Military engineer

“ Not only are the duties of the military engineer similar in many respects to those of the civil engineer, but there are many instances in which the duties of one branch of the profession have been performed by members of the other branch, quite as efficiently as though they had been performed by engineers specially educated for the purpose. During the late civil war there were many illustrations of this, all showing that an ingenious engineer can readily adapt himself to circumstances entirely different from those to which he has been accustomed. ”

“ The number of engineer troops will depend both on the nature of the country and on the probable amount of work which will be required from this class of troops. Each division should contain at least one company of engineer troops. It is usual, if there be none, to detail one or more companies of infantry to act as engineer soldiers; they are designated as “pioneers.” These engineer troops, or troops acting in that capacity, marching in the advance, make the roads practicable for the command by repairing them, removing obstructions, etc. ”

“ And here our trouble begins, for, while civil engineers have constant experience to guide them, their roads, bridges, and other structures being in constant use, the military engineer has only now and then, at long intervals, a war or a siege of sufficient extent to furnish data upon which he can safely plan or build his structures. ”

“ ENGINEERS, MILITARY. From the earliest times engineers have been employed both in the field of war and on field defences. In modern times, however, the application of numerous scientific and engineering devices to warfare has resulted in the creation of many minor branches of military engineering, some of them almost rivalling in importance their primary duty of fortification and siegecraft, such as the field telegraph, the balloon service, nearly all demolitions, the building of pontoon and other bridges, and the construction and working of military roads, railways, piers, &c. ”

“ At four-and-twenty he had been acclaimed by his superiors as the greatest artillery engineer of his time. His genius had won him a footing that men more than twice his age, and far above him in military rank, might have envied. ”

“ But so difficult was it to obtain properly instructed engineers, that he was obliged to seek his engineer officers in the ranks of foreign adventurers, and to make drafts from the other arms of service, and have them regularly instructed in the duties of engineer troops, and commanded by the officers of this corps. An order, in his own handwriting, giving the details of this temporary arrangement, is dated March 30th, 1779. Until men are enlisted for the purpose, companies of sappers and miners shall be formed by drafts from the line. ”

“ This further difficulty lies in the system under which the military caste is organized. The military system which prevails in all matters administered through the Army, strangles all individual initiative and opinion. It automatically subordinates every engineer in the military service to the mental and personal domination of the chief of the Army engineers, whoever he may be. All original and creative engineering genius is muzzled or chloroformed as soon as it is born. ”

“ In situations requiring special knowledge almost always there could be found some specialist capable of adapting himself and his work to the military needs. Engineer officers for the combatant regiments were younger members of the technical professions, who were sent to the training camps provided for the purpose and there given the essentials of strictly military knowledge. This training was later supplemented by courses in Engineer and line schools located in France. ”

“ Every branch of Engineering has the same story to tell. You all know what a vital force was scientific engineering in the great war. The Germans had the first advantage, largely because for a generation they had devoted the energies of a large proportion of their scientific men to the devices of military engineering. ”

“ The instruction in General Engineering in the first cœtus was intended to teach the Artillerist and Engineer so much of the art of fortification, of sieges, and of field-works as is requisite for officers of every arm, and is necessary for the students to pass their Officer’s examination. ”

“ Yet thus far their services are ignored and unrecognized, while distinctions have been bestowed upon those who have had the good fortune to command troops. Under such circumstances it can hardly be expected that the few engineer officers yet remaining will willingly continue their services in this unrequited branch of the military profession. We have no sufficient officers of engineers at this time with any of our armies to commence another siege, nor can they be obtained. ”

“ Lines of intrenchments may be made either continuous or with intervals. In adopting either plan, the engineer should avail himself of all the natural obstacles presented by the position, so as to diminish the labor of erecting artificial means of defence. ”

“ In 1799, the staff of the engineer corps consisted of four hundred and forty-nine officers, without including the general officers, commanding departments, or those connected with the engineer troops. The same organization was continued in 1804. The engineer staff of the French army now numbers four hundred and thirty-two officers. We have in our service forty-three engineer officers, for staff duty, who are now engaged in the construction and repairs of some sixty or seventy fortifications, and other works of a civil and military character. ”

“ The training officers of the regiments were supplied from the Corps of Engineers, these men having both the military and technical knowledge fitting them for the command. The diversity of education and experience necessary in all branches of the Engineer service may be understood by a consideration of the duties of the different units sent to France during the war—specialist units, in addition to the strictly combatant divisional regiments, who also numbered among their commissioned and enlisted personnel many technical specialists of high attainment. ”

“ III. Engineer artificers are a class of men employed in the practical operations of constructing forts and other military defences, and in making and repairing all the implements used by the engineer troops in the operations of sapping and mining, in crossing rivers, in constructing field-defences, and in the attack and defence of field-works. ”

“ It would of course be true that some men would build industriously upon the foundation laid at the academy, and perfect themselves in those things of which they had only acquired the elements; but the surroundings of frontier life at a post were so unfavorable that I believe few in fact did so. The officers of the engineer corps and the ordnance were specifically devoted to scientific careers, and could go steadily forward to expertness in their specialties. ”

“ Chief Engineer. And for the greatness of our State. We shall wage war for the interest of civilization and our military honour. Soldiers, I am with you to the last drop of my blood.
2nd Engineer. Long live our beloved Commander-in-Chief!
Soldiers. Long live our Commander-in-Chief!
Chief Engineer. I know my soldiers. They will fight until the final victory. Long live our gallant men. Hurrah!
Soldiers. Hurrah! Hurrah!
Chief Engineer. (To 2nd Engineer) The First and Second Divisions will attack frontally. The Fourth will envelope the Pine Wood, and break into the Ant Heap of the Yellows. ”

“ The course in military engineering and the art of war begins on January 2nd and closes on the 3rd of June. Military engineering embraces the study of field and permanent fortifications and siege works. The art of war embraces the study of the organization of armies, employment of the different arms in combination, logistics and strategy. ”

“ What is virtually a permanent detail of the corps of engineers to civilian duty necessarily impairs the efficiency of our military establishment. The military engineers have undoubtedly done efficient work in actual construction, but they are necessarily unsuited by their training and traditions to take the broad view, and to gather and transmit to the Congress the commercial and industrial information and forecasts, upon which waterway improvement must always so largely rest. ”

“ The engineer corps being partially disbanded in the early part of the French Revolution, great difficulty was experienced in reorganizing it and in finding competent men to supply the places of those who had been driven into exile or sacrificed during the reign of terror. Energy and activity, combined with republican zeal, could supply the place of skill in the other arms, but the science of the engineer could not be acquired in a day. ”

“ The First Class make position and road sketches, they lay out field fortifications, and dig trenches. They learn the use of explosives, the placing of mines, and the dynamiting of trees, buildings, and railroads. During the Academic year the Department of Practical Military Engineering gives the Fourth Class a thorough course in surveying that embraces both theory and practical work with the instruments in the field. ”

“ I state this not in detraction of the engineers, who always did well, but in justice to the infantry, who so often supplemented the many and trying duties of their own department with the accomplishments of the engineer corps. The quartermaster of the army had a large number of wagons loaded with intrenching tools with which to supply the troops when their services were required as engineers. ”

“ In fact, the war has very properly been described as an engineer’s war, and such, indeed, it is, as the engineer is wholly responsible for the tremendous development in every warlike instrument which has taken place since 1870. He is responsible, too, not merely for the development, but for the invention of wholly new methods of offence and defence. ”

“ The mechanical arrangements are now so admirably adapted for facility of working that, unless in the rude shocks of actual warfare the nicely adjusted machinery is found to be liable to be thrown out of gear, these applications of the engineer’s skill may be considered as having done all that was required to bring our modern weapons to perfection. ”

“ So an engineer is rather disabled from embracing a whole battle-field, with its endless casualties and space. Engineers are the incarnation of a defensive warfare; all others, as artillerists, infantry, and cavalry, are for dashing into the unknown—into the space; and thus these specialities virtually represent the offensive warfare.
When will they begin to see through McClellan, and find out that he is not the man? ”

“ One hears of the magnificent defence maintained by the infantry; one hears of the brilliant exploits of the cavalry on the flank of the enemy; one hears also of the skill of the commander who moved the troops with such suddenness and disconcerted his enemy; but the work of the Engineers, who made these things possible, generally goes unrecognised outside military circles, and the Engineers themselves have to reap their satisfaction out of the knowledge of work well done. ”

“ Besides, above the grade of engineer-in-chief, there is no absorbent class; for we cannot count as a means of absorption the ten or fifteen places of inspector-generals or divisionaries,—posts that are almost as useless in our corps as colonels are in the artillery, where the battery is the essential thing. The engineer-in-ordinary, like the captain of artillery, knows the whole science. He ought not to have any one over him except an administrative head to whom no more than eighty-six engineers should report,—for one engineer, with two assistants is enough for a department. ”

“ I have before mentioned that we had not an effective corps of engineers—I mean in point of numbers. To remedy this defect a proportion of the most intelligent officers and soldiers of the infantry were selected during the autumn months and placed under the direction of Colonel Fletcher, the Chief Engineer. They were soon taught how to make fascines and gabions, and what was of equal consequence—how to use them. They likewise learned the manner of working by sap, and by this means that branch of our army, which was before the weakest, had now become very efficient. ”

“ The training of engineer troops among the Allies for use in trench warfare was extremely limited; their work was confined generally to the operations of open warfare.
Trench warfare changed the whole course of events and rendered necessary wide and sweeping changes in organization, training, and equipment. It has been often stated that this is a war of engineers, and it is certainly true. Engineers and engineering problems are found in every branch of the service. ”

“ The Engineer Corps of the army into which the higher graduates of the Academy are placed has given us fewer successful soldiers than the Infantry, which is considered the lowest arm of the service. All of the engineers have, as generals, been visibly affected in their administration, strategy, and tactics by their education, and have preferred to depend more upon mud walls than living phalanges, and their strategic marches have been more correct in mathematical calculations than successful in execution. ”

“ A martinet at the head of the Army Engineering corps can stifle and render useless to the country the most brilliant engineering genius if it blossoms forth with any new theory or original suggestion. The Army engineer corps is bound hand and foot by prejudice and pride of caste. The engineering corps is a unit, arbitrarily dominated, intellectually and professionally, by the chief of the corps. Nothing original can develop under such an atmosphere of mental repression. ”

“ The War Department is especially ungenerous in its designation of the civilians who are engaged upon its engineering work. Perhaps in order to keep this numerous class in the background, as far from the public appreciation as possible, and thus to increase the prominence of the engineer officers, it is ordained that, with one or two exceptions, no civilian shall be known other than as an assistant in some shape or other. ”