range of their -weapons- is good against the cavalry target for 600 yards, if held horizontal — a condition not often fulfilled, as experience proves — yet even then I doubt whether the fire to be con- fronted is either physically or morally greater than it for- merly was. Besides, no one ever has proposed to send cav- alry against absolutely unshaken infantry direct, and even if they did propose to do so, the conditions of the modern battle-field, with its flre-swept zone 3,000 yards in depth, renders it next door to impossible to find such a target for them. What they have proposed is merely this: that cav- In the Napoleonic Era. 21 airy should on occasion be prepared to charge even what ap- pear to be unshaken Infantry; for, till the experiment has been tried, no one can tell whether they actually are un- shaken or not. If they are not shaken,well, there will be no mistake about the result; if they are, equally there will be no mistake, but it will be the infantry who will find out what it means. But to get troops and leaders to risk so much, they must be taught to ride fearlessly, and to have con- fidence in their own power; but our present umpire training is hardly the way to make them do so. Cavalry vs. Infantry. SHORT SERVICE AND DISCIPLINE. The amateur British army-reformer is never happy but when he is digging up the seed of a new reform to see how it is getting on, and is always disappointed when he finds that the tree has not grown in a night. I agree with him so far, that the sj'stem is not doing uniformly well everywhere, but I think these unsatisfactory results are far more due to imperfect comprehension of the nature of treatment it requires, than to any inherenit defect in the system itself. Some few regiments, both of horse and foot, I have seen, particularly in India, which to my mind prove conclusively the value of even the imperfect copy of the original we posisess; and these have led me to think of what might be accomplished throughout, with a stricter ad- herence to our own type and a little more loyalty in carry- ing it out. The German statistics of losses in battle prove that the Qerman. system made soldiers capable of fighting their own weight of Frenchmen; but other evidence goes to' show that the German soldiers, though victorious, fell short of our ideal of what soldiers should be. Against this, which might l>e taken to justify condemnation of short service in principle, we must take into consideration what the true limits of this short service was and is, and what was the nature of the men, and the previous training of the officers, before compar- Short Service and Discipline. 23 ing it with our own. Taking the infantry only, the length of their service with the colors was but two years and nine months against our seven years; and in that time the com- pany oflfleens, themselves with only seven weeks' war ser- vice, and not all with even that, had to make out of (next to the Russian) perhaps the most peace-loving race in Europe soldiers capable of standing up in fair fight against war- seasoned veterans of a nation certainly not particularly in- clined to the arts of peace. That they did not succeed alto- gether, and that the young Prussian soldiers did not always stand up to their enemy as their fathers before them had done at Ligny, is not much wondered at: the marvel is that they succeeded so well. My readers will, I am sure, believe that it is not my intention to underrate the fighting power of the Germans as a race, yet if any good is to be de- rived from the study of their experiences, it is necessary to tell a good many home truths about the matter. No one who has knocked about the world at all requires to be told that there is more fight about the individual Anglo-Saxon than about any other nationality. At sea, though the English sailor has the worst reputation for drunkenness and insubordination of any race, yet in times of danger he is, in the opinion of the most trustworthy witnesses, decidedly the mosit reliable — and this is equally the case wherever you talie him on shore. The striking point about him is his individ- uality, and, unlike any other race in the world, he shows to most advantage when thrown on his own resources, and least when one of a crowd — just the characteristics which should tell most with the breech-loader. It does not take 24 Cavai^ry vs. Infantry. many years or even months in Germany to discover that there the opposite rule holds good; in this respect the Frenchman is generally a better man than the German. Again, the habits of the Germans, when not under arms (i e., before joining the ranks and after entering the reserve), are distinctly not of a kind to develop the military virtues. Compare the amusements of the middle and lower classes in two great manufacturing towns in the two countries — the Germans themselves are fain to admit our advantage — and taking a still lower stratum, that of the agricultural classes from which the bulk of the German recruits are drawn, and we have Prince Hohenlohe's own evidence to show how low the standard of intelligenceamongst these actually is, in spite of the greater spread of board-school education amongst them. I will quote but two instances he gives, though these must be taken as extreme oases. One man whom he ques- tioned could count up to eleven, and had heard of seventeen and twenty, but had no definite conception of what the words meant; and another, whom he asked whether he could tell him when "Der Alte Fritz" died (about the equivalent of our reference to Queen Anne's decease), replied that he thought it might have happened "last week." Such su- preme instances of imbecility have never come my way, but I have seen many hundreds of recruits of both nations, and have never in my life known one of ours quite as dull and wanting in a comprehension of military things as many dozens of Germans. It is not that our average of education is higher, for I have met many of our own recruits who could neither read nor write, whereas it is very seldom one finds Short Service and Discipline. 25 such a one in Germany ; yet even these all possessed a certain amount of shrewdness and character that was lacking in the others. The individuality of our men is the point I wish to bring forward, and I have made many experiments to prove it, and have found that, even after spending many consecutive days on the range or parade-grounds of Ger- man troops, it was still very hard to understand how their officers ever got to know the men apart. Whereas with British, and in a less degree with native troops, there is not the same stamp of uniformity about their features. With the same object in view, I have collected photographs of groups of men — squads of recruits photographed together ■ — and have submitted then to the inspection of others, who have all noticed the difference. The Germans have, of course, one great advantage over us, in that the liability to universal service, enables them to attain a level average of physique and intellect, whereas we are compelled to put up with a tail ; but, judging the men by the mean, and not by the extreme specimens of either, I have long since come to the conclusion that our raw material is better than theirs. And yet with this' initial advantage on our side, and seven years instead of three to train it, the manufactured article we turn out does not compare at all favorably, iu point of discipline and smartness under arms, with that of the Ger- mans of to-day; and if history is in any way a guide, these two characteristics are the indispensable qualifications of good fighting troops. No doubt it might prove that, in spite of these draw- backs, we would still, thanks to our native fighting instinct, 26 Cavai,ry vs. Infantry. give as good an account of ourselves on the battle-fleld, but no reasonable man can doubt that without them we should be very much better still ; and no soldier should be content to rest till, at any rate, his own command are able to com- pare with any others in all respects. That it is not so, I take to be due to the fact that our copy of the German system is in the main a very imperfect one. The keystone of the whole structure of organization with them lies in the subdivision of the work and the delegation of responsibility. No man of ordinary capacity can command more than a cer- tain number of individuals, the limit of which lies some- where between 100 and 200, for it is, humanly speaking, im- possible to know more than that number sufficiently thor- oughly to command well ; but within these limits a man may reasonably be expected to know each man under him, as regards temper, character, etc., sufficiently to be able to man- age them to the greatest possible advantage; and having been given his command, he must be prepared to stand or fall by his success or failure with it. These two conditions are fulfilled in the case of the Ger- man captain, and in so far he is better off than our own ; but after that begin his difficulties, and these lie, much as with us, principally in the selection of the non-commissioned offi- cers. Every single obstacle that we encounter he en- counters too, only it is generally several times bigger. In spite of the national pride in their great army, which every German feels after his service in it is over, the individual does not at the time feel his share in the glorious whole suf- ficiently vividly, and shows but little desire to re-engage in Short Service and Discipline. 27 it. Notably is this the case with the men of higher educa- tion, who know the market value of their brains. Hence it follows that only those who are not very confident in their own ability to make their careers can be induced to re- engage, and it is hardly necessary to point out that this re- siduum of a race which is nowhere remarkable for individu- ality of character does not possess many of the qualifications of the born leaders of men ; and, as a rule, they are afraid of responsibility. I was once at a Brighton volunteer review in company with a German officer, an old and intimate friend, who spoke the truth without the slightest regard to my national vanity whenever he felt inclined, but this time his remarks were most flattering. It was at the crises of the fight, firing and confusion were at their greatest height, when suddenly the defenders rose up and made a counter- attack in almost perfect form — as a matter of tactics it was certainly wrong, but in execution it left nothing to be de- sired. But the enemy met it in the same way — the sections beyond the immediate front wheeled inwards, and fired into their flanks, and presently they had to retire and take up their former position, from which they were eventually driven out, followed by the assailants, who were working instinctively in little sections of four or five men, one of whom gave his orders to his comrades, and was obeyed by them, even though he was in many cases only a private like them- selves. This was what struck my friend most in the whole day's work, and he exclaimed: "Why, each of those men is more intelligent than one of our non-commissioned officers," and I have since had ample reason to agree with him. The 28 Cavai,ry vs. Infantry. fact is, the Englishman is unequalled at, to use a Yankeeism, "bossing a show." You have only to give him a little prac- tice and a certain amount of authority, and he will manage to acquit himself of his task at any rate more satisfactorily than any other man. I have often since, when going round large siege works at night or by day, noticed young Sapper recruits of less than two years' service quietly "bossing" their working parties of twenty or thirty men with all the cool self-possession of a commissioned officer, and there is no particularly marked intellectual superiority about the Sapper over his comrades of the line. No, as regards material for non-commissioned officers, the German captain is decidedly at a disadvantage as com- pared with ours, but he has an advantage in the fact that as he is allowed practically a free choice in the selection of them, his own vital interests lead him to choose the best he can, and neither the regulations nor the customs of the ser- vice permit his selections to be ridden over by the orderly room. Such scandals as are still so frequent amongst us, of a teetotal or tub-thumping colonel forcing his own men upon a captain, would be simply inconceivable in Germany; and it follows that a captain takes a far keener interest in his work, knowing he is not likely to be made a fool of in this way, than he can reasonably be expected to do under our system. But even when he has chosen his non-commis- sioned officers, the German captain's troubles are by no means at an end — he and his subalterns have to teach them their duties, and this in itself is no easy task; and, lastly, Short Service and Discipline. 29 the instructors have to be confronted with their men as they come up fresh from the plough, so to speak. I have already noticed above how very far short of a respectable standard some of these fall, but what is even more striking is their extraordinary clumsiness in the use of their limbs. The English agricultural recruit is not limber in his movements either, but he is an acrobat compared to the German, who literally has to be taught to jump over a ditch 3 feet wide. Prince Hohenlohe again is an authority to consult on this head, and one who cannot be suspected of anti-national bias. But now we come to the difference in the principle of instruction. The primary object the Germans have in view is the training of the uill of the soldier: he is to be taught to concentrate his thought on the performance of his duty, and that to the utmost possible extent. By easy steps he is first given command of his limbs, and then he is made to execute the movements laid down with the utmost concentrated energy of his will. This was formerly the idea in our own service, and is still in our navy, but the tacticians have changed all that; and besides, thanks to our organiza- tion, we lack the one commanding will at the head of each company, for our captains have not the overmastering in- centive to exertion that the German ones have. Every Ger- man company commander is compelled to infuse his whole soul into his subordinates, for he knows his whole subse- quent career depends entirely on his doing so, and with the same incentive to exertion the British captain would do so too. Besides this, by tradition, a faith has grown up in the army in the efficacy of this smartness under arms, that noth- 30 Cavalry vs. Infantry. ing now can shake; they know that no forms of tactical employment or perfection of arms are of any avail, unless they have some power behind them to enable the men to overcome their natural disinclination for extreme danger, and that power they find to consist in the concentrated wills of all under their command, who from the very first are taught how to concentrate their wills on the execution of the given order With us this idea appears to have almost died out, and instruction has taken its place; men are to be taught many things, but to insist on the execution of any of them with this complete concentration of effort is thought to be needlessly harassing to the men, and therefore to be dis- couraged as leading to desertion. And, finally, there is the fundamental distinction between the two systems which has crept in since the last war — namely, that the Germans be- lieve that the first object of military instruction is to teach the soldier to know how to die, and we teach him how to avoid dying. What the result of the latter system was in Germany before 1870, the "Midsummer-Night's Dream" will show ; but though the Germans have not gone so far as the writer of that particular pamphlet would have them do, yet they are at present far ahead of us in that respect, and far ahead of what they were in 1870. From 1866 to about 1876 the main idea of extended order im the army was the avoid- ance of loss. Since 1876 about, it has become the infliction of loss on the enemy; and though the men are still trained to skirmish individually, yet, as the writer of the above men- tioned pamphlet pointed out, their individual freedom to avail themselves of cover in the attack has been curtailed Short Skrvice and Discipline. 31 to such an extent that to all intents and purposes they might as well be in close-order line (single rank) again. The main point with them now is to impress on the troops that the only way to avoid loss oneself is to inflict heavier loss on the enemy, and every consideration of personal safety must give way to this necessity. Surely these ideas are far better suited to our national proclivities than the opposite ones, and if on these lines it is possible to turn out good troops from such unpromising materials as we have seen the Germans have to work up inside of three years, cannot we, by adopting them, do some- thing better in seven years than we are now doing? Smart- ness, which results from the direct example of the officers themselves, and which is maintained by pride and feeling of esprit de corps and not by punishment, makes men contented and disinclined to desert; but I maintain that such smart- ness can only be attained by dividing up the men into such fractions that the officers may know them all personally, and that the officer must stand or fall by the use he makes of that knowledge. I firmly believe that the moment it became known that promotion to the rank of field officer depended primarily on the smartness and efficiency of his company or troop under arms, as judged by an independent board, and not on his proficiency in book-learning, we should see an astounding improvement in the fruit of our short service, and in a few years' time might laugh at the Germans. But the officers must be allowed to control their companies for a little longer than six weeks in a year. 32 Cavai,ry vs. Infantry. THE NAPOLEONIC CONSCRIPTION. A valuable pamphlet has been Issued by the Militaer WochenUatt in which the conditions under which Napoleon raised his armies, and the sort of men he had to deal with, are made the subject of an extremely searching historical investigation, and this investigation supplies us with a mass of information of the greatest importance to those who are trying to trace the gradual process of development of modern tactics. Every one who has given even a little thought to this most important subject must have been puzzled to account for the extraordinary phenomenon that whereas theorists, even the soundest, have almost from the introduc- tion of firearms preached the superiority of individual order over close order as a form of infantry combat, and that though the theorists have been admitted to have had right on their side, by many, if not by all, of the greatest leaders, yet these same leaders have in practice again and again been compelled to have recourse to the latter method; and the ordinary common-sense practical soldiers, particularly the regimental officers, have always been at open war with the pamphleteers. The explanation of the matter appears to be, that experience has proved that tactical forms should be based on the nature of the man, and not on the weapon he carries: and that the great leaders, being executive officers, have had to content themselves, not with the theoretically best form, but with what their experience taught them could The NapoIvEOnic Conscription. 33 be practically accomplished by the men they had to deal with; and in this they have been supported by the bulk of the regi- mental officers, who, being in immediate contact with the men, knew what the latter were capable of accomplishing, and never troubled their heads with schemes, often far beyond the comprehension of many of them, based on what might be done with ideally perfect material: in short, the "tacticians were not soldiers enough, and the soldiers not tacticians enough" — a saying which precisely hits the point of the warfare between the two sects which has been raging in the British Army for the last twenty years. The history of the Napoleonic infantry and cavalry tactics is a precise record, which shows the gradual deterioration of the fight- ing value of the recruits supplied; and had the last Franco- German War continued as an obstinately fought out struggle for several years, I believe that the German method of employing their forces would have followed the same steps in principle, though in detail, distances, etc., they would of course have largely varied. This actually did take place during the American Civil ^Yar to a considerable extent, and with longer time would have gone further; and there are not wanting indications that this idea has largely influ- enced the course of German tactics during the last fif- teen years. The history of this idea is briefly this: wherever long- service armies existed, and especially in such countries as were too poor or too miserly to pay their men well, service in the army was decidedly unpopular. In countries in which the burden of military service fell exclusively on the poorest 34 Cavalry vs. Infantry. classes, the army lost caste with the nation, and, being shamefully treated by the civilian element, gradually be- came divorced from the country, and if called out to flght, was usually utterly devoid of patriotism, and not in the least anxious to flght to the last drop of their blood in de- fense of the institutions of its fatherland, for which for the most part they felt the most profound indifference. The tendency to desert on the march and in camp, and to skulk in action, was accordingly very great indeed, and it became therefore impossible to trust these men before the enemy, ex- cept under the immediate eye of thieir officers; and this reason alone compelled Frederick the Great to adhere to his line tactics, which were copied by us slavishly, though, as the history of the light division sufficiently proves, the same causes did not exist, to anything like the same extent But, though not to the same extent, they certainly did exist, do exist, and will continue to exist as long as our army — or rather, the individual members of it who wear the Queen's uniform — are treated with the same disdain by the civilians, and till we can succeed in attracting a higher average class of men to the colors ; and amateur army-reformers would do well to bear this point in mind. Against troops recruited and maintained in the same manner, and not so well drilled, the line tactics succeeded gloriously, both in our own and the Prussian service; but where pitted against nations who 'rose spontaneously in arms and fought for freedom, or what they thought would give them freedom, they failed completely, both in our own case in America and in the Prussian case against The Napoleonic Conscription. 35 Revolutionary France. The tactics employed by both coun- tries were the same — not having drill or training enough to meet the line in open field, they attacked it as far as pos- sible in broken ground and in skirmishes. And against the Prussians in France in 1792 a form of fighting was evolved by exi)eriment identical with that the Germans subsequently employed in 1870 — namely, dense swarms of skirmishers backed by small columns. But the essential feature on which the possibility of this style of fighting hinged was the presence in the ranks of a sufiicient number of individually brave men who went into the skirmishing or fighting line and stayed there, either because thcv liked it, or from higher motives: and men of this stamp were numerous at the out- break of the Revolutionary wars. The Revolutionary fever, however, soon spent itself, and already before Napoleon became First Consul the Committee of National Defense was very hard put to it to find men for their armies. In 1789 General Jourdan brought before the Council of Five Hun- dred the first draft of a conscription bill, which, though it eventually became law, was most bitterly opposed as con- trary to the principles of the Republic. At first the con- scription was universal and for five years' service, though it soon became practicallj' for life; and as a means of raising money the principle of paid substitutes was sanctioned. It was not popular from the beginning, and a very large per- centage of decidedly unwilling conscripts were in the ranks of the Grand Army that fought at Austerlitz and Jena, but the strong leaven of old Republicans, and the force of tradi- tion and drill, still rendered it possible to apply the skirmish- 36 Cavai,ry vs. Infantry. ing tactics successfully on both those battle-fields. But the Spanish and Calabrian insurrections, and the terrible hard- ships and frightful cruelties the insurgents perpetrated on the French who fell into their hands, soon rendered it a tax beyond the patience of the nation to endure, and if the na- tion was quick to resent it, it may be imagined what the un- lucky States incorporated into the confederation of the Rhine, and the Italians, thought of it. In Spain whole regi- ments melted away; the Westphalian contingent which crossed the Pyrenees in 1809 were reduced to a single bat- talion by April, 1810. A Saxon regiment that left Mannheim on the 18th of January, 1810, with 32 officers and 1,194 men, and which was further reinforced in April by 38 officers and 1,229 men, mustered in November of the same year only 16 officers and 7 men fit for duty, and of the whole number who crossed the Rhine only 38 officers and 249 men succeeded in reaching Germany again. The little duchy of Berg lost 12,000 of its male inhabitants in Spain alone. As regards cruelties, both Calabrians and Spaniards had nothing to learn from the Afghans, or even from the Inquisition, but mutilated the wounded and tortured the prisoners with all possible refinements of cruelty. The impression created by these lessons and losses spread with the proverbial rapidity for which bad news is notorious, and the resistance against the conscription, which had been steadily growing, became rapidly desperate. Where in 1806 the percentage of absentees had been about 25, it rose in 1809-10 to upwards of 80, and it was precisely in these departments which had previously provided the best men for individual fighting (as The Napoleonic Conscription. 37 opposed to mass fighting) that the result was most serious, for it required considerable self-reliance of character in the individual to dare the authorities and expose himself to all the consequences of being an outlaw.* A further result, of course, was that the men who stayed were for the most part the least likely to make good soldiers. The men sent up to the front to reinforce the army of Austria before Wagram were of such an unreliable nature that it was considered necessary in the battle of Wagram to form the whole infantry of MacDonald's corps in one huge column, each line of which consisted of deployed battalions, closed to six paces' dis- tance, and some fourteen battalions deep. This monstrous formation was only repeated on one subsequent occasion, and then through a misunderstood order at Waterloo, where the column thus formed was charged and ridden over by the Union Brigade, who brought in some 5,000 prisoners. Another essential factor which led to the use of these heavy columns — a point which deserves to be specially borne in mind by would-be reformers — was the fact that from Jena onwards the confidence of the French infantry in them- selves had been dangerously shaken by the stubbornness of the resistance they had encountered in the open field. They had encountered foemen, man for man, fully their equals, and only the masterly employment of the artillery under Senarmont had given them the very incomplete victories of Eylau and Friedland, and naturally it was felt that what the old veteran troops had failed to perform was beyond the power of the riff-raff now being supplied to them. The result "Vide Buchanan's "Shadow of the Sword." 38 Cavalry vs. Infantry. of the employment of these heavy columns only made mat- ters worse, for the losses increased in enormous proportions, and the drain on the country was still further augmented. In order to try and beat up the "refractaires," as they were called, no less than sixteen flying columns,, numbering some 82,000 infantry and cavalry, were employed in France alone, and the men of these columns were quartered on the inhab- itants of the villages from which men liable to service had escaped, and authorized to behave as if they were in the enemy's country. The men they brought in were placed in irons, and when a sufficient number had been got together, they were marched out into the country for a few miles, formed in three sides of a square, and a percentage of men selected by lot were shot before their eyes, "pour encourager les autres." The remainder were then marched down to the coast in chain gangs, and taken by ship to the islands of OMron, Rh6, and Walcheren, and others suitably situated, where they were organized in battalions by specially selected officers, who were ordered literally to coax them into a good humor again, for Napoleon thoroughly understood that the more obstinate the "refractalre" the more likely he was to make a good soldier eventually, if once he could be made fairly contented with his lot. From the islands they were again taken by ship, when the English cruisers permitted, to ports in Holland, and marched overland, without touching French soil, to their destinations. Of course it was principally the exception- ally determined recalcitrants who were thus dealt with, for all the islands round the French coast would not have been The Napoleonic Conscription. 39 sufficient to afford accommodation for all the deserters. The less obstinate ones were placed in the ordinary d^p6ts, and their spirits broken to discipline by constant drill and hard marching, under which the weaklier ones broke down, and only the hardier ones remained to march against the enemy. So that, in spite of all drawbacks, the men who eventually reached the front were in all respects, except as regards training to stand fire, disciplined troops, and not mere recruits. But whilst in France everything was thus tending to reduce the value of the French infantry and cavalry, things in Germany were going just the opposite way. Under the terrible hardships and oppression the French inflicted on the occupied provinces, a feeling of ardent patriotism was grow- ing up amongst the very men who before the disaster of Jena had been sunk in the very lowest depths of slavish indiffer- ence to duty. The civil population of Prussia previous to that event was.^o thoroughly divorced from the army, and so utterly blind to their own interests, that they went so far as to welcome the invaders, and to cover the remnants of the army, which in spite of incompetent chiefs had so loyally done its best to protect them from invasion, with oppro- brium and scorn. I doubt whether even the modern British Radical news-sheet could sink to such filthy vituperation as the Berlin newspapers of the day indulged in, when first the French marched into the capital ; but this state of mind did not last long, for flesh and blood could not stand the French as guests, and, before many months were over, many of the most virulent of them fled to unoccupied portions of the 40 CAVAtRY vs: Infantry. territory and became most whole-souled defenders of their fatherland with their pens, if not with their swords. All over Germany secret societies were formed, the one object of which was to inspire in every member's heart the same fanaticism of despair which animates the Ghazi. When, after the retreat fromBussia,theopportunityat length came, these men flocked to the colors by thousands, and, being al- most entirely without discipline and drill, adopted almost instinctively the same method of fighting — namely, individ- ual order — as had previously given their victors their superi- ority. Of course, too, they were aided in this by the sur- vivors of the old army, who, having seen the result of their previous error, had now rushed into the other extreme, much as our own reformers did after 1870, and now would be satisfied with nothing but skirmishing and loose order ; and it was only owing to the exertions of the very men who be- fore 1806 had been foremost in recommending moderate reform, chief amongst whom was Scharnhorst, that enough steady drill was maintained to save the army from degener- ating into a horde of savages, which would have been shat- tered to pieces in the first engagement by the masterly com- bination of the three arms that Napoleon had now learnt to employ. In this art of combination - Napoleon had now reached his zenith, and never in military history have the three arms played into each other's hands so perfectly, each covering the weaJc point of the other. His battles began by a preliminary deployment of skirmishers all along the front, and, in the gradual development of the struggle, the oppos- ing infantry were led to a premature consumption and The Napoleonic Conscription. 41 movement of their reserves, and a deployment of their artillery. Then when the enemy had sufflciently shown his hand, an overpowering force of artillery was brought up to case-shot range, which poured in fire considerably heavier than any repeaters of to-day could develop, before which no columns or lines oould stand; and when their work of preparation was sufflciently completed, a mass of cavalry (such as it was) was, to use an expression of Prince Hohen- lohe's, induced to run away in the direction of the enemy, and behind them the massive columns of the infantry marched up to occupy the conquered position, and fre- quently reached and held it without firing a single shot. Things, of course, did not always work as smoothly as in- tended; the enemy flung their cavalry against that of the French, and a more or less unsatisfactory cavalry duel ensued. When this was the case, the following infantry were not always equal to their task, but if they failed, there was left in his hand his final reserve — the Guard; and the strength of these lay almost entirely in their extraordinary capacity for enduring heavy loss. It was indeed fortunate for Prussia that she had still some men left her who retained their heads in the midst of the general confusion of ideas, and had insisted on the necessity of maintaining the high- est possible standard of discipline. Without this back- bone, the skirmishing hordes would have been totally in- capable of opposing the French when handled by Napoleon in person. It will be seen, therefore, that the tactics of the two opposing forces had changed about. At the outset the — 4 42 Cavalry vs. Infantky. French relied almost exclusively on a form of individual fighting of infantry which resulted, by a process of natural selection, from the conditions out of which the Revolution- ary armies sprang, and in this order were pretty generally victorious over the rigidly handled Prussians, who, it was said, and with partial truth, by their opponents, were so wanting in all the attributes of free men that they only marched against the enemy because they were more afraid of their officers than of the enemy's bullets. And at the end of the war it was the Prussians and Germans generally who had in turn and in a similar manner developed an "in- dividual order" system, whilst the French infantry had sunk so low that they had almost ceased to fight at -all, the whole of their duty being to march up with sloped arms into the positions from which the artillery and cavalry had already driven the enemy. Now let us apply this reasoning to what happened in the 1870 campaign. The German short-service soldiers, full of confidence in their weapon, and knowing that the best way to utilize it was to get into closie quarters (i e., say with- in 500 yards), went into the fight with- considerable dash and go. But a very few minutes knocked the fight out of a large number of them, who had not been trained to "know how to die, and not how to avoid dying." The ground was covered with skulkers, and, to save the fighting line, the next body of troops was sent intoi the struggle by the higher leaders. These fared no better; appalled by the sight of the losses around them, and those that were suffering, they too lost their order — the bravest rushed to the front, and the The Napoleonic Conscription. 43 remainder stayed behind. A third reinforcement, perhaps a fourth and a fifth, followed, till at last, by a process of sur- vival of the fittest, a line of the best men got up to close quarters with the enemy, and by better shooting drove him out of the field. Some corps fought better than others, and in these, particularly the 3d (Brandenburgers), the strag- gling was less; but, on the whole, this overhaste was the characteristic of the battles up to the 18th of August (Gravelotte, St. Privat). By this time every corps had been under fire, and had had an opportunity of judging what a needless expenditure of men this style of fighting entailed. They were much soberer at S6dan and waited for the proper deployment of artillery and for the infantry to get into hand previous to attacking. The result was a victory won with a most astonishingly small loss, of about 10 per cent. Though this result was partly due to the diminished fighting- power of their enemy, still, more deliberate leading had much to say to it. This finished the war between organ- ized troops of equal quality, but it is interesting to try and reason out what form the fighting would have taken had the contest been prolonged and a species of equilibrium re- stored between the contending forces. It is very certain that the Germans were much impressed by the heaviness of the losses they sufllered, and that extraordinarily exagger- ated reports about them were circulated in the country be- hind. A series of even slight checks in their career of victory might, and probably would, have speedily damped the ardor of new recruits called up to fill the ranks, and inevitably a time would have arrived when the individual 44 CavaIvRy vs. Infantry. dash of the men could no longer have been counted on to carry them forward, and the same method in principle as that relied on by Napoleon would have had to be reverted to. Losses or no losses, men would have had to be driven into the fight, and the only hope at length of victory would have lain in the employment of artillery and cavalry on such a scale that again, as in the old days, the infantry might have walked into previously conquered positions with sloped arms. To the German General Staff this ultimate idea has always presented itself, as anyone can satisfy himself by noting carefully the line their tactical development has con- sistently followed. They have never allowed themselves to be misled by the humanitarian outcry against the appalling losses which formed the bases of the arguments of the pam- phleteers, for all along they have been aware that these ap- palling losses never occurred, and they are also familiar with every line of the original controversy on the subject of close versus individual order which raged at the beginning of the century, but of which our tactical guides appear never to have read a line. They grant, as every one will be ready to do, that, given suflBciently brave men, individual order in the fighting line is ideal, and more particularly so since the introduction of the breech-loader ; but they have not adopted it as a means to reducing loss in battle, except in so far as it enables the troops employing it to inflict greater loss on the enemy. Precisely the opposite point of view to that taken up by the British school. They are prepared to derive all the advantage from this form that they can, and their system of individual instruction The Napoleonic Conscription. 45 has for its primary object to develop in the soldier the quali- ties which will enable him to preserve the requisite courage and self-reliance, without which it is impossible. But they have never lost sight of the prospect that they may have to flght battles with men who do not possess these qualifications, and then, though even in their own army there is a tremen- dous schism against them in the junior ranks, the leaders (those who have seen war) axe determined, if the necessity arises, and if the men decline to win in individual order with a loss of only say 20 per cent on an average; to drive them into action and force them to win in close order, even if it cost 50 per cent, the price Napoleon paid for Wagram; of course, like him, seeking to diminish the calls on the in- fantry by the unsparing use of artillery and cavalry. No matter what perfection the armament attains to, its ultimate power on the battle-field depends on the nerves and courage of the men to whom it is entrusted. Artillery has, relatively speaking, no nerves, for the gun and the ground never shake, and besides, the detachments a re, so to speak, anchored to the ground. The greater the torrent of projectiles poured out, the greater becomes the necessity for speed in the advance, and that speed will always be found in the cavalry, which arm also has the advantage, thanks to its superior mobility, of being kept out of fire till wanted, and then appearing, with its morale not only unshaken, but positively intensified by the rapid motion of the charge. No matter what pitch of perfection firearms attain, these two fundamental advantages will remain on the side of the cavalry and artillery, and though we never expect to 46 Cavalry vs. Infantry. see again on any European battle-fields soldiers so entirely demoralized ab initio as were the latter-day soldiers of the Empire, still the more the volume of modern fire is in- creased, and the greater the distances it sweeps, the more certain does it become that eventually such a state of moral collapse will set in, and the only way to guard against its effects on one's own side, or to draw advantage from them on that of the enemy, will be by^ assigning larger duties to the cavalry and artillery, and making' the most of the above mentioned two fundamental advantages they possess. I do not wish to be understood to be desirous of exalting any one arm at the expense of the other, but I claim an equal right for all. An army forms a trinity in which none is before or after the other, none is greater or less than the other; and the country whose leaders are the first tO' recognize this great truth will be as invincible on land as Napoleon was, till he met a leader backed by better men who understood this fundamental truth even better than he did himself. The Old Peninsular Army. 47 THE OLD PENINSULAR ARMY. It is well known throughout the service, thanks prin- cipally to the necessity of study on the part of officers anxious for promotion, or the Staff College, that the British infantry who fought in the Peninsula earned from the best and ablest of their opponents^-e. g., Napoleon, Bugeaud, and Foy — the high praise of being the best in the world; but to form a true estimate of what the ultimate fighting value of British troops might be, it is well to remember out of what elements it was composed, and under what disadvantages of organiza- tion and tradition it fought. As regards material, it is pretty generally known that the standard of height, physique, and still more of character, fell very far short of what we require to-day; but we live so fast nowadays, and are so busy in slaying the tinf ortunate Prussian Guards over again in order to form a foundation for new systems of at- tack formations, that we are in danger of forgetting the other factors of the case. In a very old copy of Eraser's Magazine, dated September, 1833, 1 have found an admirable article from the pen of the late General Mitchell (R. A.), which gives a singularly good idea of what the old army was, and which I think will probably interest my readers, for I take it that such information is invaluable to all who wish to form an independent view as to the capabilities of British troops. As regards the formation or reconstruction of the militarv machine, he savs: 48 Cavalry vs. Infantry. "When in 1803, after a disastrous waste of blood and treasure, it became apparent, even to the meanest capacity, that an efficient engine of war was absolutely necessary, every exertion was made to metamorphose Englishmen into soldiers — a task that the Whigs assured us was altogether hopeless. As pipeclay and drill were in those days looked upon as the best specifics for teaching Britons — the boldest and most athletic men in Europe— how to fight, an officer had then a fair chance of being promoted provided he could strut up and down a parade in a commanding manner, give his orders in a loud voice, and, above all, make a battalion I)erform, in a cloud of pipeclay and hair-powder dust, sojne of the so-called 'eighteen maneuvers.' A good deal of abuse heaped upon all ranks of subordinates was passed over, and became almost fashionable, whilst the foolish pedantry with which a number of high officials watched over the de- tails of dress made an officer almost dependent on his tailor and hatter for the tenure of his commission. "As to military talents, they were by universal consent never spoken of; they were deemed far beyond our grasp, and accessible only to our enemies; all military knowledge open to Englishmen was supposed to be confined to the book of Regulations. If any one ever thought about the higher branches of the science, he carefully kept such thoughts to himself, well knowing that, right or wrong, they would at best have been considered as de tres mauvais ton; and as to writing on the subject, it was, of course, utterly out of the question. Nor is there a single work or essay on military affairs dating from the commencement of the war that is The Old Peninsular Army. 49 even worth the paper on which it is printed. The Horse Ouards, so favorably distinguished for courtesy in all offi- cial transactions, almost forgot their usual politeness if any- body attempted to bring matters' of professional science to their notice. "It is a curious fact that none of the officers of the martinet school distinguished themselves in the field, or ac- quired any permanent reputation, whilst many were emi- nently unfortunate. The late Sir Henry Clinton was nearly the only exception: he was a man of the highest military talent, perfectly acquainted indeed with all the details of duty, but likely to be strict only about those which were of real importance.' As a general he commanded the divisions which decided both at Salamanca and Waterloo. "No one was more free from the martinet mania than the Duke himself ; he hardly ever interfered with the drill and exercise of the troops, and in matters of dress gave the offi- cers pretty nearlj' carte blanche. The martinet dynasty was also favorable to the rise of what were termed in the army 'pen and ink' men — not, as might be supposed, literary char- acters, but staff officers, mostly brigade majors and aides-de- camp, who could make out a neat return, quote page and chapter of a regulation, and who knew the number of a maneuver without perhaps knowing its object, could write a neat invitation to dinner, and a vapid brigade order after an inspection. Of these only one cut a figure during the war. "About the same time a good many foreign adventurers — counts and barons, of course — obtained rank amongst us. under pretense of being heirs to the high military wisdom 50 • Cavalry vs. Infantry. and science deemed by universal accord, completely beyond the reach of Englishmen. They brought us 'filthy' mous- taches, fur caps, and fantastic hussar jackets; and, having drawn good pay and pensions, passed away without leaving a single name sufficiently remembered to be laughed at. None of these adventurers belonged to the King's German Legion. The officers of that corps were mostly Hanoverians, men of rank in their own country and generally also of good education; and, taken as a body, could not be surpassed by any corps of officers whatever. "It is well known that, owing to the exertions of the Whigs and other Opposition parties of the day, the British Army took the field at the commencement 'of the Peninsula War totally destitute -of all confidence except what was derived from the undisputed courage of the individuals of whom it was coniposed. It was weighed down by the belief in some mighty phantom of military science that, at the command of our enemies, was to descend upon us in thunder and crush our puny efforts. To this phantom, that was always coming but never came, we thought we could oppose nothing but hard, stubborn fighting, and, the infantry under this narrow view having been brought once front to front with the enemy, the result was pretty generally trusted to the gallantry of the troops : and their gallantry was never trusted in vain. We do not know that the British troops ever fought with any advantage on their side beyond what they derived from their own sterling qualities, but they frequently fought at a great disadvantage, and not a single battle from 1808 to 1814 can be mentioned in which, had the The Old Peninsular Army. 51 parties changed sides, the results would not have been exactly reversed. 1,500 French would not; have driven 8,000 British from the field of Albuera, and the attempt to escalade Badajos and storm Ciudad Rodrigo would have been laughed to scorn. From this it follows that our success was due far more to the gallantry, good conduct, and high feeling per- vading alike all ranks of the army, than to the skill and exertion of any particular class." Then follows a long dissertation on the way in which the services of the regimental officers and the men were re- warded, very interesting, but too long for quotation ; the con- cluding remarks are, however, necessary to understand what our author goes on to say about the way the men fought. "The minds of all officers were literally fettered, no one was supposed even capable of thinking on military matters : there was no professional assimilation of feeling; no amalgamation of sentiment, beyond what honor, patrotism, or private friendship inspired, ever took place. We were kept together by the iron bonds of a stern and rigid disci- pline, tempered only by the zeal and good-will that avow- edly pervaded all ranks. The injurious consequences of this estrangement extended themselves like a damp, cjiill- ing mist over the whole profession ; affecting more particu- larly the cavalry, who are more dependent on the daring and spirit of enterprise of individuals. "The men followed their generals mechanically; some leaders were better liked than others, some cordially hated, but none exercised any commanding influence over the minds of either officers or privates. Colonel Napier, in 52 Cavalry vs. Infantry. describing the critical situation of the army after the battle of Albuera, says that the men had lost all confidence in their leaders. There was plenty of despondency and want of confidence (as to results) in the army on the evening of the battle of Waterloo ; but it never shook the resolution of the men. On the contrary, it brought on that stubborn and resolved kind of fierceness that, after any desperate and pro- tracted resistance, seizes on the minds of British soldiers, and makes them callous to all but the desire of destroying their enemies. On ordinary occasions, when soldiers assist their wounded officers or comrades to the rear, they return — when they do return at all — leisurely enough ; but at Water- loo marij of them refused to quit the ranks, and others actually left wounded officers in the middle of the road, and then returned to their posts. But all this was totally inde- pendent of any opinion entertained of their commanders. They were fierce and anxious to avenge their comrades. "Whoever had opportunities of seeing British troops engaged, or ever beheld such men as the Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Anglesey, Lords Hill, Hopetoun, Lynedoch, Sir Hussey Vivian, and a host of others under fire, could not fail to be struck with the abundance of that high spirit in the army M'hich counts life and toil as nothing when weighed against the honor and interest of the country. Nearly all those who at any time held responsible command in action looked as if it would have been impossible to make them comprehend the existence of anything like personal danger to themselves; the minds even of the least composed and tranquil ( and some were, owing to an intense anxiety about The Old Peninsular Army. 53 results, far from tranquil) appeared incapable of descend- ing to such considerations." Then follows a very long nominal list of regimental officers, and he then proceeds to back up his favorite theory of the advantage of a good military education, and — prob- ably also with a certain amount of personal bias, being him- self a gunner — to speak of the artillery in the following terms : "In this army list raisonne we must pass over the artillery, for few officers of that arm could be altogether named without praise — which shows how much a good mili- tary education, such as they had all enjoyed, is sure to effect. The artillery formed, in fact, the most perfect branch of the Peninsular Army, and was, of course, free from the shackles that modern tactics had so successfully imposed on both cavalry and infantry. The engineers were unpopular — un- deservedly so, we think, for a corps that reckoned such men as Jones, Fletcher, and Paisley in its ranks could not easily be surpassed. "Next to the artillery, and far superior to the rest of the infantry, by their morale alone, were the Light Division. They had been trained under Sir John Moore to a better and more efficient system of tactics than any other part of the line; and as they were generally in advance and nearest the enemy, they contrived to rid themselves more effectually than the rest of the army of the trammels that the modern science of war has so carefully imposed upon military talent and energy. This sort of freedom, backed by success, produced in all ranks a degree of pride and confidence that 54 Cavalry vs. Infantry. led to the best results, and proved on every occasion how vastly superior British soldiers are in point of professional intelligence to the best of Continental'troops." (The italics are EQj own.) "Nothing indeed could exceed the aptitude of the men in this division, in whatever related to actual duty, (ex- cept the buoyant extravagance of spirits they displayed whenever they were released from restraint. In their say- ings and doings they approached nearer to the manner of sailors than any other troops in the army, and proved be- yond dispute that to an Englishman war is by far the most congenial pursuit. It is only 'on rolling oceans or in fighting fields' that the spirits of our countrymen are really awak- ened; the ordinary occupations of life seem unable to call forth all the energy of their nature. With such men trained on a system doing justice to their qualities, the conquest of the world were yet an easy task." As regards the cavalry — and on this subject General Mitchell deserves to be heard, for he has written most ably on cavalry tactics, and thoroughly understands his subject — he says: "It was allowed on all hands that their contribution to the general success bore a small proportion to the quantum of reward bestowed on them. In Sir John Moore's cam- paign, indeed, they carried everj'thing before them ; and had they always acted up to the standard then established, it is difficult to say what would have equalled their deserts; but their ill-success at Talavera, which must not, however, be altogether placed to their account, completely damped their ardor. The spirit of victory that flashed along the line the The Old Peninsular Akmy. 55 moment the order was given at Salamaca for the whole to advance, communicated itself to the cavalry, and thej made one gallant and effective charge during the battle, and another during the pursuit ; but they again fell off during the retreat from Burgos, and Vittoria was thedr darkest day, for they allowed the broken French infantry to get away when they ought to have destroyed them. It is not easy to gener- alize the conduct of the cavalry at Waterloo. Ponsonby's brigade made a noble, we may say a tremendous, charge, for it swept at least ten thousand men from the ground, and Vivian's brigade gave the coup de grace, though the battle was then, perhaps, no longer doubtful." There is a great deal more of interesting matter which might be quoted if space permitted, but I think I have ex- tracted enough to give any one an idea of what the old army was like which won us our reputation; and I think the re- flection must occur to all, that if under such disadvantageous circumstances we could do so well, what might we not have achieved with higher organization, a more capable staff, and an army uncontaminated with the jail-birds and other un- desirable characters who too freely found their way into its ranks. Our army to-day, though far from being the pick of the nation as it should be, is at least free from the first of these reproaches, is better organized, and the staff are fairly educated ; and at any rate, no matter what party may be in power, it is never likely to be treated as disgracefully as its forerunner was in the matter of supplies and equipment. But it is wantng in one thing, which the old army had in the highest degree, and that is the knowledge how to die. Instead 56 Cavalry vs. Infantry. of that, we have been sedulously taught for the last twenty years the art of knowing how to avoid dying, and it can hardly be maintained that twenty years of this r^gimeis calculated to stiffen the backbone of any troops. A similar system was far from having a favorable effect on the German troops in the interval between 1866 and 1870, though with them the sound common sense of the leaders prevented the dogma attaining such colossal dimensions as it has done in our own service; and since the war, at any rate for the last fifteen years, the positive object — namely, to adopt extended order as a means of killing the enemy, and not as a means of avoid- ing loss oneself — has been the basis of their instruction. General Mitchell's testimony to the qualifications of the Light Division is to my mind the strongest ppoof that as a nation we possess the requisite individuality for fighting in extended order to a greater degree than any other race, and we may, perhaps, safely go farther in this direction than others, but only by following the Germans again and insist- ing on the positive object — namely, the infliction of loss, not its avoidance. But modem firearms have in so far altered the conditions since the Peninsula times that we are nowa- days compelledto march men across a fire-swept zone of, say, 2,000 paces' depth, and, while doing so, the troops are unable to defend themselves by their own fire, because of the fight- ing line in front; and therefore we require to lay greater stress than ever on the most rigid discipline in these troops, and experience has shown most abundantly the value of the line formation, as a means to the end. To talk, lecture, and demonstrate the avoidance of loss to the men is certainly not The Old Peninsular Army. 57 the way to inculcate passive endurance, but since in any general action where the troops are present on the ground at the rate of ten to twelve men to the pace, and since it is evident that only one man at a time can use his rifle with effect oh that amount of front," some nine-tenths of all the men put in have to endure loss without replying to it for a considerable portion of the time ; the chance any particular body of infantry has of finding itself in a position to skirmish for the whole of an action is very much less than that which it has of having to stand up quietly to be shot at, and under these circumstances it would be wise to dwell a little more on the means of enabling them to do so than has of late years been our practice. I think all soldiers will agree with me that if the men were not told beforehand that the breech- loader or repeater, as the case may be, is an extremely dan- gerous weapon, the only point on which they would lay any stress would be the amount of death-dealing fragments or projectiles they would have to face in a given distance or time, for their common sense would tell them that to the man lying on the ground with a bullet through his lungs it IS matter of profound indifference whether the bullet came initially from a "ten-rupee jezail" or from the latest patent Mannlicher repeater — unless, indeed, the man was suffi- ciently well informed as to know the relative killing powers of the two weapons; and if so, he would know that his chance of recovery in the latter case was a good deal better than it would have been in the former. And therefore, if British troops have faced, and faced victoriously, a greater storm of projectiles from old smooth-bore guns firing grape, 58 Cavai,ry vs. Infantry. and old muskets sending out 12- or 14-bore leaden bullets, they can equally well face anything that under modern tac- tical conditions they are likely to be confronted with — al- ways provided their moral courage has not been previously tampered with. They have faced such iire again and again ; for instance, at Badajos the fire of 14 heavy smooth-bore pieces, 18- and 24-pounders, raking them on either flank, did not stop them, though the obstacles in front did. In the Crimea, in the assault of the Bedan, the converging fire of close on a hundred heavy guns, firing case, also failed to stop them; and at Chillianwalla, Sobraon, and later again at Lucknow, they had to face a stoirm of bullets and grape-shot far in excess of what modern repeaters at equal odds can ever bring to bear against them, and on all these occasions they were formed shoulder to shoulder in the good old line. All these instances prove to me conclusively that British troo])s, trained to know how to die, and not how to avoid dy- ing, are capable of answering to any demands that may be made of them. Let us give our men the best weapons that money can procure by all means, only do not let us teach them that death in itself is any the more terrible because it is delivered by a .298 patent repeating nickel-coated bullet driven by smokeless and noiseless hypernitrated powder. A nation whose troops less than a century ago proved themselves capable of winning against losses of over 50 per cent in individual cases, is capable of turning out equally good ones to-day, for the fighting instinct is the slowest of all to alter — always provided they are adequately trained; and if they are so trained, then nothing on the continent of Europe can defeat them — still less in Asia. The Home Army. 59 THE HOME ARMY. Army organization is not the growth of a night. It has taken a century almost for the German nation to work out the complete consequences of a change from long to short service, and her conditions are simple as compared with ours. Judged by that standard, I consider our progress fairly satisfactory. In 1870, had we been called on to go to war, we should practically have had no reserve whatever. Now we have not only 60,000 men of the regular reserve to fall back on, but behind that are some 400,000 trained soldiers, still of an age to bear arms efficiently, and of whom almost the whole might on an emergency be rendered available. This alone is a considerable gain. It would, however, have been far larger by this time had we not had to work against a resistance due partly to the really admirable sentiment that pervaded the officers as a body, which sentiment became hurtful when transplanted to new and strange conditions. This may seem a contradiction, but it is not so. Had. our offi- cers possessed less pride in the splendid old battalions they belonged to or commanded, had they looked on the service merely as a convenient arrangement for supplying bread and butter to themselves, the reforms introduced would have met ■vyith little opposition. So long as their pay was secure, they would have contented themselves with drawing it as it be- came due, and performing their duties in a more or less per- functory manner. Some of them did so. 6o Cavai,ry vs. Infantry. Being, however, Englishmen, they for the most part took the matter differently. Their pride was touched, and since their individual training under the old long-service traditions practically precluded them from any thorough grasp of the subject, they took the last of the old regiments they had seen as the normal, ignoring all others which in war time had not come up to the ideal — and many had not done so— and insisted on looking on the new battalions of recruits as the war equivalent to the old ones, which they never could have been, nor were intended to be. Then, too, as the haze of time passed over all, they began to improve on figures, and if one were to believe all one heard, the old battalions were, every man of them, veritable sons of Anak, no man under 5 feet 11 inches, or less than 40 inches round the chest. As a fact, they never were anything of the kind at starting, though after their ranks had been thinned by a death-rate of 60 per 1,000 against the present 12 per 1,000 in India, the survivors were undoubtedly very fine specimens. They ignored altogether the miserable weeds that had to be enlisted to keep these regiments up to strength whenever the strain of war came upon them. The original returns, however, are still there to remind them, and from these it appears that the old E. I. C. regiments were glad enough during the last year of the Mutiny to talce younger and smaller men than ever reach the country nowa- days, and to pay them a high bounty for coming. The special evil of the long-service system, was, and always will be, the impossibility it entails of securing a thor- ough practical training and knowledge amongst the officers The Home Army. 6i themselves. A man can teach only what he knows; but when there is no necessity to learn, and the men know very much more by practical experience than the young officer, there is not only no incentive to work, but the keenest find least to work at. Given a generation of peace, and it is a moral cer- tainty that not only will the men know nothing of war, but the officers will know even less, for the tradition of the guard-room is a more living force than the tradition of the mess, of which fact I have had ample proof. Had we, as an army, seen the fighting of 1870, our na- tional common sense would have asserted itself, and we should have realized that there was nothing very novel about it. But we did not see it, and the army being exceedingly modest, as becomes brave men, and conscious of itsignorance, swallowed wholesale the nostrums provided by a limited number of specialists, who, with three or four exceptions, were ambitious men, but wanting in the one essential factor of good officers — namely, the power really to command men. One of them could never be trusted to march his battery to church and back without getting them into a tangle; another I have seen myself tie his command up inextricably under the Duke's own eyes, though he was almost a European authority on matters of strategy; yet another never even commanded a section by word of mouth in his whole service, and a dozen other instances might easily be tabulated. There were exceptions, however, in the one arm of the service in which a different condition of command would tell one where to look for them— and a few of these officers are still alive and doing the best of service. But in the main 62 Cavalry vs. Infantry. things were as I have described them, and practically the army took its ideas from men who only half understood their subject, and began in the middle, and not at the beginning. If our cavalry is now inefiScient, it is because it tried to arrive at the end without considering the means, and because the teachers did not know what those means really were. Further, since they were keen and anxious to secure com- mendation, they worked for immediate practical results, which means praise from the inspecting general, and since the inspecting ofQcer generally knew about as much about a horse as he did about a cow, and could only distinguish be- tween fat horses and lean, the harder they worked the more ineflScient they became. The gunners suffered in the same way, and the evil would have been greater in precise proportion to their greater decentralization, for a man working for a purpose will ap- proximate far more nearly to his aim where he has only 150 men and horses, in round numbers, to influence, than when he has to deal directly with 500 of each. Inspecting officers asked for fat horses and they got them, they asked for clean harness and they got that too, and had they required the battery to receive them standing on their heads, they would have got that too. From time to time, when a gunner or a cavalry man was appointed to a command, things improved a little for the mounted arms, but the infantry suffered. Still, as a rule, it was the infantry that suffered least, for their generals mostly were trained men, and had sufficient ballast of experi- ence to refuse to swallow the new ideas wholesale. They The Home Army. 63 knew there was something wrong about them, though they could not exactly say what, and contented themselves with the tradition of the good old British line, the best thing ob- tainable till with a true conception of the value of the breech- loader and of the "individual" system of training we can go a step further, and rely on our men fighting equally bravely and enduring losses in single rank at half interval only. Worse days were in store for us, and from several causes. First came the discontent produced by the abolition of purchase, which filled the messes with dissatisfied men, smarting under a very real grievance. These declared them- selves sick of the whole business, took no further interest in their duties, and to every one who would listen preached the gospel of self-interest only — a good school truly for sub- alterns to gj'ow up in. To tlus was added the habit of idleness, the inevitable outcome of a peace-time long-service system, which habit, being very deeply rooted, simply precluded any hope of ob- taining out of men and officers alike the necessaxy work to make reliable soldiers in the diminished time at their disposal. Further, under the old system all real responsibility had slipped into the hands of the colonel, the adjutant, and the non-commissioned officers, and when the former became dis- contented, and the latter ceased to exist, the soil was ready for any noxious weed that might be thrown upon it. Discipline is the essence of the whole thing. Where dis- cipline is, there is contentment; and where there is real 64 Cavai,ry vs. Infantry. contentment, there will be recruits; but the contentment must be real and constant throughout the whole army. Under a short-service system discipline is impossible without decentralization of power to the captains, and from that decentralization springs the knowledge necessary for command and staff duties; and eliminating the deficiencies due to the parsimony of the State, for which the soldier is in no way responsible, I believe that had this one change — decentralization of command — accompanied the change to short service, hardly one of the troubles alluded to would ever have arisen. Wars of Frederick the Great. 65 THE WARS OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. I. The historical section of the General Staff at Berlin has issued the first volume of a series which is to comprise the whole history of the wars of Frederick the Great, and since all the many nations concerned in these campaigns have a,fforded every facility to the compilers for consulting papers and archives relating to the events, when completed it promises to be an historical work of immense and far wider interest than anything relating to those periods yet pro- duced; and it is very much to be hoped that our own Intelli- gence Depai'tment will take up the translation of it without delay, for the work will be far too bulky for private enter- prise, and yet it will — and the first part already does — con- tain data for the formation of sound tactical opinions of the utmost possible value for all soldiers. But as this is not likely to happen for some time, I propose to give a tolerably full precis of the two introductory chapters relating to the tactics and employment of troops at the commencement of the era, with which the first part will deal — namely, the first Silesian War, 1740-42. "The evolution of the art of war on the conclusion of the Wars of the Spanish Succession had entered on a period of stagnation and partial retrogression. The principles of forms of fighting which had evolved themselves during the wars of Louis XIV. had remained in the main unchanged. 66 Cavalry vs. Infantry. but their practical application had lost in energy, and the initiative of the leaders had been sacrificed. "The actual combatant army practically consisted of cavalry and infantry only in the proportions of 1 to 3 in ' Prussia, 1 to 4 in Austria and her allies, and not quite 1 to 6 in France. The artillery was very weak indeed, only 1 light piece (3-pounder generally) for 1,000 men and a few heavy guns, say 10 to 15, 12- to 24-pounders, as a reserve. "And with a view to maintain unity of direction over the whole, and to develop the fire-power to the utmost, the 'Line' had been evolved." The tactical unit of the infantry was the battalion in line 4 deep, but in Prussia for fighting purposes only 3 deep, which was divided into sections and divisions which stood side by side without intervals, so that the battalion formed a unit complete in itself. The number of the sections and divisions differed, but was usually 4 of the latter, each of two sections, so that the sections corresponded with our companies; but the division was made on parade with no reference to the actual strength of the "company," which was purely an administrative unit, as it still is in our service. The line was the sole fighting formation : columns were only used for purposes of movement, and of these there were three forms — namely, column of divisions, column of sections, both at wheeling distance, and for short lateral movements a column formed by turning the line, to the right or left, which gave fours or threes. It is curious to notice that just as till quite recently the Prussians recognized twO' forms of line — namely, 3 deep for maneuver and 2 deep for fire — so Wars of Frederick the Great. 67 they then had a 4-deep line for drill purposes, but only used a 3-deep one for firing. Column of sections was formed from the right only, exactly in the same manner as we still do on the command, "Advance in column from the right." To move to a flank, the companies were wheeled as in ''Break into column to the right or left," and this was the ordinary formation; for though the roads were far worse than now- adays, they were mostly much broader, and on approaching a defile the front was reduced by breaking off files, generally from the left, and during the march the distance between the ranks was increased to four paces. To form line from this column to the front, the head changed direction right or left, and continued to advance the full length of the column and then wheeled into line. To form line to a flank they merely wheeled into line in the usual way. Fire was only delivered by word of command and either by ranks or by secitions or divisions. The former was the usual method in all other armies, but the Prussians used only the two latter; but in all, the first rank knelt and the other two locked up. The division or section fire began on the flanks, and worked inwards, and was so regulated that one-half of the battalion always stood with loaded arms at the shoulder, whilst the remainder were loading or firing, and the utmost possible care was given to secure machine- like precisioi;! and rapidity in its delivery by ceaseless prac- tice in the firing exercise, thanks to which, after the intro- duction of the iron ramrod, the Prussian rate of fire reached five rounds a minute — about three times faster than in any other nation. Generally speaking, the attack took place in 68 Cavalry vs. Infantry. line, and in order to bring up the battalion as a closed body, it could only advance with small and slow steps, the pace of 28 inches and the cadence 75 to 80; but marching in step was as yet unknown, though they did march in time to the beat of the drum, increasing or diminishing the rate as indicated by the instrument. "The great difficulty of the time was to combine fire and movement, for only under these circumstances did the at- tack become possible, but in most armies the want of ade- quate peace-training placed most insuperable difficulties in the way. As a rule, "the attack came to a stand after passing through the zone of the artillery fire and entering that of the musketry; the losses then soon brought the assailants to a halt; then ensued, either with or without word of command, a stationary flre-flght. After this halt lasted a time, the offi- cers either did or did not succeed in stopping it and forcing the line forward with the bayonet." Of course there was no want of suggestions as to how to secure the desired end. Some generals believed it pos- sible to push straight in with the bayonet without firing at all, and amongst these was no less a person than Maurice de Saxe, who says in his "Reveries" : "The firearm is not so ter- rible as one thinks ; few men are killed in action by fire from the front. I have seen volleys that did not hit four men, and neither I nor anyone else saw an effect sufficient to have prevented us from continuing our advance and revenging ourselves with the bayonet and pursuing fire." All, how- ever, agreed in the importance of postponing the halt to fire Wars of Frederick the Great. 69 as long as possible, and then keeping it strictly under control. The Austrians covered their advance by their grenadier companies, who were employed entirely as our old skirm- ishers, halting, firing, loading, and running forward, whilst the closed battalion followed in rear without checking. If the attack failed, then, whilst retreating, named flies had to halt, front, fire, and regain their places in the ranks. This was the general method of fighting in use in all countries, and if the Prussians succeeded -therein in excelling all their com- petitors, this was due to their better peace-time training, and to their truer comprehension of the spirit of the game, which led them to attach greater importance to increasing the development of fire, its utilization in the attack, and the maintenance of unquestioning discipline in all movements. Their three-deep formation gave them a marked advantage in development of front, and the march in step (which they had been the first to introduce) gave them an additional means of securing order and accuracy in their movements. "The fire in attacking was thus regulated. The bat- talion advanced in line, with bands playing and drums beat- ing. On the command of fire being given, the music ceased, and the portions designated to commence firing halted and made ready, then advanced three long steps, whilst the rest of the line continued to move at the ordinary pace. At the third pace the front rank dropped on the knee, and the two rear rank ones locked up,the volley was delivered, aud the body regained its place in the line, loading on the march. "Thus the whole line during the firing of the different 70 Cavai,ry vs. Infantry. portions remained in constant though slow motion, and ceaseless practice as well as the iron discipline in which the troops were trained guaranteed that even in the sharpest fire the movement would be carried out with the regularity of machinery. "The cavalry of the line was organized in cuirassiers, carbineers, and dragoons. As the value of infantry had been so much increased by the introduction of firearms, it was hoped to secure the same improvement in the mounted forces by arming them with the carbine and devoting equal atten- tion to their training in its use. But the idea was overdone, and the true spirit of the arm suffered in consequence. This was more the case in Prussia than in Austria, in which coun- try the true cavalry spirit, with which Prince Eugene had inspired his regiments, protected them from a similar mis- apprehension of their duties." The squadron was everywhere the tactical unit, formed in three ranks, and subdivided into "troops," in Prussia into four as at present. Line was re-formed by wheeling from column as described above for the infantry. On the march along the roads open column of troops was the normal forma- tion, but across country they often moved on a squadron front. The execution of the charge varied in different armies. In Prussia the regulations of 1727 laid down: "All squadrons shall advance to the attack with swords at the en- gage, standards flying, and trumpets sounding, and every commander is held bound, on his honor and reputation, to allow no shooting, but always to ride home with the sword." "When squadrons attack, they are to move at the trot, and Wars of Frederick the Great. 71 never to wait to be attacked, but alwaj's charge first." But at the period of the first Silesian War these regulations were by no means always attended to. In advancing cavalry against cavalry, they generally went straight at each other without maneuvering, sending some skirmishers out from the flanks of the squadrons to prepare the attack by their fire. There was little scope for maneuvering, for the half- column was still unknown, and the line to the front, by squadrons moving up by the shortest way, as practiced now- adays, was also of subsequent invention; and further, the troops were not sufficiently drilled in close bodies, and in jumping obstacles, etc. In Austria there were two kinds of attack practiced— one employed against the Turks, the other against Chris- tians; in the latter case the squadrons advanced, with swords hanging from the wrist and pistols in hand, in two ranks. On approaching the adversary the gallop was sounded, the pistols fired in his face at 20 paces, and then the attack ridden home at the fullest speed of the horses, the men being further iuistructed to hit the horses of the enemy on the head, as "this always has good effect." Against the Turks, however, they moved in three ranks, slowly and well closed up, in order to halt in good order and deliver volleys, so great was the terror which these consummate horsemen and their sharp swords had inspired in the Christian ranks. If the enemy was defeated, a portion pursued whilst the rest i-allied; but rallying was so little practiced that after a charge the troops generally got out of hand. "Against infantry their tactics were the same, and, as a rule, the result 72 Cavalry vs. Infantry. of such charges delivered at a trot or moderate canter was often a failure," as might be expected; whereas the Turks, charging home recklessly at full gallop, usually sabered everything they came across, and were so much feared tlgat the infantry took chevaux-de-frise connected together with chains into the field with them, and whenever they halted, put up this obstacle in front to protect them. All line cavalry were trained for dismounted work, par- ticularly the dragoons, who fought like an infantry bat- talion. Dismounted cavalry were also much employed in the defense of localities. The French adhered to this line of action the longest, whilst in Austria and Germany the tendency to dismounted fighting gradually disappeared. The hussars held a middle place between the line cavalry and the irregulars, and fought mostly as skirmishers. Their leading sections engaged the enemy in front with fire, whilst the remainder followed close behind the flanks, to be subse- quently extended against the enemy's flanks. If charged, they gave way and sought shelter behind the line cavalry. The irregulars fought partly on foot and partly mounted, much after the manner of hussars, but without closed reserves, and generally with less approach to order. On foot each man fought as a skirmisher for his own hand. In a battle they were chiefly employed on the flanks and in difficult ground, which protected -them from the volleys and closed attacks of the regular infantry. The Austrians had in this respect a great advantage over the Prussians, and made the most of it, but the want of discipline and love of plunder which characterized these hordes often proved a serious Wars ok Frederick the Great. 73 trouble to their own side, particularly when fighting in their own country. Up to the beginning of the first Silesian War, the artil- lery had no tactical training to speak of. The men were trained to serve their guns, to prepare ammunition, and in the construction of batteries, and in Prussia they had an annual course of fourteen days' target practice. But no artillery regulations existed, and special orders were neces- sary on each occasion to put together groups or batteries. The light artillery, 3-, 4-, and 6-pounders, with an effective range of 1,500 yards, were allottel by pairs to the battalions, and the heavy 8-, 12-, and 24-pounders with howitzers were united in large batteries and employed in the line of battle at suitable places. In the attacli, after a short period of preparatory fire, the heavy guns were brought up to case- shot range, about 500 yards, and the battalion guns sought to get in to 200 or 300 yards before opening fire, and were dragged up by hand, and in advance of the battalion inter- vals till the infantry firing began. In defense, the guns were placed somewhat in advance of the infantry line and on its llanks, and where possible the heavy guns were grouped to- gether in positions from which they could bring a fire to bear on the advancing enemy's flank, and when time per- mitted they were protected by earthworks and obstacles. The position of the three arms relatively to one another was laid down in the "Order of Battle," a document which had to be specially prepared for each campaign or minor undertaking. The desire to develop to the utmost possible pitch the firepower of the infantry had led to the diminu- 74 Cavalry vs. Infantry. tion of depth with extreme extension of front, the first being made as strong as possible at the expense of the second, and the third line was very rarely seen at all. The cavalry were placed on the flanks, both to protect these and also to secure a free field of action. The artiller-y found no place in the formal order of battle, but, as above mentioned, orders had to be issued for its employment on each special occasion. "The army was further divided into wings, each under a special commander, but these commanders had no separate power of their own. The leading idea was to bring the army into action as a whole, and this intention was further indicated by drawing up the battalions of the first line at equal intervals of 20 paces throughout the line, no special intervals marking the limit of tbe wing or brigade com- mands, the sole duty of the leaders of these subdivisions be- ing limited to maintaining the direction ordered, the clos- ing of gaps, and the timely support of any portion of the line that might happen to be driven in." (It does not, however, appear how this last duty was to be performed, for the brigade and regimental commands stood side by side, and not one behind the other, so only the wing commander would appear to have had the power of ordering up a battalion or any portion of the second line to the support of the first line.) "The second line followed the first at 300 paces' distance as a rule. This distance being fixed so that it should not suffer from the fire aimed at the first one." The sections devoted to the arrangement of encampments and the different orders of march are hardly of suflBcient general interest for reproduction here. It will be enough to Wars of Frederick the Great. 75 call attention to the extreme formality of all proceedings which followed as a necessity from the prevailing conditions of enlistment and culture of the people generally, and the sparse-population of thedistricts inwhich the fighting mostly took place. As soldiering was unpopular, desertion was rife, and hence it would have been impossible to quarter the soldiers in towns and villages, even had such cover existed in sufficient quantity. As the trained soldier represented a considerable sum of money, he was too valuable to be ex- posed to the chance of sickness which bivouacs would have entailed, and hence the necessity of tents; and the general ignorance of troopers and the absence of reliable maps, more perhaps the want of newspapers, rendered it a matter of ex- treme difficulty to get full and reliable information of the enemy's movements, and hence the necessity of camping in order of battle ready to turn out and fight at short notice. II. Tactics of the Opposing Forces before the First Silesian War. In a previous letter I gave a precis of the tactics of the Prussian, Austrian, and French armies as they were before the commencement of the first Silesiaji War — i. e., before the great genius' of Frederick had been brought to bear on the subject; and for the details of the condition or tactics of the three arms separately, I must refer to the former article. In the followng lines I follow the German Gen- eral Staff account of how the three arms were employed in battle, and the general ideas of how war was conducted in those days. 76 Cavalry vs. Infantry. "Whan a battle was imminent, as a rule the general of the attacking side rode out with the advance guard, in order personally to see with his own eyes where and how his enemy was drawn up, and thereby to regulate the approach and formation of his own forces. As in those days he could, approach to a distance at which all details were clearly visible, it will be evident what a wide difference there is between his position then and now, when, owing to the in- creased range of all arms, and still more to the enormous increase in the numbers engaged, he is compelled to base his plans on the reports conveyed to him by others, frequently emanating from private soldiers who in the first engage- ments, at any rate of the next war, can only know what the ' maneuvers have taught them, and hence the extreme import- ance of making these as like the real thing as possible is apparent. Thus at Blenheim, Eugene and Marlborough pre- ceded their army with 40 squadrons taken from both wings. The consultation as to* the manner of attack and the issue of the necessary orders occupied about an hour, during which the army approached and halted at a distance from the enemy of about a mile." "The formation of the lines then followed. The heads of the columns wheeled to either flank, marched forward their own length, and then wheeled into line. Owing to the low degree of skill in maneuvering that these generally pos- sessed, this operation took considerable time, and when completed, the advance guard fell, back into its place as assigne(J to it in the normal order of Jbattle, unless meanwhile some special mission was entrusted to it." Wars of Frederick the Great. 77 "The artillery was now brought up to the front and endeavored to silence the enemy's guns, whilst the line re- mained halted out of their range. After this fire had lasted an hour or so, the army moved slowly forward to the attack, halting now and again to correct their order and direction. The cavalry kept its place throughout this movement on the flanks till within 500 or 600 yards of the enemy, when they rode forward and engaged the enemy. This slow advance and the constant halts within effective range of the enemy's artillery was an exceedingly trying ordeal for the cavalry, and demanded a very high order of discipline, and as a con- sequence its leaders were always inclined to curtail the period as much as possible and attack at the earliest oppor- tunity; and whether such attacks — of which there are many examples — were actually due to impatience of loss, or to a truer conception of the duties of cavalry, in either case the book tacticians of those days seriously blamed them." "If their charge were successful, then theoretically only a few squadrons were to pursue the beaten horsemen, but the bulk were to wheel in and fall on the flanks and rear of the infantry. Practically it generally happened that after an obstinate hand-to-hand fight, the victors stuck to the de- feated cavalry and together drifted away from the battle- field, not returning to it for the rest of the day." "'During this cavalry fight, the advancing line of in- fantry had entered the zone of musketry fire, and now came the real tussle." Even in those days however much as leaders desired it practically, it was not possible to close with the bayonet without firing, the attacking line halted 78 Cavalry vs. Infantry. and a flre-flght ensued — if the first line alone could not es- tablish a fair superiority, it was the duty of the second to come up and carry it on. But it will be obvious what an advantage a highly trained' infantry such as the Prussian, whose rate of volley firing was three times that of its oppo- nents, must have had in such a struggle, "and the superiority once obtained, the advance with the bayonet followed as a matter of course." There was, therefore, no essential dif- ference of principle between the infantry fight of those days and the present, only the struggle for fire superiority takes place within 700 yards now instead of within 200 then, and the magazine fire at 300 has practically taken the place of cold siteel. The difference in the detail of execution other than that due to distance is, that since nowadays the rate of fire is everywhere equal, as far as the infantry alone are concerned, the superiority can only be obtained by higher discipline ensuring more accurate fire and its concentration on portions of the enemy's line only. It will be obvious, too, how great the retrogression was when the column was re- introduced for attack purposes, whereby the defender was able to concentrate his fire on fractions of the assailant's force only, and not vice versa: but where both defenders and attackers start equal as regards discipline, it will be evident that only the previous employment of the artillery by the latter can give them the requisite guarantee of success, though the power the initiative gives to the assailant of con- centrating masses against a line equally strong and equally weak everywhere still leaves a balance in favor of the attacking side. Wars of Frederick the Great. 79 "If the enemy's first line was overtlirown, tlien tlie order of tlie attacliing line was re-established and opera- tions commenced against his second one, and this process was repeated till at last the enemy took to flight in disorder, when any fresh troops at hand were sent in pursuit ; but, as a rule, pursuits were not instituted, the victors re-formed on the conquered ground and advanced a short distance. The rallying took so much time, and the advance in these ponder- ous lines was so slow, that generally all touch of the beaten army was lost, and it was left free to continue its retreat unmolested. Cavalry was rarely used in pursuits, and in fact they (i e,. pursuits) were generally looked on with disfavor." The conduct of the defenders generally depended on the result of the above mentioned introductory cavalry fight. If the assailants were overthrown, then it frequently hap- pened that their infantry renounced the offensive, and this very partial result was in those days accounted as a victory. If, on the other hand, the defenders' cavalry were beaten, the battle was yet not lost to them, more particularly if the flanks rested on a substantial obstacle. The first line received the enemy with its fire, and the second protected the rear of the former against the returning cavalry, and if the first line was penetrated, the battalions nearest at hand in the second advanced against the assailants who had got through, with the bayonet. If their efforts failed, then the battle was lost, for adequate reserves were rarely provided, and it was impracticable to move one part of either line with- out compromising the whole. If they succeeded in repelling 8o Cavalry vs. Infantry. the attack by lire, then it was the custom to rest contented with the result obtained — counter-attacks were rarely at- tempted, pursuits still more seldom — for one was afraid of relinquishing the substantial advantages of a selected posi- tion, or of risking the carefully arranged order of battle for doubtful results. Defense, therefore, was confined to the maintenance of a line once selected; the conception of a sectional defense, or of the offensive-defensive, had scarcely developed itself. In case retreat became unavoidable, the first line re- tired through the intervals of the second, which had to resist until the first had again selected and occupied a posi- tion in order to take up and cover the second, when it in turn fell back, the same course being also followed by the cavalry. If the retreat took place in disorder, then all alike made the best time they could back to the next defensible section of the ground, a,nd in view of the cau- tious timidity of the assailant, its occupation generally put a stop to the pursuit. Taken all in all, the battles of this epoch were mostly of the "parallel" order, in which both sides mutuallj' wear one another out, in purely frontal attacks, and the side which could boast of the greatest endurance and courage, ■ together with the best discipline, ultimately conquered. Occasionally the timely cooperation of a turning column turned the scale, but more frequently the idea was to "sur- prise" victory, by attacking an enemy whilst passing a de- file, rather than by directing the strength of an army against its adversary's weakness to "compel" victory. Wars of Frederick the Great. 8i Great leaders, such as Prince Eugene and Marlborough, fully understood both courses, but in long successions of bat- tles in Louis XIV.'s time they stood alone in their art and tactical genius. The others adhered more and more, as time went on, to the hard-and-fast rules of the game — a proceed- ing which, in case of disaster, relieved them of personal responsibility. "Thus the tactical science of the epoch had on the whole evolved the form best suited to the characteristics of armies of the period and their weapons — namely, the closed line as principal supporter of the fire-fight, but the form had tended towards solidification, and showed itself rigid and incapable of adaptation to circumstances. A false conception of the condition on which success depended had led the minds of tacticians of the day astray in a search after the unattain- able — namely, a normal form of action equally adaptable to all conditions. What in the hands of the masters was 'art' in the highest form, in the hands of their disciples became pure 'rule of thumb' — a characteristic tendency of the time which will be found to repeat itself also in the strategy of the same period." And if one were writing a history of the tactical decadence in the England of the present day, the position could not be summed up in truer or terser terms. "The strategy or method of conducting war" — apart from the influence of the personality of the leaders and the mental evolution of the troops, the method of conducting war in all periods — "is conditioned by the politics, the system of supply, the roads or other lines of communication, and the recruiting and tactics of the armies employed. 82 Cavalry vs. Infantry. "The political circumstances of the Louis XIV. period led to the formation of numerous coalitions, held together by their momentary common interests, and as these varied, the elements of the coalition also varied; nations fighting one campaign on one side the next on the other, according as they thought to perceive that their interest lay. Further, besides the interests of the State, a number of other per- sonal considerations had to be taken into account. Dynastic interests, unworthy passions of rulers and their favorites, intrigues in the court parties on either side, sometimes played a decisive part. Thus alliances were lightly entered into, and as lightly broken. Further, diplomacy exercised its influence not only in the stages of operations preceding actual contact, but eyen made itself felt in the field itself. The result was to weaken the energy with which military operations were conducted. The constant consideration for the wishes of the allies, the striving to induce the enemy's al- lies to change sides, the fear lest neutral parties should join in — all led to the result that the combatants rarely put out their full fighting strength. To destroy the enemy and com- pel him to accept peace at any price, ceased to be the leading idea: on the contrary, the highest art lay in "entangling him diplomatically; and at last it came to this, that war was only carried on nominally; and a further consequence was, that almost every treaty of peace contained in itself the seed of fresh discussions. "By the side of politics, the method of supply also had its influence. In the Thirty Years' War armies had lived ex- clusively on requisitions, and in doing so had proceeded Wars of Frederick the Great. 83 to such excesses that war meant utter desolation to the tract wherein it was waged. In the following period, as a reaction, an altogether exaggerated idea of the rights of private property prevailed; at the same time, the custom of always marching and camping the armies concentrated as a whole brought more men together on the same ground than the resources of the farms and villages in the vicinity could suffice to supply. One was, therefore, compelled to provide for the troops out of one's own means, and therefore, in advancing, to drag supplies after one; only forage for the horses was obtained on the spot, or brought in by foraging parties, for, with the very considerable numbers of cavalry, sufficient wagon-trains were not available. Hence magazines and bakeries had to be provided, and these magazines had to be moved up step by step with the prog- ress of the armies. If the magazine system broke down, nothing was left but supply by requisitions, which, for rea- sons above given, rarely sufficed; and since in those days irregularity in the feeding of troops led to desertion en masse, supply played an altogether disproportionate part in the regul3,tion of the marches to what it does nowadavs in European warfare." "The condition and nature of the roads by which the supplies were brought up and the troops moved must also be borne in recollection." These appear to have been very similar to those in Scotland which gave rise to the well- known lines: "Had you seen these roads before they were made, You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade." 84 Cavalry vs. Infantry. "The post-roads were generally some 11 yards in width, and mostly of the same nature as the surrounding country, from which they were frequently not even marked off by ditches or rows of trees. To. keep them in order was the duty of the land-owners through whose estates they passed, and they usually confined themselves to pitching down an occasional cart-load of stones, or throwing in a few faggot^? of brushwood when the state of things got too bad, but no supervision existed to see that even this was done; only, if things were very bad, the traveler had a right to diverge into the fields and turn the obstacle as best he could. The construction of the great high-roads was only taken in hand during the second half of the eighteenth century, but was then rapidly proceeded with, so that Napoleon found ready to his hand a widespread net-work of well-constructed roads, which alone rendered much of his strategy possible. Things were, of course, much more favorable when great rivers were available as lines of communication, and hence the import- ance attached to operating, where possible, along the val- leys of such rivers as the Danube, the Po, the Rhine, etc.,^ — • an importance which, long after the conditions have changed against them, still leads to misconception sometimes as to their value." i I have purposely extracted much on this head to mark specially the importance the Prussian Staff attach to these conditions as modifying the method of making war, and be- cause also existing conditions in India are so very similar yet in many parts of the coujitry, and hence explain much which in the eyes of Staff College pundits appears to be antiquated Wars of Frederick the Great. 85 in our Indian methods, and the following lines will bring out even more clearly the influence that the method of recruiting and raising our Indian Army must also necessarily exercise. "As regards the influence that recruiting and completion of the armies had on their employment, it must be borne in mind that the standing armies of this period were on the whole bodies of men entirely detached from the civilian popu- lation, always ready for the war purposes of their king. The Prussian Army had carried out this idea further to its logical conclusion than any other, and alone was independ- ent of militia drafts to complete it to a war footing. "But the difficulty was to supply the losses caused by war, by trained men, and the immense expense of mainte- nance in peace." Each trained man in fact represented so much capital, and considerations of economy therefore modified the daring of the leaders, and also tended to an excess of caution in tactics, and led to an excessive value being attached to th£ defensive and" the use of entrenchments — a tendency equally apparent in the British Army of to-day. "All these influences exercised a retarding effect on the plans of campaign, which, as a rule, were not worked out by the commander-in-chief destined to execute them, but by the diplomatists, who sought to draft them in such a manner that the private interests of allies were equally well pro- tected, and this naturally led to a dispersion of force all over the frontiers, instead of its concentration on the decisive point." It will be evident, therefore, how great the advantage 86 Cavalry vs. Infantry. was when the king in person drew up his own plans and car- ried them into execution, and still more so when, as in the case of Napoleon, the conditions of the country placed him at the head of a nation in arms and rendered him indifferent to the expenditure of human life. It is principally because these very essential facts in the evolutions of war have been overlooked by our English strategists, notably Hamley, that their teaching is so entirely barren and misleading. "These diplomatic negotiations frequently dragged on for months., so that the best opportunity for action was often allowed to slip. * * * When at last the contracting parties were agreed as to their several shares in the coming campaign, then each court drew up its own plan of operations, in which the general-in-chief might or might not be consulted, but on whom no real responsi- bility rested; and when this was finally entrusted into his hands for execution, it was practically never omitted to caution him specially to take the utmost care not to risk his expensive army, and in all cases of diificulty to call in his subordinates for council. It is obvious what difficulties such a method of procedure entailed and how inevitably the energy of the war was crippled; and only occasionally we find men of exceptional ability, such as Marlborough and Prince Eugene, with here and there momentarily a marshal of France, breaking the bonds that held them, and acquiring a certain degree of respect for their own individuality. "As a rule, the objective of the campaign was a province or frontier fortress, never the enemy's field army, a point again on which almost the whole of Hamley's 'Strategy' Wars of Fkederick the Great. 87 turns;* and this being settled, the next thing was to accumu- late the magazines on which to base the movement. Then -followed the march into the enemy's country, which, owing to bad roads and the enormous train, frequently was of ex- treme slowness. Ten English miles a day was considered exceptional, and often four to five was a fair average performance." '•When the assailant had thus penetrated a few miles into the enemy's country, generally to some previously agreed on line of defense, a halt had to be made to bring up the bakeries and magazines, and these had then to be pro- tected by detachments; and since no organized 'etappen' (i. e., line of communication troops) existed, the advancing army rapidly became weaker, and when the enemy was at last rea.ched, it was only considered advisable to attack if the latter was evidently surprised in his concentration; otherwise maneuvering was resorted to. " Hamley's failure to appreciate tlie paramount importance of making the enemy'a main army the objective in military operations is so marked, that at the U. S. Infantry and Cavalry School, where Hamley's "Operations of War" was, until recently, used as a text-book, it was deemed advisable to supple- ment the text with a series of questions and answers, of which the follow- ing was the most important, and was given the greatest possible emphasis : "What should always be the object of military operations? "TO DEFEAT THE MAIN ARMY OF THE ENEMY. As a preliminary, the occupation of terrltoiT, or the seizure of a strategic point, may be neces- «ary operations, but these must be regarded as merely incidental lo the one great object 0/ meeting and decisively beating the enemy^s principal/orce,^' Hamley's oversight in this respect does not seem so remarkable, how- ever, when we reflect that from the passing of Napoleon to the advent of ■Grant, no commander teems to have appreciated this great, though simple, military truth. From the beginning of the War of Secession until Grant assumed command of the Union armies, the Federal operations in Virginia seem to have had for their par mount object the capture of Richmond; but Grant recognized the fact that his true objective was iee's arTnj/, and grap pling with hia adversary at the Wilderness, he held fast to him with a grip that nothing could relax until the surrender at Appomattox. So, too. Von Moltke ever acted upon the principle that no geogiaphical or other consider- ation could modify tilie fact that hia true objective was the enemy's main army.— .4. L. W, 88 CavaivRy vs. Infantry. "Even when a battle had been risked and won, the de- struction of the enemy's field army was far from being at- tained, for, owing to want of energy in the pursuit, the adver- sary had generally ample ox>portunity to recover himself, and ihen reappeared on the theater of war again, and not without good prospect of results, for the attacking party had meanwhile probably turned itself against the frontier fortifications. "The system of defense was on a par with that of the attack. As a rule, all available troops (i. e., available after a host of points of secondary importance had been, attended to) were united in a central defensive position, where they awaited the attack, and if nmneuvered out of it, then they fell back to another. "To these positions great importajice was attached, and they were previously reconnoitered, and often fortified provisionally on a large scale in war; but it is fair to say that several of the best men were strongly against them and pointed out the the drawbacks inherent in them." Not more successfully, on the whole, than others have been in a similar undertaking in England of late years, where the ex- aggerated idea of the fire-power of the defensive attributed to the new arms, and the general ignorance of all sound principles in war, still lead from time to time to equally unsound proposals, such as the defense of London, by Provisional fortifications. "From all the aforesaid reasons,'the chief characteristics of the ^ars of those days were 'positions and maneuvers,' avoiding as far as possible the decision of battle." And, as Wars of Frkderick the Great. 89 a rule, the attack usually did come to a stand before these defenses, for the flre-power was already sufQcient to make the success of a direct assault pretty uncertain, more espe- cially owing to the absence of a sufficient artillery power to prepare the way. "The assailant then deployed opposite to the defender, and formally 'offered him battle,' an offer not often accepted; or, if the roads permitted, sought to frighten him out of his position by threatening a flank. If neither succeeded, then both sides entrenched themselves and endeavored to starve each other out, or to induce each other by diversions to disperse their force, and then attack before these could be called in again. "But generally the tendency was to avoid fighting; the destruction of the enemy's field army was not the object of Ihe war, only the occupation of a province or fortress, and maneuvers sufficed for the attainment of this without in- curring the risk of a battle." "Many reasons gave an apparent justification of these views: first of these was the necessity of economizing the troops. Battles, owing to the tactics of the day, were very bloody, and the losses very difficult to replace; and further, the issue of a fight depended more on chance than in the present day, owing to the want of adaptability to circum- stances in the troops themselves, due to deficient military education, and still more often to the petty jealousies of the subordinate leaders. The results of a battle were also too small, owing to the tardiness of pursuit rendered necessary both by the tactics and conditions of supply; and finally, whilst all the glory of a successful maneuver belonged of — 7 90 Cavalry vs. Infantry. right to tlie leader, the credit of a victorious battle fell to the troops almost entirely, the leader being liable to blame for sacrificing his men." The above does not pretend to be a verbal translation of the whole of the chapter referred to — space alone would utterly forbid the attempt; but I think it gives all the main points, and more especially the spirit of the original. The point I wish to notice is the influence which this old-fash- ioned school of thought has had on the evolution of exist- ing conceptions of strategy, more especially in our own ser- vice. It was from the writers of those days that Frederick's generals, and the bulk of his officers who studied at all, de- rived their ideas — and though he himself broke with the system as far as his conditions allowed him, and was never afraid to trust all to the decision of the battle, yet his absorption of all duties in himself, and habit of keeping his instructions secret, accessible only to the few and not to the army at large, resulted on his death in the resurrection of the old ideas; and thus when the Revolution brokeout, and the armed nation it produced gave Napoleon a weapon such as no other general in Europe could boast of, the Prussians were in as unfavorable a position to encounter him as the rest of the powers, who had had no Frederick to boast of. What need for wonder, therefore, at his astounding suc- cesses? But the evil of these mistaken notions did not die here. Writers, not soldiers, then attempted to explain Na- poleon's and Frederick's victories in conformity with the old traditions, and this was more especially the case in France, from whom, again, we have always borrowed most largely. Wars of Frederick the Great. 91 There is an excuse for this retrogression, more especially in our case, for, except in Prussia, during the long peace, the idea of the standing army was everywhere revived, and with it came the need of economy of lives in battle, which gives a specious appearance of correctness to the idea of maneuver ing, as against fighting, strategy, and which also prepared the way for the ready acceptance of the doctrine that the chief object of the training of troops for war is to teach them how to avoid getting killed, and not how to kill, a doctrine which (to our shame be it said) appears at the present mo- ment to be more widely held in England than in any other country in Europe, though it is so diametrically opposed to our national tendencies. The main difference between the conditions then and now which wants to be brought home to the public, more particularly as regards England and possible European war, is, that whereas in those days three things were necessary for success, "money," "money," and "more money," for money could buy men, as we know from experience: now it is "men," "money," and "more men," for though money is nec- essary for armament and supply, it can no longer buy men. But the whole conception of modern war is based 'on a ruthless expenditure of life to gain certain ends, quite as much on the line of march, and indeed more so, than in the field, for there skillful massing at the right place and time, the mutual support of the three arms, and a training in dis- cipline in peace so thorough that troops can be counted on to face even the heaviest losses when ordered to, still enable great results to be obtained with a small total expenditure 92 Cavalry vs. Infantry. of men, though locally the losses may amount to annihila- tion; but to ensure the arrival of the men at the right time and places may entail losses on the line of march far exceed- ing in the aggregate those incurred in the field. This utter I'uthlessness with regard to the suffering of the individual was the true mainspring of Napoleonic strategy, and alone rendered his battlepolicy possible. Frederick and Welling- ton were both too much hampered by the money value of their soldiers to dare to emulate his feats in this respect. It may be as well to give some figures in support of this, for it is a point not touched on by our text-book writers, my authority being Clausewitz, Book V., Chapter 12. "Napo- leon crossed the Niemen in 1812 with 301,00 men on the 24th of June. Before he reached Smolenisk, the 15th of August, he had lost 95,500 on the march alone. Three weeks later, before Borodino, he had lost in all 144,000 men (including killed in action), and eight days later 198,000 men. For the first period the daily loss was l-150th of the whole; in the. second, l-120th; and in third, 1-1 9th." Allowing 60,000 for losses due to the enemy-s fire, those on the march are still more than 2 to 1. All this, it may be objected, is, after all, ancient history; but at the present moment, when it seems as if a last des- perate attempt to reintroduce long service were about to be made, it is well to bring the matter to the front, for long service would mean the resuscitation of these old and effete theories, and as a consequence we could have no hope of success in any conflict with a European army. One last point remains to be noticed in this connection. A long- Wars op Frederick the Great. 93 service war -trained army, trained in the school of Victory, as was the old Peninsular Army, is undeniably the most per- fect fighting machine conceivable; but a long-service peace- time army tends inevitably to over-centralization, the stereo- typing of forms, and the utter decay of military knowledge. Idleness and ennui in its officers and their divorce from their men is its certain consequence, and it is to such conditions prevailing in the Home Army during the peace after Water- loo that we owe the low level of military intelligence, and the total want of sound principle in our staff and our educa- tional institutions. Work, constant, ceaseless work, is the sole guarantee for the maintenance of fighting efliciency; but men are only human, and when no obvious reason for such work exists, as was the case in a good old long-service battalion, requiring perhaps only 20 recruits a year, it is utterly hopeless to expect such exertion. 94 Cavalry vs. Infantry. SEYDLITZ AND THE PRUSSIAN CAVALRY.* There has been much discussion of late as to the true position and employment of cavalry in large bodies on the battle-field. In Engla nd the current of opiaion has set very strongly against the _caxal^^the usual line of argument being that if at Waterloo the Napoleonic cavalry failed to effect anything against our squares, armed only with the muzzle-loader, what prospect of success can any horsemen , of to-day have against troops armed with_thej nore perfec t ^ weapons of the present day; and the failure of the French, Austrian, and Prussian cavalry against the breech-loaders is quoted in confirmation of these views, whilst the true significance of the successes of the latter against the old im- perial army of France is minimized or ignored altogether. The true answer to these views is, that the Napoleonic cavalry was most inferior; how inferior I have endeavored to show in a previous article. And as a consequence of the tendency after the close of the Napoleonic period to exalt the excellence of everything Pfench which existed at the time, both in England and the Continent, French conclusions were accepted wholesale, and everywhere the cavalry were trained to distrust themselves ; and hence it was no wonder if, as weapons improved and, the teaching of experience be- came more and more remote, there were wanting men with ♦Beprlnted by permission from the Journal of the United State! Cavalry Association. Seydlitz and the Prussian Cavalry. 95 confidence enough in their arm to lead it in such a maimer as to afford it a prospect of success. The real cause of sur- prise is, that under the circumstances the cavalry succeeded in going so near to success as it actually did — how near, I have endeavored to show in an article on "Cavalry on the Battle-Field," in the first series of letters published under the same title as these. That article was written about 1883-4, and since then I have found an immense amount of evidence to confirm my views in the pages of Prince Hohen- lohe's "Gesprache fiber Kavallerie," and in Hoenig's "Die Kavallerie Division als Schlachten Korper" (translated by Captain Leverson, R.E., in the Journal of the R. C. 8. 1.) and his subsequent works, one of which, "Tactical Guides for the Formation and Leading of a Cavalry Division," is now also appearing in the United Service Magazine, thanks to the zeal of the same author. The chief obstacles I have found to the acceptance of these views are the extraordinary igno- rance that prevails as to the history of tactics before Napo- leon's time, and the growing tendency to assume that the nature of war has so completely changed since the intro- duction of the breech-loader that it is mere waste of time to study anything that went before. Of the two, I consider the latter the most dangerous error, for the conditions of arma- ment and composition of the troops were too dissimilar and the duration of the campaign too short to admit of the de- duction of true guiding principles for any arm. The origin of modern tactics dates from the time when it was first distinctly recognized that "fire alone decides" as regards infantry versus infantry, and that "cavalry must 96 CAVAtRY VS. Infantry. rely on their swords alone and the speed of their horses when thoroughly extended." Both these principles were thoroughly admitted at the commencement of the Seven Years' War. The next step in the evolution of the three arms was the development of the power of artillery, when acting in conjunction with troops otherwise not particu- larly reliable, and this was the chief teaching of Napoleon's battle-fields. Since then the balance between the three arms has been so often upset by the progress of invention that the key to the teaching of the many wars which have occurred since 1815 can only be found by those who have followed the development of each arm through its successive stages. I believe that the discredit into which cavalry on the battle-field have fallen, more particularly during the last twenty-five years, is due' almost entirely to the acceptance of the French dogma that cavalry cannot charge unshaken infantry. Certainly the failure of the French cavalry against our own squares at Waterloo may seem to confirm this view, and it would do so if the word "cavalry" always represented a fixed standard of excellence, but that is not the case. On the contrary, probably no word has ever been used to describe things so widely differing in merit as the men on horses of Napoleon's day and the cavalry of Fred- erick. I referred above to our own squares at Waterloo, but it would be better for my line of argument to fix one's lattentiom on the Prussian infantry only, for by so doing we eliminate the variable conditions of nationality and arma- ment, for the Prussian infantry from 1813-15 were armed Seydlitz and the Prussian Cavalry. 97 with the very same muskets that their fathers had carried before them under Frederick, and time had presumably not improved them, and the men who carried them could not in discipline and training have been anywhere nearly on a par with the troops whoi fought out the Seven Years' War, who again were very fairly matched by their enemies, the Aus- trians and Russians. If, therefore, these latter were in al- most every instance ridden over by the Prussian cavalry, it follows that the French cavalry, who subsequently failed to break Prussian, Austrian, and Russian squares, must have been very inferior indeed. In an article I wrote last summer, entitled "The Na- poleonic Cavalry," I described -what these latter were at considei'able length, and therefore need not go over the ground a second time. I propose now to show in detail what the Prussians actually were capable of only sixty years -before, and leave it to my readers to decide which of the two it would be best for us to take as a model. My authority is Oraf von Bismarck,, who, if not, strictly speaking, a con- temporary of the events, lived near enough to the times to obtain his information at first hand from the actors in the scenes he describes. The particular work from which I quote is "Seydlitz, and the Prussian Cavalry under Freder- ick the Great," and those sufficiently interested in the mat- ter will find a great deal of valuable detail about his life in Varnhagen von Ense's biography, which is, however, too detailed for my present purpose. About Seydlitz's early life, it is sufficient to mention that he was a consummate rider and swordsman, and trained 98 Cavai/-(7 dc corps is a necessary 158 Cavalry vs. Infantry. product of massing men together, but only that it can only originate in a mass. Take a mass of men and treat them in a manner to offend their pride, change them from pillar to post, make the present a source of bitterness to them, and rob them of all hope in the future, and you may be certain, not only that no such plant will spring into being from such a soil, but also, if it already exists, it will soon wither and die. "With reference to the physical utility of the arm,' and its connection with the art of horsemanship, it has been urged that it will be necessary to fix the limits beyond which The study of the art shall not be pursued; otherwise we shall fall into the errors which prevailed before 1806, and in care for the individual lose sight of the efficiency of the whole. "My answer to this is that, in the first place, so soon as you set a limit to art of any kind, you conventionalize it, and, ipso facto, it ceases to be. At most the shadow of a trade remains. Free play of all powers, bodily and mental, are necessary for the artists, and to very few is it given to excel. The masses remain always far behind and learn at most the bare essentials. Say that no one shall pass the boundary, and all emulation ceases ; by degrees the standard of excellence is lost, and the average of the whole deterio- rates. The gifts that go to the making of a perfect horse- man are far too rare to cause anxiety, lest the world become too full of them, and more particularly so at the present moment, when the question for us is — how to get out of the slough in which we are walking, and when in the whole army there are probably not 50 real horsemen left to us. If, Marwitz's Pamphlet. 159 however, it should come to pass, which I fervently hope, but do not expect, that within a few years our cavalry should attain too high a standard of individual horsemanship, then nothing is easier than to stop it, by making the regiments do more drill and route marching, so that tliey will no longer have time to excel. "Secondly, it is not the case that good horsemanship was so universally disseminated before 1806 as is usually supposed, and I am in a position to show that it neither was nor could be so. "The regiment of Gcns-d'annes, in which I served for thirteen years, was by general consent the one in which in- dividual horsemanship was carried to the highest pitch; so what I can prove with regard to this one will apply with fair accuracy to all. "Our strength was 10 companies, each company, with- out counting non-commissioned officers, consisted of 66 privates, of whom half were on furlough, and were only called up for the drill season, which lasted from the 16th of March to the 23d of IMay, nine weeks in all. Out of these uine weeks, only three were allotted to individual riding in the school, and each man rode for an hour a day, or 18 hours in all. It must be admitted that 18 hours is not too much for a man who for the rest of the year was engaged at his trade in the fields or workshops. Then for three weeks, to the time of the 'special review,' the regiment went out to drill on alternate days, so that the man again mounted his horse 9 times. .Vfter the 'special review,' a number of the men were again sent on furlough, only enough being re- i6o CavaivRy vs. Infantry. > tained to enable us to go out to drill with 24 flies per com- pany, and these few men again got on their horses 9 times in all. In the autumn we had another three weeks' drill, but with only 20 flies per company, and no individual riding at all. "Hence it follows that at the outside no furlough man had more than 18 hours' riding drill, and only mounted his horse for drill in the ranks 27 times, and no one who knows what the difficulties of the matter are will complain that this is too much time to bestow on such an important n^atter. "But, it may be asked. How was it with the remaining 33 duty men — surely they must have all been perfect centaurs? Unfortunately, from these we must deduct the recruits and Freiwachters (those were men struck ofl: all duties and allowed to work in the town at their trades). There were 10 of the latter allowed by regulation, and as a body they rode worse than the men on furlough, for they only paraded when the regiment went out at its full strength, and never went to riding drill at all. Of recruits there would be an average of 8 annually, and since two years is the least time in which to make a horsemen, there were 16 at a time undergoing their training. So that of the 33 men only ,7 remain from whom one could with reason expect that they should ride perfectly. "Of horses, each company had 75, and received every year 8 remounts. As they were very young, they could not be put in the ranks under three or four yeai's; 24 must therefore, be subtracted from the available strength. But fimongst the horses passed by the riding master there are Marwitz's Pamphlet. i6i always some which, owing to want of shape, weakness, or trifling defects of soundness, can never be regarded as per- fectly trained. Take these at a seventh of the whole, and in this case we must deduct another 10. Finally, a certain num- ber had to be set apart for the use of the recruits, and these it was impossible to train perfectly, for they passed from the hands of one beginner to another, and as every recruit had to ride every day, we must deduct 2 horses for each, or in all 16 horses; so that for the whole company there were necessarily 66 partly trained horses, and there could only be 9 thoroughly broken charges. Is this overdriving the art, when by no possibility could there be more than 7 trained horsemen out of 66, and only 9 thoroughly broken horses out of 75? When this art is the one mainspring of the effi- ciency of the whole arm, with less we could not have got along at all. The whole noise has been raised because, when anyone saw a selected detachment ride in the school, he was astonished at their performances, and easily came to the false conclusion that the whole regiment had attained the same degree of skill." I would stop here for a minute to ask whether this re- mark does not apply with some force to the estimate ama- ' teurs are apt to form of the horsemanship of our cavalry when they see the performances of our specially selected and carefully trained men at the Agricultural Hall and similar places. As long as the efficiency of the regiment is all that a competent Inspector General says it should be, there is no ground of complaint, for the best regiment will turn out the best picked riders; but when, as sometimes happens, 1 62 Cavalry vs. Infantry. the whole routine of an under-horsed regiment is sacrificed in order to''make a show before the public,even with the laudable object of attracting recruits, I consider it is time for some capable critic to step in and show the injury actually done to the service. "Again it has been brought forward against the individ- ual training of our cavalry that the performances of our Landwehr cavalry showed that one could do very well with- out this thorough training. They were quickly shown tbe essentials, and that had sufflced for the purpose. To this objection I reply that, when the Landwehr was first formed, we had two mighty moral assistants: first, the universal hatred of French domination; second, a certain number of experienced cavalry ofticers who really understood the es- sentials of the duties and of horsemanship, and who were in a position to decide what things were of first necessity, and to teach only these. "The first of these factors is unlikely to occur again, and as for the second, horsemanship is so far a forgotten art that not all the good will in the world, if untutored, will avail anything. "I see no other means except to form a central riding establishment, in which horsemanship and the theory and practice of bitting shall be taught, and to which officers from every regiment in the service will be sent to learn in order hereafter to teach his subordinates. And then, when the school has had time to exercise due influence, every oflQcer who can not ride shall be relegated to the infantry. "This could not hurt the feelings of the latter, for it is Marwitz's Pamphlet. 163 no disgrace not to be able to ride, and a very bad man on a horse may be a very good one on his feet. "Coming now to the question of drill, it has been ob- jected that I speak 'only of the charge, which, after all, is not the only form of employment for the cavalry; a more important point is the way in which reconnaissance and out- post duties are performed.' "If I really failed to express myself clearly on this head, it is, I admit, a mistake, and I will at once endeavor to correct it. My intention was certainly not to underrate the service of the light cavalry, but only to insist that there should be two distinct forms .of drill and training for light and heavy, suited to the requirements of each. What I mean may be freely stated thus. Heavy cavalry exists for the purpose of developing vehemence and momentum in the attack; light cavalry, to utilize to the utmost the speed and dexterity of horse and rider. "It stands to reason, therefore, that this difference should be taken into account in the training of the two types. "The charge of heavy cavalry cannot be ridden too close or too fast. The horse should, therefore, not be made too susceptible to the pressure of the leg, for it must not only endure the pressure of the files on one another, but also resist it. It must not be thrown too much on its haunches, nor should it be too easy to strike off in a gallop, for this last not only irritates its comrades on either hand, but leads to crowding and consequent confusion. The rider must cer- tainly have his mount under control, but the main points to 164 Cavalry vs. Infantry. insist on are riding straight to the front and the compact closing of the flies. "Light cavalry cannot be too fast in their movements. Their horses must, therefore, have light mouths, and yield readily to the pressure of the leg. They must also be thor- oughly trained to the gallop, in perfect balance, so that all the forces of the animal are collected and at the disposal of the rider. Then it will combine endurance at speed with the power of jumping and scrambling up or down nasty slopes, in the highest possible manner. For the same reasons, the rider must not only thoroughly understand the principles of horsemanship, but his judgment must be trained to under- stand how to save his horse to the utmost, and then, in case of necessity, to get the last ounce possible out of him. "These points must underlie the training of the whole.. The heavy cavalry remains in all movements compactly closed, and whoever allows himself to be squeezed out of the ranks should be punished. But at the same time they must be very steady. Therefore they should maneuver, as a rule,, at a long roomy trot, carrying them rapidly over the ground., particularly in deployments. In moving off for the charge,, too, they should start at a trot, and the greatest care must be taken before sounding the 'march' that all horses are dead square to the front and properly closed up. Also, since the habit of loose riding has crept in, the following point de- serves special attention : the regulation prescribes that 'the pressure from the directing flank should be given way to, that from the reverse one resisted,' also 'the squadron in- tervals are to be maintained during the charge.' Now, what Marwitz's Pamphlet. 165 happens every time?" No horse ever goes quite so dead straight to its front that now and again deviations do not occur. The directing flank moves direct on its object, and must not be crowded off; hence all the deviations tend towards the reverse one. In a few moments the man on the reverse flank begins to yield to the culminating pressure, and the squadron's interval is decreased. As this is not allowed, the next squadron gives way too, and the next, so that after a few hundred yards, when the 'halt' is sounded, the whole force is all over the place; or, if it is on active ser- vice, the properly closed opponent crashes right through us. For this I see only one corrective — that the center file of the squadron should always direct. "After the long roomy trot with which the attack is commenced, the gallop is sounded some 300 paces from the enemy, and the charge at 60 paces. The 'halt' should never be commanded with the voice, but always sounded (nowa- days in Germany it is never sounded at all, but only the 'dis- perse' and 'rally'), and no blame must attach to any one if one squadron is a little in front of the other; but if the files have been loosened, then the men must be scolded, and if necessary, punished. "The light cavalry must keep their horses in hand, and therefore ride either a short collected trot or gallop. They must be able to execute all evolutions at a gallop; they should not charge with the files too close, but always have room to wheel up to a flanlc in a column of troops to meet or make a flank attack, and they must devote more time to reconnaissance and outpost duties than to anything else. i66 Cavalry vs. Infantry. "The characteristic of the heavy cavalry must be to suffer no opposition, but to go straight for the enemy where- everthey meet him, and ride him down by pace and weight; therefore they must never be brought up till actually wanted, and never used in pursuit, which duty after a successful charge is taken up by the light. The moment the charge is over, they must rally to be ready for a new one should that become necessary. "The light, on the other hand, should find their chief strength in maneuver, and never charge except when an opening is given. They must be able to play with the enemy for hours together, not hesitating to retreat to lure him on ; but once the chance is given, they must charge home and pursue to the last breath of their horses. "The heavy cavalry must possess an even Quixotic faith in their power, which it will be the special province of their leader to keep within bounds ; the light, on the other hand, must pride itself on its pace, cleverness, and individualism." The remainder of the pamphlet may be dealt with more rapidly, for much no longer applies to present conditions. Heavy cavalry, according to the author, must be cuirassed for the same reason I gave in the concluding lines of my last letter. The front rank should be armed with lances, but of a longer and better balanced pattern than ex- isting ones, so that when brought to the charge the points should project a clear four feet in front of the horses' heads. The rear rank, on the other hand, and all light cavalry, should have swords only. Marwitz's Pamphlet. 167 The necessity for large bodies of cavalry being collected in camps of exercise annually is also strongly insisted on. And it is curious to find this man of so many years' war experience recommending that heavy cavalry should be trained occasionally to charge in close column. He admits all the drawbacks, but urges that in the supreme moment, when success must be won at any cost, the certainty of the result justifies the risk, provided the men have been pre- viously trained to feel nothing unusual in such a course, and the description he gives of such a column breaking through and shattering all resistance reminds one of the instance quoted in James Skinner's memoirs of the charge of 10,000 Khattore horse against a brigade of regular Mahratta in- fantry in the battle of Jeypore. The brigade formed square eight deep to met them, and with perfect steadiness reserved their fire till the cavalry were within 100 paces or so, but it hardly checked the onslaught; the mass swept over the whole brigade, and out of some 8,000 men, not 200 were known to have survived. In concluson, let me quote a scolding Frederick the Great gave to his cavalry in his latter years at Potsdam. He sent for all the offlcers after a maneuver day, and ad- dressed them somewhat as follows: "Gentlemen, I am entirely dissatisfied with the cav- alry; the regiments are completely out of hand, there is no accuracy in their movements, no solidity and no order. The men ride like tailors. I beg that this may not occur again, and that each of you will pay more attention to his duty, more particularly to the horsemanship. 1 68 Cavalry vs. Infantry. "But I know how things go on. The captains think only of making money out of the squadron, and the lieutenants, how to get the most leave. You think I am not up to your dodges, but I know them all, and will recapitulate them. To-morrow, when you start on your march back to your gar- rison, before you are 10 miles on the way, the squadron com- mander will ask the sergeant-major whether any of the men live in the vicinity, and the sergeant-major will reply: 'Yes. sir, there is so and so, and so and so live quite close to here, and would be glad to go on furlough.' 'Very well, then,' the captain will say, 'we can save their pay. Send the names in to me to-night, and they shall all have it,' and so it goes ou every march. The lieutenants get leave to visit their friends, and the captain arrives at his garrison with half his squadron leading the horses of the other half, like a band of disreputable Cossacks. "Then, when the season for riding drills comes on, the captain sends for the sergeant-major and says: 'I have an appointment this morning at so and so, and must get away early; tell the first lieutenant to take the rides. So the ser- geant-major goes to the first lieutenant and gives him the message, and the latter says: 'What! the captain is away? then I am off hunting; tell the second lieutenant to take the men.' And the second lieutenant, who is probably still in his bed, says: 'What! both of them gone? then I will stay where I am; I was up till 3 this morning at a dance; tell the cornet I am ill, and he must take the ride.' And the cornet says: 'Look here, sergeant-major, what is the good of my standing out there in the cold ? You know all about it much Marwitz's Pamphlet, 169 tetter than I do ; you go and take the ride,' and so it goes on : and what must be the end of it all? What can I do with such cavalry before the enemy? I tell you, I think so much of the importance of your arm that I expect more from a lieu- tenant of cavalry than from a major of infantry. ^Vhen I visit the outposts, I expect ever.v subaltern in charge of a picket to be able to tell me exacth' all about the ground for five miles round, and to be able to make a legible sketch of it." (Frederick's standard was, however, not so high as that of our present examiners, and some of his own topo- graphical work, republished recently in facsimile, would certainly have have entailed his failure in C. and D.) "If I send him on a patrol, he must be able to tell me exactly where and how strong the enemy is and how best to get at him; what the roads are like, and whether I can move guns by them, etc., and when the time for the charge arrives, I ex- pect you to seize the opportunity and to act at once without waiting for orders, which always come too late. Now, march your regiments home, and don't let me have to speak like this again." lyo Cavalry vs. Infantry. THE BERLIN- VIENNA RACE. An interesting lecture read before the Berlin Military Society by Lieutenant von Reitzenstein, the winner on the German side in the great long-distance race, has just been published. As it contains some valuable hints on the preparation of horses for great endurance, and removes many false impressions prevailing in England as to the race itself, I purpose to give a tolerably complete summary of the work. Reitzenstein is a well-known gentleman rider in Germany, and it is worth noticing that he did not enter his horse for the competition considering it as a sporting event, but simply and solely as an experiment of sufflcient military interest to justify him and his comrades to call on their horses and themselves for the very utmost exertions. Before starting, he reasoned the matter out as follows : "In every autumn maneuver, to say nothing of war, cases of two consecutive bivouacs occur which entail two nights and three days with very little rest for the horses, especially for those on outpost and patrols, and all the time they are carrying full marching order kit. It is certain therefore that for so long horses can get on without very much rest. The question is. How far in that time will a suitably selected animal under a light weight succeed in traveling, and what pace will cover most ground? The nerves of the horse's stomach — i e.. its digestive powers — The Berlin- Vienna Race. 171 are, it is linown, less strained by uniform exertion than by the excitement created by rapid movement; therefore to cover the most ground in the given time a uniform steady pace, maintained for the longest possible period, promised the best results. It is better to shorten the periods of rest than to force the pace betweenwhiles and let the animal rest in the stable longer, where he would only get stiff." The most difficult point was to find a suitable horse. He decided to look out for a thoroughbred hunter, and a,t last heard of one standing in Ghent (Belgium), and set off at once to see it. He found it exactly what he wanted — a thoroughbred mare, 15-3, with magnificent shoulders, well coupled, and good quarters ; unf oi'tunately, the animal was suffering from a sore back, but he had only a single day be- fore sending in the name of the horse he meant to ride, and decided to take it as it was. The mare was ten years old, no pedigree available, and he bought her for £80. and christened her "Lippspringe," after a village near his garrison. Sub- sequently he' succeeded in tracing her origin; her name is entered in the English stud-book as Otation, brown mare, 1882, by Siderolite out of Gyration. She had belonged to an English officer, and had been sold at Tattersall's and sent to Belgium, three years ago. It would be interesting to ascer- tain what price she fetched, and who the officer was who had owned her. As he did not wish to take leave during the maneuvers, all the training and preparation had to be under- taken on the march. The mare reached her new quarters on the 3d of September, and it was soon discovered that she would not stand grooming, and generally was troublesome 172 Cavalry vs. Infantry. in the stable. "I had been worrying a good deal," he says, ''about her unusually low price, wondering what wa'y she would astonish me, and this discovery relieved me. For the usual grooming I substituted washing in lukewarm water and drying with flannels; this soothed her, and she soon became quite gentle. From this period I practically never let her out of my sight, fed her myself, and gave up all my spare time to study her character; in about fourteen daj's we were on such good terms that she followed me about like a dog, even in the darkness. During the whole ride to Vienna I never led her by the bridle, but walked or ran by her side, taking hold of her mane when trotting down hill.'' In consequence of the sore back he used a well-fltting mili- tary saddle without blanket or numnah; this relieved the sore, of all pressure, and with the aid of mercurial ointment she was all well again in three weeks. The question of shoeing gave much cause for anxiety, as on the rocky roads over the mountains the danger of a bruised frog was considerable; so he decided to place a leather plate under the shoe, stuffing the space between the leather and the frog with tow smeared with tar. After a few days the mare went tender in front.- There was j^o heat in the foot, and after a day or two she went better, but still somewhat shorter than seemed normal. However, he decided not to alter the shoeing till he had seen the chief veterinary authority in Berlin. No special preparation to put on muscle was undertaken ; he rode her with the troops on a couple of days, and generally took her on the hard roads for a few hours every afternoon for exercise, at the same Thk Berlin- Vienna Race. 173 time endeavoring to get her head in a better position and improve her balance. By experiment he settled on an aver- age speed of 1,100 yards in 4 minutes as most suitable to her build, and she kept this pace up regularly for 20 miles with- out walking. Her normal trot was much faster, left to her- self she covered the 1,100 yards in 2.2 minutes, but this was too much for the purpose — neither heart nor lungs could stand the strain of such exertion for long. He returns to this point (the importance of saving the internal organs iu order to obtain the best results in competitions of this kind) again, and attributes most of the deaths from colic which occurred on the road to neglect of this principle. They rode too fast between the halts, and fed and watered without allowing sufficient time for the internal organs to cool down : judging only by the external signs of cooling, whereas the real point is the gradual return to their normal condition of the blood-vessels and nerves congested or excited by ex- ertion and hidden from sight within the animal itself. This seems to me a point worth bringing out. "It is," he con- tinues, "altogether a different matter, when distances have to be covered so great that pauses for food must necessarily be intercalated, from what it is when the distance,, though great, can yet be done without a halt for feeding. Then one can force the pace, for the duration of the journey is short- ened, and there is ample time to cool down on arrival." Having made friends with his horse, he next tried an experi- mental trip of 200 kilometers, say 12.j miles. Starting at S a. m. he covered 50 kilometers and fed the mare with a little bread and lukewarm water, then completed the first 174 Cavalry vs. Infantry. 100 kilometers, rested 3 hours and fed with oats, and at night rode the remaining 100 Itilometers straight off, reach- ing his quarters at 3 a. m. In tlie afternoon he took the mare aut again for another 50 kilometers, and found her fresh and strong and appetite excellent. This test satisfied hiiQ, and for the remainder of the time he fed her up and kept her in good condition. She used to eat 24 pounds of oats a day, with bran and beans. She was also habituated to eat bread made of crushed oats, maize, and eggs. On the 24:th of September they started for Berlin; next morning, ' in shunting, the horse-box was driven against the stops, and the mare violently flung against the timbers, inflicting a considerable flesh-wound in the forehead, and though not lame, yet in the afternoon she refused her food, and the veterinary surgeon established slight concussion of the brain with headache. This was only four days before the start. Fortunately, she recovered sufficiently, but the acci- dent must have somewhat interfered with her chances. Meanwhile, after consultation! with the chief veterinary sur- Si eon, the shoeswere taken off,and thenitwas discovered that sand and dirt had worked in under the leather and formed a hard- cake — which accounted for the tenderness. She was now reshod with mild steel shoes of ordinary pattern. These answered excellently, but it is worthy of note that the hind shoes wore down markedly more than the fore ones; this is probably accounted for by the tendency to trail the hind legs when fatigued. Curiously, he forgets to inform us what his actual weight was. I believe about 168 pounds, saddle included, judging by his appearance. He The Berlin-Vienna Race. 175 rode on a light Hungarian saddle, without numnah, appar- ently without panels also, but the point is not quite clearly given; stirrups of aluminum, which saved nearly a couple of pounds. To the right stirrup a cyclist's lantern hung on a spring, to break the concussion, was attached, which an- swered fairly well. For bridle the ordinary military pattern with hooks arranged to hang the curb on. so as to save time in feeding, etc. On the saddle he carried a small haversack and two shoe-cases. The haversack contained 2 pounds of crushed oats made into bread, referred to above, a small flask of brandy, some Carlsbad salts, some salicylic cotton-wool for bandages, a bandage of gauze, some collo- dion, and a little tallow and powdered salicylic acid — as an antiseptic. The Carlsbad salts were used to pro- mote digestion and given in every feed. In the shoe-cases, besides two reserve shoes, were a small hammer and wrench — he had previously gone through a farrier's course and was a fair hand at shoeing a horse; fortunately so, for the second night he had to apply his knowledge. A small sponge, for washing out the nostrils and cooling the head, completed his equipment. His spurs were strapped to the saddle in front, and only used in the last 15 miles; he carried no whip. The hind legs had two brushing stockings lined with smooth leather to prevent caking. His watch was attached to the headstall between the horse's ears. He found this better in daytime \than the usual wrist attachment. He sent no grooms on in front, as he decided to regulate his halts by the condition of the horse alone. Want of time prevented a previous reconnaissance of 176 Cavalry vs. Infantry the road. The study of the staff maps had to suffice, and he admits that from them he had derived a tolerably false impression of the gradients ; the scale TTTrVisTT is too small. In consequence of the accident to the horse above referred to, at the last moment he altered his plans somewhat, and thereby lost a certain amount of time; over the mountains, too, better knowledge of the country might have saved him perhaps an hour and a half. A cyclist from Berlin offered his services to accompany him, and proved very useful in warning people ahead of his arrival. On the morning of the 3d of October, at 8:50, he started; roads in fair condition, except, through one or two villages where they were paved. At these he dismounted and walked in front of the mare, she following him without the reins. At 12:25 p. m. reached Baruth, 52 kilometers (31 miles). His cyclist had gone ahead, and ordered the lukewarm water with oatmeal for the horse. For the last ten minutes he walked to cool her, but she showed no fatigue, and was breathing quite normal. Her nostrils were sponged out. She drank her gruel, and they went on to Kalan, 100 kilometers (61 miles); arrived 4 :45 p. m., walked the last 2 miles, and gave the horse more gruel and some hay; for himself took tea with eggs beaten up. At 6 p. m. remounted and rode on, reaching Hoyers- werda, 140 kilometers, at 10 :45 p. m. For the last few miles the stony nature of the road caused some delay; here he dismounted for ten minutes, washed out the mare's nostrils, and went on at -once, reaching Klein Welka, 176 kilometers, at 2:30 a. m. The mare was still fresh and might well have gone on for another two hours, but, owing to her accident. The Berlin-Vienna Race. 177 he had broken his original intention of riding on further, and had sent on his groom to meet him there, so he was com- pelled to stop. The mare was well washed down with warm water, dried, and then some kind of embrocation of a simple nature (not Eillman's or one of Mattei's electricities) well rubbed in. The mare seemed much refreshed, and, after some gruel, ate li pounds of oats with Carlsbad salts; the legs were bandaged with wet woolen bandages, and the hoofs cooled by felt pads saturated in water. For himself he had his legs well massaged and rubbed with this embrocation, had a light meal, and rested without sleeping for a couple of hours. After 3 hours, at .5:40 a. m. he rode on. The mare, in spite of her 200 kilometers, say 125 miles, was in excellent condition. He soon reached the hilly dis- tricts, where the gradients were so stiff that his cyclist could no longer keep up, and went round by train to meet him further on. Then, following a local tip, he got into still worse ground and lost much time, and the practical ditliculty of accommodating his pace to the slopes began. To trot up hill and walk down, or vice versa, would have caused too much delay. He found it best to judge by the feet of (he horse, and whether up hill or down, to dismount and run or walk by her side the moment he felt the back mus- cles relax and the quarters begin to trail. The strain on these muscles and on the spine is the principal point in these long distances. Even if the haunches are still fresh, but the back weary, the impulse forward cannot be properly com- municated to the forehand, the connection between the two 178 Cavalry vs. Infantry. ceases, and the horse drags itself forward on the forehand alone. At 4:30 p. m. he reached Weisswasser, 271 kilometers (31 hours, 40 minutes), his horse still fresh; he had 300 kilometers to traverse, and calculated on doing it in 69 hours. His cyclist had met him, having come round the mountains by rail via Dresden, and had warm gruel ready for the mare. After an hour's rest,, at 5 :20 p. m. he rode on to Mmburg, which he reached at 11 p. m. ; more gruel and a little bread, for himself a cup of tea, and he went on by New Kolin to Czaslau; but now the roads became abominable, and coming into the valley of the Elbe he found a thick fog. He reached New Kolin about 2 a. m., and in consequence of the fog would have done better to remain there for a few hours' rest, but, unfortunately, he had again broken his good resolution not to send his groom in advance, and the fact that the latter was waiting for him at Czaslau induced him to ride on. The road was very bad, full of ruts and loose stones, the mare began to stumble, and eventually lost her off hind shoe, which he replaced \n 10 minutes, but he had to lead her most of the way, and only reached Czaslau, 19 kilo- meters from New Kolin, at 6 a. m., seriously lowering his average. He therefore cut down his halt to two hours in- stead of three, and gave the mare 12 pounds of oats, groom- ing her as at Klein Welka. For himself he took tea and eggs, and studied the maps. His feet had begun to swell, but he dare not take off his boots, for fear of not getting them on again. At 8 a. m. he remounted. Though the mare had come Thr Berlin-Vienna Race. 179 390 kilometers (say 250 miles), she was still fresh and strong. Passing through Deutschbrod, he learnt that Lieutenant Graf Konigsmark and Captain Forster (of the balloon sec- tion), who had started two hours before him, were only an hour in front. At Iglau, 415 kilometers, reached at 1:25 p. m.. he halted 15 minutes, giving the mare a bucket of gruel. Here he learnt that the record of Lieutenant Mikloe, which he already knew, had been beaten by Graf Staremberg, though by how much precisely he could not find out. This is so far of importance, since it was stated at the time in all the papers that the German military attach^ at Vienna kept him informed of the time of the Austrian competitors by wire, which was not the case. The road beyond Iglau was Tery indifferent, gradients very steep, and he had to dis- mount and lead continually. A cold wind also got up and ■darkness was coming on. Suddenly he heard behind him hoof - beats and Von Forster and Graf Konigsmark overtook him ; he had passed them whilst resting in a village, he himself having cut a corner, avoiding the village by a by-road. They proposed to rest in Miihrisch Budwitz, as they had already come 127 kilometers since their last long halt. As their horses showed signs of fatigue, he proposed they should all go on together — the horses were too tired to risk a long halt. "The more tired the horses become, the more essential to push on and cut down the duration of rest to avoid stiffness setting in. The others agreed, but we determined to give ourselves and our animals a last feed and drink at the next inn. Leaving my cyclist to watch the mare, I went in to get something to eat; I had had nothing since 8 o'clock that i8o Cavalry vs. Infantry. morning, and nothing but tea and eggs for the last forty- eight hours. Suddenly I heard coughing outside, and, rush- ing out, found it was my mare; a thick white foam came from the mouth and nostrils. 'What has happened?' I asked the man. 'Nothing.' he said. 'She has eaten some hay, and as she seemed still thirsty, I gave her some more water.' There was a cold wind blowing. Whether that had chilled her, or whether the man had carelessly given her too cold water, who can say? 'Pill this moment I had never left her out of my sightj and now, when double caution was necessary, I had failed to exercise it. TJhe only chance lay in riding on at once to warm her. I washed out the mouth and nostrils, and remounted. But the cough persisted, and I thought she would conie to a dead stand. I dismounted and told Von Forster I should give up, and begged him to ride on. After leading a short time, the cough ceased and the foaming dis- appeared. I got in the saddle again, and in half an hour she was going as strong as ever. The roads continued very bad, and near Mahrisch Budwitz, Graf Konigsmark's horse fell over a heap of road metal, cutting both knees; as I passed him, I gave him my bandaging gear, and with Forster again rode on. At 12 :15 a. m. -we reached Znaim. I can no longer recall the incidents of the last four hours ; from constantly straining my eyes into the darkness from the fear of falling and the exertion of keeping my weight back to meet a pos- sible stumbling, I was giddy and felt severe pain in the loins. The Austrian officers were ready here to meet us. Warm gruel was prepared for the horses. I had a drink and some- thing to eat, gave the mare some of her own ration of bread The Berwn-Vibnna Race. i8i steeped in brandy, and after 15 minutes pushed on— 80 kilo- meters (52 miles) and 8 hours to beat the record. My horse was still fresh, and I felt every confidence. As it grew later the fog settled down, and even the lantern proved of little assistance. The innumerable ruts gave the road a wavy appearance, and now the mare began to stumble re- peatedly, only her splendid shoulders saving her from fall- ing. I had carefully studied the map of Znaim, and con- vinced myself that it was impossible to go wrong, if I sthck to the high road. Unfortunately, the map was wrong and did not show a small bend and fork at the village of 'Grund.' In the fog we took the wrong side of the fork, and, as bad luck would have it, the villages along the wrong road were spaced at equal intervals to those on the right one. There was no one about to ask, and indeed it never occurred to us (myself and the cyclist) that anything was wrong. We came to some steep descents and I dismounted. Suddenly I became giddy and staggered; fortunately, a house was at hand, and, after some cold water had been poured over my head, I was able to go on. I asked the man where we were, and we then learnt our mistake; instead of only 19 kito- meters more to ride, we had still 39 before us. This discovery thorpiighly woke me up. I looked at my watch — it was 5 :50 a, m. I had only two hours left to beat Staremberg's time. There was therefore not a moment to be lost. I bade adieu to Forster and disappeared into the fog. Then T remem- bered that my brother had told me of a short cut, which, if I could find it, still gave me a chance of winning. If the fog lifted, all would be well; hoping it would, I took the turn- r82 Cavai^ry vs. Infantry. ing. I had to ride across country for a short stretch; the ground was soft, and the mare had to gallop, as it was too deep to trot. The fog did not lift. I lost my direction and came on a deep millstream, hopelessly unfordable. My chance of the prize I saw was gone, and I returned to the main road, having lost 35 minutes. At the first village I halted, gave the mare lukewarm water, the last piece of bread steeped in brandy, and strapped on ray spurs. The short rest had already made the mare stiff,, and she began to stagger. My last chance ^as to keep her going. I re- mounted, with a little coaxing; she broke into a trot, and, only using the spurs sufficiently to keep her haunches up, we covered the last seven miles into Floridsdorf. Her pluck and breeding proved decisive here; a meaner animal would have simply declined to move a step further, but she seemed to feel the pride of success, and with a last effort pulled herself together, and passed the finish with head well up and firm regular beat of the hoofs, as the instantaneous photo taken at this moment shows. Three minutes afterwards she laid down exhausted on the road, where she stayed for some hours; in the afternoon she was taken to her stable. In the night she ate carrots and oats, and on the next day seemed rapidly recovering, but at night fever set in, due to inflammation of the lungs, and to this the poor animal suc- cumbed. No doubt the seed of this inflammation was laid the previous night when she began to cough, and the excess of fatigue, due to the mistake I had made in the roads, just prevented her being taken at once to her stable out of the wind. In 73 hours. 6 minutes,, inclusive of the mistake, the The Berlin-Vienna Race. 183 mare had covered 597 kilometers (388 miles); of this two- thirds on bad roads over the mountains. In this time she had rested only 8 hours, and been fed only twice, with about 14 pounds of oats each time. She had had oatmeal gruel as often as it could be conveniently given. As far as Mahrisch Budwitz I trotted, changing the diagonal legs alternately, but beyond, owing to the incomplete training of the mare, the near hind foot began to knuckle over, and I was com- pelled to continue on the near fore-off hind diagonal." His reflections on the value of the ride as a military experiment practically agree with those already published. With the enormous areas covered by modern armies, officers' patrols are liable to be called on to cover very great dis- tances indeed, and the art will consist in knowing how to do so with the least exertion to the animal. Such a patrol may at any moment end in a ride for life or death, and one's chances of survival depend on the reserve power still left in the horse. The knowledge that such distances can be trav- ersed by one horse almost without rest must give confidence to every man throughout the army, and enable him to dare to undertake what, in a service in which thirty miles on end is looked on as cruelty to animals, would be regarded as pure foolhardiness. Eeitzenstein's performance was actu- ally better than that of the winner; yet, reading his account carefully, it is evident that with better luck and the ex- perience now gained he might have done considerably bet- ter. Eliminate the accident to the horse in shunting, the lameness due to bad shoeing, the cough, mistake in the road, and, above all things, reinforce both horse and 1 84 Cavalry vs. Infantry. rider's strength by a knowledge of the Kola nut, and I feel tolerably confident that the same man and horse would have covered the distance in 65 hours; It is a satisfaction for us that it was an English horse that accomplished this feat, but I regret to say that after seeing the different way these men rode their horses, until the art of horsemanship is better understood in England and India that it is now, I do not believe that she (the mare) would have got over more than three-quarters of the road in the time under the ordi- nary English rider. The art of getting the utmost out of one's horse on a long distance is one we have yet to learn, and it is precisely we who, as a nation, have the greatest ad- vantage to derive from the knowledge. A ride for life and death from Herat to Kandahar or vice versa, the same dis- tance as Berlin to Vienna, is by no means precluded in the present political situation. Rosenberg's Hints. 185 GENERAL VON ROSENBERG'S- HINTS ON RECRUIT TRAINING AND RIDING. Probably all officers who hare had the responsi- bility of instructing young soldiers in horsemanship have felt the want of an intelligent system of imparting instruc- tion. The better horseman a man naturally is, the more difficult, as a rule, is it for him to appreciate the trouble others find in mastering what to him came as instinct; the worse he is, the more impossible will he have found it to explain to others what he has never mastered himself — and between the two stools the recruit has, often literally, found himself on the ground. The want has not been so much felt in England with our system of regimental riding mas- ters and rough riders, as in Germany, where every squadron leader has suffered and still suffers from it, and therefore it may be of interest to reproduce here the views of one of the finest all-round horsemen Germany has ever possessed — General von Rosenberg, who is not only a born cavalry leader and keen soldier, but who was also one of the best steeplechase riders Germany has ever produced, and would have held his own in any company in the world. As a guide to the instruction of young soldiers, his pamphlet is about the soundest and most practical I have ever come across; and as his views are widely circulated and have acquired great authority, he is now one of the Inspector Generals of cavalry for the German Empire — the study of them will be useful to 13 1 86 Cavalry vs: Infantry. all ranks as a key to the nature and character of the Ger- man cavalry, such as the reading of the ordinary cavalry literature can hardly give. Even the celebrated Von Schmidt's works are hardly as valuable, for though Schmidt knew what he wanted, and how to set about obtaining it, he himself was but an indifferent horseman, and thus failed to carry conviction in all he wrote. Rosenberg begins by dividing riding into two classes — passive and active. A good "passive" rider has a grim seat, knees close to the sad- dle flap, light hands, and can indicate his wishes to his horse through the tension of one rein, or the pressure of one leg; he will also understand the use of the weight of his body in turning or stopping his horse, by throwing it to either side or backwards. The good "active" rider will know how, by the proper use of his weight, of his tico legs and both reins., to collect his mount and secure from it the most complete obedience. Where passive riding ceases and active riding begins it is hard to say — one can judge best by seeing the horse itself, but an example will make things clearer. A good jockey rides mostly passively till the finish begins, then he sits down, and by spur and whip brings the horse's haunches under him and secures the most extreme exertion, of the animal's powers. "Amongst our young oificers there are many excellent 'passive' riders, who sit well over jumps and are all right till the struggle comes, but then their art fails them, and they do not know what to do. The best would be to con- tinue sitting still, but, as a rule, they do the reverse, and cutting and spurring in mimicry of the good 'active' riders. Rosenberg's Hints. iSy they throw their horses out of their strides, fail altogether to collect them,and ultimately reach the judge's box a good two lengths worse off than thej- would have done had they confined their efforts to sitting still. It is just the same in the school ; a man who tries to ride 'actively' without being able really to do so, may ride 'shoulder in' and 'passage,' and from a distance appear to do it very well, but actually the horse is not jjroperly bent or collected — in a word, it is merely 'eyewash.' To reduce an obstinate animal to obe- dience by punishment belongs also to 'active' horsemanship. * * * To save a stumbling horse falls within the limita- tion of a 'passive' rider. To calm a violent one hj quiet riding is within the scope of both; as above remarked, the exact line is difficult to be drawn, ^'ery few ever really become good 'active' riders — fortunately, it is not even necessary that they should; the average civilians or officers can get along through life vei-y well as 'passive' riders, provided they buy either naturally quiet animals.