FIELD ARTILLERY POSITIONS. 
887 
infantry cry out for the moral support your presence will bring with it, 
tactical, as opposed to technical, interests must be paramount. The re¬ 
quirements of a good position are practically never at hand just at the 
right moment, exactly in the right place. You must try and get your 
guns where their powers may most effectively be applied, and in these 
last moments that will often be on ground which you would not dream 
of occupying were your choice less circumscribed. We have heard so 
much of the crest line, the forward slope and the reverse slope that it is 
scarcely dreamt of in the philosophy of some officers that we may have 
to go where there is neither crest or slope at all, on our side at any- 
rate. General Maurice once pointed out that in 1870 the Germans 
usually fired up hill. No doubt they did, but at our manoeuvres, if a 
battery be below its antagonist, it is sometimes too readily assumed 
(not by artillery officers, I think, but by those of the other arms), that 
it must necessarily get the worst of the combat. I have spoken with 
a man who went through all the Franco-Prussian war and he told me 
that the feature of the German tactics which impressed him most was 
the manner in which, if the need arose, batteries were pushed on to 
support the infantry regardless of advantages of site. A friend of 
mine who lately witnessed the German manoeuvres told me he noticed 
the same thing at the present day, and that batteries were encouraged 
to come into action, no matter whether they could find what we term 
a good position or not, when they were called on to come quickly to 
the assistance of the other arms. I do not mean to contradict myself, 
nor do I wish to advocate a revival of <e bow and arrow ” tactics, but I 
think, nevertheless, that a small hill acts too much like a magnet with 
us sometimes and that men will waste precious moments and go out of 
their way to reach one, and find themselves, when they reach it, not 
quite where the situation called them, because they fear the umpire’s 
decision. At the crises I have in view it is a question of only a few 
batteries, and of the culmination of the fight when the foe is absorbed 
with the infantry. At such a moment command and background and 
all the other desiderata should be sacrificed to timely intervention. 
Finally, let me say that I feel as if my remarks to-day savoured 
somewhat of negative or destructive criticism and, if so, I apologise 
for it. On the other hand, to enlarge on all we ought to have and all 
we want when considering positions, seems futile. We have so often 
all through to try to do the best we can under adverse circumstances 
that it is more confusing than anything else to insist on idealities which 
we can rarely or never hope to see realised. It is better that we should 
make up our minds that in military matters, as in most other affairs, a 
decision is usually the outcome of a compromise, and that in this im¬ 
perfect world neither men nor positions are of a “ sealed pattern.” 
