THE EVOLUTION OF INFANTRY
During the sixteenth century, foot soldiers began to be called
_Infantry_ (French _Infanterie_), after the practice of the Italian
_Condottieri_, who used to call their soldiers their “lads,” as
English officers have always had a habit of doing. They used the word
_Fanti_, from Latin _Infans_, a child who could not talk (_in_, _not_,
and _fari_, _speak_). Similarly, Blücher addressed his men on their
toilsome march to Waterloo as “meine Kinder” (“my children”), and
Americans talk of their soldiers as “the boys.”
The rise of Infantry from its position of abject inferiority to
the mounted men-at-arms may be dated from the fourteenth century,
when English archers overthrew the chivalry of France at Cressy and
Poictiers, and Swiss halberdiers that of Austria at Morgarten and
Sempach. In the next century the Swiss phalanxes (who had now replaced
their halberds by pikes) defeated the Burgundian Horse at Morat and
Nancy, thus assuring the independence of their country. About the
same time the Hussite peasants of Bohemia, effectively organized
by their great leader, John Zisca, were holding their own against
the horsemen of Austria. Towards the end of the fifteenth century
a new type of Infantry arose in the Suabian Landsknechts (country
fellows), an appellation corrupted into “Lance Knights” in England, and
“Lansquenets” in France. They imitated and improved on the organization
and tactics of their neighbours, the Swiss, and soon began to rival
them as Infantry.
THE HALBERD AND PIKE
Like the Swiss, the Landsknechts were armed with the long pike. The
halberd, discarded during the fifteenth century, was a formidable
weapon, with its triple combination of pike head for thrusting, axe
blade for striking, and crook to drag the horseman down. But its
eight-foot shaft was not so effective against a charge of Horse as a
hedge of eighteen-foot spikes, with butts on the ground, in the hands
of half-a-dozen ranks, one behind the other. The pike now became the
general arm of Infantry, and only finally disappeared in 1700.
THE FIREARM
Modern Infantry, however, knows not the pike, and may be said to have
really originated when firearms were first carried by foot soldiers.
Of these weapons the first was the _arquebus_ (_arc-bouche_, or _bow
with a mouth_), a short tube carried in a small log or stick, the
_stock_ (German for _stick_). The charge was fired from the breast by
applying, to a hole called the vent, the lighted end of a _match_, or
rope steeped in saltpetre so as to smoulder. In the fifteenth century
we find the arquebus made longer, and of smaller bore, and the stock
shaped so as to fire from the shoulder. It was then provided with a
cock to hold the match, and bring it down at the side of the barrel on
a pan filled with a priming of powder, which fired the charge through a
side vent.
About 1520 the Spaniards began to make several improvements in the
firearm. It was made of larger bore, and all were of uniform calibre,
whence it was called a _caliver_. Being heavier, a forked rest was
provided to fire from. About 1530 a lock, copied (like the shaped
stock) from the crossbow, was added, so as to bring the cock and
match sharply down on the pan. The perfected matchlock was called a
_musquet_, and its use spread from Spain into Flanders, and thence
through Europe in the sixteenth century. In the next century it was
made lighter, which allowed the rest to be abolished.
The _musket_, as it was spelt later, then became the general firearm
of the Infantryman or Musketeer, until replaced by the rifle in the
nineteenth century.
MUSKETEERS
At first, only a few picked men were armed with muskets, and were
styled “the Shot.” They were employed to skirmish on the flanks of
“the Pikes,” among whom they took refuge when attacked. But as their
efficiency and fire power increased, Musketeers grew in importance and
numbers, till the end of the sixteenth century, Maurice of Nassau
had an equal number of soldiers termed “Shots” and “Pikes” in his
Companies. Infantry had now asserted its superiority to Horsemen, who
could neither break the central mass of Pikes, nor endure the fire of
the Musketeers on the flanks.
INFANTRY UNDER MAURICE OF NASSAU
Maurice’s army represented the best organization of the period, and
was the model followed fifty years later in the Parliamentary wars by
his British allies in the Netherlands. His Companies and Regiments
were not yet of fixed strength; they were organized on the same lines
as the Landsknechts, but were formed of equal numbers of Pikemen and
Musketeers. He introduced the division of the Company into three
Sections, each under an Officer, with a Corporal, two Sergeants, and
three Drummers. Maurice, owing to improved drill and discipline, was
able to reduce the deep formations of his day to ten ranks, which
was the least which would give continuous fire by the method then
necessary, which consisted of each man retiring to the rear when he had
fired, so as to get time for the slow operation of reloading.
BRIGADES
Maurice drew up his army for battle according to the old Swiss
fashion in three lines, styled “van,” “battle,” and “rear,” and each
line constituted a _Brigade_, a new, but as yet an indefinite, unit,
composed of several Regiments. This is the first introduction of that
term, which is derived from the Italian _briga_, French _brigue_ (a
_quarrel_), and means “a band of opposing combatants.”
BATTALIONS
The _Battalion_ has, from the fifteenth century onwards, always been
the fighting unit of Infantry. _Battalion_--French _Bataillon_--is in
Italian _Battaglione_ (_battaglia_, or _battle array_).
In the early sixteenth century, when the _Company_ was only an
administrative unit, the _Battaglie_ were its tactical subdivisions,
and formed small units fighting separately. Hence _Battaglione_, “the
great battaglia,” was the name given to a large fighting unit and
consisting of a mass comprising several Regiments and some thousands of
men. This “Battalion” was gradually diminished in size, to meet changes
in tactics which demanded a more flexible formation for mobility, and
a smaller target, less vulnerable to the rude artillery of the day.
The experience of the more successful leaders pointed eventually to
forming a Battalion of a few hundred men, so that two or three could
be furnished by a Regiment, instead of forming a huge Battalion of
several Regiments. The fact that sometimes the Regiment formed only one
Battalion accounts for the constant confusion between the two terms,
and their indiscriminate use even to-day.
SPANISH INFANTRY--SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The remarkable efficiency of the Spanish Infantry which was fighting
against Maurice for the domination of the Netherlands should not be
overlooked. They had, besides musketeers, bodies of swordsmen with
bucklers, active enough to overcome the pikemen. The Spaniards were
the first to establish depôts for their army in war, where recruits
could be trained by a few old soldiers. Their Regiments were of some
1,700 men, and the Companies varied from 150 to 300. The good order of
the Spanish Army, and its strict discipline, were its most remarkable
features. In the latter half of the sixteenth century the Spanish
Infantry was undoubtedly the best in Europe.
INFANTRY UNDER GUSTAVUS
The next development of Infantry is seen in the Swedish Army as
organized in the Thirty Years’ War by the great Gustavus Adolphus,
King of Sweden. Its efficiency and success made it the model of the
organization of all the armies in Europe, and they still retain its
main features.
Gustavus modelled his army on that of Maurice, but made many
improvements in it. His purpose was to increase mobility, and to adopt
a definite organization of units. With the first object, he lightened
the musket, so as to do away with the cumbrous rest, and increased
rapidity of fire by adopting a cartridge to hold the powder. He added
to the Musketeers till they equalled the Pikemen, and improved the
mobility of the latter by shortening the pike.
As regards organization, he adopted Brigades much smaller than those of
Maurice, and made them a definite unit of two Regiments of Infantry,
as they still are in every foreign army.
The Regiment had always been the administration unit, and the Battalion
the tactical unit. Gustavus definitely fixed the size of the Battalion,
two of which formed a Regiment. Here we find the origin of the
two-Battalion Regiment, which was universal in Europe for the next
hundred years.
The Regiment was 100 strong, and was divided into eight Companies, so
that the Battalion had four Companies. Hence we find that Battalions
in foreign armies have always had four Companies, putting on one side
the Grenadier and Light Infantry Companies, which were added later, as
described on page 190. The British Regiment, which was not divided into
Battalions, kept the eight-Company organization of Gustavus, and, when
eventually a second Battalion was added, it kept the same number of
Companies.
The Regimental Officers were those of the Landsknechts--the _Colonel_,
the _Lieutenant-Colonel_, and the _Sergeant-Major_ or Staff Officer,
called later the _Major_. Four Surgeons were added to the Regimental
Staff, which was a new departure, as up to this time medical
arrangements had been the concern of the Captains only.
The Company comprised 72 muskets and 54 pikes, and was divided into
six Sections, each under a Corporal, four being of musketeers and
two of pikemen. The two Sections of musketeers on each flank formed
a new fighting unit, the _Platoon_ (French _peloton_, a _little
bundle_), which could act independently of the rest of the Company
under the Lieutenant or Ensign, while the Captain commanded the two
centre Sections of pikes. When pikes were eventually given up, the
centre Sections disappeared, and the two Platoons on the flanks then
constituted the whole Company. A Platoon thus became a Half-Company, as
the _Peloton_ still is in France. _Platoon fire_ (Half-Company volleys)
was in use in the British Army till the nineteenth century.
There were thus eight Platoons in the Battalion. We shall find that
they still formed the fighting units in the Infantry of Frederick the
Great, the Companies being then only the administrative units, although
they subsequently superseded the Platoons as the fighting units of the
Battalion.
The Company Officers were, as in the Landsknechts, the _Captain_, the
_Lieutenant_, the _Ensign_, and the _Sergeant_. The latter had an
assistant, the _Second Sergeant_, and there were 4 _Under-Sergeants_,
besides the 6 _Corporals_ of Sections. Three Fifes were added to the
three Drums in each Company, in which we see the origin of the Drum and
Fife Band.
FRENCH INFANTRY
During the wars of Louis XIV., in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, the development of Infantry was advanced by the reduction
of the number of pikes to one-third of the Battalion, and then to a
quarter and a fifth, till at last they were only found in a central
group in each Company, so small as to be called a _Picquet_, or
“_little body of pikes_,” whence the word _Picket_, meaning the Support
of the Outposts, probably because the musketeers furnished the sentries
and the pikes the Support.
The pike was replaced in France about 1670 by the _bayonet_, named
after the city of Bayonne, and probably suggested by the habit of the
Basques of fixing the wooden handles of their long knives into the
muzzles of their guns when smuggling in the Pyrenees. As the musket
could not be fired with the bayonet fixed, its use was inconvenient,
till the idea occurred about 1700 of attaching it by a ring clasping
the muzzle. The British Army adopted the bayonet by 1688. The musketeer
had become virtually a pikeman too. The pike, now unnecessary, was
abolished in all armies about 1700, but in England it survived for a
century in the _spontoon_, a short pike carried by junior Officers,
just as the halberd had survived for Sergeants.
In the French Army, under Louis XIV., we find the _Brigade_ an
important unit in the organization of Infantry. Colonels were selected
for this Command, which gave an opportunity for promoting the best men,
without infringing the vested right of the Colonel to his own Regiment.
One of the early Brigadiers so selected was the famous Martinet, whose
discipline has become proverbial. He was Colonel of the Model Regiment
formed in 1668, and afterwards Inspector-General of Infantry.
FUSILIERS
After the middle of the seventeenth century an important change in
the firearm was invented, by which the charge was ignited by flint
and steel instead of match, giving more certainty to the fire. The
new flintlock was called a _fusil_ (from _fucile_, _flint_); it was
at first given to picked shots, called _Fusiliers_, for skirmishing
work, but about 1700 all Infantry were armed with flintlocks. It was
introduced in Great Britain in the shape of “Brown Bess,” the musket
used until rendered obsolete by the introduction of the percussion cap
in 1840.
The individual Fusiliers carried out what were later termed the duties
of Light Infantry (see p. 188). By their superior shooting and activity
they were better fitted to move rapidly in front of the heavier
Infantry, so as to annoy the enemy by their fire, and clear the way for
the main body. These Fusiliers were before long grouped into separate
Battalions of Fusiliers, which were created in France in 1671, and
later in England and Prussia, where they survive to this day.
GRENADIERS
During the Thirty Years’ War _grenades_ (_grenada_, the _pomegranate_)
or hand-thrown bombs were introduced. This brought in another variety
of Infantry. _Grenadiers_ were powerful, tall men, picked from the
Battalion to throw the grenades. They were soon collected into one
“Grenadier Company,” which was added to those of each Battalion, and
took its place on their right.
This was done in France in 1667, and in England in 1678. Grenadiers
then gave up their special duty, and were armed with the _fusil_ for
Light Infantry duties, for which, however, they were eventually found
too heavy and slow.
The Grenadier Company continued during the eighteenth century to form
the right Company of the Battalion in most European armies. Some of
the Grenadiers were assembled in special Grenadier Regiments, like the
“Grenadier Guards” in England. In Germany and Russia the title exists
to this day, although the special functions of Grenadiers have been
obsolete for two centuries.
Thus, during the later portion of the seventeenth century, there
were four different kinds of Infantry--_Pikemen_, _Musketeers_,
_Grenadiers_, and _Fusiliers_.
The changes in armament had the effect of reducing the number of ranks
in battle. The first phalanxes of pikes had 25 ranks, which Maurice
reduced to 10, and Gustavus to 6; by 1700 the number of ranks had
become 4, which Frederick reduced to 3, and Wellington, on entering
Spain in 1808, to 2. Two ranks became the rule in Great Britain in
1824, and in the French service in 1859. The Prussians were the last
to give up three ranks, in 1888, but the third rank had long been used
only for skirmishing.
LIGHT INFANTRY
The changes in the evolution of Infantry may be seen to be due to an
ever-acting desire to have some picked troops, more mobile, and better
armed than the rest--that is, _Light Infantry_, as they were styled
later. The object of these troops was that they should act in advance,
or on the flank, of the main portion of the army. They would thus
guard it against surprise when at rest, or on the march, or in battle
break the force of the attack by what became known as _skirmishing_
(from Italian _scherma_, _fencing_). Such Light Infantry were first
seen at the battle of Pavia, in 1525, when 1,500 arquebusiers were
extended in front of the Battalions. At first these picked troops were
formed out of each Battalion, but there arose a general tendency to
gather them under one Command, and form them into special Companies.
The same tendency soon began to group these Companies into special
Battalions, which gradually lost all idea of their special functions,
and tended to become ordinary Infantry, while retaining their original
special designation. We see this process acting when the Grenadiers
were found too heavy for “light Infantry” work; and these duties were
then allotted to the “Fusiliers,” or picked shots armed with the light
fusil, who eventually became Fusilier Battalions. These, like the
Grenadier Battalions, had by the end of the seventeenth century given
up their distinctive mode of action, and become identical with the
rest of the Infantry, while retaining the title of Fusiliers; so that
when Pikemen were abolished, soon after 1700, there existed only one
sort of Infantry, although certain Regiments and Companies were termed
Grenadiers and Fusiliers.
LIGHT INFANTRY AND RIFLES
But after all these changes the need of Light Infantry in war remained
none the less urgent, and again special troops began to be formed for
Light Infantry duties. Thus, Infantry, which had just been reduced to
one type, once more differentiated during the eighteenth century into
two kinds--ordinary and light Infantry.
The process began during the Seven Years’ War about the middle of the
eighteenth century. The Austrian Light Infantry, called _Freischarren_,
or “free hordes,” irregular troops formed from the less civilized
races in the army, caused the Prussians constant annoyance. This led
Frederick the Great to copy the idea, by collecting Austrian deserters,
and smugglers and wilder spirits from among his own people, to form
Light Infantry. He also raised from foresters and gamekeepers special
troops called _Jägers_, literally “huntsmen,” who were armed with the
more accurate rifled musket used for sport, and were well fitted for
sharp-shooting. The French followed suit, and in 1759 formed Corps of
_Chasseurs_ (the equivalent word to _Jägers_), and in 1805 raised light
troops of small men, called _Voltigeurs_--that is, “men who can turn
quickly,” from their agility. The British, too, began to form Light
Infantry out of their newly raised Highland Corps about the middle of
the eighteenth century. Later, in consequence of British experiences
in America with the backwoodsmen--good shots using rifles--special
Battalions of Rifles, like those of France and Prussia, were raised
before the end of the century.
These various descriptions of light troops in all armies were
sharp-shooters, armed with rifles, and accustomed to independent action
at the front. Their development followed two separate lines. The Light
Troops were attached to each Battalion in the form of a _Light Infantry
Company_, or sometimes grouped in special Battalions styled _Light
Infantry_, a title they still keep. The riflemen formed the Battalions
of _Rifles_, which still exist in all armies under various names,
but clothed generally in the green uniform which German gamekeepers
still wear. Green was the customary dress of a forester, as we are
reminded by the common sign for a country inn--“The Green Man.” The
addition of one or two Light Infantry Companies, and sometimes of a
Grenadier Company, raised the number of Companies in a Battalion to
ten in England, five in Prussia, and six in France, during the late
eighteenth century. Napoleon’s Battalions had six Companies, as had all
armies on the Continent (except the Prussian) up to 1866, after which
the Prussian organization, with four, was introduced, and still rules.
French Chasseur Battalions (Rifles) have retained six companies, as a
more supple and mobile organization for their special duties.
The Light Infantry Companies were much used during the Napoleonic
wars, but were soon afterwards abolished. The Rifle Battalions
gradually lost their special character as Light Troops, while retaining
their uniforms and designations, and are at present armed, trained, and
used exactly like ordinary Infantry, which has, however, adopted their
rifle and their extended formation in battle.
The tactical work of Light Infantry may perhaps be said to be now done
by Mounted Infantry, and it may be asked whether the Rifle Regiments
of the British Army might not have taken up the duties of Mounted
Infantry, for which they seem suited by their origin as picked troops,
and their Peninsular reputation and regimental traditions of mobility
and independent action. In Germany a similar suggestion has been
recently made to provide Rifle Battalions with cycles, and send them
out to the front with the Cavalry--in fact, to turn them virtually into
“Mounted Infantry” on cycles.