500 
GOLD MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1892 . 
existing standard of smartness. “ My experience,” said General 
Markham, “has been that a battery which has well-groomed horses 
and polished harness shoots better than a battery which has not ; and 
I have generally found that where there is no polish there is no effi¬ 
ciency in other respects.” 1 2 
The institu- An increased impetus to Fire Discipline training has been given by 
badges for the institution of battery prizes, carrying with them the badge of 
ningbat:*- success on the arm. Distinction is rightly and eagerly sought after by 
teries. a ll soldiers, and the fact that these distinctive badges can only be 
gained after a severe competitive trial is a strong incentive to indus¬ 
trious preparatory training. It is suggested that this incentive would 
be still further strengthened if the officers of prize winning batteries 
were allowed to wear badges as well as their men. The burden of 
instruction chiefly falls upon them, and permission to wear the badge 
would be equally valued as the reward of success, 
of command -A- 0 - a ^ e WI *if er 3 — a Diember of this institution—has recently pointed 
amoral gift, out that the last word on Fire Discipline will depend on the “power 
of command ;; possessed by the battery leader. There is no doubt 
that this is so, and that however well drilled a battery may be, how¬ 
ever good its general state of discipline, unless its Major “ knows how 
to command,” it cannot hope to win success. The power of command 
is a moral gift more or less developed in each individual. Like all 
other natural talents it requires practice to bring it to perfection. 
This practice is a necessity for those who possess the gift in a high 
degree equally with those who are less endowed with it by nature. 
The organisation of a battery (as explained in Part II. of this Essay) 
enables subaltern officers to be trained in habits of command from 
their earliest days. It only remains for Battery Commanding Officers 
to take care that the delegated responsibility which they confer on 
their Section Officers is habitually exercised, and is none the less real 
because necessary limits are placed to its extent. 
The lessons Much has been said in this Essay about the altered conditions of 
0 t 0 P ast * mo dern war. While we recognise the necessity for change we must not 
neglect the experience of the past. That experience shows that Fire Dis¬ 
cipline depends much more upon moral causes which are permanent 
than upon physical considerations which are subject to periodical 
change. Many lessons in Fire Discipline can be learnt by studying 
the records of batteries during the Peninsular War. The fact that 
those lessons require different application now to what they did then 
does not detract from their present value. If the spirit which 
animated our predecessors is inherited by the present generation of 
artillerymen there will be no difficulty in adapting it to meet the 
alterations which the progress of science has rendered necessary in 
the tactics of the past. 
1 Lord Wolseley, then Adjutant-General, speaking on the same subject at the same meeting, 
expressed a similar opinion. “ I would say that a battery which could shoot well would most 
probably also be smartest in appearance.” 
2 “ Field Artillery Fire,” by Captain W. L. White, E.A., “ Proceedings ” of the E.A. Institu¬ 
tion, Vol. XIX., page 131. 
