Land army

“ A general falling back toward his native land along his line of magazines and supplies may keep his troops together and in good order, and may effect a retreat with more safety than one compelled to subsist his army in cantonments, finding it necessary to occupy an extended position. ”

“ For a hundred miles there have been only women and old men, but now there are only soldiers; they fill the streets; they crowd the doorways of the houses. The fields are filled with tents, with horses, with all the impedimenta of an army. The whole countryside is a place of arms. Every branch of French service is about you—Tunisians, Turcos, cavalry, the black, the brown and the white—the men who yesterday or last week were in the first line, who rest and will return to-morrow or next day to fight again. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then, little by little, the pursuing columns began to creep past the crumbling rear-guard; cavalry pounced on the foragers searching the countryside for food and captured the lumbering provision-wagons and the railroad supply trains which had been ordered to meet the fleeting army, while hundreds upon hundreds of starving men dropped from the ranks as they neared the bypaths leading to their homes. ”

“ The Territorial Force must either be made efficient in all respects, or it will speedily cease to be a Force even in name.
I hope, gentlemen, you will understand that I am thinking and speaking of the Territorial Force as a Force that must be prepared to move and live, to march and fight as an army. I am not thinking of individual men, or companies, or batteries, or squadrons, but of a Force which, if it is ever called upon to take the field, will have to deal as a whole with highly-trained picked troops. ”

“ A new scheme of army organisation was brought into operation in 1869, by which the military forces of the whole empire are divided into the standing army with its reserve, the Landwehr, the Ersatz- reserve, and the Landsturm. The standing army is maintained for the defence of the empire against a foreign foe, and for the preserva tion of order and security at home. The Landwehr is intended to support the standing army in time of war and for home defence. ”

“ We advance in years somewhat in the manner of an invading army in a barren land; the age that we have reached, as the phrase goes, we but hold with an outpost, and still keep open our communications with the extreme rear and first beginnings of the march. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Our new armies were in hard training, our war manufactories were making equipment, but unfortunately not enough shells, and our Navy was carrying on its imperishable vigil upon the sea, and under the sea, without which our Empire would cease to exist and our Army would be cut off by twenty miles of water. ”

“ Their strength in forts, lunettes and rifle-pits—their constantly increasing numbers, and untiring activity, with their accurate knowledge of the topography of the country, increased the magnitude of the work before the Federal army. The natural obstacles to its progress were by no means few or trifling. The sinuous windings of the line of attack they were obliged to assume—the innumerable swamps and pools of water confronting them on every side, the almost impenetrable forests and tangled undergrowth added to their labors and their sufferings. ”

“ They were quite different to professional soldiers, who are kept and paid through years of peace for this particular purpose of war; who spend their lives practising their profession and gaining promotion and distinction; and who, [31] on being confronted with the enemy, fulfil the great ambition of their lives.
‘Equally distinct were the Territorials also from what has been called the New Army, whose Officers and men had ample time to prepare themselves for what they were required to do. ”

“ Moreover, the territorial army and its reserves are composed of men who are as a rule in good marching condition, for they are in the majority of cases engaged in normal times in agriculture or other industries, and physically equal to any tasks they may be called on to undertake. ”

“ Directly before the knoll upon which they were stationed, a wide road, dazzling white in the sunlight, swept in a superb full curve from left to right, and on its further side the ground was covered with close-cropped turf, and completely empty for a distance of two hundred metres. But beyond! Beyond, every hectare of the great semicircle was occupied by dense masses of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, regiment upon regiment, division upon division, corps upon corps, an innumerable multitude, motionless, as if carved out of many-colored marbles! ”

“ We have at the present hour, within the Continental United States, only about 30,000 men of the regular army, including mobile troops, cavalry, infantry, and field artillery; and we have about 16,000 men manning the coast defences, which is about one-half the necessary number. ”

“ During the winter, indeed, only the guard regiments, quartered in the large cities, are kept at anything like full complement, the whole army of the line dispersing to village and farm, country estate and smaller town, whence, in the first weeks in June, they come pouring into the half-dozen huge camps stationed at various points of the Empire. ”

“ Each British Regiment, except the Guards and Dragoons, are allowed to enlist ten men per Company of a certain stature, 5 ft. 6 inches, who are to be in every respect treated as British soldiers, to serve as long as the Army remains in the Peninsula, and then to have a month’s pay to take them to their homes. ”

“ Far behind the front line trenches the ramifications of the services extend; for though a brigade may be holding a frontage of a couple of thousand yards, its section runs back through miles of land crowded with reserves, with light and heavy artillery, with transport services, hospitals and depots, and all the paraphernalia of modern war. ”

“ The eight classes of the Landsturm are 165,000 men strong. It can, accordingly, be roughly calculated what field army can be raised in case of war. The entire First Ban certainly comes under this head. ”

“ The armies in the East and West acted independently and without concert, like a balky team, no two ever pulling together, enabling the enemy to use to great advantage his interior lines of communication for transporting troops from East to West, reinforcing the army most vigorously pressed, and to furlough large numbers, during seasons of inactivity on our part, to go to their homes and do the work of producing, for the support of their armies. ”

“ We began early to grapple with the fact that the South was without arms with which to meet a well armed, equipped and powerful foe. These disadvantages to be contended with by the new nation were very great, hence the organization of an army and its equipment as best might be was rushed with great vigor. Enlistment was rapid and troops now entering the camp were anxious to be drilled and instructed. ”

“ This principle is that of keeping a small number of troops under arms in peace-time, with a large reserve of [Pg 2] trained men ready to be called out in case of war. In our case, the small number under arms in peace-time is represented by the Active Army, both British, Indian, and Colonial, [2] and the large reserve by the 1st and 2nd Class Army Reserves, the Militia, the Militia Reserve, the Yeomanry, and the Volunteers. ”

“ Every young man of sound body, when he becomes of age, must serve two years in the army, eight years in the reserve, and ten years in the national militia, or second reserve. The active strength of the army in time of peace is 35,640 men, the first reserve 160,751, and the second reserve 126,110, making a total of 322,501 men capable of military service in time of war. ”

“ The army’s front is like the front of a dam, vast and impregnable; but behind, that front is bolstered and strengthened and buttressed by many little lines of communication and supply, just as a dam may be buttressed on the lower side. A division may shatter itself in vain against the army’s front; a hundred men may cut one of those little lines behind. ”

“ The thick, in some places, almost impassable woods and swamps, extending often for a considerable distance along the frontier line of the Lower Province, render it [Pg 296] difficult to make arrangements to oppose inroads from the States; for it is impossible to calculate upon the direction in which an enemy's force may make its appearance, and in order to watch all the roads or approaches, especially in winter, our troops must necessarily be too much scattered over the country ”

“ The men walked in four lines, with a space of forty yards between every two lines. On each flank was a band of veteran scouts and skirmishers. In front of the white army, but never out of sight, marched a strong detachment of skilled woodsmen and marksmen. ”

“ Leaving out of consideration the Coast Artillery force, whose position is fixed in our various seacoast defenses, and the present garrisons of our various insular possessions, we have to-day within the continental United States a mobile Army of only about 35,000 men. ”

“ He must also inform himself exactly of the state of the military forces both on land and sea, of the number and strength of fortified places, whether they are always kept in a high state of efficiency and well supplied with ammunition, of the condition of the sea-ports, of his vessels of war, and of his arsenals, of the number of troops which he can put into the field at once, both of cavalry and of infantry, without stripping his fortresses bare of their garrisons. ”

“ The reserves of an army are of two kinds,—those on the battle-field, and those which are intended to recruit and support the army: the latter, while organizing, may occupy important points of the theater of war, and serve even as strategic reserves; their positions will depend not only on their magnitude, but also on the nature of the frontiers and the distance from the base to the front of operations. ”

“ The rejuvenated Territorial Army is to be in all respects a true second line of imperial defence, self-contained and self-supporting, while the regular army and its special reserve of militia battalions form the first line. ”

“ Meanwhile, for historical purposes, it is essential to remember that, during this period of preparation, the Territorial Force was the Associations. It depended on them for recruits, premises, ranges, arms, equipment, clothing (even to ‘boots other than lace-up for wear by mounted men with overalls when walking out’) , everything that makes an Army ”

“ It could not but have been most useful to our officers to have been enabled to take fair measure of the system and capability of an American army, North or South; to have formed an estimate of their generals and of the value of their [129] several arms—cavalry, artillery, and infantry, each of which presented conspicuous examples of what to avoid, more especially the first, whilst the second had peculiar features worthy of study, and the third was a very wonderful illustration of the volunteer principle. ”

“ Every man is enrolled as soon as he is twenty, and must serve seven years, the first three in the regular army, and the other four in the reserve. At the end of this term he belongs to the Landwehr, or militia, for nine years, during which time he is liable to be put into the regular army in case of war. ”

“ We lead the life of the camp even in time of peace, keeping up the organization of an army, and having meals in common; and as our country, owing to its ruggedness, is ill- suited for heavy-armed cavalry or infantry, our soldiers are archers, equipped with bows and arrows. ”

“ The system of prairie warfare is so different from ours, that the campaign I have just related will not be easily understood by those acquainted only with European military tactics.
When a European army starts upon an expedition, it is always accompanied by waggons, carrying stores of provisions and ammunition of all kinds. There is a commissariat appointed for the purpose of feeding the troops. ”

“ The army—the wagons, horses, artillery, cattle—nay, the men themselves! How are they to pass?"
He pointed east, then west: "For six miles, flanking this swamp, run ridges of high hills northward. By these must the army march to Catharines-town, the pioneers opening a road for the artillery. This you shall make plain to Boyd presently, for he must march that way, marking plain the trail north on the eastern ridge of hills, then west. ”

“ Great camps in every direction for the shelter and training of recruits, all coming and going, all marching and countermarching, training and drilling everywhere, and as fast as the citizen is converted into a soldier, he is bound for the seat of war with all the equipments that war requires, tramping everywhere, tramp, tramp, along the land ”

“ 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. ”