“These young men, sir, can scarcely be subjected to any contingency for which they are not perfectly prepared by education and practice. You are mistaken if you imagine that the Emperor Napoleon considers theoretical instruction sufficient for a soldier; our institution goes farther, a great deal farther. All these youths whom you here see, have had much more experience than many officers in actual service in other armies. Their constitution is early inured to all the prejudicial influences which menace the practical soldier. Among these young men there is not one but what has worked with his own hands at the construction of real forts; not one but what has stood centinel whole nights together. All of them have slept many cold and tempestuous nights in the open air, and next day performed a march of 16 or 18 miles; have climbed lofty mountains, beneath the scorching rays of a meridian sun; have swam, sometimes in their clothes, sometimes without, through impetuous rivers and chilling streams; have even been obliged to abstain for whole days from food, and during the hottest weather from drink, that they might learn to endure all possible inconveniences incident to a soldier’s life, and that they might be intimately acquainted with them before they were involved in them by necessity. Nothing would terrify them in an uncommon degree: for in the sham fights in our Institution, the rapier is thrown away after the first few hours, and a sharp sword is put into the hands of the pupils. If any of them receive a wound, he has nothing but his own aukwardness to blame for it. It is his business to protect himself by his superiority. Would you now repeat your question?”
It is easy to conceive what an effect such a practical education must have upon the soldier in the higher ranks! What may be expected of an officer thus prepared for every event? That the conduct of their leader operates with a powerful impulse on all those who are under his command, is not to be denied. Exercise begets courage and energy, and at a period when war is a trade, those who possess these two qualities in the highest degree, must predominate.
EFFECTIVE men, in a military sense, are soldiers fit for service; as an army of 30,000 effective (fighting) men.
EFFORT du Cannon, Fr. The effect or impression made by a piece of ordnance, which wholly depends upon the manner it is loaded and fired.
EGUILLETTES. Shoulder knots.
To ELANCE, to throw darts, &c.
ELDER battalion. A battalion is counted elder than another, by the time since it was raised. See [Seniority].
Elder officer, is he whose commission bears the oldest date. See [Seniority].
ELEMENTS, in a military sense, signify the first principles of tactics, fortification, and gunnery.
ELLIPSIS, an oval figure, made by the section of a cone, by a plane dividing both sides of a cone; and though not parallel to the base, yet meeting with the base when produced.