546 
SKILL-AT-ARMS. 
any authority against him, will say “Returns show the men shoot much 
better now : our system of instruction is so much improved : the men 
will aim in future battles.” Our gunnery officer, if he has never 
watched firing with time fuzes after loss on coming into action or at 
the guns, nor looked over the laying of guns when the loss was severe, 
will say “ Your high authority was not speaking of artillery,” and will 
go back to his range reports and our letters translated from the 
German. 
Perhaps, instead of making another attempt to show that skill~at-arms 
can have nothing to do with the military virtue of our people, that 
training them this way does more harm than good, and that it is better 
to move a brigade division under one command than under three, it 
may be of use to state nearly the same proposition differently, and to 
attempt some definitions and explanation. The proposition stated 
differently is Drill and discipline, and that some officers should be able 
to handle troops, are more important than skill-at-arms. 
The phrase drill and discipline means drill which is of practical use 
and helps to make discipline. There are drills which help to make 
discipline and drills which have no such tendency. Among the drills 
which tend to discipline are the drills which make the appearance of 
the soldier mounted or dismounted; drills which fit him to take 
his place mounted or dismounted in the ranks; drills for the hand¬ 
ling and use of his arms; parade movements and marching past, 
especially in brigade; field movements, especially in brigade, and if 
the meaning of the movement and the manner of it are true in tactics; 
firing with blank ammunition; and firing at targets. Marching past 
is supposed, by officers who do not understand, to be only for show; 
but, in artillery, parade movements make discipline, and teach batteries 
to move with smartness and accuracy. The widest manoeuvre in 
artillery is changing position from quarter column to line; say, to line 
far to the right front and with your right forward when you get there, 
and that you have to clear your front without masking some other 
troops, and, moving as if before the enemy, you have to form line as 
soon as possible, and to get your line into position without inclining. 
If that manoeuvre is badly done through the fault of the batteries, and 
not through the fault of the Commanding Officer, or of one or more 
Battery Commanders, the way to improve is not to repeat the manoe¬ 
uvre, nor to try simpler changes of position, but to go back to parade 
movements. Parade movements are drill for the men: field movements 
are drill for the officers, as manoeuvres of opposing forces are drill for 
their commanders. 
To handle troops means to move them well, two or the three Arms 
together, or any Arm in force or in brigade. There is the handling of 
personal command and leading ; and there is the handling which is 
effected by giving the orders for the formation and movement of troops. 
In cavalry, there is handling in command of a regiment, and handling 
in the command of a brigade or a division, though personal command 
and leading does not go beyond the regiment or the line. The cavalry 
are fortunate. They have always about the best drill they can have. 
Our eclectic criticism of foreign military literature has not hurt them; 
