WELLINGTON’S INFANTRY TACTICS—LINE _VERSUS_ COLUMN
Everyone who takes a serious interest in military history is aware
that, in a general way, the victories of Wellington over his French
adversaries were due to a skilful use of the two-deep line against
the massive column, which had become the usual fighting-formation for
a French army acting on the offensive, during the later years of the
great war that raged from 1792 till 1814. But I am not sure that the
methods and limitations of Wellington’s system are fully appreciated,
and they are well worth explaining. And on the other hand it would
not be true to imagine that all French fighting, without exception,
was conducted in column, or that blows delivered by the solid masses
whose aspect the English knew so well, were the only ideal of the
Napoleonic generals. It is not sufficient to lay down the general
thesis that Wellington found himself opposed by troops who invariably
worked in column, and that he beat those troops by the simple expedient
of meeting them, front to front, with other troops who as invariably
fought in the two-deep battle line. The statement is true in a general
way, but needs explanation and modification.
The use of infantry in line was, of course, no invention of
Wellington’s, nor is it a universal panacea for all crises of war.
During the eighteenth century, from Marlborough to Frederic the Great,
all European infantry was normally fighting in line, three or four
deep, and looking for success in battle to the rapidity and accuracy
of its fire, not to the impetus of advances in heavy masses such as
had been practised by the pikemen of the sixteenth or seventeenth
century, and were to be introduced again by the French generals of the
Revolutionary period. Everyone knows how the victories of Frederic the
Great were in part to be attributed to the careful fire-drill of his
infantry, who, with their iron ramrods and rapid manual exercise, used
to put in a far larger and more effective discharge of musket-balls per
minute than their adversaries. But both parties were as a rule fighting
in three-deep line, Austrians no less than Prussians. Armies had a
stereotyped array, with infantry battalions deployed in long lines in
the centre, and heavy masses of cavalry covering the wings. A glance
at the battle-plans of the War of the Austrian Succession, or of the
Seven Years’ War, shows a marvellous similarity in the general tactical
arrangements of the rival hosts, and front-to-front collisions of long
parallel lines were quite common, though commanders of genius had their
own ways of varying the tactics of the day. Frederic the Great’s famous
“oblique order,” or advance in _échelon_, with the strong striking-wing
brought forward, and the weaker “containing-wing” held back and
refused, is sufficiently well known. Occasionally he was able to vary
it, as at Rossbach and Leuthen, and to throw the greater part of his
troops across the enemy’s flank at right angles, so as to roll him up
in detail. But these were “uncovenanted mercies” obtained owing to the
abnormal sloth or unskilfulness of the opposing general. Torgau needs a
special word of mention, as Frederic’s only battle fought of choice in
a thoroughly irregular formation.
There were one or two cases in the old eighteenth-century wars of
engagements won by the piercing of a hostile centre, such as Marshal
Saxe’s victory of Roucoux (1746), and we may find, in other operations
of that great general, instances of the use of deep masses, battalion
deployed behind battalion, for the attack of a chosen section of
the hostile position, and others where a line of deployed infantry
was flanked or supported by units practically in column. But this
was exceptional—as exceptional as the somewhat similar formation of
Cumberland’s mass of British and Hanoverian infantry at Fontenoy,
which, though often described as a column, had originally consisted of
three successive lines of deployed battalions, which were ultimately
constricted into a mass by lateral pressure. Some of Marshal Broglie’s
and Ferdinand of Brunswick’s fights during the Seven Years’ War were
also fought in a looser order of battle than was normal.
Normally the tactics of the eighteenth century were directed to the
smashing up of one of the enemy’s wings, either by outflanking it,
or by assailing it with very superior forces, while the rest of the
enemy’s army was “contained” by equal or inferior numbers, according
as the assailant had more or less troops than his enemy. The decisive
blow was very frequently delivered by a superior force of cavalry
concentrated upon the striking wing, which commenced the action by
breaking down the inferior hostile cavalry, and then turned in upon the
flank of the infantry of the wing which it had assailed. Such a type of
battle may sometimes be found much later, even in the Peninsular War,
where Ocaña was a perfect example of it.
[Sidenote: Frederic II. and Marshal Saxe]
Speaking roughly, however, the period of set battles fought by enemies
advancing against each other in more or less parallel lines ended with
the outbreak of the war of the French Revolution. There had been a
fierce controversy in France from 1775 to 1791 between the advocates
of the linear, or Frederician, battle-order—headed by General Guibert,
and the officers who wished to introduce a deeper formation, which they
claimed to have learnt from the instructions of Marshal Saxe—of whom
the chief was General Menil-Durand. The former school had triumphed
just before the war began, and the _Réglement d’Infanterie_ of 1791
accepted all their views. It was on this drill-book that the French
infantry stood to fight in the following year, when the war on the
Rhine and in Belgium began.[65]
But the attempt of the first generals of Revolutionary France to fight
on the old linear system was a failure. The troops of the Republic had
been demoralized by the removal or desertion of the greater proportion
of their commissioned officers, and their _cadres_ had been hastily
filled with half-trained recruits. At the same time hundreds of new
units, the battalions of volunteers, had been formed on no old _cadre_
at all, but, with officers and men alike little better than untrained
civilians, took the field along with the reorganized remains of the old
royal army. It is hardly necessary to remark, that these raw armies
suffered a series of disgraceful defeats at the hands of the Austrian
and other allied troops in 1792–93. They were beaten both in tactics,
in manœuvring, and in fire-discipline by the well-drilled veteran
battalions to which they were opposed.
The French Republic, when it came under the control of the Jacobins,
tried to set matters right by accusing its generals of treason, and
arrested and guillotined a considerable proportion of the unfortunate
commanders-in-chief to whom its armies had been entrusted. But neither
this heroic device, nor the sending to the armies of the well known
“representatives _en mission_” from the National Assembly, who were to
stimulate the energy of the generals, had satisfactory results. As the
representatives were generally as ignorant of military affairs as they
were self-important and autocratic, they did no more than confuse and
harass the unhappy generals on whom they were inflicted.
One thing, however, the Jacobin government did accomplish: it pushed
into the field reinforcements in such myriads that the armies of
the allies were hopelessly outnumbered on every frontier. The first
successes of the Republican armies in the North were won by brute
force, by heaping double and triple numbers upon the enemy. And the new
tactics of the Revolutionary leaders were evolved from a consciousness
of superiority in this respect, a determination to swamp troops that
manœuvred better than their own, by hurling preponderant masses upon
them, regardless of the losses that must necessarily be suffered. For
they had inexhaustible reserves behind them, from the newly-decreed
levies _en masse_, while the bases of the allies were far off, and
their trained men, when destroyed, could only be replaced slowly and
with difficulty.
[Sidenote: Tactics of the French Revolution]
When the generals of the Revolution threw away the old linear tactics
learned in the school of Frederic the Great, as inapplicable to troops
that could not manœuvre with the same speed and accuracy as their
enemies, the improvised system that succeeded was a brutal and wasteful
one, but had the merit of allowing them to utilize their superiority
of numbers. It is possible that those of them who reasoned at all upon
the topic—and reasoning was not easy in that strenuous time, when a
commander’s head sat lightly on his shoulders—saw that they were in a
manner utilizing the idea that had been tried in a tentative way by
Maurice de Saxe, and by one or two other generals of the old wars—the
idea that for collision in long line on a parallel front, partial
attacks in heavy masses on designated points might be substituted. But
it is probable that there was more of improvisation than of deliberate
tactical theory in the manœuvres of even the best of them.
The usual method was to throw at the hostile front a very thick
skirmishing line, which sheathed and concealed a mass of heavy columns,
concentrated upon one or two critical points of the field. The idea
was that the front line of _tirailleurs_ would so engage the enemy,
and keep him occupied all along his front, that at the crucial section
of the combat the supporting columns would get up to striking distance
with practically no loss, and could be hurled, while still intact, upon
those points of the hostile array which it was intended to pierce; they
would go through by their mere impetus and weight, since they were only
exposed to fire for a few minutes, and could endure the loss suffered
in that time without losing their _élan_ or their pace. The essential
part of the system was the enormously thick and powerful skirmishing
line: whole battalions were dispersed in chains of _tirailleurs_, who
frankly abandoned any attempt at ordered movement, took refuge behind
cover of all sorts, and were so numerous that they could always drive
in the weak skirmishing line of the enemy, and get closely engaged with
his whole front. The orderly battalion-volleys of the Austrian, or
other allied troops opposed to them, did comparatively little harm to
these swarms, who were taking cover as much as possible, and presented
no closed body or solid mark for the musketry fire poured upon them.
It looks as if the proper antidote against such a swarm-attack would
have been local and partial cavalry charges, by squadrons judiciously
inserted in the hostile line, for nothing could have been more
vulnerable to a sudden cavalry onslaught than a disorderly chain of
light troops. On many occasions in the campaigns of 1792–93 the French
infantry had shown itself very helpless against horsemen who pushed
their charge home, not only in cases where it was caught unprepared,
but even when it had succeeded in forming square with more or less
promptitude.[66] But this particular remedy against the swarm-attack
does not seem to have been duly employed, and indeed many parts of
Flanders are so cut up by small enclosures, that the use of cavalry as
a universal panacea might often have proved impossible.
[Sidenote: Tactics of the French Column]
The masses which supported the thick lines of _tirailleurs_ were formed
either in columns of companies or columns of “divisions,” _i.e._ double
companies.[67] In the former case the eight companies, each three deep,
were drawn up behind each other. In the latter the front was formed by
a “division,” and the depth was only twelve men. In either case none
but the two front ranks could use their firearms properly, and the rest
were useless save for the impetus that they gave the rolling mass. But
such a column, when properly sheathed by the skirmishing line till the
last moment, generally came with a very effective rush against the
allied line opposed to it, which would have been already engaged with
the _tirailleurs_ for some time, and had probably been much depleted
by their fire. It is equally clear that, without its protective sheath
of skirmishers, such a heavy column would have been a very clumsy
instrument of war, since it combined the minimum of shooting power
with the maximum of vulnerability. But when so shielded, the columns
which attacked in masses at a decisive spot, leaving the rest of the
hostile line “contained” by an adequate force, had a fair chance of
penetrating, though the process of penetration might during the last
two or three minutes be very costly to the troops forming the head of
the column.
The best early summary of this change in French tactics which I know
occurs in an anonymous English pamphlet published in 1802, which puts
the matter in a nutshell. “The French army was composed of troops of
the line without order, and of raw and undisciplined volunteers. They
experienced defeats in the beginning, but in the meantime war was
forming both officers and soldiers. In an open country they took to
forming their armies in columns instead of lines, which they could not
preserve without difficulty. They reduced battles to attacks on certain
points, where brigade succeeded brigade, and fresh troops supplied
the places of those who were driven back, till they were enabled to
force the post, and make the enemy give way. They were fully aware
that they could not give battle in regular order, and sought to reduce
engagements to important affairs of posts: this plan has succeeded.
They look upon losses as nothing, provided they attain their end; they
set little store by their men, because they have the certainty of being
able to replace them, and the customary superiority of their numbers
affords them an advantage which can only be counterbalanced by great
skill, conduct, and activity.”[68]
After 1794, when the Republican armies had won their first series
of great successes, and had driven their enemies behind their own
frontiers, there is a distinct change in the tactical conceptions
of the French. The troops had improved immensely in morale and
self-confidence: a new race of generals had appeared, who were neither
obsessed by reminiscences of the system of Frederic the Great, like
some of their predecessors, nor spurred to blind violence and the
brutal expenditure of vast numbers of men like certain others. The
new generals modified the gross and unscientific methods of the
Jacobin armies of 1793–94, which had won victory indeed, but only by
the force of numbers and with reckless loss of life. There remained
as a permanent lesson, however, from the earlier campaigns two
principles—the avoidance of dispersion and extension, by which armies
“cover everything and protect nothing,” and the necessity of striking
at crucial points rather than delivering “linear” battles, fought out
at equal intensity along the whole front. In general French tactics
became very supple, the units manœuvring with a freedom which had been
unknown to earlier generations. The system of parting an army into
divisions, now introduced as a regular organization,[69] gave to the
whole army a power of independent movement unknown in the days when
a line of battle was considered a rigid thing, formed of brigades
ranged elbow to elbow, none of which ought to move without the direct
orders of the general-in-chief. A front might be composed of separate
divisions coming on the field by different roads, and each adopting
its own formation, the only necessity being that there should be no
great gaps left between them. As a matter of fact this last necessary
precaution was by no means always observed, and there are cases in
the middle, and even the later, years of the Revolutionary War, in
which French generals brought their armies upon the field in such
disconnected bodies, and with such want of co-operation and good
timing, that they were deservedly defeated in detail.[70] Bonaparte
himself is liable to this charge for his order of attack at Marengo,
where he committed himself to a general action before the column of
Desaix was near enough to the field, and as nearly as possible suffered
a crushing reverse for the want of a mass of troops whose action was
absolutely necessary to him. Hoche, Jourdan, and Moreau (the last
especially), all committed similar mistakes from time to time. But
these errors were at least better than an adhesion to the stereotyped
tactics of the older generation, where formal set orders of battle had
been thought absolutely necessary.
[Sidenote: Disadvantages of the Column]
As a rule we find the French operating in the later years of the
Republic with methods very different from those of 1793, with skill
and swiftness, no longer with the mere brute force of numerical
superiority, winning by brilliant manœuvring rather than by mere
bludgeon work. Yet, oddly enough, there was no formal revision of
official tactics; the _Reglement d’Infanterie_ which had been drawn
up in 1791, whose base was the old three-deep line of Frederic the
Great, had never been disowned, even when it was for the most part
disregarded, in the period when swarm-attacks of _tirailleurs_,
supported by monstrous heavy columns, had become, perforce, the
practical method of the French armies. When that unsatisfactory time
passed by, the same old drill-book continued to be used, and was no
longer so remote from actual practice as it had been. For the use of
the deployed battalion began to come up again, as the handiness of the
troops increased, and their self-reliance was restored. Only the early
Revolutionary War had left two marks upon French tactics—for hard and
heavy work, such as the forcing of passes, or bridges, or defiles,
or the breaking of a crucial point in the enemy’s line, the deep
column remained habitually employed: while the old idea of the orderly
continuous line of battle was gone for ever, or almost gone, for (oddly
enough) in Napoleon’s last and least lucky fight, Waterloo, the order
of the imperial host was more like the trim and symmetrical array of a
Frederician army than any French line of battle that had been seen for
many a year. Certainly it would have pleased the eye of the Prussian
king much better than the apparently irregular, though carefully
thought out, plans of battle on which Jena or Wagram, Borodino or
Bautzen were won.
[Sidenote: The “Ordre Mixte”]
It would be doing injustice to Napoleon to represent him as a
general whose main tactical method rested solely on the employment
of massive columns for the critical operation on each battlefield.
He was quite aware that infantry ought to operate by its fire, and
that every man in the rear ranks is a musket wasted. If the Emperor
had any favourite formation it was the _ordre mixte_, recommended by
Guibert far back before his own day, in which a certain combination
of the advantages of line and column was obtained, by drawing up the
brigade or regiment with alternate battalions in line three-deep and
in column. This formation gave a fair amount of frontal fire from the
alternate deployed battalions, while the columns dispersed among them
gave solidity, and immunity from a flank attack by cavalry, which
might otherwise roll up the line. If, for example, a regiment of three
battalions of 900 men each were drawn up in the _ordre mixte_, with one
deployed battalion flanked by two battalions in column, it had about
730 men in the firing line, while if arranged in three columns, it
would only have had about 200 able to use their muskets freely. Still,
at the best, this formation was heavy, since all the serried back-ranks
of the flanking battalions had no power to join in the fusillade. For
simple fire-effect it was as inferior to the line as it was superior to
the mere column.
Napoleon, however, was certainly fond of it. From the crossing of the
Tagliamento (1797), when he is first recorded to have used it, he made
very frequent employment of it. In a dispatch to Soult, sent him just
before Austerlitz, he directed him to use it “_autant que faire se
pourra_.” It is curious, however, to note that the marshal, less than a
week after, having to strike the decisive blow in that battle, did not,
after all, use the _ordre mixte_, but fought in lines of battalions in
“columns of divisions,” as he particularly mentions in his report to
the Emperor.[71]
But the _ordre mixte_ was certainly employed again and again, not only
in those parts of the battle where Napoleon was simply “containing” his
enemy, and where he was merely keeping up the fight and pinning the
adversary to his position, but also on the crucial points, where he was
endeavouring to deal his main blow. We have notes to the effect that
Lannes’ Corps at Jena, Augereau’s at Eylau, and Victor’s at Friedland,
which were all “striking forces,” not “containing forces,” used this
formation. Its supposed solidity did not always save it from disaster,
as was seen in the second of the cases quoted above, where Augereau’s
whole corps, despite of its battalions in column, was ridden down by a
flank attack of Russian cavalry, charging covered by a snowstorm.
In spite, however, of Napoleon’s theoretical preference for the _ordre
mixte_, and his knowledge that the column was a costly formation to
employ against an enemy whose fire was not subdued, it is certain that
he used it frequently, not only for the forcing of bridges or defiles
(as at Arcola and Ebersberg[72]), but for giving the final blow at a
point where he was determined to break through, and where the enemy was
holding on with tiresome persistence. At Wagram the flank-guards of
Macdonald’s conquering advance were formed by 13 battalions in solid
column, one behind the other, though its front consisted of eight
deployed battalions. Friant’s division on the right wing also attacked
with three regiments formed “_en colonne serrée par bataillons_.”
At Friedland, Ney’s right division (Marchand) came to the front in
a single file of ten battalions one behind the other, and never got
deployed, but attacked in mass and was checked. In 1812 and 1813
advance in heavy masses was usual—whole regiments formed in “column
of divisions,” battalion behind battalion,[73] with only 200 yards’
distance between regiment and regiment.
Napoleon was quite aware of the disadvantages of such formations,
“même en plaine,” he observed in a celebrated interview with Foy, “les
colonnes n’enfoncent les lignes qu’autant qu’elles sont appuyées par
le feu d’une artillerie très supérieure, qui prépare l’attaque.”[74]
And his advances in column were habitually prepared by a crushing
artillery fire on the point which he was about to assail, a fire which
he himself, as an old artillery officer, knew how to direct with the
greatest accuracy and efficiency. It seems that he relied much more
on such preparation by concentrated batteries for the shielding of
his columns, than on sheathing them by a thick skirmishing line, the
old device of the generals of the Republic. An enemy’s firing line
might be occupied and demoralized by shot and shell, as well as by a
screen of skirmishers. Jena, indeed, seems to be about the only one
of his battles in which a hostile line was masked and depleted by a
heavy _tirailleur_ attack, before the columns in support charged and
routed it. Often the light infantry seems to have been practically
non-existent, and it was artillery and formed battalions alone which
fought out the engagement. French generals in the imperial campaigns
appear habitually to have used for the skirmishing line no more than
the _Voltigeur_ company of each battalion,[75] a force making one-ninth
of the whole unit only, till the number of companies was cut down in
1808 from nine to six, when the _Voltigeurs_ became one-sixth of the
total. We are very far, by 1805 or 1809, from the day of the great
“swarm-attacks” of the early Republic.
[Sidenote: Tactics of Napoleon’s Generals]
It was the tactics of the Empire, not those of the Republic, which
Wellington had to face, when he took command of the allied army in
the Peninsula in 1809. He had to take into consideration an enemy
whose methods were essentially offensive, whose order of infantry
fighting was at the best—in the _ordre mixte_—rather heavy, and in
many cases, when the column of the battalion or the regiment was used,
exceptionally gross and crowded. He knew that the enemy would have a
far more numerous cavalry than was at his own disposition, and that
it would be used with reckless boldness—the cavalry stroke in the
Napoleonic battle accompanied, if it did not precede, the infantry
stroke. Moreover, the French army would have a very powerful and
effective artillery, trained to prepare the way for infantry attacks
by the greatest artillerist in the world. His own proportion of guns
to infantry was ridiculously low: there was not even one battery per
division in 1809.
What was there to oppose to this dangerous enemy in the way of
tactical efficiency? Roughly speaking we may say that the one point of
superiority on which Wellesley counted, and counted rightly, was the
superiority of the English formation for infantry in the two-deep line
to the heavier order of the enemy’s battalions. For this formation he
was, of course, not responsible himself: he took it over as an accepted
thing, and thought that he knew how to turn it to the best account.
The effects of the French War on British tactics had been notable and
interesting. The first reflections published on the new type of war
on this side of the Channel seem to have been mainly inspired by the
experience of the Duke of York’s army in 1793–94, when the thick chains
of _tirailleurs_, which formed the protective screen, or first line,
of the Republican armies, had done so much damage to troops which
fought them in the old three-deep order, adopted from Frederic the
Great, without any sufficient counter-provision of skirmishers. We find
early in the war complaints that the British forces had no adequate
proportion of light troops—that the one light company per battalion,
normally used, was wholly unable to prevent the French _tirailleur_
swarm from pressing up to the main line, and doing it much harm
before the real attack was delivered. Two remedies were proposed—the
first was that the proportion of light companies in a battalion
should be increased from one to two,[76] or that in each regiment a
certain number of men should be selected for good marksmanship, and
taught light infantry drill, while still remaining attached to their
companies. Of these proposals the first was never tried: the second was
actually practised by certain colonels, who trained fifteen or twenty
men per company as skirmishers: they were called “flankers,” and were
to go out along with the light company. The only British battle where
I have found them specially mentioned is Maida, where their mention
illustrates the danger of the system. Generals wanting more light
troops habitually purloined the light companies of regiments to make
“light battalions”; but not only did they do this, but they sometimes
even stole the “flankers” also from the centre companies. Stuart had
at Maida not only the light companies, but also the “flankers” of
regiments left behind in Sicily, which had therefore been deprived of
every marksman that they possessed—an execrable device. The system,
however, was only tentative; it soon disappeared; Wellington never
skimmed the centre companies of their good shots, though he did
occasionally create a light battalion of light companies—even this was
exceptional.
[Sidenote: British use of Light Troops]
But there was a second alternative course open to the British: instead
of developing more skirmishers in each battalion, they might create
new light-infantry corps, or turn whole units of the line into light
troops. For the former there was good precedent: in the War of the
American Revolution the British generals had of necessity embodied
corps of riflemen, to oppose to the deadly marksmen from the backwoods
who formed the most efficient part of the American armies. Such
were Simcoe’s Rangers, and the dismounted part of Tarleton’s famous
Legion—whose remainder consisted of veritable mounted infantry—the
first of their sort in the British army, since dragoons had forgotten
their old trade and become cavalry of the line. But all the Rangers,
etc., had been disbanded in 1783, and their use seems to have been
forgotten before the French War began; the system had to begin again
_de novo_. It was not till 1798 that the first British rifle battalion
was created, to wit the 5th Battalion of the 60th Regiment, or Royal
Americans, which was formed as a Jäger unit out of the remains of
many defunct foreign light corps in British pay: it remained mainly
German in composition even during the Peninsular War. This was the
first green-coated battalion; the second was Coote Manningham’s
“Experimental Rifle Corps,” formed in January, 1800, and finally taken
into the service after some vicissitudes, as the 95th—a name famous
in Peninsular annals, though now almost obliterated by its new title
of the “Rifle Brigade.” The regiment was enlarged to three battalions
before it came into Wellington’s hands. Later on, though the number of
rifle corps was not increased, yet an addition was made to the light
troops of the British army by turning certain picked battalions into
light infantry. They were armed with a special musket of light weight,
not with a rifle, and all the companies equally were instructed in
skirmishing work. The first corps so treated was the 90th or Perthshire
Light Infantry, which received the title in 1794. The precedent was
not, however, acted on again till in 1803, the 43rd and 52nd, the
famous regiments of the Peninsular Light Division, were honoured with
the same designation. The last additions during the period of the
Napoleonic wars were the 68th and 85th in 1808, and the 51st and 71st
in 1809. Most of these corps had two battalions, but, even so, the
provision of light infantry was not large for an army which had then
nearly 200 battalions embodied. There were also some foreign corps to
be taken into consideration, which stood on the British muster-rolls,
such as the two Light Battalions of the King’s German Legion, the
Brunswick Oels Jägers, and the Chasseurs Britanniques, who all four
served in the Peninsula. All these save the last were created after
1803: but at least during the second period of the great French War,
our armies were not practically destitute of light troops, as they were
in 1793. We shall see that this had no small importance in Wellington’s
tactical devices.
[Sidenote: The British Two-deep Line]
The other lesson that might possibly have been deduced from the
campaigns of the earlier years of the great war was the efficacy of
columns for striking at the critical points of an enemy’s line. The
continental enemies of France were affected by what they had seen
of this sort of success, and often copied the formation of their
adversaries. But it is notable that the old and wholesome prejudice of
the British in favour of the line was in no way disturbed by what had
happened of late. The idea that the column was a clumsy and expensive
formation was not shaken, and the theory that infantry ought to win by
the rapidity and accuracy of its shooting, and that every musket not
in the firing-line was wasted, continued to prevail. The reply of the
British to the _ordre mixte_ was to reduce the depth of the deployed
battalion from three ranks to two, because it had been discovered
that the fire of the third rank was difficult, dangerous to those in
front, and practically ineffective. Sir David Dundas’s drill-book
of 1788 with its Prussian three ranks, which had been the official
guide of the British infantry of late, was not formally cancelled at
first, but it was practically disregarded, and the army went back
to the two-rank array, which it had habitually used in the American
War, and had abandoned with regret. Apparently the Duke of York did
not altogether approve this change: he at least once issued a General
Order, to remind colonels that the formation in three ranks was still
officially recognized and ought not to be forgotten. But the permission
given by an order in 1801, that inspecting officers might allow
regiments to appear “even at reviews” in the two ranks, probably marked
the practical end of the Prussian system.[77] It had certainly been
disused by many officers long before that date, and it is certain that
in Abercrombie’s Egyptian campaign the double instead of the triple
rank was in general use.[78] British military opinion had decided that
fire was everything, and that the correct answer to the French columnar
attack was to put more men into the firing line.
A conclusive proof of the efficacy of the double when opposed to the
triple rank was very clearly given at the half-forgotten Calabrian
battle of Maida, three years after the commencement of the second half
of the great French War. At this fight the French General Reynier
had deployed the whole, or the greater part, of his battalions, who
were not as usual fighting either in _ordre mixte_ or in battalion
column. The result was very decisive—5000 British infantry in the
thinner formation received the attack of 6000 French in the heavier,
and inflicted on them, purely by superior fire-efficiency, one of the
most crushing defeats on a small scale that was ever seen, disabling or
taking 2000 men, with a total loss to themselves of only 320.[79] It is
worth while remembering that some of the officers who were afterwards
to be Wellington’s trusted lieutenants were present at Maida, including
Cole, Kempt, Oswald, and Colborne.[79] This was about the only instance
that I know where English and French came into action both deployed,
and on a more or less parallel front. Usually it was a case of “column
against line.”
[Sidenote: Wellington’s System]
Sir Arthur Wellesley had been nine years absent in India before he
returned to England in 1805, so that he had to learn the difference
between the Republican and the Imperial armies by new experience. The
problem had long been interesting him. Before he left Calcutta he is
said to have remarked to his confidants that the French were sweeping
everything before them in Europe by the use of column formations, but
that he was convinced that the column could, and would, be beaten by
the line. What he heard after his return to England evidently confirmed
him in this opinion. A conversation which he had with Croker, just
before he set sail on the expedition which was to end at Vimeiro,
chances to have been preserved in the latter’s papers, under the date,
June 14, 1808. Sitting silent, lost in reverie for a long time, he was
asked by Croker the subject of his thoughts. “To say the truth,” he
replied, “I am thinking of the French I am going to fight. I have not
seen them since the campaigns in Flanders [1793–94] when they were
capital soldiers, and a dozen years of victory under Bonaparte must
have made them better still. ’Tis enough to make one thoughtful. But
though they may overwhelm me, I don’t think that they will outmanœuvre
me. First, because I am not afraid of them, as every one else seems
to be, and secondly, because (if all I hear about their system is
true) I think it a false one against steady troops. I suspect all the
continental armies are half-beaten before the battle begins. I at least
will not be frightened beforehand.”
Wellesley went out to Portugal, there to try what could be done with
steady troops against the “French system.” But it would be to convey a
false impression of his meaning if we were to state that he simply went
out to beat column with line—though the essential fact is sufficiently
true. He went out to try his own conception of the proper way to use
the line formation, which had its peculiarities and its limitations.
The chief of these were that—
(1) The line must not be exposed before the moment of actual conflict:
_i.e._ it must be kept under cover as much as possible.
(2) That till the critical moment it must be screened by a line of
skirmishers impenetrable to the enemy’s _tirailleurs._
(3) That it must be properly covered on its flanks, either by the
nature of the ground, or by cavalry and artillery.
When we investigate all his earlier pitched battles, we shall see that
each of these three requisites was as far as possible secured.
(1) It was necessary for success that the line should be kept concealed
from the enemy’s distant fire of artillery and infantry as long as
possible. Hence we find that one of the most marked features of
Wellesley’s many defensive battles was that he took up, whenever it was
feasible, a position which would mask his main line, and show nothing
to the enemy but his skirmishers and possibly his artillery, for the
latter having to operate before the infantry fighting began, and being
obliged to take up positions which would command the ground over which
the enemy must advance, were often visible from the first. At Vimeiro,
Wellesley so concealed his army that Junot, thinking to turn his left
flank, found his turning column itself outflanked by troops moved under
cover behind a skyline. At Bussaco, Masséna, no mean general, mistook
Wellington’s centre for his extreme right, and found his attacking
columns[80] well outflanked when the attack had been pressed to its
issue. At Salamanca it was much the same; the main part of the British
line was well concealed behind a low ridge of hills, while Pakenham’s
division and its attendant cavalry, the force which executed the great
stroke, were concealed in a wooded tract, far outside the French
marching column that vainly thought to get round the allied right
wing. At Waterloo, the clearest case of all, the whole of Wellington’s
infantry of the front line was so far drawn back from the edge of
the slope that it was invisible, till the enemy had climbed to the
brow of the plateau on which it was arrayed. Only the artillery, the
skirmishing line, and the troops in the outlying posts of Hougoumont
and La Haye Sainte could be made out by Napoleon’s eye. Talavera, as I
shall mention below, is the only exception to this general rule in the
Duke’s defensive battles.
[Sidenote: The Advantages of Cover]
Wellington’s ideal position was a rising ground with a long _glacis_
of slope in front, and a plateau or a dip behind it. The infantry was
drawn back from the skyline, and placed behind the crest, if the hill
were saddle-backed, or some hundreds of yards away from the edge, if it
were flat-topped. There they stood or lay till they were wanted, secure
from artillery fire: they moved forward to their actual fighting ground
only when the fire-combat of infantry was to begin. Every one will
remember Wellington’s caustic comment on the Prussian order of battle
at Ligny, where Blücher had drawn out his army in a chequered array
all along the declivity of a descending slope. “Damnably mauled these
fellows will be—every man visible to the enemy.”[81] Or in more solemn
phrase, as he afterwards consigned it to paper: “I told the Prussian
officers, in the presence of Colonel Hardinge, that according to my
judgment, the exposure of the advanced columns, and indeed of the army,
to cannonade, standing as they did displayed to the aim of the enemy’s
fire, was not prudent.”[82]
By the end of the Peninsular War, as I have already had occasion to
observe, it had become so well known to the French that Wellington’s
army, ready for a battle, would be under cover, that he was able, as at
Fuente Guinaldo in 1811, and at Sorauren in 1813, to play off on them
the trick of offering to fight in a half-manned position, because he
knew that they would take it for granted that the ground invisible to
them was held by an adequate force. There is an interesting testimony
to the same effect in the Waterloo campaign. On the morning before the
battle of Quatre Bras began, General Reille, a veteran of the Spanish
war, remained halted for some time before a position held by nothing
but a single Dutch-Belgian division, because (as he expressed it), “Ce
pourrait bien être une bataille d’Espagne—les troupes Anglaises se
montreraient quand il en serait temps.”[83] This was the lesson taught
by many years of Peninsular experience—but on this occasion it chanced
to be singularly ill applied—since a vigorous push would have shown
Reille that there were as yet no red-coats concealed behind the trees
of the Bois de Bossu.
It was only when absolute necessity compelled, owing to there being no
cover available in some parts of his chosen position, that Wellington
very occasionally left troops in his battle-front visible to the
enemy, and exposed to artillery fire from a distance. The best known
instance of this occurred with his centre brigades at Talavera, who
were unmasked perforce, because between the strong hill which protected
his left, and the olive groves which covered his right, there were
many hundred yards of open ground, without any serviceable dips or
undulations to conceal the line. And this was almost the only battle in
which we find record of his troops having suffered heavily by artillery
fire before the clash of infantry fighting began.[84]
(2) The second postulate of Wellington’s system was, as I have remarked
above, that the infantry of his battle-line must be covered by such
a powerful screen of skirmishers, that the enemy’s advanced line of
_tirailleurs_ should never be able to get near enough to it to cause
any real molestation, and that it should not be seriously engaged
before the French supporting columns came up to deliver the main
attack. His old experience in Flanders in 1794 had taught him that the
line cannot contend at advantage with a swarm of light troops, who
yield when charged, but return the moment that the charge has stopped
and the line has drawn back to its original position. There were evil
memories of this sort not only from Flanders, but from the Egyptian
Expedition of 1801, when Abercrombie’s less engaged brigades suffered
severely at the battle of Alexandria from the incessant fire of
skirmishers at long range, to whom no proper opposition was made.[85]
The device which Wellesley practised was to make sure that he should
always have a skirmishing screen of his own, so strong that the French
_tirailleurs_ should never be able to force it in and to get close to
the main line. The moment that he had assumed command in April, 1809,
he set to work to secure this _desideratum_. His first measure was to
add to every brigade in his army an extra company of trained riflemen,
to reinforce the three light companies of the brigade.[86] In April,
1809, he broke up the oldest rifle battalion in the British army, the
fifth of the 60th regiment, and began to distribute a company of it to
each of his brigades, save to those of the King’s German Legion, which
were served by special rifle companies of their own.[87] Thus each of
the brigades which fought at Talavera had a special extra provision of
light troops. Furthermore, when the new Light Division was instituted
on the 1st of March, 1810, each of its two brigades was given a number
of companies of the 95th rifles: and of the other brigades formed in
1810–11 most were provided with an extra light company by means of
taking fractions from the 95th or the newly arrived Brunswick Oels
Jägers, and those which were not, had light-infantry corps of their own
inside them. But this was not all.[88]
[Sidenote: Ample Provision of Light Troops]
In the summer of 1810, Wellington began the system of incorporating
a Portuguese brigade of five battalions in each British division. Of
these five one was always[89] a Caçador or light battalion, specially
trained for skirmishing. The old Portuguese army had not included
such battalions, which were all newly raised corps, intended entirely
for light infantry work. There were originally only six of them, but
Wellington ordered a second six to be raised in 1811, utilizing as
the cadre of the 7th, 8th, 9th the old Loyal Lusitanian Legion, which
Sir Robert Wilson had formed early in the war. As the Portuguese army
contained just twenty-four regiments of the line, in twelve brigades,
the Caçador battalion gave precisely one unit to each brigade, save
that two were incorporated in the Light Division, while none was left
with the two regiments which remained behind in garrison at Abrantes
and at Cadiz respectively.
As the Caçador battalions were essentially light troops, and used
wholly for skirmishing, it resulted that when an Anglo-Portuguese
division of the normal strength of six British and five Portuguese
battalions set itself in battle array, it sent out a skirmishing line
of no less than eight British and ten Portuguese companies, viz. one
each from the line battalions, two of British rifles, six of Caçadores,
or a total of from 1200 to 1500 men to a total strength of 5000 to
5500. This, as will be obvious, was a very powerful protective sheath
to cover the front of the division. It was not always required—the
French did not invariably send out a skirmishing line in advance of
their main attack: but when they did, it would always be restrained
and kept off from the main front of the divisional line. If the enemy
wished to push it in, he had to bring up his formed battalions through
his _tirailleurs_, and thus only could he reach the front of battle.
The French regiments, whether formed in _ordre mixte_ or (as was more
common) in column, had to come to the front, and only so could reach
the hitherto intact British line. It may be noted that the enemy rarely
used for his skirmishing line more than the _voltigeur_ company of
each battalion; as his divisions averaged ten to twelve battalions[90]
and the unit was a six-company battalion of 600 men or under, with
only one _voltigeur_ company, a French division would send out 1000 to
1200 skirmishers, a force appreciably less than the light troops of a
British division of approximately equal force. Hence Wellington never
seems to have been seriously incommoded by the French skirmishers.
[Sidenote: Advantages of the Skirmishing Screen]
So considerable was the British screen of light troops that the French
not unfrequently mistook it for a front line, and speak of their column
as piercing or thrusting back the first line of their opponents, when
all that they had done was to drive in a powerful and obstinate body
of skirmishers bickering in front of the real fighting formation.[91]
Invariably, we may say, they had to use their columns to attack the
two-deep line while the latter was still intact, while their own masses
had already been under fire for some time and were no longer fresh.
It will be asked, perhaps, why the marshals and generals of Napoleon
did not deploy their columns before the moment of contact. Why do we so
seldom read of even the _ordre mixte_ in use—Albuera is the only battle
where we distinctly find it mentioned? The answer to this objection
is, firstly, that they were strongly convinced that the column was
the better striking force to carry a given point, and that they were
normally attacking not the whole British line but the particular
section or sections where they intended to break through. But,
secondly, we may add that they frequently did attempt to deploy, but
always too late, since they waited till they had driven in the British
skirmishing line, and tried to assume the thinner formation when they
were already under fire and heavily engaged. It was not always that
the British noted this endeavour—so late was it begun, so instant was
its failure. But there is evidence that it was tried by Kellermann’s
grenadiers at Vimeiro, by part at least of Leval’s division at Barrosa,
by Merle’s column at Bussaco, when it had already reached the summit
of the Serra, and was closely engaged with Picton’s troops. At Albuera
we have a good description of it from the British side. When Myers’
fusilier brigade marched against the flank of the 5th Corps, in the
crisis of that battle, Soult launched against them his reserve, the
three regiments of Werlé, which became at once locked in combat at
very short range with the fusiliers. “During the close action,”
writes a British officer (Blakeney of the 7th), “I saw their officers
endeavouring to deploy their columns, but all to no purpose. For as
soon as the third of a company got out, they would immediately run back
in order to be covered by the front of their column.” The fact was,
that the effect of the fire of a British regiment far exceeded anything
that the enemy had been wont to cope with when engaged with continental
troops, and was altogether devastating. Again and again French officers
who came under it for the first time, made the miscalculation of
trying the impossible. Nothing could be more inevitably productive
of confusion and disorder than to attempt deployment under such a
heavy fire. Wherefore many French commanders never tried it at all,
and thought it more safe to go on to the final shock with their
battalions in the usual “column of divisions,” in which they had begun
their attack. This was little better, and quite as costly in the end.
“Really,” wrote Wellington, in a moment of unwonted exhilaration, after
the combat of Sabugal, “these attacks in column against our lines are
very contemptible.”[92] This was after he had viewed from the other
bank of the Coa, “where I could see every movement on both sides,” the
43rd regiment repulse in succession three attacks by French columns
which came up against it, one after the other.
[Sidenote: Necessity of Flank Cover]
(3) We now come to the third postulate of Wellington’s system—the
two-deep fighting line must be covered on its flanks, either by the
ground, or by cavalry and artillery support, or by infantry prolonging
the front beyond the enemy’s immediate point of action. At Talavera
one of his flanks was covered by a precipitous hill, the other by
thick olive plantations. At Bussaco both the French attacks were
hopelessly outflanked by troops posted on high and inaccessible ground,
and could only be pushed frontally. At Fuentes de Oñoro the final
fighting position rested on a heavily occupied village at one end, and
on the ravine of the Turon river upon the other. At Salamanca the 3rd
Division, the striking-force which won the battle, had its line covered
on its outer flank by a British and a Portuguese brigade of cavalry.
At Vittoria the whole French army was enveloped by the concentric
and converging attack of the much longer British line. At Waterloo
flank protection was secured by the advanced post of Hougoumont and
a “refused” right wing at one end of the position: by the group of
fortified farms (Papelotte, La Haye, etc.), and a mass of cavalry
at the other. Wellington, in short, was very careful of his flanks.
Only once indeed, so far as I remember, did the French get round the
outlying end of his army and cause him trouble. This was in the first
episode of Fuentes de Oñoro, where the 7th Division, placed some way
out, as a flank-guard, suffered some loss by being taken in rear
by French cavalry which had made a great circuit, and only escaped
worse disaster because two of its battalions, the 51st and _Chasseurs
Britanniques_, had time to form front to flank, and adapt themselves
to the situation, and because a few British squadrons sacrificed
themselves in checking, so long as was possible, the enemy’s superior
horse.
There was one universally remembered instance during the war which
demonstrated the terrible risk that the line might run if it were not
properly protected on the flanks. At Albuera Colborne’s brigade of
the 2nd Division was thrown into the fight with its flank absolutely
bare—there was no support within half a mile—by the recklessness of its
divisional general, William Stewart. It was caught unprepared by two
regiments of French cavalry, charging in at an angle, almost on its
rear, and three battalions were literally cut to pieces, with a loss of
1200 men out of 1600 present, and five colours. Wellington would never
have sent it forward without the proper support on its wings, and it
is noteworthy that, later on the same day, Cole took the 4th Division
into action on the same hill, and against the same enemy, with perfect
success, because he had guarded one flank with a battalion in column,
and the other (the outer and more exposed one) with a battalion in
square and a brigade of cavalry.
These, then, were the necessary postulates required for the successful
use of line against column, and when they were duly borne in mind,
victory was secure with any reasonable balance in numbers. The
essential fact that lay behind the oft-observed conclusion was simply
that the two-deep line enabled a force to use every musket with effect,
while the “column of divisions” put seven-ninths of the men forming it
in a position where they could not shoot at all, and even the _ordre
mixte_ praised by Napoleon placed from seven-twelfths to two-thirds of
the rank and file in the same unhappy condition.[93] But Albuera is the
only fight in the war in which there is definite proof that the enemy
fought in the _ordre mixte_ with deployed battalions and battalions
in column ranged alternately in his front.[94] Usually he came on
with his units all in columns of divisions, and very frequently (as at
Bussaco and in certain episodes at Talavera) he had battalion behind
battalion in each regiment. It was a gross order of fighting, but
D’Erlon invented a worse and a more clumsy formation at Waterloo, where
he sent forward whole divisions with eight or nine battalions deployed
one behind the other, so as to produce a front of only 200 men and a
depth of twenty-four—with only one man in twelve able to use his musket.
[Sidenote: Superior Fire of the Line]
Clearly, however, the column of divisions (double companies) was the
normal French order, _i.e._ in a battalion of 600 men in six companies,
we should get a front of 66 muskets and 132 men able to fire, while
468 were in the rear ranks, able to be shot but not to shoot. If an
English battalion of equal strength lay in front, in its two-deep
line, it could give a discharge of 600 muskets against one of 132, and
this was not all. Its front was nearly five times that of the French
battalion, so that its fire lapped round the flanks of the advancing
mass, demoralizing it because there was no proper power to reply. Often
the British line, during the moments of fire-combat, somewhat threw
forward its wings in a shallow crescent, and blazed with three sides of
the column at once. This was done by the 43rd and 52nd at Bussaco, with
great effect, against the French brigade, that of Simon, which came
up the slope in front of them, with its leading regiment ranged three
battalions deep, in a most vulnerable array. How could it be expected
that the column would prevail? Effective against an enemy who allowed
himself to be cowed and beaten by the sight of the formidable advancing
mass, it was helpless against steady troops, who stood their ground and
emptied their muskets, as fast as they could load, into a mark which
it was impossible to miss. This, probably, is what Wellington meant
when (as mentioned above) he stated to Croker, ere ever he sailed for
Portugal, that “if all I hear about their system is true, I think it a
false one against steady troops. I suspect all the continental armies
are half-beaten before the battle begins.” That is to say, the column
might win by the terror that its massive weight and impetus inspired;
but if the enemy refused to be terrorized, he would be able to hold his
own, and to inflict enormous losses on the crowded formation.
It only remains to be said that, with the battalion in column of
divisions as unit, the French had two ways of drawing up their
attacking line. They might either draw up the battalions of each
regiment in a line of columns, or they might place them one behind the
other, making the whole regiment into a single column. Both methods
were from time to time employed. It was not details of arrangement
like this which made the difference—the essential weakness was the
“column of divisions” which formed the base of all the array—it was too
helpless in fire-contest against the line.
The physical aspect of the contest between line and column we have
now sufficiently dealt with. What was the moral aspect? Fortunately
we can explain it with accuracy, because one of the many thousands
of French officers who went through the Peninsular War has left us,
not personal anecdotes or confused impressions like so many of his
fellows, but a real account of the mental state of a battalion going
forward in column to attack the British line. I make no excuse for
quoting in full the paragraphs of Bugeaud, a _chef de bataillon_ in
1812—a marshal of African fame thirty years later—because they give
us exactly what we want to know. It should be premised, however, that
Bugeaud did not serve in the Army of Portugal, nor face Wellington’s
own troops. He served in Suchet’s army, along the Mediterranean Coast
of the Peninsula, and his personal observations must have been made at
Castalla and other combats in the East. It is to be noted also that he
gives no account of the clash of skirmishers which so often took place,
and describes his column as going forward unsheathed to the main clash
of battle.
[Sidenote: Bugeaud on Column versus Line]
“I served seven years in the Peninsula,” he says; “during that time we
sometimes beat the English in isolated encounters and raids [_e.g._
Ordal] which as a field officer detached I was able to prepare and
direct. But during that long period of war, it was my sorrow to see
that only in a very small number of general actions did the British
army fail to get the better of us. We almost invariably attacked
our adversaries, without either taking into account our own past
experience, or bearing in mind that the tactics which answered well
enough when we had only Spaniards to deal with, almost invariably
failed when an English force was in our front.
“The English generally held good defensive positions, carefully
selected and usually on rising ground, behind the crest of which
they found cover for a good part of their men. The usual obligatory
cannonade would commence the operation, then, in haste, without duly
reconnoitring the position, without ascertaining whether the ground
afforded any facilities for lateral or turning movements, we marched
straight forward, ‘taking the bull by the horns.’[95]
“When we got to about a thousand yards from the English line the men
would begin to get restless and excited: they exchanged ideas with
one another, their march began to be somewhat precipitate, and was
already growing a little disorderly. Meanwhile the English, silent
and impassive, with grounded arms, loomed like a long red wall; their
aspect was imposing—it impressed novices not a little. Soon the
distance began to grow shorter: cries of ‘_Vive l’Empereur_,’ ‘_en
avant à la baïonnette_,’ broke from our mass. Some men hoisted their
shakos on their muskets, the quick-step became a run: the ranks began
to be mixed up: the men’s agitation became tumultuous, many soldiers
began to fire as they ran. And all the while the red English line,
still silent and motionless, even when we were only 300 yards away,
seemed to take no notice of the storm which was about to beat upon it.
“The contrast was striking. More than one among us began to reflect
that the enemy’s fire, so long reserved, would be very unpleasant when
it did break forth. Our ardour began to cool: the moral influence
(irresistible in action) of a calm which seems undisturbed as opposed
to disorder which strives to make up by noise what it lacks in
firmness, weighed heavily on our hearts.
“At this moment of painful expectation the English line would make a
quarter-turn—the muskets were going up to the ‘ready.’ An indefinable
sensation nailed to the spot many of our men, who halted and opened a
wavering fire. The enemy’s return, a volley of simultaneous precision
and deadly effect, crashed in upon us like a thunderbolt. Decimated by
it we reeled together, staggering under the blow and trying to recover
our equilibrium. Then three formidable _Hurrahs_ termined the long
silence of our adversaries. With the third they were down upon us,
pressing us into a disorderly retreat. But to our great surprise, they
did not pursue their advantage for more than some hundred yards, and
went back with calm to their former lines, to await another attack. We
rarely failed to deliver it when our reinforcements came up—with the
same want of success and heavier losses.”[96]
[Sidenote: Helplessness of the Column]
This is the picture that we need to complete our study of the conflict
of column with line. The psychology of the huddled mass going forward
to inevitable defeat could not be better portrayed. The only thing that
is hard for us to understand is the reason which induced capable men
like Soult, D’Erlon, or Foy to continue to use the columnar formation
all through the dark days of 1813–14, and even in the final campaign of
Waterloo. All honour must be paid, however, to the rank and file who,
with five years of such experience behind them, were still steadfast
and courageous enough to put up a good fight even in their last
offensive battles in the Pyrenees, as well as in the defensive actions
of Orthez and Toulouse.