The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1900-03-30

want to turn them out must either
shoot them down or 60 round them.
The bayonet has no change against the
bullet, and is useful or:ly when the bull
let cannot be used against it, either be-
cause the bayonet man has come to
striking distance before the bullet has
had chance, or because there are no
bullets left. The first consequence of
all this was to make it necessary in at
tacking position to let some of your
troops walk round it towards the flank
or rear, while the rest occupied the at
tention Of the defenders in their front.
The reply of the defence was to prolong
its line to the flank or otherwise take
precautions against being out-fanked
or turned, and the counter move Of the
attack was to put its rifiemen in cir
Gle all round the defence, and thus give
the defender the choice between pure
frontal attack and surrender. The
theory was explained hy Mo.t'le in
1865, the practical demonstration by
the same hand followed in 1870 at Sc
dan. Tlir lnttrvc.!in. tir>. vc.r5 had
brought with them another develop
ment. II the assaiant relied on the
bullet and could use it better than the
defender, frontal attack might still sue
ceed. Its chance would be improved
if the defender could have his nerves
uustcadied by previous shelling while
the attacking troops were protected
from any such disturbing influence.
Accordingly, the Prussian artillery
was taught that its one duty in life
was to explode its SHELLS where they
were wanted, that is among the ene-
my's gunners, until they should be sat
isfied, and then among the enemy's in
fantry. 1t became an accepted maxim
that an attack by rifemen could not
succeed unless two conditions were full
filled First, that the defenders artil-
lery should be slenced by that of the
assailant, and, secondly, that the show
ers of the bullets fired by the attack
ing infantry should be more destruc-
tive to the defending infantry than the
bullets of tue defenders to the infantry
Of the attack. In later years, officers
whose preoccupation was war came to
see more and more the necessity for
an alliance, not merely between the
bullet and its assailant, the shrapnel
shell, but between the rltleman and the
ground. The rifeman was taught to
lie down so that the ground should
protect him, to move 50 that it should
conceal him and to dig heaps and holes
tor his protection against the enemy's
bullets. 1t must be at least dozen
years ago that the spade was adopted
as an offensive weapon to enable the
advancing riheman to hold his own
against cOunter-attack.
These were some of the conditions of
modern war, long recognized in armies
in which the officers life is devoted to
the preparation of himself and his
troops for war. The recent campaign
seems te show that they were we'll I'M
derstood in the Boer army, but came
as a surprise to the British forces.
The British soldier has, indeed, during
the last twenty years, been taught to
shoot, and the army ought to have
learnt from its own experience in the
Soudan that the bravest and most ath-
letic troops cannot possibly, however
fleet and sound-windcd, carry the knife
or the spear within reach of a line OF
ritlemcn. But this lesson can hardly
be said to have been digcstcd. Last
summer spent day watching a sham
fight on Salisbury Plain, carried out
by British troops under British gener-
ais. On both sides the men were
armed with magazine rifles, but with
out bullets watched two lines of
troops standing up in clusters at least
as dense as the old two-deep line, facing
each other at three hundred yards dis
tance. and making terrific noise as
they fired blank cartri lges, each line
apparently aiming at the other line.
The generals and the umpires seemed
qntc satisfied. TO me that part of the
was quite clear that all concerned had
completely forgotten the existence of
the one thing that reigns supreme on
the modern battlefield, the bullet.
But to have forgotten, in your exercises
preparatory to war, the factor which
in war is essential, is to guarantee for
yourself a painful surprise when the
troops pass from the sham fight to the
battle field
Strategy is too often thought of rs a
very easy business. To British off
GERS, at any rate to the great majority,
the subject is known only from Ham
lcy's "Operations of War" or from
I
there is considerable public which is
familiar with the elementary principles
which these treatises explain. But the
great difficulty in strategy is the cor.
rect application Of principles, a matter
as hard as the principles themselves
are easy, and neither of the writer's just
named has so presented his subject as
TO rro ri ro N Of ion on n, nd