Military column

“ The order in which a battalion should at all times move; that the columns of an army should perform their marches; that an enemy should be approached; and that safety can be ensured to the troops in their transitions from one point to another is in columns of divisions, and never on a less front than 6 files where the formation is 3 deep, or 4 files where it is 2 deep, nor does any advantage arise from such column, if it is an open column, exceeding 16 or 24 files in front, where a considerable space is to be gone over. ”

“ The massed columns of infantry were in heavy marching order, with great-coats rolled, canteens and havresacks slung crosswise, with colours, in some instances cased, and locks hammerstalled; the cavalry were in the great plaza, in close column of troops, every man riding with a net of forage (chopped straw or whins) behind him ”

“ If resistance be encountered in force, the skirmishers retreat behind their massed supports. The line is a double or treble line of men, firing or charging. For musketry purposes, it is the most formidable formation, and is the favorite English tactic in every case where the officers can depend on the steadiness of their men. For bursting through a line, the deep column is the most effective. It is the favorite French formation, and during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the British and Russians alone succeeded in resisting it. The column is the best formation on a march ”

“ The most important exercise that troops can attend to is the march in column of route. No calculation can be made on columns which do not move with an ascertained regularity, and great fatigue arises to the soldier. A general cannot depend on execution, and therefore can make no combination of time or distance in the arrival of columns at their several points. In many situations an improperly extended column will be liable to be beat in detail, and before it can be formed. ”

“ That the very thin as well as the very deep formation is objectionable under ordinary circumstances, and can seldom be employed with safety.
2d. That the attack by battalions in columns by division is the best for carrying a position; the column should, however, be diminished in depth as much as possible, in order both to increase its own fire and to diminish its exposure to the fire of the enemy; moreover, it should be well covered by tirailleurs and supported by cavalry. ”

“ If the column is halted, the whole must be put in march at the same time. The movement of the head division must be steady and equal; the descending of heights must not be hurried, that the part of the column ascending may properly keep up. Alterations occasioned by the windings of the route are executed without losing distance. Soldiers are not to break to avoid mud or small spots of water. The guides and pivots must trace out such a path for themselves as will best avoid small obstructions, and the men of the division will open from, and not press upon their pivots. ”

“ It is a difficult question to answer—how is a column to protect itself in these days of long range rifle fire unless it has mounted men?
I saw a column on the march once which consisted of an infantry battalion with its full complement of transport and with a couple of guns, with their wagons, and the way the flank guards were put out was a study in how not to do it. Imagine an enormous rectangle, stretching along the road and extending about 200 yards on each side of it, the ends and sides of this rectangle being composed of men moving in single file and about three or four paces apart. ”

“ There is such a thing as a “flying column,” or a colonne en air, as the French call it, which is a body of troops equipped, not for speed, as is generally supposed, but with supplies and the munitions of war, to enable it to operate without a base and in all directions. A flying column is seldom used in regular warfare among civilised nations, but to a great extent by us in India, and by the French in Algeria. An army can act contrary to these rules when it has on either flank an arm of the sea, or a river, or a chain of mountains, or any other obstacle to prevent the operations of an enemy. ”

“ The first thing that would strike the modern observer of such a column would be the large proportion of mounted men.
Even the Plantagenets, who first, by an accident about to be described, discovered, and who by their genius for command developed, a revolution in missile weapons, marched at the head of columns which were, not only for their spirit and their tradition and command, but for all their important fighting units, mounted. ”

“ Our men rushed on with a cheer, threw in a heavy volley, and charged. Their weight was irresistible, and the French column broke, and took refuge again in the wood. Another glance showed me the whole British force in motion, every where pressing on; the enemy every where retreating, all their columns converging upon their camp. Those are the brilliant moments of a soldier’s life. ”

“ Mobility being its raison d’être, a flying column is when possible composed of picked men and horses accompanied with the barest minimum of baggage. The term is usually, though not necessarily, applied to forces under the strength of a brigade. The “mobile columns” employed by the British in the South African War of 1899-1902, were usually of the strength of two battalions of infantry, a battery of artillery, and a squadron of cavalry—almost exactly half that of a mixed brigade. Flying columns are mostly used in savage or guerrilla warfare. ”

“ So also on the march, the head of a column moves on steadily, while the rear is alternately halting and then rushing forward to close up the gap; and all sorts of rumors, especially the worst, float back to the rear. Old troops invariably deem it a special privilege to be in the front --to be at the "head of column"--because experience has taught them that it is the easiest and most comfortable place, and danger only adds zest and stimulus to this fact. ”

“ The column wavered for a moment, but soon formed again; when a forward movement was made with such spirit and intrepidity as to render the feeble efforts of a handful of men, without the means of defence, unavailing; and they fled through an open space, in the rear of the redoubt, which had been left for a gateway. At this moment, the rear of the British column advanced round the angle of the redoubt, and threw in a galling flank-fire upon our troops, as they rushed from it, which killed and wounded a greater number than had fallen before during the action. ”

“ The day was likewise far spent, and, as was to be expected, the ranks were beginning to be less carefully preserved, when a smart firing in the wood upon the right of the road gave new life and energy to the soldiers. It was now confidently expected that the enemy would make a stand. The column closed its order, ready to wheel into line in a moment, and everything was on the qui vive: but it proved to be no more than a rencounter between a party of American riflemen and the flank patrol. ”

“ The tail of the column, like the head, is strengthened by a considerable force of infantry, followed at an interval of a mile or so by the mounted rearguard, which has scattered its scouts far and wide across the track of the column, and withdraws them from point to point as we advance. ”

“ We do not find any thing like such marked streakings on columns even in this rainy English climate of ours; much less would they have been at all visible in such a climate as that of Greece. Others have supposed that these channels were at first intended to hold spears! that is, to prevent them from slipping and falling down when set up against a column; than which idea it is hardly possible for the utmost stretch of ingenuity to go farther in absurdity. ”

“ We remember how similar changes have taken place in our European armies, when the heavy columns that used to be so resistless were shattered by the fire of single ranks, and how the very massiveness of the column rendered it a better mark for the enemy’s fire, and caused almost every shot to take effect. ”

“ But such a column, when properly sheathed by the skirmishing line till the last moment, generally came with a very effective rush against the allied line opposed to it, which would have been already engaged with the tirailleurs for some time, and had probably been much depleted by their fire. It is equally clear that, without its protective sheath of skirmishers, such a heavy column would have been a very clumsy instrument of war, since it combined the minimum of shooting power with the maximum of vulnerability. ”

“ The children sat at this window, amusing themselves with what they could see in the square. The name of the square was the Place Vendome. There was a very large and lofty column in the centre of it. [Pg 82] This column is very greatly celebrated for its magnitude and its beauty. It is twelve feet in diameter, and nearly a hundred and forty feet high. But what is most remarkable is, that the whole exterior of it, enormous as the mass is, is formed of brass. The brass was obtained by melting up the cannons which Napoleon took from his enemies. ”

“ It was only a little way, indeed, into the zone of death from the rear of that compact column.
Thousands of such compact bodies on as many roads, each seemingly a force by itself and each a part of the whole, which could be a dependable whole only when every part was ready, alert, and up where it belonged! Nothing can be left to chance in a battle-line three hundred miles long. ”

“ There is none however from the material point of view: the real or supposed advantage of the column is moral only. When a mass of men formed in a deep column advances to attack a line, the front ranks of the column have the (imaginary) support of the ranks behind them. ”

“ Our divisional column, with its trim, sturdy, infantry battalions, its jingling cavalry and artillery, its real live staff, and its imposing transport train, sets us thinking, by sheer force of contrast, of that dim and distant time seven months ago, when we wrestled perspiringly all through long and hot September days, on a dusty barrack square, with squad upon squad of dazed and refractory barbarians, who only ceased shuffling their feet in order to expectorate. ”

“ The edifice forms three sides of a quadrangle; it is built of brick, with an elegant stone balustrade in the centre of the western front, which is ornamented with a noble portico of the Doric order, consisting of four columns, which support a large and well-proportioned pediment. On the frieze is the following inscription:—“The Royal Military Asylum for the Children of Soldiers of the Regular Army.” Over it are the Imperial arms. The north and south wings are joined to the principal front by a colonade, which forms a good shelter for the boys in wet weather. ”

“ Riding along in the Fifth Cavalry column—every man wrapped in his own thoughts, and wishing himself wrapped in something warmer, all too cold and wet and dispirited to talk—we were aroused by exclamations of surprise and wonder among the troopers ahead. ”

“ They sounded no louder, and they connoted no more to the column now in the immediate vicinage of the battle, than they had to its far-distant ears. But presently the column halted behind a circle of hills, and beheld white smoke pouring heavenward as if a fissure had opened in the earth and was giving forth steam. And they beheld in the heavens themselves tiny, fleecy white clouds and motionless rings, and they knew that shells were bursting and men falling upon the slopes beyond the hills. ”

“ The tapering rectangular column of the new art mode with the flat trencher at the top might come in quite usefully as a substitute for the Venetian masts in places, and the flat top could be used for plants in pots, vases, gilt globes with victories on them, or other emblems, or heraldic beasts, or electric lamps. A continuous light arcade of such columns, connected by a light entablature bearing suitable inscriptions, with hanging garlands, or bay trees in tubs between, would be a pretty scheme for a straight, and not very wide street. ”

“ Our column was as completely dispersed as if it had received a total defeat; some of the men flying for shelter behind walls and buildings, and others falling flat upon the ground, to prevent themselves from being carried away by the tempest; nay, such was the violence of the wind, that two pieces of light cannon, which stood upon the eminence, were fairly lifted from the ground, and borne several yards to the rear. ”

“ Upward of 1,200 of the assaulting columns fell in the 415space of fifty minutes; of these 821 were of the French forces and the rest of the American. The utmost bravery was shown, both in the attack and in the defense, but the storming column, led by Count d’Estaing and Dillon, could not withstand the terrific fire of the batteries and were forced to abandon the assault. ”

“ The imagination of the line is meant to be impressed by the spectacle of the heavy mass about to impinge on it. Both notions are really baseless: the line has no assailants except the front ranks of the column, who not only are not helped by those behind, but become the targets for the concentrated fire of the line. But imagination is a very real force in war, as in other human affairs: the generals who have formed heavy columns for attack, need not be supposed to have made a gross blunder: they may have adopted the method best suited to the qualities and traditions of their men. ”