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INFANTRY TACTICS SINCE
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See also:INFANTRY See also:TACTICS SINCE 1870 The See also:net result of the Franco-See also:German See also:War on infantry tactics, as far as it can be summed up in a single phrase, was to See also:transfer the See also:fire-fight to the See also:line of skirmishers. Henceforward the old and correct sense of the word " skirmishers " is lost. They have 1 The Prussian.See also:company was about 250 strong (see below under " Organization "). This strength was adopted after 187o by practically all nations which adopted universal service. The See also:battalion had 4 companies. nothing to do with a " skirmish," but are the actual See also:organ of See also:battle, and their old duties of feeling the way for the battle-formations have been taken over by " scouts." The last-named were not, however, fully recognized in See also:Great See also:Britain' till See also:long after the war—not in fact until the war in See also:South See also:Africa had shown that the " skirmisher " or firing line was too powerful an See also:engine to be employed in See also:mere " feeling." In most See also:European armies " combat patrols," which See also:work more freely, are preferred to scouts, but the See also:idea is the same. The fire-fight on the line of skirmishers, now styled the firing line, is the centre of gravity of the See also:modern battle. In 187o, owing to the See also:peculiar circumstances of unequal armaof ff87os ment, the " fire-fight " was insufficiently See also:developed and uneconomically used, and after the war tacticians turned their See also:attention to the See also:evolution of better methods than those of See also:Worth and See also:Gravelotte, See also:Europe in See also:general following the See also:lead of See also:Prussia. Controversy, in the See also:early stages, took the See also:form of a contest between " See also:drill " and " See also:individualism," irrespective of formations and technical details, for until about 1890 the material efficiency of the See also:gun and the See also:rifle remained very much what it had been in 1870, and the only new See also:factor bearing on infantry tactics was the general See also:adoption of a " See also:national See also:army " See also:system similar to Prussia's and of rifles equal, and in some ways See also:superior, to the See also:chassepot. All European armies, therefore, had to consider equality in See also:artillery See also:power, equality in the See also:ballistics of rifles, and equal intensity of fighting spirit as the normal conditions of the next battle of nations. Here, in fact, was an See also:equilibrium, and in such conditions how was the attacking infantry to force its way forward, whether by fire or See also:movement or by both? See also:France sought the See also:answer in the domain of artillery. Under the guidance of General See also:Langlois, she re-created the See also:Napoleonic See also:hurricane of See also:case-shot (represented in modern conditions by See also:time shrapnel), while from the See also:doctrine formed by Generals Maillard and Bonnal there came a system of infantry tactics derived fundamentally from the tactics of the Napoleonic era. This, however, came later; for the moment (viz. from 1871 to about 1890) the lead in infantry training was admittedly in the hands of the Prussians. German See also:officers who had fought through the war had seen the operations, generally speaking, either from the See also:staff officer's or from the regimental officer's point of view. To the former and to many of the latter the most indelible impression of the battlefield was what they called Massen-Driickebergertum or " wholesale skulking." The See also:rest, who had perhaps in most cases led the brave remnant of their companies in the final assaults, believed that battles were won by the individual soldier and his rifle. The difference between the two may be said to See also:lie in this, that the first sought a remedy, the second a method. The remedy was drill, the method extended See also:order. The extreme statement of the case in favour of drill pure and See also:simple is to be found in -ithe famous See also:anonymous pamphlet A Summer See also:Night's See also:Dream, in which a return to the " old Prussian fire-discipline " of See also:Frederick's See also:day was offered as the See also:solution of the problem, how to give " fire " its maximum efficacity. Volleys and absolutely See also:mechanical obedience to word of command represent, of course, the most See also:complete application of fire-power that can be conceived. But the proposals of the extreme See also:close-order school were nevertheless merely pious aspirations, not so much because of the introduction of the breechloader as because the See also:short-service " national " army can never be " drilled" in the Frederician sense. The proposals of the other school were, however, even more impracticable, in that they rested on the See also:hypothesis that all men were brave, and that, consequently, all that was necessary was to See also:teach the recruit how to shoot and to work with other individuals in the squad or company. Disorder of the firing line was accepted, not as an unavoidable evil, but as a See also:condition in which individuality had full See also:play, and 'The 1902 edition of Infantry Training indeed treated the new scouts as a thin advanced firing line, but in 1907, at which date important modifications began to be made in the " doctrine " of the See also:British Army, the scouts were expressly restricted to the old-fashioned " skirmishing " duties.as dense swarm formations were quite as vulnerable as an See also:ordinary line, it was an easy step from a thick line of"individuals" to a thin one. The step was, in fact, made in the See also:middle of the war of 1870, though it was hardly noticed that See also:extension only became practicable in proportion as the quality of the enemy decreased and the Germans became acclimatized to fire. Between these extremes, a moderate school, with the See also:emperor See also: On the other See also:hand, See also:graduation implies control on the part of the leaders, and this the method of irregular swarms of individual fighters imagined by the German progressives merely abdicates. At most such swarms—however close or extended—can only, be tolerated as an evil that no human power can avert when the battle has reached a certain See also:stage of intensity. Even the latest. German Infantry Training (1906) is explicit on this point. " It must never be forgotten that the See also:obligation of abandoning close order is an evil which can often be avoided when " &c. &c. (See also:par. 342). The consequences of this evil, further, are actually less serious in proportion as the troops are well drilled—not to
2 This is no new thing, but belongs, irrespective of armament, to the " War of masses." The See also: Drill is the military form of See also:education by repetition and association (see G. le Bon, Psychologie de ''education). Materially it consists in Drill. exercises frequently repeated by bodies of soldiers with a view to ensuring the harmonious action of each individual in the work to be performed by the See also:mass—in a word, rehearsals. See also:Physical " drill ' is based on See also:physiology and gymnastics, and aims at the development of the physique and the individual will power.' But the psychological or moral is incomparably the most important See also:side of drill. It is the method or See also:art of discipline. Neither self-control nor devotion in the face of imminent danger can as a See also:rule come from individual reasoning. A commander-in-See also:chief keeps himself See also:free from the contact with the turmoil of battle so long as he has to calculate, to study reports or to manoeuvre, and commanders of See also:lower grades, in proportion as their See also:duty brings them into the midst of danger, are subjected to greater or less disturbing influences. The man in the fighting line where the danger is greatest is altogether the slave of the unconscious. Overtaxed infantry, whether defeated or successful, have been observed to See also:present an See also:appearance of absolute See also:insanity. It is true that in the See also:special case of great war experience See also:reason resumes part of its dominion in proportion as the fight becomes the soldier's habitual milieu. Thus towards the end of a long war men become skilful and cunning individual fighters; sometimes, too, feelings of respect for the enemy arise and lead to interchange of courtesies at the outposts, and it has also been noticed that in the last stage of a long war men are less inclined to See also:sacrifice themselves. All this is " reason " as against inborn or inbred " See also:instinct." But in the modern See also:world, which is normally at See also:peace, some method must be found of ensuring that the peace-trained soldier will carry out his duties when his reason is sub-merged. Now we know that the See also:constant repetition of a certain act, whether on a given impulse or of the individual's own volition, will eventually make the performance of that act a reflex action. For this reason peace-drilled troops have often defeated a war-trained enemy, even when the motives for fighting were equally powerful on each side. The mechanical performance of movements, and loading and firing at the enemy, under the most disturbing conditions can be ensured by bringing the required self-control from the domain of reason into that of instinct. " L'education," says lc Bon, " est ''art de faire passer le conscient See also:duns l'inconscient." Lastly, the instincts of the recruit being those special to his See also:race or nation, which are the more p'owerful because they are operative through many generations, it is the drill sergeant's business to bring about, by disuse, See also:atrophy of the instincts which militate against soldierly efficiency, and to develop, by constant repetition and special preparation, other useful instincts which the Englishman or Frenchman or German does not as such possess. In short, as regards infantry training, there is no real distinction between drill and education, See also:save in so far as the latter See also:term covers instruction in small details of See also: The officer can be regarded practically as a hypnotist playing upon the unconscious activities of his subject. In the lower grades, it is immaterial whether reason, caprice or a fresh set of instincts stimulated by an outside authority, set in See also:motion the " See also:suggestion." The true See also:leader, whatever the provenance of his " suggestion," makes it effective by dominating the " psychological crowd " that he leads. On the other hand, if he fails to do so, he is himself dominated by the uncontrolled will of the crowd, and although leaderless mobs have at times shown extreme heroism, it is far more usual to find them reverting to the See also:primitive instinct of brutality or panic fear. A See also:mob, therefore, or a raw regiment, requires greater See also:powers of suggestion in its leader, whereas a thorough course of drill tunes the " crowd " to See also:respond to the stimulus that See also:average officers can apply. So far from diminishing, drill has increased in importance under modern conditions of recruiting. It has merely changed in form, and instead of being repressive it has become educative. The force of modern short-service troops, as troops, is far sooner spent than that of the old-fashioned automatic regiments, while the reserve force of its component parts, remaining after the dissolution, is far higher than of old. But this uncontrolled force is liable to panic as well as amenable to an impulse of self-sacrifice. In so far, then, it is necessary to adopt the catch-word of the Billow school and to " organize disorder," and the only known method of doing so is drill. " Individualism " pure and simple had certainly a brief reign during and after the South See also:African War, especially in Great Britain, and both France and See also:Germany coquetted with " See also:Boer tactics," until the Russo-See also:Japanese war brought military Europe back to the old principles. But the South African War came precisely at the point of time when the controversies of 1870 had crystallized into a form of tactics that was not suitable to the conditions of that war, while about the same time the relations of infantry Therican South Af and artillery underwent a profound See also:change. As war regards the South African War, the clear See also:atmosphere, -- the trained sight of the Boers, and the See also:alternation of level See also:plain and high See also:concave kopjes which constituted the usual battlefield, made the front to front infantry attacks not merely difficult but almost impossible. For years, indeed ever since the See also:Peninsular War, the tendency of the British army to deploy early had afforded a handle to European critics of its See also:tactical methods. It was a tendency that survived with the rest of the " linear " tradition. But in South Africa, owing to the special advantages of the defenders, which denied to the assailant all reliable indications of the enemy's strength and positions, this early deployment had to take a non-committal form—viz. many successive lines of skirmishers. The application of this form was, indeed, made easy by the openness of the ground, but like all " schematic " formations, open or close, it could not be maintained under fire, with the special disadvantage that the extensions were so wide as to make any manoeuvring after the fight had cleared up a situation a See also:practical impossibility. Hence some preconceived idea of an objective was an essential preliminary, and as the Boer mounted infantry hardly ever stood to defend any particular position to the last (as they could always renew the fight at some other point in their vast territory), the preconceived idea was always, after the early battles, an envelopment in which the troops told off to the frontal holding attack were required, not to force their advance to its logical conclusion, but to keep the fight alive until the flank attack made itself See also:felt. The See also:principal tendency of British infantry tactics after the Boer War was therefore quite naturally, under European as well as colonial conditions, to deploy at the outset in great See also:depth, i.e. in many lines of skirmishers, each line, when within about 1400 yds. of the enemy's position, extending to intervals of ro to 20 paces between individuals. The reserves were strong and their importance was well marked in the 1902 training See also:manual, but their functions were rather to extend or feed the firing line, to serve as a rallying point in case of defeat and to take up the pursuit (par. 220, Infantry Training, 1902), than to form the engine of a decisive attack framed by the commander-in-chief after "engaging everywhere and then seeing" as Napoleon did. The 1905 regulations adhered to this theory of the attack in the See also:main, only modifying a number of tactical prescriptions which See also:Formula- had not proved satisfactory after their transplantation tion of the from South Africa to Europe, but after the Russo-British Japanese War a See also:series of important amendments was "D° issued which gave greater force and still greater elastrine." ticity to the attack See also:procedure, and in 1909 the tactical " doctrine " of the British army was definitively formulated in Field Service Regulations, See also:paragraph 102, of which after enumerating the advantages and disadvantages of the " preconceived idea " system, laid it down, as the normal procedure of the British Army, that the general should " obtain the decision by manoeuvre on the battlefield with a large general reserve maintained in his own hand " and " strike with his reserve at the right See also:place and time." The rehabilitation of the Napoleonic attack idea thus frankly accepted in Great Britain had taken place in France several years before the South African War, and neither this war nor that in See also:Manchuria effectively shook the faith of the French army in the principle, while on the other hand Germany remains faithful to the " preconceived idea," both in See also:strategy and tactics.' This essential difference in the two See also:rival " doctrines " is intimately connected with the revival of the Napoleonic artillery attack, in the form of concentrated time shrapnel. The Napoleonic artillery preparation, it will be remembered, was a fire of overwhelming intensity delivered against the selected point of the enemy's position, at the moment of the massed and decisive See also:assault of the reserves. In Napoleon's time the artillery went in to within 300 or 400 yds. range for this act, i.e. in front of the infantry, whereas now the guns fire over the heads of the infantry and concentrate shells instead of guns on the vital point. The principle is, however, the same. A See also:model infantry attack in the Napoleonic manner was that of Okasaki's See also:brigade on the Terayama See also: Then the fire of both infantry and artillery would be augmented to its maximum intensity, overpowering that of the See also:defence, and the whole of the troops opposite the point to be stormed would be thrown forward for the bayonet See also:charge. The formation for ' In 187o the " preconceived idea " was practically confined to strategy, and the tactical improvisations of the Germans themselves deranged the See also:execution of the See also:plan quite as often as the act of the enemy. Of See also:late years, therefore, the " preconceived idea " has been imposed on tactics also in that See also:country. Special care and study is given to the once despised " early deployments " in cases where a fight is part of the " idea," and to the difficult problem of breaking off the action, when it takes a form that is incompatible with the development of the main See also:scheme. this scarcely matters. What is important is speed and the will to conquer, and for this purpose small bodies (sections, half-companies or companies), not in the close order of the drill book but grouped closely about the leader who inspires and controls them, are as potent an instrument as a Frederician line or a Napoleonic See also:column. Controversy, in fact, does not turn altogether on the method of the assault, or even on the method of obtaining the fire-superiority of guns and rifles that justifies it. Although one nation may rely on its guns more than on the rifles, or See also:vice versa, all are agreed that at decisive range the firing line should contain as many men as can use their rifles effectually. Perhaps the most disputed point is the form of the " approach-march," viz. the dispositions and movements of the attacking infantry between about 1400 and about 600 yds. from the position of the enemy. The condition of the assailant's infantry when it reaches decisive ranges is largely governed by the efforts it has expended and the losses it has suffered in its progress. Some-times even after a firing line of some strength has been The established at decisive range, it may prove too difficult a8 ac or too costly for the supports (sent up from the See also:rear to replace casualties and to See also:augment fire-power) to make their way to the front. Often, again, it may be within the commander's intentions that his troops at some particular point in the line should not be committed to decisive action before a given time—perhaps not at all. It is obvious then that no " normal " attack procedure which can be laid down in a drill book (though from time to time the See also:attempt has been made, as in the French regulations of i875) can meet all cases. But here again, though all armies formally and explicitly condemn the normal attack, each has its own well-marked tendencies. The German regulations of 1906 define the offensive as " transporting fire towards the enemy, if necessary to his immediate proximity "; the bayonet attack " See also:con- current firms " the victory. Every attack begins with deploy- views ment into extended order, and the leading line on the advances as close to the enemy as possible before lnfaatry attack. opening fire. In ground offering See also:cover, the firing line has practically its maximum See also:density at the outset. In open ground, however, half-sections, groups and individuals, widely spaced out, advance stealthily one after the other till all are in position. It is on this position, called the " first fire position " and usually about moo yds. from the enemy, that the full force of the attack is deployed, and from this position, as simultaneously as possible, it opens the fight for fire-superiority. Then, each unit covering the advance of its neighbours, the whole line fights its way by open force to within charging distance. If at any point a decision is not desired, it is deliberately made impossible by employing there such small forces as possess no offensive power. Where the attack is intended to be pushed See also:home, the infantry See also:units employed act as far as possible simultaneously, resolutely and in great force (see the German Infantry Regulations, 1906, §§ 324 et seq.). While in Germany movement " transports the fire," in France fire is regarded as the way to make movement possible. It is considered (see Grandmaison, Dressage de l'infanterie) that a premature and excessive deployment enervates the attack, that the ground (i.e. covered ways of approach for small columns, not for troops showing a fire front) should be used as lon& as possible to march " en troupe " and that a firing line should only be formed when it is impossible to progress without acting upon the enemy's ,means of resistance. Thereafter each unit, in such order as its chief can keep, should fight its 'way forward, and help others to do so—like Okasaki's brigade in the last stage of its attack—utilizing bursts of fire or patches of See also:wood or depressions in the ground, as each is profitable or available to assist the advance. " From the moment when a fighting unit is ` uncoupled,' its action must be ruled by two conditions, and by those only: the one material, an See also:object to be reached; the other moral, the will to reach the object." The British Field Service Regulations of 19o9 are in spirit more closely allied to the French than to the German. " The See also:climax of the infantry attack is the assault, which is made possible by superiority of fire " is the principle (emphasized in the book itself by the use of conspicuous type), and a " See also:gradual See also:building up of the firing line within close range of the position," coupled with the closest artillery support, and the final See also:blow of the reserves delivered " unexpectedly and in the greatest possible strength " are indicated as the means? The defence, as it used to be understood, needs no description. To-day in all armies the defence is looked upon not as a means of winning a battle, but as a means of temporizing and avoiding the decision until the commander of the defending party is enabled, by the general military situation or by the course and results of the defensive battle itself, to take the offensive. In the British Field Service Regulations it is laid down that when an army acts on the defensive no less than half of it should if possible be earmarked, suitably posted and placed under a single commander, for the purpose of delivering a decisive See also:counter-attack. The object of the purely defensive portion, too, is not merely to hold the enemy's firing line in check, but to drive it back so that the enemy may be forced to use up his See also:local reserve resources to keep the fight alive. A firing line covered and steadied by entrenchments, and restless local reserves ever on the look-out for opportunities of partial counterstrokes, are the See also:instruments of this policy. A word must be added on the use of entrenchments by infantry, a subject the technical aspect of which is fully dealt with and illus- trated trated in FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT : Field Defences. meann Entrenchments of greater or less strength by themselves ts. have always been used by infantry on the defensive, especially in the wars of position of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the Napoleonic and modern " wars of movement," they are regarded, not as a passive defence—they have long ceased to present a physical See also:harrier to assault—but as fire positions so prepared as to be defensible by relatively few men. Their purpose is, by economizing force elsewhere, to give the maximum strength to the troops told off for the counter-offensive. In the later stages of the See also:American See also:Civil War, and also in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905—each in its way an example of a " war of positions "—the assailant has also made use of the methods of fortification to secure every successive step of progress in the attack. The usefulness and limitations of this procedure are defined in generally similar terms in the most See also:recent training manuals of nearly every European army. See also:Section 136, § 7 of the British Infantry Training (1905, amended 1907) says: " During the See also:process of establishing a superiority of fire, successive fire positions will be occupied by the firing line. As a rule those affording natural cover will be chosen, but if none exist and the intensity of the hostile fire preclude any immediate further advance, it may be expedient for the firing line to create some. This hastily constructed See also:protection will enable the attack to See also:cope with the defender's fire and thus prepare the way for a farther advance. The construction of cover during an attack, however, will See also:entail delay and a temporary loss of fire effect and should therefore be resorted to only when absolutely necessary. . . . As soon as possible the advance should be resumed, &c." The German regulations are as follows (Infantry Training, 1906, § 313): " In the offensive the entrenching See also:tool may be used where it is desired, for the moment, to content one's self with maintaining the ground gained. . . . The entrenching tool is only to be used with the greatest circumspection, because of the great difficulty of getting an extended line to go forward under fire when it has expended much effort in digging cover for itself. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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