Field army

“ Agreeing with Humphreys, the General Staff decided that a command made up of divisions, designated as a field army, best fit the nation's needs. As described in the Field Service Regulations' of 1910, the field army comprised two or more infantry divisions, plus support troops, which included pioneer infantry (service troops for the forward area of the battlefield) , heavy artillery, engineers, signal and medical troops, and ammunition and supply units, which could maneuver and fight independently. Cavalry might be included in the division if appropriate. ”

“ I have dwelt on some of the accomplished wonders—the results of the war, in the material field—guns, Tanks, and aeroplanes. But just as mechanical devices were and are, in the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief, of no avail without the fighting men who use them; so behind the whole red pageant of the war lie two omnipresent forces without which it could not have been sustained for a day—Labour at the base, Directing Intelligence at the top. In the Labour battalions of the Army there has been a growth in numbers and a development in organisation only second to that of the fighting Army itself. ”

“ When an army takes the field, every stronghold or fortress which supports its operations by affording a safe retreat to its depots, heavy artillery, magazines, hospitals, etc., is called a place of arms. In offensive operations, those lines are called places of arms, or parallels, which unite the different means of attack, secure the regular approaches, etc., and contain bodies of troops who either do duty in the trenches, protect the workmen, or are destined to make an impression upon the enemy’s outworks. ”

“ If driven from the field, there will be at least one hundred thousand men to protect and insure an orderly retreat and effect a junction with one of the other armies.
3. The central army of four hundred thousand men requires such a quantity of provisions, munitions, horses, and matériel of every kind, that it will possess less mobility and facility in shifting its efforts from one part of the zone to another ”

“ An Army Corps is to consist of 3 Divisions of Infantry, 3 Horse Artillery, and 2 Field Artillery batteries, Royal Engineers, Cavalry squadron and details—total, 1,158 officers, 35,000 men, and 10,000 horses. ”

“ The Empire is divided into 16 army corps districts, each presumed to furnish a complete army corps of two divisions to the active army. Every infantry division is composed of two brigades of 8 battalions each, 1 artillery brigade and 10 batteries of six guns, a regiment of cavalry, and a rifle battalion. The army corps also contains a regiment of field artillery or howitzers, a pioneer battalion and a pontoon company, and numbers about 34,000 combatants. ”

“ An army, whether composed of separate corps or of grand divisions, usually forms, on the field of battle, a centre, two wings, and a reserve. Each corps or division acts by itself, with its infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineer troops. The reserve of cavalry may be formed in rear of the centre or one of the wings. In small forces of fifty or sixty thousand men, the cavalry may act with advantage on the wings, in the manner of the ancients. If the reserve of this arm be large enough to form three separate bodies, it may itself very properly be formed into a centre and wings. ”

“ Every army, or considerable detachment, must have enough of this kind of force with it to furnish what is requisite for Outpost duty, Patrols offensive and defensive, Escorts to trains, Foraging parties, Reconnoissances, and the various other purposes necessarily incidental to operations in the field; and in marches, all Advanced, Rear, and Flank guards should consist, in part, at least, of cavalry. ”

“ The food for the millions of men in France is concentrated at what we may call the Great Base, and from there it is distributed to the different army corps. In each army corps there are two or more divisions. In a division there are three infantry and three artillery brigades, three field companies of engineers, three field ambulances and details. In each infantry brigade are four battalions and in each artillery four batteries. To one company are four platoons, and about seventy men to a platoon. ”

“ The infantry wear crossed rifles, the cavalry crossed sabers, the field artillery crossed cannon, the engineers a castle, like the castle in a set of chessmen, the signal corps crossed flags with a torch between, the quartermaster corps wheel with a pen and sword crossed and an eagle surmounting, while the members of the medical corps wear something that looks like an upright bar with wings at the top and two snakes twining around it. ”

“ The classical formation—if I may employ that term—is still two lines for the infantry. The greater or less extent of the battle-field and the strength of an army may necessarily produce greater depth at times; but these cases are the exceptions, because the formation of two lines and the reserves gives sufficient solidity, and enables a greater number of men to be simultaneously engaged. ”

“ It is very desireable, that the soldiers should not lose the habit of marching; and the divisions should march ten or twelve miles twice in each week, if the weather should permit, and the roads in the neighbourhood of the cantonments of the division should be dry. But I repeat, that the great object of the attention of the [Pg 202] general and field officers must be, to get the captains and subalterns of regiments to understand and perform the duties required of them, as the only mode by which the discipline and efficiency of the army can be restored and maintained during the next campaign. ”

“ There are two infantry regiments, composed of from six to eight battalions, to the brigade, in the French army, with two brigades to a division and two divisions to an army corps. A field artillery regiment, consisting of nine batteries of four guns each, is attached to each division. With nine field and three howitzer batteries and six reinforcing batteries added under mobilization, each corps on a war footing has 144 guns. There is also added to every army corps in the field one cavalry brigade of two regiments, one cavalry battalion, engineer companies and sanitary and service troops. ”

“ The generals, who, from reasonably safe points of observation, are sweeping the field with their glasses, and noting and directing the movements of the lines of battle, must, in the nature of things, be the ones to furnish the facts that go to make history. The extent of a battlefield seen by the common soldier is that only which comes within the range of the raised sights of his musket. ”

“ Finally, no division of the army was permitted to dwell in villages, all must live in camps or in barracks. Each regiment had its fixed field of exercise, where for whole days the warriors hurled stones from slings or shot arrows from bows at marks from one to two hundred yards distant. ”

“ All infantry must be fit to cope with all conditions that may arise. Modern war requires but one kind of infantry--good infantry."
Section 2. Combat. The field of battle is the final test of the instruction, discipline, and efficiency of the fighting force of any army.
The battalion is the attack unit or the defense unit, whether operating alone or as part of a regiment. The companies constitute the firing line and the support.
An individual soldier is concerned only with the enemy in his immediate front, in obeying orders, and instinctively doing what he has been trained to do. ”

“ And "some of the divisions were fighting their first battle." They were faced also at the beginning of the advance by some of the best remaining German troops. When one thinks of all the long and bitter training in the field that went to the perfecting of French or British staff work, and then of the difficult nature of the ground over which the First American Army had to make its way, one can only feel the deepest sympathy for the losses sustained by the fresh and eager troops. ”

“ Engineer troops attached to an army are habitually employed in supervising the construction of forts or field works of a nature more permanent than the lines need by the troops in motion, and in repairing roads and making bridges. I had several regiments of this kind that were most useful, but as a rule we used the infantry, or employed parties of freedmen, who worked on the trenches at night while the soldiers slept, and these in turn rested by day. ”

“ The fighting troops of the Division necessarily occupy the chief place in the narrative, but it must be remembered throughout that the achievements of these troops would have been impossible without the co-operation of the Royal Army Service Corps, Army Ordnance Corps and Army Veterinary Corps units, and the good work of the Field Ambulances and stretcher-bearers. ”

“ Field entrenchments, but on as confined a scale as possible, must be thrown up with skill and rapidity, in situations to favour the re-embarking of the army, with all that belongs to it; and how essential it must then be, that soldiers should be as much accustomed to the use of the pickaxe and shovel as to their arms; in short, it will become indispensable that they should have habits of working, like the Roman soldiers of old. ”

“ The new plan called for 2 cavalry and 7 infantry divisions. A cavalry division consisted of a headquarters, 3 brigades (each with 3 cavalry regiments) , a horse field artillery regiment, a mounted engineer battalion, a mounted signal battalion, an aero squadron, and the necessary trains: ammunition, supply, engineer, and sanitary. The remaining 7 authorized cavalry regiments were assigned to the 7 infantry divisions, a regiment to each division, to provide a mobile force capable of performing reconnaissance, counterreconnaissance, and security missions for the division. ”

“ The corps should be quickly assembled in square, or close column, and the orders or regulations, which should be few in number, as almost every thing could be arranged before hand at the Horse Guards, ought to be read distinctly to them by the commanding officer, a field officer, or the adjutant; and when thus assembled, any explanations, or farther directions, which might be necessary, could be given, and the orders themselves more forcibly impressed upon the minds of the soldiers, which is rarely properly done, if left to company officers, or non-commissioned officers. ”

“ The horse gunner of to-day is a very good soldier indeed in every respect, both by real aptitude for his work and by compulsion.
Not that the men of the Field Artillery are not equally good soldiers, for they are. The Field Artillery, however, divides itself naturally into two branches, drivers and gunners. Each driver has two horses and two sets of harness to manage, and, if the cavalryman has reason to grouse at the length of time he spends at stables, the driver95 of the “Field” has more than four times as much reason to grouse. ”

“ Very different is it to construct a line of railroad or of telegraph in reality; to come with an army of laborers, with axes on their shoulders to cut down the forests, and with spades in their hands to cast up the highway. Then poetry sinks to prose, and instead of flying over the space on wings, one must traverse it on foot, slowly and with painful steps. Nature asserts her power; and, as if resentful of the disdain with which man in his pride affected to leap over her, she piles up new barriers in his way. ”

“ The General Staff of an army in the field is so placed that within wide limits it can control what the public will perceive. It controls the selection of correspondents who go to the front, controls their movements at the front, reads and censors their messages from the front, and operates the wires. ”

“ Surely the cool courage in the face of death, superlative bravery, and absolute self-devotion that have been displayed during the last few months by officers and men—yes, and boys too—of navy and army alike, have equalled, if not eclipsed, the finest deeds of our forefathers "in the brave days of old". ”

“ But, probably on account of the long period of peace which had followed after Waterloo, neither our navy nor army was in such a high state of efficiency as it had been earlier in the century or is at the present minute. The Crimean War broke like a thunder-clap on our peace-organized forces. We know what terrible times our gallant soldiers went through before Sebastopol on account of deficiency of commissariat, equipment, and every other aid to efficiency which ought to have been in readiness, but which, in fact, had no existence. ”

“ If any man's heart had been trembling before, it must have failed him on September 12, 1782, when there sailed into the bay thirty-nine ships of the line, raising the naval armament to fifty line-of-battle ships, with innumerable smaller vessels—the largest naval armament since the Spanish Armada—supported on land by an army of forty thousand men, whose batteries, mounted with the heaviest ordnance, stretched along the shore. ”

“ If you despise the little troop which, in these numerous experiments, did make good its landing, take with you, if you please, this prècis of its exploits: eleven hundred men, commanded by a soldier raised from the ranks, put to rout a select army of 6,000 men, commanded by General Lake, seized their ordnance, ammunition, and stores, advanced 150 miles into a country containing an armed force of 150,000 men, and at last surrendered to the Viceroy, an experienced general, gravely and cautiously advancing at the head of all his chivalry and of an immense army to oppose him. ”

“ There is no man in the world whom I respect more than an old soldier. He is the embodiment of courage and of all manly qualities, and he has given his life to his country. And if he bears in his person the scars of honorable wounds, I look up to him with a feeling of veneration. Of such characters no place has more than Gibraltar, which perhaps may be considered the centre of the military life of England. True, the movements of the Army are directed by orders from the Horse Guards in London. But here the military feature is the predominant, if not the exclusive, one ”