_“When you intend to engage in battle endeavor that your
CHIEF advantage shall arise from the ground occupied by your
army.”--Vegetius._
To cross the Granicus, Alexander the Great selected a fordable spot
where the river made a long, narrow bend, and attacked the salient and
both sides simultaneously. The Persians thus outflanked were easily and
quickly routed; whereupon the Grecian army in line of Phalanxes, both
flanks covered by the river and its retreat assured by the fords in rear,
advanced to battle in harmony with all requirements of Strategetic Art.
* * * * *
At Issus, Alexander the Great so manoeuvred that the Persian army of more
than a million men was confined in a long valley not over three miles in
width, having the sea on the left hand and the Amanus Mountains on the
right, thus the Grecians had a battlefield fitted to the size of their
army, and fought in Phalanxes in line, both wings covered by impassable
natural barriers and retreat assured, by open ground in rear.
* * * * *
At the Trebia, Hannibal by stratagems now undiscernible, induced the
consul Sempronius to pass the river and following along the easterly bank
to take position with his army upon the lowlands between an unfordable
part of the stream and the Carthagenians.
Upon this, Hannibal detached his youngest brother Margo to cut off the
retreat of the Romans from the ford by which they had crossed the Trebia;
advanced his infantry by Phalanxes in line and overthrowing the few
Roman horse, assailed the hostile left wing with 10,000 heavy cavalry.
The destruction of the Roman army was completed by the simultaneous
attack of their right wing by Margo and the impossibility of repassing
the river in their rear.
* * * * *
By one of the most notable marches in surprise recorded in military
annals, Hannibal crossed the seemingly impassible marshes of the river
Po, and turned the left flank of the Roman army, commanded by the Consul
C. Flaminius. Then the great Carthagenian advanced swiftly toward the
city of Rome, devasting the country on either hand.
In headlong pursuit the Consul entered a long narrow valley, having Lake
Trasymenus on the one hand and the mountains on the other.
Suddenly while entombed in this vast ravine, the Roman army was attacked
by infantry from the high ground along its right flank; and in front and
rear by the Carthagenian heavy cavalry, while the lake extending along
its left flank made futile all attempts to escape.
* * * * *
At Cannae, Hannibal reproduced the evolutions of Alexander the Great
at the passage of the Granicus. Selecting a long bend in the Aufidus,
Hannibal forded the river and took position by Phalanxes in line, his
flanks covered by unfordable parts of the stream and his retreat assured
by the fords by which he had crossed, while as at Issus, the ground on
his front though fitting his own army, was so confined as to prevent the
Romans engaging a force greater than his own. Beyond Hannibal’s front,
the hostile army was posted in a wide level plain, suited to the best
use of the vastly superior Carthagenian heavy cavalry, both for the
evolutions of the battle and the subsequent pursuit and massacre of the
Romans.
* * * * *
At the River Arar (58 B.C.) Caesar achieved his first victory. Following
leisurely but closely the marauding Helvetii, he permitted three-fourths
of their army to cross to the westerly side of the river; then he fell
upon the remainder with his whole army.
* * * * *
An eye-witness thus describes the famous passage of the Lech by Gustavus
Adolphus:
“Resolved to view the situation of the enemy, his majesty went
out the 2nd of April (1632) with a strong body of horse, which
I had the honor to command. We marched as near as we could to
the bank of the river, not to be too much exposed to the enemy’s
cannon; and having gained a height where the whole course of
the river might be seen, we drew up and the king alighted and
examined every reach and turning of the river with his glass.
Toward the north, he found the river fetching a long reach and
doubling short upon itself. ‘There is the point will do our
business,’ says the king, ‘and if the ground be good, we will
pass there, though Tilly do his worst’.”
He immediately ordered a small party of horse to bring him word how high
the bank was on each side and at the point, “and he shall have fifty
dollars” says the king, “who will tell me how deep the water is.”
… The depth and breadths of the stream having been ascertained, and the
bank on our side being ten to twelve feet higher than the other and
of a hard gravel, the king resolved to cross there; and himself gave
directions for such a bridge as I believe never army passed before nor
since.
The bridge was loose plank placed upon large tressels as bricklayers
raise a scaffold to build a wall. The tressels were made some higher and
some lower to answer to the river as it grew deeper or shallower; and all
was framed and fitted before any attempt was made to cross.
At night, April 4th the king posted about 2,000 men near the point and
ordered them to throw up trenches on either side and quite around it;
within which at each end the king placed a battery of six pieces and six
cannon at the point, two guns in front and two at each side. By daylight,
all the batteries were finished, the trenches filled with musketeers and
all the bridge equipment at hand in readiness for use. To conceal this
work the king had fired all night at other places along the river.
At daylight, the Imperialists discovered the king’s design, when it
was too late to prevent it. The musketeers and the batteries made such
continual fire that the other bank twelve feet below was too hot for the
Imperialists; whereupon old Tilly to be ready for the king on his coming
over on his bridge, fell to work and raised a twenty-gun battery right
against the point and a breast-work as near the river as he could to
cover his men; thinking that when the King should build his bridge, he
might easily beat it down with his cannon.
But the King had doubly prevented him; first by laying his bridge so low
that none of Tilly’s shot could hurt it, for the bridge lay not above
half a foot above the water’s edge; and the angle of the river secured it
against the batteries on the other side, while the continual fire beat
the Imperialists from those places where they had no works to cover them.
Now, in the second place, the King sent over four hundred men who cast
up a large ravelin on the other bank just where he planned to land; and
while this was doing the King laid over his bridge.
Both sides wrought hard all the day and all the night as if the spade,
not the sword, was to decide the controversy; meanwhile the musketry
and cannon-balls flew like hail and both sides had enough to do to make
the men stand to their work. The carnage was great; many officers were
killed. Both the King and Tilly animated the troops by their presence.
About one o’clock about the time when the King had his bridge finished
and in heading a charge of 3000 foot against our ravelin was brave old
Tilly slain by a musket bullet in the thigh.
We knew nothing of this disaster befallen them, and the King, who looked
for blows, the bridge and ravelin being finished, ordered to run a line
of palisades to take in more ground and to cover the first troops he
should send over. This work being finished the same night, the King sent
over his Guards and six hundred Scots to man the new line.
Early in the morning a party of Scots under Capt. Forbes of Lord Rae’s
regiment was sent abroad to learn something of the enemy and Sir John
Hepburn with the Scots Brigade was ordered to pass the bridge, draw up
outside the ravelin, and to advance in search of the enemy as soon as the
horse were come over.
The King was by this time at the head of his army in full battle array,
ready to follow his van-guard and expecting a hot day’s work of it. Sir
John sent messenger after messenger entreating for permission to advance,
but the King would not suffer it; for he was ever on his guard and would
not risk a surprise. So the army continued on this side of the Lech all
day and the next night.
In the morning the King ordered 300 horse, 600 horse and 800 dragoons
to enter the wood by three ways, but sustaining each other; the Scots
Brigade to follow to the edge of the wood in support of all, and a
brigade of Swedish infantry to cover Sir John’s troops. So warily did
this famous warrior proceed.
The next day the cavalry came up with us led by Gustavus Horn; and the
King and the whole army followed, and we marched on through the heart of
Bavaria. His Majesty when he saw the judgment with which old Tilly had
prepared his works and the dangers we had run, would often say, “That
day’s work is every way equal to the victory of Leipsic.”
* * * * *
With but 55,000 troops in hand and surrounded by the united Austrian
and Russian armies aggregating a quarter of a million men; Frederic the
Great availing of a swamp, a few hills, a rivulet and a fortified town,
constructed a battlefield upon which his opponents dared not engage him.
This famous camp of Bunzlewitz is one of the wonders of the military
art. It also is an illustration of the inability of the Anglo-Saxon to
reason; for to this day many who wear epaulets, accepting the dictum of
a skillfully hoodwinked French diplomat at the siege of Neisse, (Dec.,
1740) commonly assert that “the great Frederic was a bad engineer.”
* * * * *
Washington compelled the British to evacuate Boston, merely by occupying
with artillery Dorchester Heights, the tactical key of the theatre of
action and thus preventing either ingress or egress from the harbor.
* * * * *
At Trenton the Hessian column was unable to escape from Washington’s
accurate evolutions, on account of being imprisoned in an angle formed by
the unfordable Delaware river.
* * * * *
At Yorktown, the British army under Lord Cornwallis was captured entire,
being cut off from all retreat by the ocean on the right flank and the
James river in rear.
* * * * *
Bonaparte made his reputation at Toulon (1793) merely by following the
method employed by Washington in the siege of Boston.
* * * * *
Bonaparte gained his first success in Italy because the allied
Piedmontese and Austrian armies, although thrice his numbers, were
separated by the Apennine mountains.
* * * * *
Bonaparte’s success at Castiglione was due to the separation of the
Austrian army into two great isolated columns by the Lake of Garda.
* * * * *
At Arcola, Bonaparte occupied a great swamp upon the hostile strategic
center and the Austrian army was destroyed by its efforts to dislodge him.
* * * * *
At Rivoli, the Austrian army purposed to unite its five detached wings
upon a plateau of which Bonaparte was already in possession. All were
ruined in the effort to dislodge the French from this Tactical Center.
* * * * *
The Austrian army was unable to escape after Marengo on account of the Po
river in its rear.
* * * * *
At Austerlitz the left wing of the Austro-Russian army was caught between
the French army and a chain of lakes and rivulets and totally destroyed.
* * * * *
At Friedland the Russian army was caught between the French in front and
the Vistula river in rear and totally destroyed.
* * * * *
At Krasnoe, the Russians under Kutosof, occupied the strategic center
and were covered by the Dnieper. To force the passage of the river cost
Napoleon 30,000 men.
* * * * *
At the Beresina, the Russians under Benningsen, occupied the Strategic
Center and were covered by the unfordable river. To force the passage
cost Napoleon 20,000 men.
* * * * *
At Leipsic, Napoleon was caught between the allied army and the Elbe. The
retreat across the river cost the French 50,000 men.
* * * * *
At Waterloo, the high plateau sloping gradually to a plain, various
hamlets on front and flank and the forest in rear, made a perfect
topography for a defensive battle.
* * * * *
At Sedan, the Emperor, Napoleon III, and his army were enclosed between
the Prussian army and the frontier of Belgium and captured.
* * * * *
_“Where the real general incessantly sees prepared by Nature means
admirably adapted for his needs, the commander lacking such talents sees
nothing.”--Hannibal._