56 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
The remarks now made are offered with the utmost diffidence, and only 
because they are supported by the opinion of first-rate artillerymen, both at 
home and abroad. The art of handling guns is not to be picked up 
suddenly; it must be learned steadily, step by step, in the drill season. 
Autumn manoeuvres will only test and improve knowledge already obtained. 
Each captain of a battery has his own choice of drills. There are some, at 
any rate, who hold that a systematic course should be pursued every year, 
beginning with gun drills and foot parades, going on to driving drill, 
battery and brigade movements, then selection of ground and concealment 
of guns, men, and horses. Later should come manoeuvres with the three 
arms in small bodies, with plenty of practice in attack and defence of defiles 
or villages, passage of rivers, and other exigencies likely to occur in war, 
but hitherto not much taught except in theory. Einally, autumn manoeuvres, 
to test knowledge on a large scale. 
In equipment, care of horses, driving, riding, and drills of all sorts, no 
foreign artillery can approach that of England. In knowledge of minor 
tactics we have yet some progress to make. The autumn manoeuvres ha,ve 
given the impetus required, especially now that we are free to act. Next 
year there can be little doubt that English artillery officers will display a 
knowledge of tactics equal to that of any artillerymen in the world. 
Transport. 
We now come to the question of transport and supply generally. In 
this branch of the knowledge of war it must be confessed that we are now, 
as we have always been at the commencement of a campaign, decidedly 
backward. The ordinary supply of garrisons gives no clue whatever to that 
of an army in the field, and it was only when we came to try it last 
September that we discovered how difficult and complicated a task it is. 
Like the “ Intelligence Department/'’ that of supply cannot be suddenly 
formed; it must grow. Its duties must be well known, and all circumstances 
provided for. 
The organisation of the Prussian “ Etappen Department 33 is a wonder 
in itself, and it is startling to find how inextricably it is interwoven with 
the organisation of the fighting branches. Eor instance, Prussian cavalry 
regiments have no dismounted men. If more men than horses are killed, 
the spare animals are placed in charge of the Etappen Department; if more 
horses than men are killed or broken down, the dismounted troopers are 
supplied with animals from the Etappen Department. 
Permit me to quote part of a letter written from Orleans last winter :— 
“ Any number of such corps can be formed into a field army, but each one of 
them retains its identity under all circumstances. Whether a corps be at home or 
on a foreign soil, it is watched with affectionate eyes by the people of a certain 
district in Germany. Their hopes go with it and their fears. Its successes cause 
rejoicings throughout a whole division of the Patlierland. If it suffers severely, 
large towns and great country populations are clad in mourning. From this 
organisation it follows that no effort will be spared to keep it well supplied with 
all necessaries, and the system of supply is such that the stores of food and cloth¬ 
ing collected in each district go to its own corps d'armee. But no corps can be 
disconnected from the field army of which it forms a part for the moment, so it is 
