Part 4

For this purpose, the paper targets and frames must be cleared away and stowed in the lockers, the rests wheeled off the line, and half the squad (six men) assembled, rifles not loaded, at the fifty yards from the wooden target station.

The first man is placed in the line of the “bull’s eye,” the rest of the squad lodging their arms in a rack under the shed, and returning to watch the practice attentively.

The man to fire, having loaded very carefully, is asked by the instructor—

_Q._ What is your distance from the mark?

_A._ ... yards.

_Q._ What must be the elevation, or depression?

_A._ ... inches above, or below, the bull’s eye.

If he should forget, or be incorrect, he is not to be set right by the instructor, but made to refer to his own firing-book for information. Of course, if the rifle be provided with carefully-proved sights, he should be taught to make use of them.

He is then warned to bring up the rifle quietly from the hip, looking, while he does so, at the point he wishes to hit, to shut the left eye close, and to look with the right eye through the sights themselves, and not over or beneath them, to pull the trigger steadily the moment the object is accurately covered, at this instant throwing his attention to the care of keeping the line of barrel direct to the mark until the bullet has left the muzzle—perhaps the most difficult attainment in ball practice, and that which constitutes the greatest difference between a good shot and a bad one.

These principles being clearly communicated, the nearest bell is rung, a minute’s delay given for short distances, and two minutes for long ones, and the shot is fired.

The marker instantly steps out of his ball-proof box, with a light pole, having at its extremity a bright scarlet circle, which he lays upon the shot-hole in the wooden target—the number of inches above or below, and right or left, of the centre of the “bull’s eye” is entered in the firing book—the man falls back to the squad, and the next for firing takes his place.

If a man hit very wide of the proper mark, it might be well to make him fire until he had attained a reasonably good shot, charging to his account the surplus ammunition so expended.

The squad would then fall back to one hundred yards from the wooden target with a repetition of the same practice, then to two hundred, and so on to the longest range. Not more, probably, than three stations could be got through in a day, by any one squad, with advantage.

At the end of each day’s work, a careful return of the details of firing should be sent by the instructor to the commanding officer, in conformity with which, rewards, commendations, and censures, might be finally distributed.

The details of proceeding have been somewhat minutely described, because this elementary instruction, to form a solid and effectual basis for subsequent general practice, should be a minutely patient and careful work. In order, also, to prevent the serious accidents which want of system might occasion, especially at the long ranges, it would be important to establish and maintain minute uniformity of proceeding.

Such a course as that above recommended would only occupy four days, and it would make a man for all his life, if he had the talent to profit by it, a good marksman, with rifles of the same power as that which he had thus carefully proved.

This elementary instruction would not, of course, set aside more free and desultory practice at other times, provided it were carried on with obedience to the general regulations for security against accidents.

It is almost superfluous to observe, that the instructors provided with the “stadia,” and with small telescopes headed with simple “micrometers,” should point out to officers and men the readiest methods of calculating distances.

Taking twenty-five as the average number of pupils that could be, with full advantage, under daily practice, and four days as the period for completing their instruction, one hundred and fifty might be thus finished in the twenty-four (as an average) working days of each month, a battalion of about six hundred men in four months, and consequently twelve hundred men in the eight temperate months (from, about the 1st of March to the 1st of November) in each year.

To complete, therefore, the British army on home service in one year, there would be required about forty such establishments scattered throughout the United Kingdom, and for the volunteer rifle corps and militia about fifty more. After the year of theoretical instruction, they would remain as most useful for freer practice.

The expense would be, the cost of the land, which (considering that strips of worthless soil, or of government ground, might in many instances be procured gratis) should not exceed five hundred pounds the station; and light fencing, the butt, targets, sheds, ball-proof sentry-boxes, rests, and a small house for the marker in charge of the ground, which might average four hundred pounds more. In all nine hundred pounds for each establishment as a permanent outlay, or about thirty-six thousand pounds for the regular army, and forty-five thousand pounds for the volunteer rifle corps and militia.

The markers might be military pensioners, with a small addition to their pay, and the instructors retired officers or non-commissioned officers, with a similar allowance. Many from these classes would be well calculated for such duties, and would enter with spirit into them.

To give complete success to an appeal to the nation for the expenditure thus required, notorious facts, added to a widely-acknowledged principle, mentioned in the first edition of this treatise, should be sufficient: “Every _reasonable outlay_ towards the maintenance of national military efficiency _is true economy_; and _the neglect of it, real extravagance_.”—(“Essentials,” Art. 2nd, Correct Firing.)

The notorious facts referred to are, that the marvellous inventive spirit of the age has, at one bound, made military efficiency dependent, in a _super-eminent degree, on skill in rifle practice_, and that other nations, sensitively alive to the circumstance, are devoting to it immense methodical attention.[18]

Footnote 17:

Made carefully, with soldiers of the 52nd Regiment, on a retired sea-beach in British North America, in the years 1825-6.

Footnote 18:

See, among other proofs, “Instruction sur le Tir, par Ordre du Ministre de la Guerre,” Paris, 1848; and “Projet d’Instruction sur le Tir,” Paris, 1850.

SHORT OBSERVATIONS UPON DRESS AND APPOINTMENTS.

It is so distinctly evident that the immense advance which is at the present period in operation upon military weapons and practice must extend its influence to dress and appointments, that a treatise of this kind would not now be complete in its parts without a reference to them.

Dress will be affected pre-eminently, in a manner which has not, as yet, attracted much, if any, public attention. It will be indescribably more than ever important to distinguish the troops of one nation from those of other nations, by uniforms that can be known afar off.

Among the most perplexing, hindering, and revolting incidents of a campaign, are those of mistaking foes for friends and friends for foes. Facts are the best arguments; and a few of those which occurred under the author’s own observation, in a corps probably as little liable to make mistakes as any that ever stood on a battle-field, are offered in enforcement of this consideration.

During the retreat from Madrid, in the grey of the morning, after having been harassed through the greater part of the day before by impudent dashes of the French light cavalry, a Spanish cavalry patrol was fired upon, under the very natural impression that they were Frenchmen, re-commencing their previous practice.

After this, while engaged in the pursuit of a beaten enemy through a mountainous and intricate country, the battalion was compelled, as a matter of reasonable prudence, to scale a rocky hill, in order to take up a position of defence against three battalions in blue, which had just appeared as if moving to intercept the line of retreat. When a quarter of an hour had been wasted, they also turned out to be Spaniards.

On a subsequent occasion, in following up a charge in line, from the thick smoke that still hung on the enemy’s infantry a body of horsemen, of which some evidently were cuirassiers, broke furiously upon the front. It had all the appearance of an effort of the French cavalry to cover the retreat, and the whole fire was for a moment concentrated upon it, until some of the headmost horsemen, falling almost upon the bayonets, were perceived to be English light dragoons.

These are a few, and only a very few, of the evils which have already arisen from indistinctness in uniform. If, then, the mischief was so great in connexion with the limited and uncertain power of the old musquet, what will it not be with the distant and accurate fire of the long range rifle? A group of your own staff officers, a patrol of your own cavalry, or a battalion in blue of your own infantry, eight hundred yards off, might be almost destroyed before it could be possible to correct the mistake; while bodies of the enemy might, from your uncertainty, pass and repass with corresponding impunity.

_Whatever uniforms, therefore, we adopt or maintain, it is evident that, for cavalry as well as infantry, broad_ NATIONAL DISTINCTIVENESS _should be a most predominant consideration_.

There is another immense advantage in distinctive uniforms for troops who can and will do their duty—the mighty moral effect which such distinctiveness carries with it. Like the mere

“Blast of Roderic’s bugle horn,”

it “is worth” in itself, in a stout struggle, the support of

“A thousand men.”

Many a time has the distinctive red coat sounded a retreat to the enemy, which he would have been slow to adopt if any doubt had existed about the real character of the troops he had fallen in with.

Popular error ought to be corrected in regard to colours suitable for light infantry, by the plain matter of fact, that skirmishing is not in general a prowling, wolf-like proceeding, but sheer hard and open fighting; in which, indeed, the parties engaged make the best of any cover that presents itself, but in which also the flashes and smoke of firing alone present marks for reply that no tint of uniform can conceal. In concealing-cover, not the coat, but the head dress and face are seen. It is a reasonable subject of doubt whether on open ground, at a distance of six hundred or eight hundred yards, red, soiled by dust, dirt and drenching, does not mellow into a greyish-purple, as little calculated to make the man who wears it a mark as blue, black, or dark green. Take away white epaulettes, white lace, and white belts, and the red jacket itself may still continue to be, with prudence and propriety, the leading star on land of England’s high honour and prosperity.

The increased rapidity with which, to prevent ruinous destruction, troops of all kinds, when under fire, must now move for considerable distances, gives increased importance to the very plain principle, that the efficiency of a locomotive weapon of war is, in the highest degree, dependent upon the proportion of its weight to the strength of the animal that carries it. Weight of metal is of immense moment on a rampart; but lightness of heart and litheness of limb, producing sustained and easy movement and careful firing, are advantages of more importance to the soldier in the field.

These principles embrace his appointments as well as his weapons; and it may be possible, now that public attention is called to the subject, to extend their application, dependent as this is upon the public purse.

The weight of the ammunition and bayonet has hitherto, in regard to the infantry in general, been supported upon the shoulders, and that of the former concentrated on one point. It would appear very possible to divide the support between the shoulders and the waist, and to distribute it equally around. The thirty inches of space which, in general, surround the waist of the full-grown man, would allow of sixty ball-cartridges, placed side by side perpendicularly in four flat well-made pouches, one on each side before, and the same behind. These might be attached to a waist-belt clasping in front, and supported, moreover, by a few stout buttons in the coat, and by a pair of very light belts, in the general form of common braces, crossing on the back, but in front falling straight down from the shoulder without crossing, and terminating each in two points. The material for all these belts might he leather, and the colour, that very common tint reddish-brown, to assimilate with the coat.

The advantage of this arrangement would be, that, in addition to the weight being equalized, the soldier could, as he pleased, ease his shoulders by tightening the waist-belt, or ease the waist by loosing the clasp. He would be also free to throw wide open the coatee in oppressive weather, or in falling out on the line of march. Than this last, there could not perhaps be a greater relief to the practical soldier.

In a campaign, a man might conveniently carry, in addition to this ammunition, thirty rounds of gunpowder in a stout well-made flask, slung by a red strap over the shoulder, and a bag with thirty bullets, in greased patches, on the right side of his waist-belt, to balance the sword-bayonet, suspended from a frog on the left side. For long ranges, loading from the powder-flask might be safe and convenient—the cartridges would serve for closer quarters.

The present almost iron neck-band might be exchanged for the simple, neat, and durable patent Albert spring-wire stock, covered with soft leather. Possibly, also, the soldier’s house, which he carries on his back—and which, in a campaign, must be for weeks together his only shelter—his great coat, or cloak and blanket, might be made lighter by substituting superior materials. In no other way can the weight of the knapsack be much reduced.

It is certainly of immense importance to the safety and prosperity of the nation that all the foregoing subjects should be, _even now_, appreciated with practical closeness. Other civilized states are most active in investigation and in application. THE BRITISH SOLDIER STANDS CHEERFULLY READY AND WILLING TO DO HIS DUTY TO THE COUNTRY—IT IS FOR ENGLAND TO DO HER DUTY TO HERSELF AND TO THE SOLDIER.

From this designation the author would by no means exclude any portions of the armed land-defenders of the British empire, so far as they might have claim to it by character and attainments. Let the volunteer rifle corps and militia acquire and maintain (as did the county militias during the last great war, and as have done many of the yeomanry corps since that period) that drill and discipline without which, in the hour of danger, men-at-arms are jests to their enemies and pests to their friends, and they also may with justice be classed among the soldier-like guardians of their country.

THE END.

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