THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
445 
II. Conduct of the Troops in some special circumstances with reference 
to the eventual Theatre of War. 
A short distance to the north of the mountain chain which separates 
Bohemia and Moravia from Lusatia and Silesia there commences a wide 
plain which reaches to the Baltic, and which, between the Vistula and the 
Elbe, as far as concerns the case in question, is intersected by numerous 
streams and occasional swamps and marshes. 
A considerable portion of this plain is covered with forests, yet never¬ 
theless it is traversed in all directions by numerous and good communications. 
The cultivation generally is of a superior kind. This configuration of 
ground permits the movement and employment of large masses of troops, 
at the same time that it presents, in many places, tracts where the extended 
order of fighting of infantry may be profitably applied. 
With reference to the above characteristics of the country on which the 
northern army may eventually be called upon to act, I deem it pertinent to 
issue the following directions as a guide to the troops under certain circum¬ 
stances :— 
(a) Infantry. 
Infantry will move as a rule, in intersected and covered country, in 
division masses or columns; but in open ground, where sudden attacks of 
cavalry are to be expected, in battalion masses, because battalion squares 
possess more power of resistance than division squares. 
When a detachment of infantry is much exposed to the enemy's fire, and 
the enemy's battery has, so to speak, “ got the range," a short movement in 
any direction often suffices to relieve it from fire for a time. 
On the defensive, infantry should find cover for itself behind accidents of 
ground, or by lying down. The advantage of cover must also be not too 
lightly given up even on the offensive, and in an attack with the bayonet 
for example, the attacking column should advance covered as long as 
possible from the enemy's fire, even though the approach to the enemy be 
thereby delayed; only the last 100 paces are to be clone at a run. 
Similarly, the signal “to charge" should only be sounded immediately 
before the attack, lest the enemy observe our intentions and have time to 
make his counter dispositions. 
(b) Cavalry. 
The cavalry attached to armee corps is never to be subdivided by 
squadrons among the brigades, but must, on the contrary, be kept together. 
The commandant should watch keenly for the moment when he may inter¬ 
fere effectually in the combat, whether in order to cover his own infantry 
or artillery from the attacks of different arms, or when necessary to disengage 
them, or to precipitate himself on the enemy's infantry whenever it may by 
any means become disordered, &c. 
These rules apply in a higher degree to the commandant of any larger 
body of cavalry, as a brigade or division. 
