Tactics, Volume 1 (of 2). Introduction and Formal Tactics of Infantry

Army Service Schools, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, December, 1910.

PREFACE.

The first volume of “Tactics,” which appeared in its first edition in 1896, and for which the preparatory work reached back more than a decade, now appears in its fourth edition in a completely changed form. The lessons gained in war and improvements in weapons have corrected many earlier views. While the Boer war confused the views on infantry combat and brought forth more lessons in a negative than in a positive form, the Russo-Japanese war has had a great educating influence, in that it corroborated the soundness of the lessons gained in the Franco-German war, but also in that it amplified those lessons commensurate with the improvements in weapons. The fundamental principles upon which success depends have remained the same.

For a long time I hesitated to comply with my publisher’s wishes for a new edition. It would not have been difficult to publish long ago a new edition, based upon the many lessons of war communicated to me by members of foreign armies soon after the Russo-Japanese war. But, after an extended period of theoretical work, I was more inclined to avail myself once more of the opportunity of gaining practical experience by service with troops. Pure theoretical reflection is only too apt to depart from the requirements of practice and to overlook the friction appearing everywhere. The battalion commander, more than any one else, is called upon to act as the tactical instructor of his officers and knows best where the shoe pinches. Moreover, the proximity of the maneuver ground to my present station gave me an opportunity of observing the field training of a large number of battalions and regiments of infantry and artillery, and to compare notes with brother officers of the other arms. In addition, several trips abroad and, incidental thereto, visits to battlefields, furnished valuable suggestions. I postponed issuing the new edition until the publication of the new Russian and Japanese Drill Regulations, which, with our own excellent regulations, best illustrate the lessons learned from the war in the Far East. For this fourth edition I was further able to draw upon the new French (1904), Italian (1905), Belgian (1906), U. S. (1904), British (1905), and Swiss (1908) Drill Regulations. This enumeration alone justifies the statement, “completely revised,” appearing on the title page.

I have earnestly endeavored to make use of foreign experiences in detail. The words of Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton of the British Army, to whose writings I owe a great deal, deserve special attention in studying the drill regulations of foreign armies: “It is a blessing that the greater and prouder an army, the more immovably it is steeped in conservatism, so that as a whole it is finally incapable of assimilating the lessons gained by other armies. Military attachés may discover the most important points in the training and employment of foreign armies and urgently recommend their imitation, but their comrades will pay no more attention to them than did Napoleon III. to Stoffel’s reports on the Prussian army before the outbreak of the Franco-German war.”

The treatment of the subject matter has remained the same throughout; it represents, as in the first edition, the principle that tactical lessons must be deduced from human nature, from the effect of weapons, and from experience in war, proper regard being had for national characteristics and historical transmission. Tactics is psychology. My statements in regard to fire effect are based, as before, upon the works of His Excellency, Lieutenant-General Rohne. The publications of Historical Section I of the Great General Staff and the splendid works of the late Major Kunz, furnish the basis for examples cited from military history. An almost too copious literature is already available on the Russo-Japanese war. The monographs (Einzelschriften) of the Great General Staff, and of Streffleur, especially “_Urteile und Beobachtungen von Mitkämpfern_,” published by the latter, afford a rich field for research.

It is not difficult to cite examples from military history in support of any tactical procedure, but such examples require a very careful sifting before they can be recommended as worthy models for our action in front of the enemy.

The Austrians deduced the necessity of the most brutal shock action from the experience gained by them in their combats in Upper Italy in 1859, and the British were not very far removed from completely denying the feasibility of making an attack soon after the Boer war; but the desire to avoid losses was forced into the background by the necessity of annihilating the enemy. In the Far East the Russians finally had to learn again the same bitter lessons as at Plevna.

Simultaneously with this fourth edition, there appears in Athens a translation in Modern Greek from the pen of Captain Strategos of the Greek General Staff, well known to many German officers from his War Academy days.

It is hoped that the fourth edition may receive the same kind reception at home and abroad that was given its three predecessors. For all communications, suggestions or corrections, directed either to me or to my publisher, I will be sincerely grateful.

THE AUTHOR.

POSEN, March, 1908.

CONTENTS.