R.A.I. PRIZE ESSAY, 1876 . 
441 
the practice/* and, of course, the configuration of the ground. The 
original intention of the word having passed away, it becomes a 
question whether its use should be continued, although the works of 
Hamley and Owen have done as much as was possible for it by deciding 
that the mass may be disposed in separate parts; but in this form it 
amounts simply to disposition for a definite purpose, and the true 
import of the name is no longer there. But taking the artillery mass 
in its widest sense, and recognising all the critical examples collected 
in Owen's “ Modern Artillery," it will appear that its application was 
only then decisively successful when there was included with it, more 
or less, the element of decidedly convergent or flanking fire—as at 
Friedland, Bautzen, Gross Beeren, Warsaw, Gravelotte, Sedan; and 
that in the instances where the same element was wanting, no pro- 
portionate success was achieved-—as at Wagram, Inkerman, and 
Gettysburg. 
Therefore, although the effect of concentrated artillery fire has 
become, since the extreme development of the defensive capabilities of 
the infantry weapon, more than ever important and indispensable to 
the carrying out of most of the manoeuvres of the battle-field, let us 
seek to produce it by a just application of mobile individual parts to a 
combined purpose; by an extension (without injury to the connection 
of mutual support) of the tactical dispositions; and not by the pre¬ 
cipitate presentment of the whole of our artillery in one grand battery 
—which latter involves great risk, exposes the hand , draws no aid from 
science, as to place or time, and is but moderately fitted to effect its 
purpose. 
The duties of an advanced guard being absolutely determined to the 
preparation of the action of the main body, include principally two 
functions-—the reconnoitring and the engaging : the former, for finding, 
feeling, and ascertaining the strength and disposition of the enemy, 
may be held to include also the screening of the corresponding par¬ 
ticulars from the enemy's observation; the latter for containing him, 
and obstructing either his retreat or his attack whilst the main body is 
completing its dispositions. 
The former function is generally executed principally by cavalry; of 
which, if there be no large detached force well ahead of the whole, 
there must be a stronger proportion at the head of the advanced guard. 
In either case this cavalry will need the assistance of horse artillery; 
not merely for the shelling of the enemy's posts and sheltered ground, 
but more especially to force him to deploy, to declare himself, and, in 
the case of large opposing bodies of advanced cavalry, to manoeuvre. 
These purposes are declared by most authorities to be amply provided 
for in the allotment of one battery per brigade; yet it is very clear 
that, if the horse artillery be of a sufficiently mobile character not to 
* This comparing of notes and observations has been much insisted on as one of the advantages 
of the grand-line-of-guns system; but the position of the batteries about the middle of such lines 
for observing or obtaining corrections of their practice must surely be less favorable than that of 
more distinct and less hampered units. 
57 
