Part 23 (2/2)

They use fire at will. They fire fast from instinct--stronger than their discipline--which bids them send two shots for one. Their fire becomes indeed, a thunderous roll, not of salvos, but of rapid fire at will. Who fires most, hits most, so the soldier figures. So indeed did Frederick, for he encouraged fire in this same battle of Mollwitz; he thereafter doubled the number of cartridges given the soldier, giving him sixty instead of thirty.

Furthermore, if fire at command had been possible, who knows what Frederick's soldiers would have been capable of? They would have cut down battalions like standing grain. Allowed to aim quietly, no man interfering with another, each seeing clearly--then at the signal all firing together. Could anything hold against them? At the first volley the enemy would have broken and fled, under the penalty of annihilation in case they stayed. However, if we look at the final result at Mollwitz, we see that the number of killed is about the same on the side that used fire at command as on the side that did not. The Prussians lost 960 dead, the Austrians 966.

But they say that if fire was not more deadly, it was because sight-setting was then unknown. What if it was? There was no adjustment of fire perhaps, but there were firing regulations; aiming was known. Aiming is old. We do not say it was practiced; but it was known, and often mentioned. Cromwell often said, ”Put your confidence in G.o.d, my children, and fire at their shoe-laces.”

Do we set our sights better to-day? It is doubtful. If the able soldiers of Cromwell, of Frederick, of the Republic and of Napoleon could not set their sights--can we?

Thus this fire at command, which was only possible rarely and to commence action, was entirely ineffective.

Hardy spirits, seeing the slight effect of long range firing in battle, counselled waiting till the enemy was at twenty paces and driving him back with a volley. You do not have to sight carefully at twenty paces. What would be the result?

”At the battle of Castiglione,” says Marshal Saxe, ”the Imperial troops let the French approach to twenty paces, hoping to destroy them by a volley. At that distance they fired coolly and with all precautions, but they were broken before the smoke cleared. At the battle of Belgrade (1717) I saw two battalions who at thirty paces, aimed and fired at a ma.s.s of Turks. The Turks cut them up, only two or three escaping. The Turkish loss in dead was only thirty-two.”

No matter what the Marshal says, we doubt that these men were cool.

For men who could hold their fire up to such a near approach of the enemy, and fire into ma.s.ses, would have killed the front rank, thrown the others into confusion, and would never have been cut up as they were. To make these men await, without firing, an enemy at twenty or thirty paces, needed great moral pressure. Controlled by discipline they waited, but as one waits for the roof to fall, for a bomb to explode, full of anxiety and suppressed emotion. When the order is given to raise the arms and fire the crisis is reached. The roof falls, the bomb explodes, one flinches and the bullets are fired into the air. If anybody is killed it is an accident.

This is what happened before the use of skirmishers. Salvos were tried. In action they became fire at will. Directed against troops advancing without firing they were ineffective. They did not halt the dash of the a.s.sault, and the troops who had so counted on them fled demoralized. But when skirmishers were used, salvos became impossible.

Armies who held to old methods learned this to their cost.

In the first days of the Revolution our troops, undrilled and not strictly disciplined, could not fight in line. To advance on the enemy, a part of the battalion was detached as skirmishers. The remainder marched into battle and was engaged without keeping ranks.

The combat was sustained by groups fighting without formal order. The art was to support by reserves the troops advanced as skirmishers. The skirmishers always began the action, when indeed they did not complete it.

To oppose fire by rank to skirmishers was fools' play.

Skirmishers necessarily opposed each other. Once this method was adopted, they were supported, reinforced by troops in formation. In the midst of general firing fire at command became impossible and was replaced by fire at will.

Dumouriez, at the battle of Jemmapes, threw out whole battalions as skirmishers, and supporting them by light cavalry, did wonders with them. They surrounded the Austrian redoubts and rained on the cannoneers a hail of bullets so violent that they abandoned their pieces.

The Austrians, astounded by this novel combat method, vainly reinforced their light troops by detachments of heavy infantry. Their skirmishers could not resist our numbers and impetuosity, and presently their line, beaten by a storm of bullets, was forced back.

The noise of battle, the firing, increased; the defeated troops, hearing commands no longer, threw down their arms and fled in disorder.

So fire in line, heavy as it may be, cannot prevail against the power of numerous detachments of skirmishers. A rain of bullets directed aimlessly is impotent against isolated men profiting by the slightest cover to escape the fire of their adversaries, while the deployed battalions offer to their rifles a huge and relatively harmless target. The dense line, apparently so strong, withers under the deadly effect of the fire of isolated groups, so feeble in appearance.

(General Renard.)

The Prussians suffered in the same way at Jena. Their lines tried fire at command against our skirmishers. You might as well fire on a handful of fleas.

They tell us of the English salvos at Sainte-Euphemie, in Calabria, and later in Spain. In these particular cases they could be used, because our troops charged without first sending out skirmishers.

The battle of Sainte-Euphemie only lasted half an hour; it was badly conceived and executed, ”And if,” says General Duhesme, ”the advancing battalions had been preceded by detachments of skirmishers who had already made holes in enemy ranks, and, on close approach, the heads of columns had been launched in a charge, the English line would not have conserved that coolness which made their fire so effective and accurate. Certainly it would not have waited so long to loose its fire, if it had been vigorously hara.s.sed by skirmishers.”

An English author, treating of the history of weapons, speaks of the rolling fire, well directed, of the English troops. He makes no mention of salvos. Perhaps we were mistaken, and in our accounts have taken the fire of a battalion for the formal battalion fire at command of our regulations.

The same tendency appears more clearly in the work on infantry of the Marquis de Chambray, who knew the English army well. He says that the English in Spain used almost entirely fire in two ranks. They employed battalion fire only when attacked by our troops without skirmishers, firing on the flanks of our columns. And he says ”The fire by battalion, by half battalion and by platoon is limited to the target range. The fire actually most used in war is that in two ranks, the only one used by the French.” Later he adds ”Experience proves fire in two ranks the only one to be used against the enemy.” Before him Marshal Saxe wrote ”Avoid dangerous maneuvers, such as fire by platoon, which have often caused shameful defeats.” These statements are as true now as then.

Fire at command, by platoon, by battalion, etc., is used in case the enemy having repulsed skirmishers and arrived at a reasonable range either charges or opens fire for effect himself. If the latter, fire is reciprocal and lasts until one or the other gives way or charges.

If the enemy charges, what happens? He advances preceded by skirmishers who deliver a hail of bullets. You wish to open fire, but the voices of your officers are lost. The noise of artillery, of small arms, the confusion of battle, the shrieks of the wounded, distract the soldiers' attention. Before you have delivered your command the line is ablaze. Then try to stop your soldiers. While there is a cartridge left, they will fire. The enemy may find a fold of ground that protects him; he may adopt in place of his deployed order columns with wide intervals between, or otherwise change his dispositions. The changing incidents of battle are hidden by smoke and the troops in front, from the view of the officers behind. The soldiers will continue to fire and the officers can do nothing about it.

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