A General's Letters to His Son on Minor Tactics

by Anonymous

I am very thankful that your wound is only a slight one, and am glad that within a couple of months you will probably once more be able to take your place in the fighting-line, for that is where your country demands your presence. It behoves you, in the meantime, to seize every opportunity of studying your profession and familiarising yourself as far as possible with the different positions in which you may be placed, so that when you meet a similar situation in the field you may recognise it for what it really is, in spite of the surroundings in which it is dressed, and may thus be more likely to solve it properly than would be the case if you were dealing with a problem which you had never thought over before. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the results which may depend on your correctly answering the questions put to you on the field of battle. These questions become more complex and more varied as the responsibility of an officer’s position increases, but in the case of a junior officer they are seldom very difficult, and all that is required to deal with them properly is a little common sense and a cool head combined with courage and determination.

It is on the result of the many little fights of which an action is composed that the result of a battle depends. The brilliant strategy of a commander-in-chief and the fine tactics of a divisional commander cannot bear fruit unless the troop-leading of the companies is well carried out, and in the same way good troop-leading will prevent a defeat being turned into a rout. Individual gallantry, valuable as it may be, is bound to be thrown away if unaccompanied by skill. The experiences you have undergone should render you more capable of assimilating the requisite knowledge than you were nine months ago.

Before I proceed further, I will mention a few axioms which can seldom be neglected without bad results accruing. Some of these seem so self-evident that it would appear to be unnecessary to state them, nevertheless they are all of them continually transgressed.

1. Impress on your men the importance of adjusting their sights correctly. On a peace field-day this axiom is sometimes neglected, and in the excitement of action it is often entirely forgotten.

2. Keep your men together unless there is some very definite object for not doing so, and only detach them for protective services, i.e. advance guards, etc.

3. Infantry mounted officers are apt to forget that their horses are given to them in order to give them more mobility. There are many occasions on which, by cantering on and making arrangements previous to the arrival of the unit which they command, they can save a great deal of valuable time and often much marching and counter-marching.

4. Never allow the pace in front to be hurried on a march. It is much easier to march at the head than at the rear of a column.

5. Before opening fire, carefully consider the situation. If you feel certain of being able to deal with the enemy, let him approach close before disclosing yourself, and then destroy him. If, on the contrary, he is so much superior to you that you cannot hope to be able to do this, you should open at a long range, but in these circumstances do not hurry the rate of fire to begin with. It takes an exceptional man to fire more than 200 rounds in a short space of time without being shaken.

6. It is a sound rule always to pursue the line of action which your opponent does not wish you to pursue. If, for instance, in the circumstances mentioned in the above paragraph the enemy open fire on you at a long range, you may presume that he does so in order to keep you at arm’s length, and if you halt you are probably doing what he wishes you to do.

7. However small your party may be when acting independently, it is responsible for its own protection, and it should always have an advance guard or its equivalent.