540 CASUALTY RETURNS OF THE GERMAN ARTILLERY. 
the Turkish Artillery at Plevna, and our own and Italian experi- 
ence in the Soudan were examples of the expenditure of case in 
defensive fighting which would tell a very different tale. Again the 
battles under discussion were not merely offensive on the part of the 
Germans, they were also successful: we have unfortunately no statistics 
of the Artillery fire of the Austrians at Konigeritz, but if we had, they 
would probably prove instructive, as regards the expenditure of case 
shot by Artillery which is covering the retreat of a beaten army. To 
sum up, the very factors which make all the other casualties so emi- 
nently instructive, tend naturally to diminish the value of the statistics 
in regard to the expenditure of case. 
When it is said that these battles were successful from the German 
point of view, it must be borne in mind that they were severely con- 
tested, in fact Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte were both most conspicuous 
examples of battles in which the only material advantage gained by 
the Germans was a strategic one; there was certainly no difference in 
favour of the Germans as regards losses. At Sedan, on the other 
hand, the German Artillery so completely established its superiority 
as to render the statistics of that battle of no value, unless it be to 
prove the advantage of a superiority of Artillery fire, and the possibility 
under certain conditions of so paralysing the enemy by the action of 
the Artillery alone, as to force him to throw up the sponge, without 
coming to close quarters, except at a few tactical points. 
There is, however, even another reason for discarding the statistics 
of case fire of the battles under discussion, and this is the absence 
of anything on the part of the French approaching the furious on- 
slaughts upon the enemy’s guns, to which we have become more or 
less accustomed in dealing with half civilized tribes who refuse to be 
bound by any laws of tactics or self-preservation. 
Thus Hoffbauer, in writing of the German Artillery at Mars-la-Tour, 
says :— 
te The repeated and vigorous attacks made by the enemy with great 
gallantry and in large masses, were by no means always checked at 
the longest ranges only, but generally at moderate ranges of between 
1200 and 1800 paces. At some points they were not stopped by the 
cautious and well delivered fire of the line of batteries, until within 
800 or 900 paces. The advance of French skirmishers completely 
covered by the copses of Trouville was arrested by common shell (!) at 
ranges of from 900 to 1000 paces. All these instances of short ranges 
occurred at decisive moments, when attention had to be paid to the 
effect of fire, without regard to cover.” 
Again the same author, writing of Gravelotte, says :— 
“ At ranges of 400 paces the 8rd Heavy Battery of the 9th Regi- 
ment repulsed an attack of skirmishers from Champenois, and the 3rd 
Light Battery an attack from Moscow.” 
It is permissible to conjecture that our troops in the Soudan would 
have been very pleased if they could have secured similar results ; but 
as that pleasure was denied them, and is likely to be denied them again 
in some of the fierce little wars we so frequently embark upon, it will 
be wiser to base our estimates on a fair share of close quarter fighting, 
