far from the next following, that the latter is not exposed to effective infantry-fire. The latter they now fix at about 400 yards.

There is an immense amount of detailed precaution to be applied to all outpost duties into which it seems unadvisable to enter here. To select special points to be attended to, is to throw into the shade the importance of others. To give all with all the variety of circumstance which presents itself would be here impossible.*

* Details are given both in Sir G. Wolesley's book and in Sir C. Staveley's. De Brack and Bugeaud are full of them.

139

THE ATTACK.

(c.) MODE OF FORMING, COMBINING, AND EMPLOY

ING THE DIFFERENT ARMS FOR ATTACKING

AN ENEMY IN POSITION.

THE great difficulty in making deductions from the late war as to the details of a proper system of attack is due to a peculiar cause. It is scarcely possible to show what this is more clearly than by comparing the broad statement of Major Tellenbach, that in all fighting the greater proportion of fire is unaimed, with the observations of the Duke of Wurtemberg as to the fact that the French hardly made any effort to secure aimed firing. The question is, how far can the data on which the Prussians worked during the late campaign be counted upon as permanent, and what will be the differences which will present themselves when troops have to be faced who have as carefully worked out the problem of the right use of the breech-loader in defence as the Prussians have themselves done? From this point of view very much the most interesting evidence that we could receive would be a thoroughly-thought-out statement as to the

solution of the tactical question from the French side. Unfortunately it is impossible, with such a close accordance on the main points as exists between the various writers who have lately discussed the matter in Germany, not to feel that we have as yet received nothing from the French which can fairly be taken as a real study for the tactics of future attack. One thing, however, may be safely assumed. In future we shall not have, as the Germans had, to attack positions whose defenders waste their fire at useless ranges. The principle which Count Moltke pointed out as the right one on this subject eight years ago, will be doubtless largely adopted; picked shots will be selected to fire at very considerable ranges, in order to disturb the regularity of formations, and to make the action of artillery dangerous. Artillery will be aimed, with incomparably greater accuracy than the French displayed, at any bodies that may present satisfactory marks. But the intense severity of fire will be reserved for ranges at which the power of the rifle can be made to tell effectually. Thus the fire at 1000 yards or more will be much less severe than the Prussians found it; while at ranges of from somewhat below 500 yards to the position itself, the fire will be far more deadly even than that to which they were exposed. Now, the exact formation which troops will in the first instance assume, must necessarily very largely depend on the length of distance over which those formations must be adopted which

are now essential for the actual advance against a position. However, if it becomes evident that an assailant has presumed on the defenders' reservation of fire too much, and has presented himself within ranges at which fire, though ineffective against loose formations, is effective enough against close ones, we may probably accept the Prussian experience as at all events the best we are likely to get, even as to the ranges at which modern fire renders all close formations for rigid movement impossible. That distance, in so far as large columns was concerned, seems to have been about 2000 yards. It may be assumed, then, that the march to battle will now terminate at some distance not much nearer than this to the enemy's position, and that the manœuvres of fighting must be considered from that distance at least onward.

Here, however, we are at once met with a most marked contrast to the past manner of beginning a battle. Formerly the march to battle preceded a careful arrangement in lines of all the troops that were intended to take part in the combat, or of at least the major portion of them. Napoleon's famous parade before Waterloo was quite in keeping with the then current phase of war. As a rule, the general who had begun an action before his troops were up, would have exposed himself to such disaster as that of Dennewitz.*

* Though no doubt that defeat was largely due also to want of suffi cient precautions on the march.

But the Prussians practise and maintain as a principle now a quite different mode of action. The moment an enemy's skirmishers have been driven to a distance sufficient to enable their artillery to approach, they bring forward heavy masses of guns, which they employ at first at long ranges, to take off the intensity of the hostile fire. Then, under protection of these, their own advanced - guards push in the enemy's skirmishers, and secure yet more advanced positions, to which the artillery move rapidly forward, and bring effective fire to bear on the main body of the enemy. At Gravelotte they undoubtedly carried this too far, and lost guns in consequence. But it must be remembered that they had to discover for us experimentally, no one having then done it, what was the distance from infantry at which it was possible for guns to be worked.* Moreover, though in this instance the attempt was distinctly a mistake, it must be admitted further, that the Prussians have adopted a principle very new to military rules. They have decided that, in order to win victory, it is well worth while to run the risk of losing guns. The point, no doubt, might sometimes be pushed too far, and to a subordinate commander the exact nature of the stake for which he plays ought to be very clearly apparent when he ventures on the risk. But whether, as a matter of principle, it is better to govern Europe than to

* See the most careful working out of this question in Lieutenant Hime's Essay.