A General's Letters to His Son on Minor Tactics

The last scheme I gave you dealt with the taking up of a position when an attack by a weak force was probable within an hour or so of your occupying it, and also with the streng...

You have told me that you have once or twice temporarily commanded a company and have asked me whether I think there is any advantage in a young and active company commander bei...

It is now nearly nine months since I wrote the last of my letters of advice to you, and since then you have yourself been in France and have had many experiences and hairbreadth...

A force is retiring in a north-westerly direction. The River Lea shown on the map is unfordable. Two companies are acting as the point of the rearguard. Their orders are to hold...

The company of which you are in command has succeeded in getting into a trench a section of which is given in the diagram. It has only incurred about 10 per cent. of casualties....

I hope you will master and remember the principles which govern the problem I am setting you to-day. Although very simple, it requires a little more thought than most of those w...

Since the early days of the campaign there has been but little fighting in towns or villages which have not previously been so knocked about that they could better be designated...

The first will be on the subject of taking a German pill-box, for I have heard of many instances of a pill-box holding up the advance of a whole brigade for a very considerable...

The force to which you belong has made a night march. Your platoon now forms part of a new outpost line. You halted in a ditch at line marked _D_, with a thin hedge on the enemy...

You are on outpost facing in a northerly direction and are in command of a picquet consisting of the headquarters of a platoon with a Lewis gun and thirty men at _G_. A man who...

In this letter I am going to set you another fire problem. It is one in which, presuming that the men are fairly well trained in musketry, everything depends on the orders given...

It has very forcibly been brought home to me that not only young officers joining their units from training establishments, but also those who have been in France and have come...

You are on outpost duty and have been told that the General is very anxious to get one or two live prisoners. Your picquet is at some cross-roads a quarter of a mile south of th...