Anonymous

“ Every commander of a force, however large or small, is responsible for the protection of his command against surprise, and a force can only be regarded as secure from surprise when protection is furnished in every direction from which interference is possible. Detachments are therefore provided by every commander, their duty being to warn him if hostile forces are discovered in the vicinity of such forces, and to gain time, at all risks and at any sacrifice, for the commander of the troops they protect to carry out his plans unimpeded by the enemy. ”

“ The theatre of operations is the kingdom of Strategy, the province of Tactics is the field of battle, but when the battlefield is reached it so far transcends in importance every other point in the theatre of operations that no tactical end is worth aiming at in preference to striking with all available strength at the field force of the enemy, and this, it will be seen, is the goal of all strategical combinations. "Strategy must ever be striving for Tactical success; Tactics must ever keep in mind the Strategical situation and must constantly aim at creating fresh Strategical opportunities. ”

“ The aim of every commander who possesses the power of manoeuvre is to seek out the enemy and destroy his organised forces. The Attack is the culminating point of all manoeuvres to this end, and every commander will endeavour to achieve his aim by a sudden and unexpected assault on a part of the enemy's defences.
The achievement of this aim is only possible when a commander has assembled a sufficient force for his purpose, and has obtained, by reconnaissance and by fighting, information as to the vulnerability of the hostile position. ”

“ TIME.—Time is often a supreme factor in warfare, and the superior mobility of troops will gain for their commander a great strategical advantage. Reserves are of little value if they cannot be concentrated at the right spot at the right moment, and steamships, railways, and mechanical transport thus play an important part in war. The mobility of infantry is often the deciding factor in battle, and campaigns have been won by the legs of soldiers as much as by their arms. ”

“ HEALTH.—"Wars may be won or lost by the standard of health and moral of the opposing forces. Moral depends to a very large extent upon the feeding and general well-being of the troops. Badly supplied troops will invariably be low in moral, and an army ravaged by disease ceases to be a fighting force. The feeding and health of the fighting forces are dependent upon the rearward services, and so it may be argued that with the rearward services rests victory or defeat" (Marshal Haig) . ”

“ TYPES OF BATTLE ACTION A battle must practically always be of the nature of Attack and Defence, but the attitude originally assumed by either of the opposing forces may be reversed during an engagement. A vigorous counter-attack by an army offering battle in a defensive position may throw the adversary on the defensive, while an assailant may fight a delaying action in one part of the field, although in another part his action may be essentially offensive. ”

“ IN CIVILIZED WARFARE.—The military history of Europe and America abounds with accounts of fierce fighting in close country. In all ages woods and villages play an important part in war. They form natural magnets for troops operating in their neighbourhood. The fact of their being easily visible, and named on maps, causes them to be adopted as objectives in the Attack or as boundaries in the Defence, and in all operations troops are instinctively drawn towards them in search of cover, or to obtain water, supplies, and shelter. ”

“ A lifelong experience of military study and thought has taught me that the principle of the tactical employment of troops must be instinctive. I know that in putting the Science of War into practice it is necessary that its main tenets should form, so to speak, part of one's flesh and blood. ”

“ In the first place, the issue is almost always uncertain, for events which no human sagacity could provide against may occur to defeat the wisest plans. The best chances, therefore, are on the side of the commander who is provided with sufficient means to achieve his object, who forms his plans with the greatest sagacity, and executes them with the greatest ability. Decisive success has followed the combinations of great commanders, and in the long run victory pays homage to knowledge of the principles which underlie the art of war. ”

“ To understand war you must go beyond its instruments and materials; you must study in the book of history, conscientiously analysed, armies, troops in movement and in action, with their needs, their passions, their devotions, their capacities of all kinds. ”

“ A different form of the combination of defence with manoeuvre is the Defensive-Offensive battle, with examples of which the history of Warfare is amply supplied—Marengo, Austerlitz, and Waterloo being typical battles of this nature. In this form of defensive action a commander invites the enemy to attack a well-chosen position, and after exhausting the enemy's strength and holding up the assault, the commander passes from the guard to the thrust and overwhelms {77} the exhausted foe by an irresistible and sustained counter-attack with all the means at his disposal. ”

“ But although Strategy may be considered as the art of bringing an opponent to battle, and Tactics as the art of defeating him in action, there are excluded from these definitions many considerations which influence a commander in the field.
The art of war does not commence with a strategical reconnaissance from the air, or the saddle, to ascertain whether, and if so in what locality and in what strength, hostile troops are being concentrated. From information so obtained, the physical force of an enemy may indeed be determined ”

“ THE GENERAL RESERVE.—In a modern campaign against civilised troops it will seldom, or never, happen that the efforts of the Forward Body, Supports, and Local Reserves will annihilate the enemy and so prevent him from regaining cohesion and fighting power. Even if {57} every part of the position against which an assault is delivered is captured and held, the enemy will not, by that means alone, cease to exist as a fighting force, and if he is permitted to withdraw with a semblance of order and moral the work of the Attacking Force will be of little avail. ”

“ The Flanks are the most vulnerable points of an army, for an attack upon these points subjects the defenders to enfilade fire, and is delivered by troops arrayed in attack formation against an enemy that is not in a position to repel the attack. The consequences of a successful Flank Attack are so far-reaching that every effort will be made by a commander to bring about such a consummation in order that he may sever his adversary's communications, bring him to the end of his resources, and deprive him of the means of replenishing them. ”

“ A bold and resolute counter-attack at that moment is bound to achieve a decisive success. But the assumption of the grand offensive should not be confined to the General Reserve alone. Commanders of sections of the defence who are permitted by the local situation to do so, must at once join in the decisive counter-attack, unless express orders to the contrary have been received; and any definite success obtained must be the signal for the whole force to press the enemy with the utmost vigour. ”

“ Motor traction enables the heaviest guns to be brought to the battlefield and to be removed when a commander decides to withdraw from battle, while the increase in the defensive power of obstacles and small arms fire, combined with the increase in mobility afforded by motor traction, enables all but super-heavy artillery (which require a railway mounting) to be placed close behind the infantry in Attack and Defence. It is, however, obvious that the closest support can be given by the guns that are weakest in shell-power, on account of the superiority in mobility possessed by the lighter guns. ”

“ At the close of the final victorious campaign, Marshal Haig emphasised the truth of this claim: "The longer the war lasted the more emphatically has it been realised that our original organisation and training were based on correct principles. The danger of altering them too much, to deal with some temporary phase, has been greater than the risk of adjusting them too little. . . . The experience gained in this war alone, without the study and practice of lessons learned from other campaigns, could not have sufficed to meet the ever-changing tactics which have characterised the fighting. ”

“ The forward body should thus be strong enough to develop the Attack to such a point that a decisive blow can be delivered by the supports against the main resistance, and the reserve company is in hand for the completing stages of the action or for stabilising the local battle. Where the enemy's dispositions and the degree of resistance are still the subject of conjecture, one company only may be forward, with two in support, so that the main strength of the battalion will not be committed to any definite rôle before it is needed and before the situation of the enemy is discovered. ”

“ It is of paramount importance that in those parts of a theatre of operations where a commander aims at decision a war of movement must never be allowed to lapse into position warfare so long as a further advance is possible. ”

“ REORGANISATION AND PURSUIT.—Once a successful assault has been delivered, subordinate commanders must immediately regain control of their commands, and must see that the fleeing enemy is pursued by fire, while local reserves follow up and secure the position against counter-attack. Superior commanders must take steps to organise the pursuit, to cut off the enemy's line of retreat, and to complete his overthrow. No victory is ever complete if the enemy is permitted to retire unmolested from the field of battle, and given time to recover order and moral. ”

“ THE FORWARD BODY, THE SUPPORTS, AND THE LOCAL RESERVES.—The paramount duty of all leaders in the firing line is to get their troops forward, and if every leader is imbued with the determination to close with the enemy, he will be unconsciously assisting his neighbour also, for, as a rule, the best method of supporting a neighbouring unit is to advance. But an attack is often held up by well-directed machine-gun fire, and by determined and well-trained riflemen in concealed or well-prepared positions. ”

“ During a close pursuit the Rear Guard commander will be called upon to exercise all his faculties and to exert all his tactical ability in handling his command. One of the most anxious times before him will be when the Main Body is passing through a defile, as such a passage will not only delay its march but will make its columns particularly vulnerable and helpless. In the case of defiles Napoleon's maxim must be borne in mind: "It is contrary to the principles of war to let one's parks and heavy artillery enter a defile if the other end is not held also." ”

“ This war has given us no new principles; but different mechanical appliances—and in particular the rapid improvement and multiplication of aeroplanes, the use of immense numbers of machine guns and Lewis guns, the employment of vast quantities of barbed wire as effective obstacles, the enormous expansion of artillery, and the provision of great masses of motor transport—have introduced new problems of considerable complexity concerning the effective co-operation of the different arms and services. ”

“ If the superior army is not yet concentrated, or is so distributed that the different parts cannot readily support each other, it may be defeated in detail. If the superior army is already concentrated, its commander may be induced, by one means or another, to make detachments, and thus to be weak everywhere. The first problem is solved by rapidity of manoeuvre, surprise marches, secrecy, feints to bewilder the adversary in his concentration, and action on unexpected lines. The second, by skilful threatening of points for the defence of which the adversary will detach forces ”

“ THE NECESSITY FOR STUDY.—It is not pretended by any sane writer that study alone will make a perfect officer, for it is universally recognised that no amount of theoretical training can supply the knowledge gained by direct and immediate association with troops in the field; nor is it claimed that study will make a dull man brilliant, or confer resolution and rapid decision on one who is timid and irresolute by nature. ”

“ In addition to the protection of a column on the march, Flank Guard work is of the highest importance on the Lines of Communications and in the protection of Convoys. On the Lines of Communications raids from the air or land may always be expected in Manoeuvre Warfare, and one flank is usually more vulnerable than the other. A Convoy, when parked, is liable to attack from any quarter; and when on the march it may be assailed from any direction, especially when the adversary can detach mounted troops, or infantry rendered mobile by motor transport, or raiding bodies carried in Aircraft. ”

“ Against these natural limits to mobility are the compensating advantages of the power of infantry to move into and over almost any ground by day or by night, and the rapidity with which trained infantrymen can find or improvise cover.
The main object of battle is to close with the enemy and to destroy him by killing or capture, and it is this power to close with the enemy which makes infantry the decisive arm in battle. ”

“ Every moving body of troops must be protected by detachments, the force detached to precede the advance being known as an Advanced Guard, and when a body of troops so protected halts, the responsibility for protection during the halts remains with the troops which have been protecting the march until they are relieved, the commander of the Advanced Guard exercising his discretion as to halting at once or moving forward to occupy a position which may be of more tactical advantage. ”

“ The power of striking 'like a bolt from the blue' is of the greatest value in war. Surprise was the foundation of almost all the great strategical combinations of the past, as it will be of those to come. The first thought and the last of the great general is to outwit his adversary and to strike where he is least expected. ”