380 
RUSSIAN ARTILLERY TACTICS. 
The real 
cause of the 
failure of 
the Russian 
artillery is 
due to the 
bad tactios 
of the 
Russian 
artillery¬ 
men. 
Comparison 
between the 
tactics of 
the German 
artillery in 
1870-1 and 
the Russian 
artillery in 
1877-8. 
gun now, and that infantry fire has surpassed that of artillery in the 
degree to which its power has been augmented.* 
If the purpose of this paper were to argue the general question which 
has been raised as to the relative improvement in artillery and infantry 
fire, it would be easy to point to authorities—and high authorities, too, 
both in Germany and in Englandf—who are not by any means content 
to accept this new principle of tactics laid down in the “ Operations of 
War.” Passing from this question, however, my object now is to 
endeavour to show, from a short analysis of some of the chief battles of 
the late campaign, that the cause of the failure of the Russian artillery 
is to be looked for, not in the general decadence of the arm as a whole, 
but in the faulty tactics of the Russian commanders and the Russian 
artillerymen, in their inability to appreciate the necessity of combined 
action with the infantry, in their want of confidence in their arm, and 
above all in their having neglected to learn all those lessons which the 
war of 1870-1 taught about the employment of artillery in the field. 
The Russian artillery in all the early battles of the war never, or rarely 
ever, had a fair chance of asserting its proper position on the field of 
battle. It was handicapped throughout by the incompetence of its 
feeble leaders. What an eminent German criticf said of the conduct 
of the French artillerymen in the war of 1870-1 is strictly true of that 
of the Russian artillerymen in the war of 1877-8 :—“ The right tactical 
idea was wanting all through, as well as practice in deployment and in 
the execution of the necessary manoeuvres.” 
When, therefore, it is asked how it was that the Russian artillery, 
which in respect of armament was acknowledged to be superior to the 
artillery of the German army in 1870, broke down so completely when 
it was tried last year, the answer is, I think, clear. The German 
artillery won its successes because it was used according to certain 
definite laws or principles of tactics which after the campaign of 1866 
were formulated into a system, and which the German artillerymen 
* As enormous progress has undoubtedly been made in the science of artillery since the Franco- 
German war, it is quite possible that General Hamley may have modified his views upon the 
subject since writing the chapter in the “ Operations of War ” to which I have alluded. A recent 
writer in the “Times” newspaper (August 30th, 1878), in an excellent paper on the “Further 
Progress of Artillery,” brings statistics to show that, from experiments made at Okehampton and 
more recently at Madrid, the effect of shrapnel shell fired from rifled guns is five times as great as 
that of common shell. In the war of 1870-1 the German artillery had no shrapnel. If, therefore, 
the writer in the c c Times ” be correct—and he supports his argument with a strong array of facts— 
we may believe that the field artillery of the future, if properly used, will produce results five times 
as great as those “ grand and decisive” results of the German field artillery at the battle of Sedan. 
f Notably Lt.-Colonel C. B. Brackenbury, li.A., who, in an article written for the “Nineteenth 
Century,” of July, 1878, entitled “Iron-clad Field Artillery,” thus alludes to General Hamley’s 
assertion that the relative power of artillery as compared with that of infantry has on the whole 
diminished :—“I should not hesitate,” he writes, “to break a lance with him on this question, but 
that for present purposes it is more convenient to accept his decision, and to admit that weapons 
which have had their range, their mobility, their intelligence (if the expression may be allowed), 
and their destructive power enormously increased, still lack something to enable them to retain 
their old place in the hierarchy of arms, though the weapons which are supposed to have risen a 
step have only advanced in range and rapidity of firing .”—Nineteenth Century, July, 1878 , 
£ Boguslawski. “ Tactical Deductions from the War of 1870-1.” 
