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artillery brigade commander would place his batteries in action as they came 
to the front. His place in battle would be with the mass of his batteries. He 
would act, like the commander of an infantry brigade engaged with the enemy, 
on the orders of the Division General, or on his own responsibility. The point 
of attack and the plan of attack being determined by the Division General, 
and given in orders to the brigade commanders, the artillery should fight 
their way on, from position to position, under the orders of the artillery 
brigade commander, or the orders of the commanders of the leading artillery 
formations, unless the Division General found it necessary to give orders. An 
artillery manoeuvred only by order of the Division General would be impeded 
in its action, as would be an infantry brigade which, when engaged with the 
enemy, was obliged to wait for division orders. 
In defending a position, much would be ordered beforehand. The rule for 
artillery is to cross their fires from the flanks; but the rigid observance of 
this rule would sacrifice artillery of the defence to the more highly concen¬ 
trated artillery of the attack. In defence, as in attack, artillery must be 
massed. 
Division commanders and artillery brigade commanders should never 
' neglect to take advantage of a favourable opportunity of massing their 
batteries on the batteries of other divisions. In the great artillery position 
between the wood of Yionville and Plavigny, the Germans had more than 
twenty batteries in line; and in the line of the Prussian Guard and Hessian 
artillery before St. Privat there were eighteen batteries. The German officers 
had so deeply studied war that they succeeded in spite of a faulty system: 
where many officers gave orders there was but one opinion. 
VIII. 
Our annual manoeuvres are not manoeuvres for artillery. Our manoeuvres 
incline towards deploying the whole of the infantry on a very extended front, 
and manoeuvring a scanty artillery by batteries. The lesson of massing 
artillery is not learned, because there are no batteries to mass. No true 
artillery tactics are learned. 
If there were batteries to mass, if an artillery brigade of eight batteries 
were put into the field with each division, practice of true artillery tactics 
would be ensured, and our manoeuvres could not fail to be more like war. 
That the battalions are not at their war strength is no reason for not giving 
the divisions their proper proportion of guns. 
