(_By our Military Expert_.)
The Macedonian Army has recently undergone an entire reconstruction at the
hands of KING PHILIP. It is now organised on a national and territorial
basis and is divided into infantry and cavalry. The cavalry predominates
and is therefore the stronger arm. The unit of cavalry is the squadron, of
infantry the battalion. (It is of the utmost interest to note that there
are two battalions in a regiment, each about fifteen hundred strong).
KING PHILIP, it will be remembered, received his military education in the
school of EPAMINONDAS, who, as is well known, revolutionised the Higher
Thought of every Higher Command by the discovery and application of a
single tactical fact--namely, that the chances of A being able to give B a
stronger push than B can give him are _in direct ratio to the numerical
superiority of A over B_. It follows, then, that, faced with a sufficient
superiority, B _must_ retire, and _the initiative then rests with the side
that possesses it_.
In pursuance of this tactical ideal EPAMINONDAS argued that the old method
of winning battles, which was that A should exercise superior force against
every point of B's line (or body), required that A should be bigger than B,
buskin for buskin and brisket for brisket. But since it is sufficient,
while "refusing" the rest of one's own body (or line), to bring an
overwhelming force to bear on the point of a person's jaw, in order to
discomfit him, so in a battle a numerically inferior A, by concentrating on
a vital point of numerically superior B, can gain a local numerical
superiority which will enable him to rout B utterly. (This is always
supposing that B is not doing the same thing himself on the other wing, in
which case each army would miss the other altogether--a condition of things
into which the military art does not care to follow them).
Hence the phalanx or "preponderating mass formation." The Macedonian
development of this depends (to reduce the matter to the simple algebraical
formula to which all military problems are susceptible) on the fact that if
_x_ equals the greatest efficiency of an army, and the rooted square of
stability to the _n_th rank equals the phalanx, then the rooted square of
stability to the _n_th rank equals _x_ minus the tangential curve of
velocity of mobility. This should be plain even to the amateur student of
tactics. Blending almost a military expert's appreciation of this cardinal
doctrine with his natural selfishness as a leader of cavalry, PHILIP has
given to this, the mobile arm, much of the striking power of the original
phalanx. This is now placed in the centre, its business being mainly to
force a salient in the enemy's line, the two resultant enclaves of which
can then be shattered (at their re-entrants) by the cavalry squadrons,
hurled forward on both phalanks. It should be noted, as a brilliant example
of PHILIP'S staff work, that in the Macedonian Army, for the avoidance of
confusion in the field, "phalanks" is now spelt "flanks."
To the intelligent student who has followed me thus far in these articles
it should not be necessary to explain again the terms "enclave," "salient,"
and "re-entrant." "Tactical" is a term used when one is not using the term
"strategical," and _vice versâ_.
* * * * *
"In the words of Bacon, it should be 'read, marked, learned and
inwardly digested.'"--_Financial Paper_.
Our gay contemporary does not tell us whether it was before or after
completing the works usually attributed to SHAKSPEARE that BACON compiled
the Book of Common Prayer.
* * * * *