minute’s delay given for short distances, and two minutes for long ones,
and the shot is fired.
The marker instantly steps out of his ball-proof box, with a light pole,
having at its extremity a bright scarlet circle, which he lays upon the
shot-hole in the wooden target—the number of inches above or below, and
right or left, of the centre of the “bull’s eye” is entered in the
firing book—the man falls back to the squad, and the next for firing
takes his place.
If a man hit very wide of the proper mark, it might be well to make him
fire until he had attained a reasonably good shot, charging to his
account the surplus ammunition so expended.
The squad would then fall back to one hundred yards from the wooden
target with a repetition of the same practice, then to two hundred, and
so on to the longest range. Not more, probably, than three stations
could be got through in a day, by any one squad, with advantage.
At the end of each day’s work, a careful return of the details of firing
should be sent by the instructor to the commanding officer, in
conformity with which, rewards, commendations, and censures, might be
finally distributed.
The details of proceeding have been somewhat minutely described, because
this elementary instruction, to form a solid and effectual basis for
subsequent general practice, should be a minutely patient and careful
work. In order, also, to prevent the serious accidents which want of
system might occasion, especially at the long ranges, it would be
important to establish and maintain minute uniformity of proceeding.
Such a course as that above recommended would only occupy four days, and
it would make a man for all his life, if he had the talent to profit by
it, a good marksman, with rifles of the same power as that which he had
thus carefully proved.
This elementary instruction would not, of course, set aside more free
and desultory practice at other times, provided it were carried on with
obedience to the general regulations for security against accidents.
It is almost superfluous to observe, that the instructors provided with
the “stadia,” and with small telescopes headed with simple
“micrometers,” should point out to officers and men the readiest methods
of calculating distances.
Taking twenty-five as the average number of pupils that could be, with
full advantage, under daily practice, and four days as the period for
completing their instruction, one hundred and fifty might be thus
finished in the twenty-four (as an average) working days of each month,
a battalion of about six hundred men in four months, and consequently
twelve hundred men in the eight temperate months (from, about the 1st of
March to the 1st of November) in each year.
To complete, therefore, the British army on home service in one year,
there would be required about forty such establishments scattered
throughout the United Kingdom, and for the volunteer rifle corps and
militia about fifty more. After the year of theoretical instruction,
they would remain as most useful for freer practice.
The expense would be, the cost of the land, which (considering that
strips of worthless soil, or of government ground, might in many
instances be procured gratis) should not exceed five hundred pounds the
station; and light fencing, the butt, targets, sheds, ball-proof
sentry-boxes, rests, and a small house for the marker in charge of the
ground, which might average four hundred pounds more. In all nine
hundred pounds for each establishment as a permanent outlay, or about
thirty-six thousand pounds for the regular army, and forty-five thousand
pounds for the volunteer rifle corps and militia.
The markers might be military pensioners, with a small addition to their
pay, and the instructors retired officers or non-commissioned officers,
with a similar allowance. Many from these classes would be well
calculated for such duties, and would enter with spirit into them.
To give complete success to an appeal to the nation for the expenditure
thus required, notorious facts, added to a widely-acknowledged
principle, mentioned in the first edition of this treatise, should be
sufficient: “Every _reasonable outlay_ towards the maintenance of
national military efficiency _is true economy_; and _the neglect of it,
real extravagance_.”—(“Essentials,” Art. 2nd, Correct Firing.)
The notorious facts referred to are, that the marvellous inventive
spirit of the age has, at one bound, made military efficiency dependent,
in a _super-eminent degree, on skill in rifle practice_, and that other
nations, sensitively alive to the circumstance, are devoting to it
immense methodical attention.[18]
Footnote 17:
Made carefully, with soldiers of the 52nd Regiment, on a retired
sea-beach in British North America, in the years 1825-6.
Footnote 18:
See, among other proofs, “Instruction sur le Tir, par Ordre du
Ministre de la Guerre,” Paris, 1848; and “Projet d’Instruction sur le
Tir,” Paris, 1850.
SHORT OBSERVATIONS UPON DRESS AND APPOINTMENTS.
It is so distinctly evident that the immense advance which is at the
present period in operation upon military weapons and practice must
extend its influence to dress and appointments, that a treatise of this
kind would not now be complete in its parts without a reference to them.
Dress will be affected pre-eminently, in a manner which has not, as yet,
attracted much, if any, public attention. It will be indescribably more
than ever important to distinguish the troops of one nation from those
of other nations, by uniforms that can be known afar off.
Among the most perplexing, hindering, and revolting incidents of a
campaign, are those of mistaking foes for friends and friends for foes.
Facts are the best arguments; and a few of those which occurred under
the author’s own observation, in a corps probably as little liable to
make mistakes as any that ever stood on a battle-field, are offered in
enforcement of this consideration.
During the retreat from Madrid, in the grey of the morning, after having
been harassed through the greater part of the day before by impudent
dashes of the French light cavalry, a Spanish cavalry patrol was fired
upon, under the very natural impression that they were Frenchmen,
re-commencing their previous practice.
After this, while engaged in the pursuit of a beaten enemy through a
mountainous and intricate country, the battalion was compelled, as a
matter of reasonable prudence, to scale a rocky hill, in order to take
up a position of defence against three battalions in blue, which had
just appeared as if moving to intercept the line of retreat. When a
quarter of an hour had been wasted, they also turned out to be
Spaniards.
On a subsequent occasion, in following up a charge in line, from the
thick smoke that still hung on the enemy’s infantry a body of horsemen,
of which some evidently were cuirassiers, broke furiously upon the
front. It had all the appearance of an effort of the French cavalry to
cover the retreat, and the whole fire was for a moment concentrated upon
it, until some of the headmost horsemen, falling almost upon the
bayonets, were perceived to be English light dragoons.
These are a few, and only a very few, of the evils which have already
arisen from indistinctness in uniform. If, then, the mischief was so
great in connexion with the limited and uncertain power of the old
musquet, what will it not be with the distant and accurate fire of the
long range rifle? A group of your own staff officers, a patrol of your
own cavalry, or a battalion in blue of your own infantry, eight hundred
yards off, might be almost destroyed before it could be possible to
correct the mistake; while bodies of the enemy might, from your
uncertainty, pass and repass with corresponding impunity.
_Whatever uniforms, therefore, we adopt or maintain, it is evident that,
for cavalry as well as infantry, broad_ NATIONAL DISTINCTIVENESS _should
be a most predominant consideration_.
There is another immense advantage in distinctive uniforms for troops
who can and will do their duty—the mighty moral effect which such
distinctiveness carries with it. Like the mere
“Blast of Roderic’s bugle horn,”
it “is worth” in itself, in a stout struggle, the support of
“A thousand men.”
Many a time has the distinctive red coat sounded a retreat to the enemy,
which he would have been slow to adopt if any doubt had existed about
the real character of the troops he had fallen in with.
Popular error ought to be corrected in regard to colours suitable for
light infantry, by the plain matter of fact, that skirmishing is not in
general a prowling, wolf-like proceeding, but sheer hard and open
fighting; in which, indeed, the parties engaged make the best of any
cover that presents itself, but in which also the flashes and smoke of
firing alone present marks for reply that no tint of uniform can
conceal. In concealing-cover, not the coat, but the head dress and face
are seen. It is a reasonable subject of doubt whether on open ground, at
a distance of six hundred or eight hundred yards, red, soiled by dust,
dirt and drenching, does not mellow into a greyish-purple, as little
calculated to make the man who wears it a mark as blue, black, or dark
green. Take away white epaulettes, white lace, and white belts, and the
red jacket itself may still continue to be, with prudence and propriety,
the leading star on land of England’s high honour and prosperity.
The increased rapidity with which, to prevent ruinous destruction,
troops of all kinds, when under fire, must now move for considerable
distances, gives increased importance to the very plain principle, that
the efficiency of a locomotive weapon of war is, in the highest degree,
dependent upon the proportion of its weight to the strength of the
animal that carries it. Weight of metal is of immense moment on a
rampart; but lightness of heart and litheness of limb, producing
sustained and easy movement and careful firing, are advantages of more
importance to the soldier in the field.
These principles embrace his appointments as well as his weapons; and it
may be possible, now that public attention is called to the subject, to
extend their application, dependent as this is upon the public purse.
The weight of the ammunition and bayonet has hitherto, in regard to the
infantry in general, been supported upon the shoulders, and that of the
former concentrated on one point. It would appear very possible to
divide the support between the shoulders and the waist, and to
distribute it equally around. The thirty inches of space which, in
general, surround the waist of the full-grown man, would allow of sixty
ball-cartridges, placed side by side perpendicularly in four flat
well-made pouches, one on each side before, and the same behind. These
might be attached to a waist-belt clasping in front, and supported,
moreover, by a few stout buttons in the coat, and by a pair of very
light belts, in the general form of common braces, crossing on the back,
but in front falling straight down from the shoulder without crossing,
and terminating each in two points. The material for all these belts
might he leather, and the colour, that very common tint reddish-brown,
to assimilate with the coat.
The advantage of this arrangement would be, that, in addition to the
weight being equalized, the soldier could, as he pleased, ease his
shoulders by tightening the waist-belt, or ease the waist by loosing the
clasp. He would be also free to throw wide open the coatee in oppressive
weather, or in falling out on the line of march. Than this last, there
could not perhaps be a greater relief to the practical soldier.
In a campaign, a man might conveniently carry, in addition to this
ammunition, thirty rounds of gunpowder in a stout well-made flask, slung
by a red strap over the shoulder, and a bag with thirty bullets, in
greased patches, on the right side of his waist-belt, to balance the
sword-bayonet, suspended from a frog on the left side. For long ranges,
loading from the powder-flask might be safe and convenient—the
cartridges would serve for closer quarters.
The present almost iron neck-band might be exchanged for the simple,
neat, and durable patent Albert spring-wire stock, covered with soft
leather. Possibly, also, the soldier’s house, which he carries on his
back—and which, in a campaign, must be for weeks together his only
shelter—his great coat, or cloak and blanket, might be made lighter by
substituting superior materials. In no other way can the weight of the
knapsack be much reduced.
It is certainly of immense importance to the safety and prosperity of
the nation that all the foregoing subjects should be, _even now_,
appreciated with practical closeness. Other civilized states are most
active in investigation and in application. THE BRITISH SOLDIER STANDS
CHEERFULLY READY AND WILLING TO DO HIS DUTY TO THE COUNTRY—IT IS FOR
ENGLAND TO DO HER DUTY TO HERSELF AND TO THE SOLDIER.
From this designation the author would by no means exclude any portions
of the armed land-defenders of the British empire, so far as they might
have claim to it by character and attainments. Let the volunteer rifle
corps and militia acquire and maintain (as did the county militias
during the last great war, and as have done many of the yeomanry corps
since that period) that drill and discipline without which, in the hour
of danger, men-at-arms are jests to their enemies and pests to their
friends, and they also may with justice be classed among the
soldier-like guardians of their country.
THE END.
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