Part 29 (2/2)

[Footnote 40: See Appendix VI. (Historical doc.u.ments.) (Editor's note.)]

[Footnote 41: See Appendix VI. (Historical doc.u.ments.) (Editor's note.)]

[Footnote 42: See Appendix II. (Historical doc.u.ments.) (Editor's note.)]

[Footnote 43: A propos of gaps: At the battle of Sempach thirteen hundred badly armed Swiss opposed three thousand Lorraine knights in phalanxes. The attack of the Swiss in a formation was ineffective, and they were threatened with envelopment. But Arnold von Winkelried created a gap; the Swiss penetrated and the ma.s.sacre followed.]

[Footnote 44: See Appendix II. (Historical doc.u.ments.) (Editor's note.)]

[Footnote 45: See Appendix II. (Historical doc.u.ments.) (Editor's note.)]

[Footnote 46: See Appendix II. (Historical doc.u.ments.) (Editor's note.)]

[Footnote 47: It is hard to determine what method of fire, at command or at will, was used. But what we find in the works of the best military authorities, from Montecuculli to Marshal Saxe, is general opposition to the replacement of the pike by the rifle. All predicted the abandonment of the rifle for the pike, and the future always proved them wrong. They ignored experience. They could not understand that stronger than all logic is the instinct of man, who prefers long range to close fighting, and who, having the rifle would not let it go, but continually improved it.]

[Footnote 48: The danger arising from this kind of fire, led to proposals to put the smallest men in the front rank, the tallest in the rear rank.]

[Footnote 49: Nothing is more difficult than to estimate range; in nothing is the eye more easily deceived. Practice and the use of instruments cannot make a man infallible. At Sebastopol, for two months, a distance of one thousand to twelve hundred meters could not be determined by the rifle, due to inability to see the shots. For three months it was impossible to measure by ranging shots, although all ranges were followed through, the distance to a certain battery which was only five hundred meters away, but higher and separated from us by a ravine. One day, after three months, two shots at five hundred meters were observed in the target. This distance was estimated by everybody as over one thousand meters; it was only five hundred. The village taken and the point of observation changed, the truth became evident.]

[Footnote 50: His war instructions prove this. His best generals, Zieten, Warnery, knew of such methods, saw nothing practicable in them and guarded against them in war as indeed he did himself. But Europe believed him, tried to imitate his maneuvers on the field of battle, and aligned her troops to be beaten by him. This is what he was after.

He even deceived the Prussians. But they came back to sound methods after 1808, in 1813 and afterwards.]

[Footnote 51: It is noted here that French uniforms are of an absurd color, serving only to take the eye at a review. So the cha.s.seurs, in black, are seen much further than a rifleman of the line in his gray coat.

The red trousers are seen further than the gray--thus gray ought to be the basic color of the infantry uniform, above all that of skirmishers.

At night fall the Russians came up to our trenches without being seen by any one, thanks to their partridge-gray coats.]

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