5 
direction in the first place with the compass, and regulates its fire by means of 
lateral observers, who communicate with it by a system of pre-arranged signals. 
This is simple enough, and it seems as if nothing would prevent the fire from 
being carried on under these conditions. But in reality matters will not arrange 
themselves as easily as one thinks, and General von Sauer must know that a 
battery would have great difficulty in regulating and conducting its fire under 
such circumstances. He forgets that we are now dealing with a field of battle 
and not with a fortified place. In a siege the battery would no doubt attain its 
object by means of patience and with a great expense of projectiles; but in the 
field, where time is precious, where operations must be quick, and where ammuni¬ 
tion must be economised, such a course is inadmissible. The employment of the 
compass to give the first direction to the pieces entails loss of time, and some¬ 
times even considerable errors ; also communications by signal are always slow, 
require a practised staff, and are never as good as direct observation. 
The General’s ideas are all the less acceptable in that he is here dealing with 
the attack. If we suppose an attacking battery to place itself voluntarily behind 
a wood or elevated crest, which masks the object aimed at so completely that for 
observations of the fire he is obliged to trust to observers placed, perhaps, several 
hundred metres from him, it is evident that his position will be full of incon¬ 
veniences, if not of dangers. It does not follow that high-angle fire is impossible 
in the field, but, in order that it may be practicable, it is necessary that the 
commander should see the target himself, still keeping near enough to the battery 
to regulate its fire and superintend its detachments in person. 
The objections just made against laying by the compass have already been 
stated in the Militar Wochenblatt of 7th June, 1890, which proves that von 
Sauer’s theories have not been universally accepted in Germany. 
“ The method of laying pieces by the compass,” says the correspondent of 
the Militar Wochenblatt , “ and the employment of signals, by which General von 
Sauer hopes to regulate the fire, hardly appear practicable on the field of battle 
owing to the loss of time and the grave inconveniences which they entail. These 
methods are always applicable to guns as well as to howitzers ; the only real 
difference being that the first are obliged to keep some distance from the covering 
mass, while the second can come quite close. On the field of battle everything 
should be as simple as possible, and therefore care should be taken, even with 
howitzers, not to take up a position from which the target cannot be clearly seen, 
either from behind the guns or from the top of the limbers. Moreover, even in 
the case of field guns, it will be possible to find positions from which fire can be 
perfectly well carried on, while defiladed from the view of the enemy.” 
General von Sauer, in his reply, confines himself to generalities, without 
indicating the practical method of applying this system which he recommends. 
With regard to regulation of fire, the General admits that the operation is 
more difficult in the case of high-angle than of direct fire. This fact constitutes 
an inferiority in the first-named to which attention must be drawn. In these 
days, in the artillery combat, whichever of the two combatants first succeeds in 
finding the range has the greater chance of obtaining a superiority in fire. Now 
the time of flight of the projectile has an important influence on the time required 
for finding the range, because the Battery Commander, in order to regulate the 
fire of a piece, has to wait until the projectile of the preceding piece lias burst. 
General von Sauer, indeed, alleges that this disadvantage will be compensated for 
by the greater facilities which batteries for high-angle fire will have for finding 
the range. But even admitting this, and admitting also that the great cloud of 
smoke produced by the bursting of the shrapnel, the high angles of descent, the 
low velocities, and above all the prominence of the enemy’s positions facilitate 
the observation of fire, we do not believe that these advantages will be sufficient 
to enable the attacking batteries, in the peculiar position they are in, behind a 
