2 
Every opportunity should be taken of improving the communications 
and opening up the country as the column marches, both with a view 
to the return march and to subsequent operations; and for this 
purpose as many pioneers as possible should accompany the troops, 
marching at the head of the column. Disarming should be considered 
as a distinctly military operation, and not as a measure of police, and 
troops should march with all military precautions, keeping up com¬ 
munication with their base in case of reverses. Secrecy and rapidity 
of execution are the great objects to be striven after. A number of 
guides should be collected, and placed under the orders of an officer 
acqaainted with the language of the country, and who marches with 
the advanced guard. The guides are to be retained for the whole 
duration of the expedition. If the village or localities to be disarmed 
are neared towards nightfall, it is best to halt in a covered position 
with proper military precautions, advancing early next morning to 
carry out the work. All the approaches to the place are to be 
occupied by picquets, and a reserve is to be kept in hand in event of 
any resistance taking place. Usually the headmen of the locality will 
be summoned to surrender their arms, and a short interval allowed for 
this to take place, after which a systematic search will be conducted 
by parties going from house to house, keeping up communication to 
the rear, and paying no attention to the protestations of the inhabitants. 
The return march, with the arms on requisitioned wagons, is conducted 
in the same way as the advance. 
In a paper on “ General Considerations on Modern Warfare,” 
Colonel Gammel sums up the recent changes in tactics and fire- 
discipline ; advocating a steady, constant, and quick advance, when 
within the zone of aimed fire, as preferable to the slower advance 
by rushes, which has the disadvantage of drawing the enemy's con¬ 
centrated fire on that portion of the chain making the forward 
movement. Entrenchments with several tiers of fire will form a 
prominent feature in future defensive battles; but the idea is no 
new one^ as a square firing with three or four ranks to resist cavalry 
is the original idea of this species of fortification. As to the giving 
of orders, the Colonel's remarks are well worth quotation. He 
says:—In war, clearness, simplicity, and correct and unhesitating 
orders are most important factors in troop-leading. A consistent and 
well-thought-out order will usually be a mean between an indecisive 
one, which permits of unimportant local circumstances exercising an 
influence over it, and a peremptory command which, arising from a 
headstrong vanity and over-estimation of one's own powers, forbids 
any modification whatever, as derogatory to one's strength of cha¬ 
racter. If a plan has been formed, after careful consideration of all 
circumstances, the staff officers concerned must be initiated into it; 
they must keep the main idea before their minds in every stage of 
the operation, and adapt their movements so as to lead to its attain¬ 
ment with due regard to local circumstances.'' Colonel Gammel 
quotes Macmahon's pilgrimage from Chalons to Sedan, in 1870, as a 
melancholy instance of the consequences of not keeping one object 
and one only in view. With respect to the vexed question of breadth 
