THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
133 
new tactics which the French Kevolution brought forth. Nor did it yield 
then without a struggle. Men were wedded to the old system round which 
Frederick's genius had thrown a glory; they believed it to be unchanging 
and immutable; .they persuaded themselves it was the be-all and end-all of 
military art. There is one system of tactics, said soldiers, and Frederick is 
its Prophet. They learned in time how grievous was their error, but they 
learned it in the school of adversity. It was only in his dying moments 
King Arthur saw clearly how— 
“ The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
Lest one good custom, should corrupt the world 
it was only after a long train of disaster and defeat men learned that 
war, like everything human, is subject to the “ imperishable change that 
renovates the world." 
It is not difficult to trace the influence exerted upon field artillery by 
this system of tactics. The guns of a defensive army generally occupied 
entrenched positions, and were seldom called on to move during the whole 
course of an action. Mobility, therefore, was of no moment, and efficacy of 
fire was the attribute on which all attention was rivetted. In fact the 
artillery acted not as field, but as garrison artillery. 1 2 Things were not very 
different in the offensive army. Certain that nothing but some extraordinary 
contingency would tempt the adversary from his fastness, the attackers 
moved at their leisure. They marched and countermarched, broke into 
column and wheeled into line, with a gravity and solemnity that in our 
times would provoke a smile. There was this difference, indeed, between 
things before and after the Seven Years' War—that while the slowness of 
manoeuvre before the war was to a certain extent a matter of necessity, after 
the war it was a matter of principle. Before Frederick's time, the want of 
drill and discipline compelled armies to move slowly and cautiously; after it, 
cavalry and infantry were carefully drilled, and only moved slow because it 
was thought incorrect to move fast. For men had mistaken the letter of 
Frederick's system for its spirit, his drill for his tactics, his means for his 
end. They set up a false god, and the whole military world fell down and 
worshipped it. Frederick moved his army after a fashion of his own, and 
gained countless victories; therefore, it was said, the king's method is 
correct, every other method is incorrect, and no future method that may be 
devised can be correct. The oblique order was believed in with such 
unquestioning faith, that at Jena General Buchel thought he could save the 
army by giving an order to advance the right shoulder! 3 4 Frederick showed 
his disapproval of the inversion of a brigade at the battle of Prague, 3 and 
inversions were in consequence looked on with such superstitious horror, 
that at the battle of Laswarree a brigade of British infantry was wheeled 
with its back to the enemy by an orthodox Brigadier, and then calmly 
countermarched under a tremendous fire of grape, in order to avoid the 
proscribed and dreaded formation P The rapidity of Napoleon's movements 
1 “ Le canon sert extr&mement a la defense des lignes d’un camp fortifie.”—“ Memoires de Monte- 
cuculli.” Amsterdam, 1756, p. 216. 
2 Jomini, “Precis, &c.” p. 57. 
3 The contre-temps at Prague is amusingly described by Capt. Nolan in his book on Cavalry, 
p. 198. 
4 This unfortunate brigade, “in obedience to the rules and regulations, wheeled into line and 
stood with its back to the enemy, requiring to be countermarched under a storm of grape shot. 
