R.A.I. PRIZE ESSAY, 1876 . 
487 
lery and its application in war, we shall find, on examination, the same 
positive Alexandrian method to underlie much of the new German style 
of settling tactical difficulties. This consciousness of abundant force, 
and a certain very natural and perhaps admissible spirit of national 
glorification, have imparted to recent artilleristic doctrine a boldness 
and an exaltation that must be again eliminated before its prescriptions 
can be allowed to pass as pure and sound. The Russians have a 
proverb that “ by knocking one^s head against each side of the cor¬ 
ridor, one attains to walking straight down the middle/ - ’ Now, the 
Prussian artillery may well be considered to have touched, in 1866, one 
of the boundaries of the true path of progress—to wit, excessive 
reserve; it may be suspected to have gone over, since 1870, far 
towards the other extreme—viz,, overweening confidence. Oscillations 
between limits have marked the advance of every progress hitherto 
known to history, whether moral or physical. 
Can we, for instance, admit that artillery is to-day “the deciding 
arm/ -5 and that by employing it in this sense the Germans won their 
recent victories ? Yery good claims have been made for the cavalry— 
that their enlightened and extended manner of action, providing complete 
concealment of the German plans together with full insight into those 
of the enemy, necessarily secured for their own side the superiority at 
any point required, and therefore tactical victories and strategic success; 
and the world is full of books to show the preponderating importance 
which the German infantry tactics acquired by their scientific and well- 
studied adaptation to the requirements of the new arms. Nor have the 
most transcendent recent achievements of artillery secured the desired 
result without the ready co-operation of infantry. St. Privat, in flames, 
and smashed into wreck by the concentric fire of more than 200 guns; 
Floing and Illy at Sedan, their plateaux scoured everywhere with shell 
from front and flanks; were not won and made useful to victorious 
purpose without, as usual, concluding infantry assault. 
In fact, it appears that during the last war each of the three arms 
came out in a more important role than before, and afforded more 
telling aid to its neighbours; that now, more than ever, each is neces¬ 
sary to the others; each exercises a more distinct and indispensable 
office in co-operating towards the success of the whole ;* and that, as 
the world goes on, and military science, amongst the others, advances, 
the difference between an organised army, of justly concerted parts, 
and an armed crowd, of whatever bulk, becomes more formidable daily. 
The claim to independent predominance for the artillery being so 
far, for the present at least, set at rest, there remains the tactical 
method which appears to be bound up with it. The long line of guns, 
pushed up at all speed to within striking distance of the enemy, covered 
A recent contributor to the “Deutsche Reeves Zeitung” speaks of “the watchful eye, the 
cavalry; the mighty far-reaching arm, the artillery; the body, supporter of the combat, the 
infantry.” 
Sir Garnet Wolseley has, indeed, in his “ Soldier’s Pocket-Book,” laid down the position that 
e( campaigns can be carried on without cavalry or artillery;” but it can hardly be supposed that 
this was intended to refer to warfare amongst civilised nations. 
