We should bear in mind, then, that the operation order is nothing more than a field order fitted to trench conditions. We must not gain the idea that it has supplanted the order which goes with mobile exercises on open ground. Open warfare began this conflict, and will, provided it be ended by martial victory, bring it to a close. Open warfare has been the rule on the long Russian, Italian, Serbian, Turkish, and Roumanian fronts. We must not be led astray in our estimate of the proportions because the front in France and Belgium is the most vital one to us from a strategic standpoint. Field orders, which are the accompaniments of open warfare, should still form the larger part of our study.
Nevertheless, the operation order is the order next in importance to the field order. It must be framed with mathematical precision under fire.
It has the greatest conciseness, but is not brief. It goes into the minutest details, but its details are tersely put. In certain parts it is telegraphic like the field message; in others it has completed sentences like those of the field order. It has an orderly arrangement of paragraphs and brief and unmistakable language. If we are able to compose a good field message and order, we should find, after we have familiarized ourselves with the technique of the trenches, that the construction of the operation order will fall naturally into place in our minds.
Unfortunately, we are forbidden to place an example of one of our own operation orders upon these pages. But we may have the opportunity of viewing a German one, which contains the principles of our own. The example given was issued by a regimental commander for a raid. The action actually took place near La Boisselle, April 11, 1916.
110th Reserve Infantry Regiment. In the field, 6th April, 1916.
Regimental Orders for a Raid on the Spion
1. The raid will probably take place at dusk the 11th of April.
2. Organization of the raiding party—
In command.—Captain Wagener, assisted by Lieutenant Boening, Assistant-Surgeon Wisser, one bugler and six stretcher bearers.
Patrol commanders.—Lieutenants Stradtmann, Freund, Dumas, and Böhlefeld.