212 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
the medium field artillery; 1 and the latter would have regained at all events 
a part of its former importance ere many years elapsed, had this been the 
only bar to its progress. But in every country of Europe except Austria, 
the light field artillery, owing to its peculiar organisation, acted on the 
medium with far more disastrous effect internally and directly, than it did 
indirectly and externally. Everywhere but in Austria the light field artillery 
was a corps cVelite, recruited from the artillery at large; 2 and further, it was 
much better dressed, and somewhat better paid, than the medium field 
artillery. 
Had the light field artillery been a corps cV elite in the same sense as the 
English Guards, its influence on the rest of the regiment would have been 
one of unmixed good ; but unfortunately it was a corps cVelite in the same 
sense as the Erench Chasseurs a pied, and like all corps organised oil such 
principles, it affected most prejudicially the rest of the arm. The English 
Guards have the privilege of selecting their recruits and ridding themselves 
of bad characters under regimental arrangements. The recruits are selected 
with care, but they are selected from society at large, not from regiments of 
the line; and the result is that this noble body of men—the Guards—are a 
source of wholesome emulation, instead of contentious rivalry, to the rest of 
the army. But the Erench Chasseurs a pied sucked the heart's blood of 
the rest of the infantry. Everything that was good, everything that was 
efficient, everything that was soldierlike in the infantry of the line, was 
seized upon with unsparing hands, and remorselessly drafted into the 
Chasseurs a pied. One link of the chain was strengthened, to the detriment 
of all the others; to fortify one point of the line, the rest was unreasonably 
weakened; and the natural result was “Innervation de la masse au profit 
des groupes.” 3 Such a system preys upon its own vitals, and carries within 
itself the germ of its own destruction :— 
“ The young* disease that must subdue at length, 
Grows with its growth, and strengthens with its strength.” 4 
The more ruthlessly the system of selection is carried out, the more 
rapidly do the troops from amongst whom the selection is made lose their 
self-respect, and become at first apathetic, and at last inefficient. The 
corps cV elite, the insatiable parasite, must degenerate in precisely the same 
degree as the body which feeds it; and the end is, that in the lapse of a few 
1 I cease to speak of heavy field artillery, because it can hardly be said to exist in the regular 
artillery service. Notwithstanding the recommendation of the “ Committee of Superior Officers of 
the Royal Artillery,” presided over by Sir Richard Dacres, in 1866, the existence of batteries of 
position is as precarious in 1872 as was that of the field batteries in 1800. 
? “ Chaque bataillon out une compagnie d’elite qui etait de preference attachee a l’artillerie £ 
cheval.”—Fave, “ Hist, et Tact, des Trois Armes,” p. 217. From the organisation of the Potsdam 
Horse Artillery Depot in 1773, it is evident that nothing was farther from the intention of the 
creator of light field artillery than to make it a corps d'elite. “Die Mannschaften wurden von 
alien Artillerie-Kompagnien gegeben und alle Yahr abgelost, so dass sich bei eintretender Mobil- 
machung ein starker Stamm ausgebildeter Leute vorfand.”—Yon Troschke, “Die Bezieliungen 
Friedrich des Grossen zu seiner Artillerie,” p. 45. 
3 Gen. Trochu.—“ L’Avmee Fran 9 aise en 1867,” p. 203. 
4 Pope’s “ Essay on Man.” 
