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A GENERAL'S LETTERS TO HIS
SON ON MINOR TACTICS
A GENERAL'S LETTERS TO HIS SON ON MINOR TACTICS
NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PREFACE It has very forcibly been brought home to me that not only young officers joining their units from training establishments, but also those who have been in France and have come back wounded, are often very ignorant on those points in minor tactics which they have not learnt through actual experience on the battlefield, and that this is especially the case with regard to the proper control of fire. The battlefield is an expensive place to acquire knowledge which can be gained elsewhere, and it behooves us to do all we possibly can to train our young commanders under peace conditions for the ordeals they will have to encounter in the presence of the enemy.
Training which in ordinary times would form the course of study for years now has to be crammed into a few months, and it stands to reason that much which is essential remains unlearnt.
I have generally found that the best way to train young officers in minor tactics is by giving them as realistically as possible little problems to solve, and afterwards in the presence of their comrades to discuss their proposed dispositions and then to tell them clearly what they ought to have done, giving reasons for every step taken.
Where it is possible actually to carry out the exercise with troops, this is still better, so long as it is all done quickly, as this impresses the lesson to be learnt more strongly on the minds of the students.
There is not a word in this little book which transgresses the spirit of the training manuals and official instructions now in force.
A GENERAL'S LETTERS
TO HIS SON
ON MINOR TACTICS
LETTER I
MY DEAR DICK,--
It is now nearly nine months since I wrote the last of my letters of advice to you, and since then you have yourself been in France and have had many experiences and hairbreadth escapes.
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.
Try to remember these axioms. My subsequent letters will be founded on their application.
LETTER II
MY DEAR DICK,--
I will now proceed to set you a few problems in illustration of the axioms which I gave you at the end of my last letter.
The first will be on the subject of taking a German pill-box, for I have heard of many instances of a pill-box holding up the advance of a whole brigade for a very considerable period. I have also heard how many gallant but badly devised attempts to carry it have failed, and the lives of officers and men have been sacrificed in vain, and how eventually a better commanded platoon has succeeded in taking it with very little loss.
PROBLEM 1
The slopes are covered with brushwood. The ground between contour 120 and the pill-box is meadow land.
What steps will you take to carry out your orders?
Do not enter into an elaborate dissertation, but give short, concise orders, and if you desire to do so, append a short statement saying why you gave these orders.
I am aware that in the foregoing problem I have made the task of the platoon commander a very simple one. I wished, however, to avoid any points of controversy. If the ground should not be so advantageous for your attack as that above depicted, the principle, viz. movement combined with fire, still remains the same. You should bring a converging attack to bear and advance your men under cover of the fire of your rifle grenades and Lewis guns, and by pushing men forward from one shell-crater to another, you should generally be able to achieve your object if your plan be evolved on sound principles. It is also possible that smoke bombs could be used with advantage if the wind be favourable.
The above problem is one which has often been put to young officers on the battlefield, and they have not by any means always given a satisfactory answer to it, simple as it is.
MY DEAR DICK,--
Since the early days of the campaign there has been but little fighting in towns or villages which have not previously been so knocked about that they could better be designated ruins than habitable places, but in the event of an advance on a large scale towns and villages are certain to be the scenes of severe combats. I will therefore give you three little problems in street-fighting. When you have read them, the points I call attention to will probably seem to you so self-evident that you will wonder that I have considered it worth while to comment on them. Nevertheless, I am not quite sure that you will give what I consider to be the correct answers to all of them, if you do not turn over the page and look at the solutions I have given, before stating your own.
PROBLEM 2
The brigade to which you belong has entered a town from a southerly direction, and you are opposed by an enemy who has entered it from a northerly direction.
On the western side, because your men, shooting out of the windows in a northerly direction, would then fire from their right shoulders without exposing their bodies.
I have put you three definite and very simple questions with regard to street-fighting, for it may often happen that correct action on the spur of the moment when a village is first entered may result in ground being easily gained which would otherwise entail heavy fighting and serious loss to capture.
Street-fighting is a very big subject, and as a rule it gradually develops into underground warfare.
Villages entered during a battle often have snipers in the top stories or on the roofs of the houses, and these are places in which you may also place a few good shots with great advantage. This is an illustration of the advisability of doing to the enemy what you do not like his doing to you.
I will send you another problem next week.
LETTER IV
MY DEAR DICK,--
You have told me that you have once or twice temporarily commanded a company and have asked me whether I think there is any advantage in a young and active company commander being mounted.
In another part of your letter you ask whether I think a defensive position should be taken up on a forward or on a reverse slope.
This latter is a very big question and one on which many pages could be written, but I shall confine myself here to saying that it is imperative to hold the crest line in order to get observation, but that, owing to the crest line and forward slope being so much more vulnerable by artillery fire than is the reverse slope, there are many advantages in constructing the main line of defence well behind the crest.
PROBLEM 3
What would you do on receipt of these orders?
You should save time by handing over command of your company and yourself cantering on so as to examine the ground and carefully consider your plans before your company arrives. The line of argument you should adopt on arrival on the ridge should be: "My first object is to prevent cavalry, assisted by horse artillery, reaching the ridge, and not a single moment is to be lost in doing this.
"My second object is to consider carefully how the ground can best be prepared to resist a determined infantry attack early to-morrow morning. It is possible that the ridge may be subjected to shell fire soon after the arrival of my company, and I must make hay whilst the sun shines."
"I will use intensive labour to get these emplacements completed quickly."
If you concur with these conclusions, what principle will govern your action in putting the farm into a state of defence? You will notice that the farm shows a bigger front to the east and the west than it does to the north and the south. It is constructed of strong masonry and has two stories.
You should use the southern rooms in the farm for your machine guns rather than the northern ones, as you will there be more protected from shell fire. You must keep your defence as much below ground as possible, using cellars if they are available, and otherwise digging trenches inside the walls so as to have your loopholes a few inches above the ground level.
The "crucifix" strong point is also a good pattern, but I think that the one that I have given you is better, as it is in every way a less satisfactory mark for the enemy artillery, and also gives you quite as good, if not better, opportunity of using all your rifles in every direction.
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