FIELD ARTILLERY POSITIONS. 
385 
other arms that guns must move close in when they support an infantry 
assault. Men who have not had experience at practice often do not 
realise that the fire of a battery is almost, if not quite, as destructive 
at 2000 as 1200 yards, and that, under favourable conditions, it is very 
effective indeed up to 3000. On the other hand, artillery officers, in 
order to escape the criticism or censure of imperfectly informed um¬ 
pires, or to avoid the reproach which attaches to lukewarm support, 
occasionally leave positions from which their fire is effective in order 
to move to others from which the chances of a slightly enhanced effect 
are not sufficient to compensate for the loss of time incurred while the 
change is being effected or for the destruction amongst men and horses 
which may be suffered during its progress. It occasionally comes to 
this, that a battery does not get credit for lending aid unless it gives 
visible and tangible proof of its assistance by a personal appearance on 
the scene. Now you must move on if the advance of your own infantry 
masks your fire, and therefore you will often be compelled to shift your 
ground, but as long as you can produce the effect required by means 
of shells there is no need to expose men and horses in making an 
advance simply to display your activity and readiness. I do not mean 
to say that artillery is not to be prepared “to go in,” as Prince Kraft says 
it must, but I do mean to say that what was necessary with an artillery 
that relied on common shell twenty-seven years ago may not be so 
urgently required now when we have such vastly improved guns and 
ammunition at our disposal. Later on I mean to tell you something 
that will show that I certainly am not going to recommend over-caution, 
but at the same time I have too much respect for modern shrapnel to 
undervalue its powers. We are all almost tired now of quotations 
from the Franco-German war, but the German artillery then much 
distinguished itself and the broad features of its handling will, I 
believe, bear me out in what I have just put forward. 
At the battle of Mars-la-Tour-Vionville, on the 16th of August, in 
which the Prussian artillery earned undying fame on the Rezonville 
Plateau, we find, according to the Prussian official account, that the 
Prussian batteries hardly ever changed their positions, and their mark 
only under special circumstances. The French artillery, on the other 
hand, were in constant movement. 
“ On their side fresh batteries were incessantly appearing, now here, 
now there; but only to disappear as promptly as they came and to 
leave to others, at other points, the continuance of the struggle.” 1 
The superior accuracy of the Prussian fire may have rendered such 
constant manoeuvring as necessary as the presence of the large French 
reserve of guns made it possible, but there can be no doubt that such 
tactics are not to be imitated and their outcome was certainly most 
unfortunate. 
Again, in the remarks on the battles of the 14th, 16th and 18th of 
August round Metz, from the same source, we find the following notice 
of the German artillery tactics :■— 
“ Conspicuous in the first place, in contrast to former times, is a great 
1 German official account. 
