CHAP, xxxii.] ORGANISATION OF CAVALRY. 



527 



those difficulties do not exist at present, or may be 

 remedied. The dragoons, except in the American war, 

 were formerly armed with the old-fashioned smooth-bore 

 carbine, a weapon of contracted range and uncertain aim. 

 In former wars, when so armed, the infantry also being 

 armed with the clumsy musket, battles were fought in a 

 very different method to that in which actions are now 

 contested. In the time of Frederick the Great and 

 Napoleon, the short range of projectile weapons caused 

 the armies to be drawn up close together at the com- 

 mencement of the action, and the stress of fighting began 

 practically with infantry, at the close range of about 

 300 yards, and continued up to 40 or 50 yards, and 

 often to the shock of bayonets, before the victory was 

 decided and one side fell back. Now, however, the 

 circumstances of the case are very diffeient. In the 

 Franco-German war the firing of the infantry lines against 

 each other often commenced at the distance of 1,500 

 paces, and they rarely came within 200 paces without 

 one party giving way. In fact, the real zone, so to 

 speak, in which infantry actions were usually decided, 

 and f'^e sharpest musketry fire took place, was from say 

 600 down to 150 paces, the crisis of the fight being 

 generally at about 400 paces. We see therefore that, 

 with the present weapon, a defending force can commence 

 to annoy an approaching enemy at over 1,000 paces, the 

 fire increasing in effect gradually, until at 600 paces it 

 becomes very deadly, and for that whole distance an 

 advancing force would be subjected to terrible losses. 



Adding the rapidity of fire, and certainty of aim, to 

 this long range, we find that the zone in which infantry 

 actions are fought, or to speak more accurately, the 

 dangerous zone in which musketry fire is effective, is not 

 only increased from about 250 yards to more than 

 double that distance, but that the number of missiles 

 discharged in each hundred yards of the zone has been 

 quadrupled, and with more accuracy, and greater power 

 of penetration. 



Bearing all this in mind, we can see that under the 

 old system of warfare, dragoons dismoupting.to defend « 



