Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/785

ARMY 749 ment. Tents followed the army constantly, and were pitched every night; the camp was slightly intrenched. The troops were fed from magazines, the baking establishments accom- panying the army as much as possible. In short, the baggage and other train of the army were enormous, and hampered its movements to a degree unknown nowadays. Yet, with all these drawbacks, the military organization of Frederick the Great was by far the best of its day, and was eagerly adopted by all other European governments. The recruiting of the forces was almost everywhere carried on by voluntary enlistments, assisted by kidnapping ; and it was only after very severe losses that Frederick had recourse to forced levies from his provinces. When the war of the coalition against the French republic began, the French army was disorganized by the loss of its of- ficers, and numbered less than 150,000 men. The numbers of the enemy were far superior ; new levies became necessary, and were made to an immense extent, in the shape, of na- tional volunteers, of which in 1793 there must have been at least 500 battalions hi existence. These troops were not drilled, nor was there time to drill them according to the compli- cated system of line tactics, and to the de- gree of perfection required by movements in line. Every attempt to meet the enemy in line was followed by a signal defeat, though the French had far superior numbers. A new system of tactics became necessary. The American revolution had shown the advantage to be gained with undisciplined troops from ex- tended order and skirmishing fire. The French adopted it, and supported the skirmishers by deep columns, in which a little disorder was less objectionable so long as the mass remained well together. In this formation they launched their superior numbers against the enemy, and were generally successful. This new forma- tion and the want of experience of their troops led them to fight in broken ground, in villages and woods, where they found shelter from the enemy's fire, and where his line was invari- ably disordered ; their want of tents, field bat- teries, &c., compelled them to bivouac without shelter, and to live upon what the country afforded them. Thus they gained a mobility unknown to their enemies, who were en- cumbered with tents and all sorts of baggage. When the revolutionary war had produced in Napoleon the man who reduced this new mode of warfare to a regular system, com- bined it with what was still useful in the old system, and brought the new method at once to that degree of perfection which Frederick had given to line tactics, then the French were almost invincible, until their opponents had learned from them, and organized their ar- mies upon the new model. The principal fea- tures of this new system are : the restoration of the old principle that every citizen is liable in case of need to be called out for the defence of the country, and the consequent formation of the army, by compulsory levies of greater or less extent, from the whole of the inhabitants; a change by which the numerical force of armies was at once raised to threefold the average of Frederick's time, and might in case of need be increased to larger proportions still. Then, the discarding of camp utensils, and of depen- dence for provisions upon magazines, and the introduction of the bivouac and of the rule that war feeds war, increased the celerity and independence of an army as much as its numer- ical force was raised by the rule of general liability to serve. In tactical organization, the principle of mixing infantry, cavalry, and artillery in the smaller portions of an army, in corps and divisions, became the rule. Every division thus became a complete army on a re- duced scale, fit to act independently, and capa- ble of considerable resistance even against superior numbers. The order of battle was now based upon the column ; it served as the reservoir, from which sallied and to which returned the swarms of skirmishers ; as the wedge-like compact mass to be launched against a particular point of the enemy's line ; as the form to approach the enemy and then to deploy, if the ground and the state of the engagement made it desirable to oppose firing lines to the enemy. The mutual support of the three arms, developed to its full extent by their combination in small bodies, and the combina- tion of the three forms of fighting, skirmishers, line, and column, compose the great tactical superiority of modern armies. Any kind of ground thereby became fit for fighting; and the ability of rapidly judging the advantages and disadvantages of ground, and of at once disposing troops accordingly, became one of the chief requirements of a captain. And not only in the commander-in-chief, but in the subordi- nate officers, these qualities, and general apt- ness for independent command, were now a necessity. Corps, divisions, brigades, and de- tachments were constantly placed in situations where their commanders had to act on their own responsibility; the battlefield no longer presented its long unbroken lines of infantry disposed in a vast plain with cavalry on the wings; but the single corps and divisions, massed in columns, stood hidden behind vil- lages, roads, or hills, separated from each other by seemingly large intervals, while but a small portion of the troops appeared actually engaged in skirmishing and firing artillery until the decisive moment approached. Lines of battle extended with the numbers and with this formation ; it was not necessary actually to fill up every interval with a line visible to the enemy, so long as troops were at hand to come up when required. Turning of flanks now became generally a strategical operation, the stronger army placing itself completely be- tween the weaker one and its communications, so that a single defeat could annihilate an army and decide a campaign. The favorite tactical manoeuvre was the breaking through the ene-