MILITARY EXAMPLES
COLUMN OF ATTACK
“Frontal attacks are to be avoided, and the preference always is to be given to the assault of a single wing, with your center and remaining wing held back; because if your attack is successful you equally destroy the enemy without the risk of being routed if you fail.”—Frederic the Great.
At Leuctra and Mantinea, Epaminondas won by the oblique or Strategic order of battle. Alexander the Great won by the same order at Issus and the Haspades. Cyrus won at Thymbra and Hannibal won at Trebia, Thrasymene, Cannae and Herdonea, by the three sides of an octagon or enveloping formation. Caesar won by the oblique order at Pharsaleus.
Gustavus Adolphus won at Leipsic by acting from the Tactical Center and Turenne and Prince Eugene gained their victories by the same means.
Frederic the Great won at Hohenfriedberg, Sohr, Rosbach, Leuthern, Zorndorf and Leignitz by the oblique order and at Torgau by acting from the tactical center.
Washington won at Trenton and Princeton acting by three contiguous sides of an octagon.
Bonaparte won at Montenotte, Castiglione, Arcola, Rivoli, Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram and Ligny, by acting from the tactical center. Never did he attack by the oblique order of battle.
Von Moltke’s victories all were won by acting in strict accord with the system laid down for the use of the Prussian army by Frederic the Great.
COLUMN OF SUPPORT
The most magnificent illustration both of the proper and of the improper use of the Column of Support is found in that Grand Operation executed by the Roman consuls, Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius, whereby the Carthagenian Army under Hasdrubal was destroyed at the river Metaurus 207 B.C.
Hannibal, with the main Carthagenian army, posted in the south of Italy near Canusium, was observed by Nero and his troops; while in the west, Hasdrubal, observed by Livius was slowly advancing southward to form a junction with his brother, a most unscientific procedure.
Livius permitted Hasdrubal to penetrate into Italy to a point a few miles south of the Metaurus River; whereupon Nero, taking 7,000 of his best troops, by a rapid march of 200 miles united with Livius; and the two consuls at once falling upon Hasdrubal utterly annihilated the Carthagenian army. Nero returned at all speed and the first news of his march and of the death blow to the Carthagenian projects against Rome was furnished by the sight of his brother’s head, which Nero cast into Hannibal’s camp from a military machine.
The true method for uniting the Columns of Support to a Column of Attack is thus shown by Gustavus Adolphus:
“We encamped about Nuremberg the middle of June, the army after so many detachments was not above 11,000 infantry and 8,000 horse and dragoons. The King posted his army in the suburbs and drew intrenchments around the circumference so that he begirt the whole city with his army. His works were large, the ditch deep, planked by innumerable bastions, ravelins, horn-works, forts, redoubts, batteries and palisades, the incessant labor of 8000 men for fourteen days.
“On the 30th of June the Imperialists, joined to the Bavarian army arrived and sat down 60,000 strong, between the city and the friendly states; in order to intercept the King’s provisions and to starve him out.
“The King had three great detachments and several smaller ones, acting abroad, reducing to his power the castles and towns of the adjacent countries and these he did not hasten to join him until their work was done.
“The two chief armies had now lain for five or six weeks in sight of each other and the King thinking all was ready, ordered his generals to join him. Gustavus Horn was on the Moselle, Chancellor Oxenstern about Mentz and Cologne and Dukes William and Bernard and Gen. Bannia in Bavaria.
“Our friends were not backward in obeying the King’s command, and having drawn together their forces from various parts and ALL joined the chancellor Oxenstern, they set out in full march for Nuremburg, where they arrived Aug. 21, being 30,000 old soldiers commanded by officers of the greatest conduct and experience in the world.”
Only once, at the battle of Torgau, (Nov. 5, 1760) did Frederick the Great rely upon the co-operation of his Columns of Support for victory.
As the result, his Column of Attack of 25,000 men fought the entire battle and was so ruined by the fire and sabres of 90,000 enemies and 400 pieces of artillery that, as the sun went down the King charged at the head of two battalions, his sole remaining troops. At this moment Gen. Zeithen, with the Column of Support, of 22,000 men occupied Siptka Hill, the tactical key of the battlefield, and fired a salvo of artillery to inform the King of their presence. The astonished Austrians turned and fled; the King’s charge broke their line of battle and Frederic grasped a victory, “for which” says Napoleon, “he was indebted to Fortune and the only one in which he displayed no talent.”
This comment of course is not true. Frederic displayed magnificent talent that day, by holding in check a force of thrice his numbers and so shattering it by his incessant attacks that it crumbled to pieces before the mere presence and at sight of his fresh and vigorous Column of Support. Had Napoleon displayed such talent in the personal conduct of battles during 1813, 1814 and 1815 it is possible that he would have terminated his career at some other place than at St. Helena.
The experience, however, was enough to fully satisfy Frederic, and never again did he attempt a Logistic battle.
The capture of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown is perhaps the nearest approach to the achievement of Nero and Livius in the annals of the military art. Decoyed by the retrograde movements of Gen. Greene, the British army was deluded into taking up a position at Yorktown, having the unfordable James River in rear, and within striking distance of the main American army under Washington about New York City.
Lafayette was ordered to reinforce Greene; Count d’Esting was induced to bring the French fleet from the West Indies to Chesapeake Bay to prevent the rescue of Cornwallis by British coming by the ocean, and Count Rochambeau was requested to join Washington with the French army then in Rhode Island.
All this took time, but everything was executed like clockwork. The French fleet arrived in the Chesapeake; the next day came a British fleet to rescue the Earl’s army. In the naval fight which ensued, the British were driven to sea and so damaged as to compel their return to New York. By a swift march, Washington, with his Continentals and the French, joined Greene and Lafayette, and two of his redoubts being taken by storm, Lord Cornwallis surrendered. This victory established the independence of the American Colonies.
The Logistic Battle, i.e., the combination of the Columns of Attack and of Support was first favorite with Napoleon and to his partiality for this particular form of the tactical offensive was due both the spectacular successes and the annihilating catastrophes which mark his astonishing career.
The retrieving of his lost battle of Marengo, by the fortuitous arrival of Dessaix column, seems to have impressed Napoleon to the extent that he ever after preferred to win by such process, rather than by any other.
The first attempt to put his new hypothesis into practice was at Jena. Single handed his column of attack destroyed the Prussian main body, while Davoust with the column of manoeuvre held in check over three times his numbers.
The French Column of Support under Bernadotte did not arrive in season to fire a shot.
At Eylau, the French Column of Support under Davoust was four hours in advancing six miles against the opposition of the Russian general Doctoroff. The second French Column of Support under Ney did not reach the field until the battle was over.
In the retreat from Russia, the French Column of Support under the Duke of Belluno was driven from its position at Smolensko, thus permitting the Russians under Kutosof to occupy the Strategic center, which disaster cost Napoleon 30,000 men in clearing his communications.
In 1813, the Column of Support under Ney at Bautzen was misdirected and the battle rendered indecisive by its lack of co-operation with the French Column of Attack.
In 1814, Napoleon conformed to the Art by acting in three columns, but yielding to his besetting military sin, he joined his Column of Support to his Column of Attack and through the open space thus created in the French Strategetic Front, Blucher advanced triumphantly to Paris.
In the Waterloo campaign, Napoleon properly began with three Grand Columns. At the battle of Ligny, his Column of Support arrived upon Blucher’s left flank and then without firing a shot, wheeled about and marched away.
At Waterloo, by uniting his Columns of Attack and of Support prematurely, Napoleon permitted Blucher to penetrate the French Strategetic Front and to win in the same manner and as decisively as he did at Paris.
Von Moltke won the battle of Sadowa by the arrival of the Prussian Column of Support, commanded by Prince Frederic William. But in the interim, the German main army was driven in several miles by the Austrians, and Prince Bismark’s first white hairs date from that day.
COLUMN OF MANOEUVRE
“A small body of brave and expert men, skillfully handled and favored by the ground, easily may render difficult the advance of a large army.”—Frederic the Great.
At the river Metaurus, the Roman Consul Livius gave a fine example of the duties of a Column of Manoeuvre which are slowly and securely to retreat before an advancing enemy and never to be induced into a pitched battle until the arrival of the kindred main body.
Frederic the Great made great use of Columns of Manoeuvre. In the Seven Years War he constantly maintained such a column against the armies of each State with whom Prussia was at war; while himself and his brother Henry operated as Columns of Attack.
In the Revolutionary War, Washington maintained a Column of Manoeuvre against the British in Rhode Island, another against the British in the south and a third against the hostile Indian tribes of the southwest.
Napoleon constantly used Columns of Manoeuvre in all his campaigns; notably at Montenotte, Castiglione, Arcole, Rivoli, Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, in 1812, 1813, 1814 and at Ligny and Waterloo in 1815.
PRIME STRATEGETIC MEANS