The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-01-19
DECISIONS BY INFANTRY.
Why Ultimate Battlefield Success Rests
on Trained Rifleman.


Under the caption "Infantry Fire in |
the Present War; there appears in |
the November issue of The Infantry |
Journal, the official publication of the |
United States Infantry Association, the
translation of paper written by Gen
eral Cherfils of the French army.
The editors of The Infantry Journal
IN publishing the translation point
out that particular attention is in
vlted to the article for the reason that
it shows the Importance of the role of
infantry in the present war and the
reliance that must be placed on that
arm if victory is to be achieved
Between the school of precision,
which develops fire to kill and the
school of rapid fire, which carried to
an extreme, only results in the heresy
of fire to create fear, " says Gen
eral Cherfils, there is a common
sense school, that of fire to conquer,
its object to bring down the greatest
number of men possible in the mini.
mum of time.
Even after the Boer war we did not
comprehend the Importance of fire A
| peculiar attitude of mind caused US to
admit, up to the war of 1914, that the
| domain of fire was reserved to the ar
tillery. This theory, exaggerated, had
been developed by the abuse of the
Kriegspiel of German origin, from which
the man, the rifle, and the terrain are
all absent and in which the warlike
spirit atrophies.
= Now it is this spirit that develops
the individual value of the combatant;
it is this spirit which should make the
man reckon more on the aid which he
lchn O%l,s Al
he can receive from them. Our distorted
mental attitude tended toward making
the man the accessory of the cannon,
the infantryman intervening only by
numbers, the quantity and shock of
bayonets, without regard for the pro-
fessional qualities of the rifle shot. If
the infantryman acted by fire, it was
only to prolong the zone fire of the
cannon.
''The war of 1914 has cruelty proved
, to US that between the preparation of
the attack by the artillery and the ex-
ecution of this attack with the bayonet
period and a zone intervenes where
: the infantry should be supreme, if it
: knows how to deliver fire that kills
"A calm and cool rifle shot trusting
in his skill, who knows that his adver-
sary will never arrive at point where
ilC Gan dGLdCh MIN WITH Iue DaNOneT, the
: rifleman who can bring down ten men
with ten bullets, instead of killing only
e one with the bayonet, the man in whom
7 quality has been trained without toe
much regard for quantity, this man is
the king of the battlefield; he rules il
through his intelligent fire, his aimed
bullets. which the accurate rifle has
cured from being wild; he rules it by
Y the work which completes and contin
ues the preparation of the artillery anC
which will make easy the effort of tn,
! bayonet against an enemy already
three quarters annihilated.
To be sure in this siege warfare
the role of the artillery takes on con
/ siderable Importance, and only the large
: cannon can crush classmates buried sew
y eral metres under the earth. To it fall
2 almost the entire task of the prepar
alton against an enemy who is at thu
, same time too close and invisible AM
e who thus escapes both the 75-millemetr
: shell and the bullet of the rifle But 2
II soon as this zone of seige warfare i
e crossed and space is opened, the bulle
n Will recover its field of action, bevon
that covered by the 75-millimetre gu
the cannon of manoeuvre warfare
Modern victory requires the stimuli
taneous and complete conjugations o
three verbs: to will to be able. to knoy
IT To will is the ardent courage, the IRE
sistable determination without whic
the two other forces are without motiv
he power and without life. But this mag
" nificent verb is not sufficient, and tn
,e month Of August, 1914, proved it t
il us. To be able i. the power of organ
n cation of material and armament i
10 which Germany had for an instant til
t superiority which we have taken frol
er her. To know is the complete prepar;
as ton of the human factor through pr,
n fessional instruction. We lacked tn
er knowledge for a long time, not in r
spect to our commanders, who haX
shown themselves to be superior, bl
in respect to the executors, who hay
too long forgotten that an accurat
weapon should insure an accurate fir
in THE complete weapon of the i
fantryman is a rifle with a bayone
the characteristic emblem of the row
he arm of the service, the only one whiC
vo combines in the highest degree the tv
IS, eternal methods of action, fire. ar
he shock. But the bayonet is only added I
or the rifle as the shock follows fire, IL
er latter preparing for the former