Elements of the Art of War. compose each column,—and, finally, the precise route of each column, with a detailed explanation of the places through which they are to pass, and whether they are to move to the right, to the left, or through any wood, valley, &c. 8. If any detachment is to take a separate and distinct route, it is to be noted in the order of march such as colonel a will proceed with such a part of the ammunition, equipages, or carriages, to the towns b, c, d, and will there wait further orders, &c. 9. The orders of Murat concludes with the mention of the manner in which the old camp is to be dismantled or cleared. The French staff is supplied with printed forms of this order of march, with blank spaces for the particulars, to be filled according to the occasion. It sometimes, though very seldom, happens, that these forms do not answer all the varieties of the campaign; in this case the bureau draws up a new form suited to the occasion, but in which they keep as nearly to the printed models as is possible, adding only what the new unforeseen circumstances may require. 11. The miscellaneous service of the bureau comprehends whatever the general may deem necessary to the daily management and domestic economy of the army. The bureau keeps a constant attention upon the commissariat; it informs the commissioners of all general and particular movements; of the departure and expected arrival of detachments, &c., so as to enable the commissariat to make the necessary provision for their subsistence. 12. The bureau likewise keeps its attention upon the convoys ; main. tains a correspondence with the officers who are bringing them up; and takes every necessary means to cover and ensure their passage, appointing escorts, and sending them to points where they may act to advantage. The officers leading convoys are commanded in their instructions to send notice to the staff of their departure, their route, and the time of their expected arrival in all the towns throughout their road. This notice is the grand work upon which the bureau acts with respect to the expediency of sending them escorts, &c. 13. The bureau regulates the detail of position (emplacement) of all the magazines and hospitals, after they have been once moved; it corresponds with them, and procures them whatever they require. DEPARTMENT OF THE POLICE. It is unnecessary to enter into any detail upon this head. Every general issues a form of his own, according to which the police is administered. The French army leaves this to the discretion of the commander in chief. DEPARTMENT OF CAVALRY AND INFANTRY, The duties of the major-generals of cavalry and infantry have been before treated of. The duties of these officers constitute the service of this department; so that there is nothing to be added on them. Elements of the Art of War. CHAP V-Lepartment of Forages, green and dry. 1. Forages are of two kinds, green and dry. Green are grass, unripe corn, &c. Dry forage is oats, wheat, barley, straw, hay, &c. The open fields are foraged before harvest; towns and villages after. The object of the forage department is to reconnoitre and to distribute to the troops the circuit of country to be foraged. To this end the bureau employs a military surveyor to take a plan of the country which it intends to forage, and then, selecting some brigades to compose the forage party, it distributes the roads and ground to the several commanders, according to the plan of the surveyor, giving a copy of it to each commander, in which his own road is marked. If the country to be foraged is small, one plan may suffice; in which case the commanders are assembled, and their respective movements explained to them on the plan, 2. The district to be foraged should not be too extensive, lest it should endanger the troops, and the ransack (for such every forage is) should be incomplete. It is better to forage a small portion well, and, returning another time, repeat the forage. 3. The officers of the staff should enable themselves to judge by the cy● (coup d'œil) what number of trusses any extent of grass land must produce, They will easily gain this habit by observing the space which is cleared when one, two, or three, trusses have been cut. They will soon be able to judge the produce of standing corn, ripe but uncut, in the same manner. The general weight of a truss should be 250lbs. The forager should bind them closely and strongly. You may learn the contents of a heap of dry corn in the same easy manner. Shoot two or three bushel and see what magnitude it occupies. You will then judge of larger heaps. 4. It is advisable in practice always to precede every foraging party by a reconnoisance, in which you (some of the staff) survey the country with your eye, and put down in your tablets or pocket books the quantity of forage which the district will produce. For example,-you pass a field in standing grass; you must meditate thus: how many acres are there in this field? your eye, perhaps, determines 12, 20, 50, &c.; then proceed in your calculation: an acre of standing grass will produce 70 trusses; in this field, therefore, there are twelve times seventy trusses, &c.; then put down this in your tablet, and proceed the same way to another field, till you find as much forage as you may think you want; generally a truss per horse. You thus learn how to regulate your foraging parties. 3. A foraging party should be covered by one or two troops of infantry or cavalry in its rear. The principal art of foraging is to execute the business with order and method. The commander of the covering troops should take such a station as to have them all under his eye. He should consider the foragers as his scouts or outposts, and should take such a position as to call Elements of the Art of War. · them in on the first appearance of any peril. Upon reaching the centre of the district to be foraged, he should draw them all up, and then dismiss them to their several appointed fields; he should particularly explain to the commanders of them the roads, bye roads, &c. by which they may join their main body. Every thing in a foraging party depends upon the leader. 6. Dry forages are to be conducted on the principles of domiciliary visits. The villagers must not know when you are about to visit their granaries. After you have visited them, and, as it were, taken stock, you must make them comprehend that what you have noted down is to be considered as appropriated to the use of the army, and therefore that they will subject themselves to martial law if they destroy or waste any of it*. 7. In making this reconnoisance for dry forage (i. e. corn, &c.) the officers of the staff should visit every house in the village in succession, and then draw up a table on the spot. This table should be headed or entitled,— Quantity of dry forage in the village of A. The table should have seven ruled columns: the first column should be beaded,—Names of the inhabitants; and under this should be inserted the names of the proprietors of each farm house. The second column should be headed,—Wheat; the third,-Barley; the fourth-Oats; the fifth,-Beans; the 6th,-Cattle; and the seventh,― Pigs; and under each of them and opposite the several names should be put down the quantities which the several proprietors may have of each. The staff should in this manner make tables of all the villages; by this means they will know how to regulate their requisitions, &c. 8. After this reconnoisance and these tables have been duly made, on the following day or two you may proceed to execute the forage. The way of proceeding in this service is as follows:-The foraging party draws up in line before the village to be foraged; an adjutant-general, or any one of the staff who acts for him, then proceeds into the village and causes five or six of the principal farmers to appear before him (seading for them to their bouses, and, if necessary, compelling them to come, by seizing their persons); he then explains to them that it is not their interest to suffer a general pillage and ransack by the soldiers, which must be the case if the foraging is to be executed by the soldiers in person. "The army," continues he, “ requires so much of each of the inhabitants, according to his quota; will you engage to make it up and deliver it in your own carts at the camp, &c.? Do this and you escape pillage, and you may retain the property of all that remains: you shall be foraged no more." As this address is reasonable, it will generally succeed, or, at least, a troop or two of horse will quicken their obedience. Should an English officer have to execute this duty, he will, of course, endeavour to reconcile, as far as is possible, the obligations of justice with the necessities of war; I say, as far as is possible, for even in morals, as well 3 in fact, jura silent inter arma.-EDITOR. Elements of the Art of War. But if the farmers are obstinate, or make a delay, of which the urgency will not admit, you must then compel them to have their waggons brought forth and loaded on the spot, and exert your military energy, but without cruelty or bloodshed, to make them carry the spoil to any appointed place. To prevent confusion, assign a different party to certain sections or divisions of houses, or even to every house, and put a centinel at every door, that none may enter but those whom you appoint. Refer to your table for the quantity of forage in each house or farm, and regulate your means of carrying it away accordingly. 9. Another way of foraging is (after you have drawn up your table in the preceding reconnoisance) to send to the burgo-master, bailiff, or principal farmer of the village, to raise such a quantity of different kinds, and to carry it out in front of the town, and there to deposit it in a certain number of heaps, that it may be ready for you on the following day.―The heaps to be as many as the foraging squadrons which you send to take them: pillage to be threatened to the village, and personal punishment to the bailiff, in the event of disobedience or neglect*. ART OF WAR.-PART SECOND. PRACTICAL ENGINEERING. The practical way of tracing and constructing Field Works. 1. I do not know any work in the English language which explains with sufficient perspicuity and detail the actual way of making the ordinary field work; I mean, with such perspicuity that the reader of them may be enabled to instruct himself by them. This is the purpose of the following lecture. May I be permitted, therefore, to recommend to the younger part of the army an attentive perusal of it.—These few pages have cost me more labour than the whole of the Chronicle; because I have endeavoured to condense and to simplify a great mass of matter in a small compass. I am taking the same way of teaching the younger officers of the army which my excellent instructors practised towards myself. I had the advantage of the first men of the day; their way of teaching was this:-To take one of the best books which treated upon the subject, and then rewrite it for me themselves, omitting all the parts which their own judgment and experience taught them to be useless, and throwing all the remainder into a new order and division better adapted to the memory. It is incredible what is the advantage of this method. 2. Almost all the writers on field fortification have distributed their work * These are French regulations. I conceive it necessary to add this, that I may not seem to recommend what has frequently the air of inhumanity and gross rapine. In all the varieties of war, there is room for the exertion of Christian charity and benevolence; and an English officer will delight in these occasions; he will stretch nothing beyond the necessity.-EDITOR. Elements of the Art of War. them in on the first appeamance of any peril. Upon reach of the Art of War. AL MILÍTARY CHRONICLE ste, or make a delay, of which the urgency will wel them to have their wazzons brought forth the district to be foraged, he should draw them all up, an 8. After this reconnois, following day or two you proceeding in this serv line before the village staff who acts for hir of the principal fa bouses, and, if nece he then explains lage and ransack be executed by so much of ea . agth e. twelve each end for then reduce the mployed at a fascine ner and lay them on the A men will make about ten .culated in the following manner: paces of the inner line of the parzpet; outside; 5, two ditto to faseine five paces Lo to each embrasure. Such, therefore, being spaces, it is easily calculated what is required Let us suppose, for example, that a redoubt is to be in its four sides; in our calculation of the quantity of e must proceed thus: 1st, As six fascines are required to of the inner line of the parapet, you say by the rule of three, ill require 6 fascines, what will 120 paces require? the answer 44 2nd, In practice in the field, the same number is allowed for at line as the inside, i. e. 144. 3rd, In the same practice, we usually to make it u you escape shall be fo succeed, * S1 enden the r #3 j 41.50. a for the banquette one-eighth of the quantity required for the parapet, break. Live pickets, i. 4th, And the same number is allowed in reserve to supply those that Total therefore required, 354 fascines; and as each fascine requires e. staves, about three feet long, and pointed at one end (like, the handles of birch brooms) to be run through them and to pin them down, |