ACHIEVEMENTS OP FIELD ARTILLERY. 
7 
troops will most successfully be achieved by artillery fire when it is 
simultaneous, continuous, and rapid, rather than of long duration. 
If there be lulls of quiet in the storm, opportunities for the repair 
of works, or reinforcements by reserves will be given. A converging 
will also be infinitely more effective than a frontal fire, and troops in 
entrenchments, secure from the foe immediately before them, may 
yet be made to suffer heavily if cannonaded from the flanks, or better 
still, from both front and flanks. The Russian gunners at Plevna, it 
must be noted, made no effort thus to attack the lines of Turkish 
entrenchments. 
Further, we are in possession as yet of no statistics from which we 
can draw satisfactory conclusions as to the moment when the moral 
effect of artillery begins to assert itself. The actual number of hits, 
of course, is of importance, but not so much so as are the conditions 
under which those hits were obtained or, above all, the space of time 
during which they were brought about. It is perfectly conceivable 
that a given body of troops, after having sustained a loss of 50 per 
cent, of their strength, will continue to hold a certain position which, 
under other circumstances, they would not have defended after, but 
10 per cent, of their numbers had been laid low. Troops do not retire 
because their ranks have grown too weak for the task in hand, nor, 
indeed, because of the actual losses at all; what makes them give way 
is the fear of the loss which they imagine they will sustain if they 
remain where they are, or push further forward in the attack. It is by 
means of a sort of instinctive calculation that is going on in the breasts 
of men in battle that one side or other suddenly comes to the conclusion 
that it can no longer hold its ground. And this unconscious calculation 
is apt to work out its conclusions most dangerously and most irresistibly 
when the losses on which it is of course mainly based occur in a short 
time. The shorter the period the more overpowering becomes the con¬ 
viction. Thus it is that a battalion which has lost 200 men in a fight 
spread over ten hours may be expected to stand firm more confidently 
than one which has lost 50 men in five minutes. The sum of the 
physical strength of the latter body remains greater than that of the 
first, but the sum of its moral force is for a time less. If one seizes the 
timely moment and attacks that battalion a victory will be gained, but, 
if there is delay, the balance in your opponents mind will again be 
restored, and the moral effect of the preparation for the assault, which 
was the object aimed at, will be lost. 
ISTow, it is to be noted that these are not theories evolved by a professor 
at his writing-table or a lecturer at a blackboard, but conclusions based 
on the experiences of a soldier and verified by observation on the field 
of battle. 
Further, it is no exaggeration to say that troops are capable of 
undergoing and undertaking more than the average General is inclined 
to give them credit for. Those with a genius for war make great 
demands on their men successfully, because they understand human 
nature, and it is in human nature to help them. Men will grow accus¬ 
tomed to almost any danger, provided that their nerves are given 
moments of rest to recover themselves, and that the strain does not 
