Few changes have been made in the drill or manœuvres of the army since 1880, except in the direction of reducing the number of the latter, and simplifying and giving freedom of action in the former. Greater attention is now paid to practical instruction, and to the value of continued training in marching, coupled with care for the soldiers’ feet, after the day’s march, and clothing. Thus the truth of Wellington’s remark is recognised, that “battles are as much won by feet as by arms.”
Examinations for promotion are more searching, selection for appointments to command the rule rather than the exception; while every possible care is taken to ensure the retention of men who know their work. Sir Evelyn Wood bears evidence that “in tactical skill, officers of all ranks have improved to a very great degree; but the improvement in military spirit, in eagerness to learn, and to submit cheerfully to great physical discomforts is even more remarkable, and this spirit reacts naturally on the lower ranks.”
The armament of all arms is altering. In the cavalry the front ranks of all heavy and medium regiments are armed with the lance, as well as sword and carbine, and only the hussars retain the two latter for both ranks. Every effort is being made to lighten the enormous weight a cavalry horse has to carry.
The artillery re-armed with a steel breech-loading, chambered, 12-pounder gun, has a very high velocity, and hence a very flat trajectory. This, for many purposes admirable, lessens the “searching” effect of artillery fire, and in foreign armies howitzer batteries and even field-mortar batteries are being experimented on.
Quick-firing guns are openly advocated for field service, and high explosives will render iron or steel turrets and stone fortifications both vulnerable, and dangerous to the defenders. Of late years, not only has Shoeburyness continued its useful work as the great centre of experimental work with large and small guns, but Okehampton has been utilised as a practice-ground for field artillery under conditions approximating to those of actual war.
The use of smokeless powder has changed in many ways the tactical application of the three arms. It is no longer easy to estimate exactly the extent of front of a battery of guns, nor even its exact position, nor can the fact of its fire being diminished by loss be so readily ascertained as when the smoke gave the information wanted. So, throughout the field generally, there is no smoke screen to hide the assailants from view, and greater exposure may involve more serious loss in attack. Similarly, the length of the enemy’s line of battle, and the extent to which it is occupied, will so far perplex the attacking commander, that unnecessarily wide turning movements may be expected, with consequent loss of time. Furthermore, the friction caused by the velocity of the cordite gas, with its naturally chemically corrosive action, tends to destroy barrels, and so render, earlier than heretofore, the weapon inaccurate. As regards the infantry, they have been armed with a Lee-Mitford small-bore rifle, with a calibre of ·303 inch, and having a muzzle velocity with cordite of 2000 feet a second, and a consequent range of 1900 yards. The long bayonet has been replaced by a short dagger, not unlike the first pattern of “plug-bayonet” which fitted into the muzzle of the arquebus. The weapon has an extremely flat trajectory, but it is improbable that the small diameter of the bullet would stop an Arab rush unless it found its billet in a vital part. Its penetration into wood is such that simple stockades, or even old brick walls, would be vulnerable before the new rifle. The number of rounds carried in the magazine is ten. Much stress is now laid on “field-firing” against targets with unknown ranges, arranged as far as possible under service conditions.
Long-ranged fire, even up to 3000 mètres, has been tried in France, but in England there is a tendency, with many officers, to deprecate the use of small-arm ammunition at extreme ranges.
The general direction of the improvement in firearms is to lessen the size of the bore and increase the flatness of the trajectory. Thus the high-angled fire of the Snider, converted from the muzzle-loading Enfield, was changed for the Martini-Henry, in every way a more deadly weapon, and this, as has been already remarked, has given way to an even smaller bored rifle. And with the increased rapidity of fire and the larger number of rounds of the lighter ammunition that can be carried, the bayonet, that was lengthened in 1878, was reduced to its present dimensions.
Muzzle-loading guns have been replaced by breech-loaders, and the steel muzzle-loading guns used in Abyssinia by screw guns, which can be put together and fired within a minute from the time the two mules, which carry the parts, halt.
Machine guns, such as the Gatling, Gardner, and Nordenfeldt, will probably give way to the automatic Maxim.