It is desirable for a column escorting a large baggage train--and this
is essentially the predicament of civilised troops engaged in frontier
mountain warfare--to be collected in camp before nightfall, otherwise
the enemy may be given unduly favourable opportunities of employing
harassing methods.
But it does not result that the situation of troops unable, for any
cause, to reach camp, is at all desperate.
Strong and compact forces adopting the usual precautions, can probably,
in many, if not in most cases, march in safety after nightfall, but
small detachments and baggage can rarely do so without undue risk.
These, then, should always park and intrench towards nightfall,
wherever they may find themselves, when they will have little to fear,
for experience, as has been stated, tends to show that even a section,
securely intrenched, and with ample ammunition, can hold its own
against heavy odds.
The form of camp, and the nature of the protection adopted, depend, as
usual, on the topography, and on the character of the enemy.
A common method is to place transport, etc., within a perimeter
occupied by the fighting troops, but this arrangement is by no means
invariable, and it may be convenient to form two or more camps, or to
separate transport from fighting troops.
The camp will, as a rule, be located in proximity to water, that is to
say in a valley, and in such circumstances, if it can be sited well
under one of the enclosing ranges of hills, protection from sniping
will be afforded from this direction, though the overhanging heights
must be securely held.
Sometimes a small basin is available for the bivouac, and in this case,
the troops can, to a great extent, be secured from this favourite
tribal device of firing into camp after nightfall.
As is the case in all war, the measures taken for the security of a
camp include a system of picquets, and in frontier expeditions these
are placed all round camp, either on the level, or on any commanding
heights, within, at any rate, effective rifle range.
Picquets may be pushed even further forward, but when so situated, must
be numerically strong, as they are liable to be rushed, though more for
the sake of capturing their arms, than with the object of inflicting
loss. No picquet should be of less strength than one section, all
should be intrenched against attack from any direction. Their bearing
from camp should also be taken, and they should be in signalling
communication with the main body, so that assistance may be requested
and despatched when necessary, or warning given of the approach of the
enemy in force.
Bombs should be useful adjuncts to picquet defence, in case the enemy
should succeed in forming a lodgment near the sangar.
Though a sedentary system of picquets may discover the presence of a
large hostile body near camp, and may, in some degree, check sniping,
the latter evil cannot, by this means, be completely prevented.
Tribesmen, especially since they are aware that the British rarely risk
troops, other than picquets, outside the perimeter, will often creep in
and snipe from the area between the picquets and camp.
There seems, however, no valid reason why sniping should be passively
tolerated, when it can probably be effectively combated by placing,
in certain localities between the camp and picquets, small patrols of
picked men, provided with grass shoes, whose duty will be to stalk and
bayonet venturesome marauders.
Against this proposal it has been argued that the British, and
especially the European soldiers, are unfit to cope, by night, with
tribesmen, inured from childhood to move silently in darkness over
rough ground. The contention is considered to be inadmissible, for
though there is, and must be, risk in stalking snipers, picked British
soldiers are surely now, as formerly, more than a match for Pathans,
in all circumstances when the numbers are fairly even.
The form of intrenchment, if any, excavated round the bivouac, is
conditioned by the character of the enemy.
If he is prone to adopt shock tactics, and to attempt to rush the camp
under cover of darkness, a ditch to check his charge, backed by a
parapet with head cover, will be the most favourable form of defence.
But if he is partial merely to harassing methods, such as firing into
camp, the perimeter defences should be calculated to mitigate their
effects, by providing, for all troops, trenches well traversed, and
with parapets both to front and rear.
If both forms of attack are possible, parapets with trench and ditch
should be made, the trench, or ditch, being first dug, according as a
charge or sniping is most to be feared.
Naturally units protected by high ground on one or more flanks, need
only make cover so as to secure themselves from the directions from
which fire can be delivered.
Only infantry should hold the perimeter of a camp, machine guns being
placed at the angles, and the defence of each confided to one unit,
divided responsibility not being permissible.
Supports may, if necessary, be located in intrenchments behind the
perimeter, and a homogeneous body of about half a battalion, allotted
as reserve, and given a bivouac near that of the column commander.
In case of attack, the duty of cavalry soldiers is to stand to their
horses, of artillery to man their guns. To neither, therefore, in
normal circumstances, should a portion of the perimeter be confided,
and both should be placed within its circumference.
At the same time, guns should be so disposed, in pits or epaulments,
that they can sweep ground across which attack is most likely to be
made; or they may be laid so as to search localities where tribesmen
may collect prior to delivering an assault.