Tactics

Fighting in extended order is developed, the musketeers rapidly growing in num ber. The French adopt the line as their tactical formation, the Spanish and Aus trians maintain squares, normally of 3,000 men, 25 ranks deep. These squares possess a central corps of pikes, with bastions of musketeers at their corners. Later on, these solid squares are re placed by hollow ones, and at times their four sides manoeuvre as separate bodies. This is the beginning of the linear formation which definitely took form during the Thirty Years War.

Maurice of Nassau.

The 15th and 16th centuries were a period of transition from shock to fire tactics, or, broadly speak ing, from the cavalry to the infantry cycles of war. The progress was remarkable in spite of opposition, for the new arms had as always to struggle for their existence. The elements of the new order had now been born, and two men, Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus, shook them into form as Philip of Macedon had done nearly 2,000 years before their day. Maurice opened out the hollow square and placed its sides in "echequier." These sides he formed into regiments of two battalions each consisting of 500 men in ten ranks. The pikes were placed in the centre and the musketeers on the flanks; by a successive use of small bodies he wore his opponents down, and yet kept a reserve in hand. Having reorganized his infantry, he reduced the numerous calibres of the field guns to 24-, 12- and 6-pounders, and substi tuted iron balls for the hail shot hitherto used. He divided his artillery into two bodies, the heavy guns to introduce the battle, and the light to accompany the infantry and closely support them.

Gustavus Adolphus and the Thirty Years War.—Under Gustavus the evolution towards the line was rapid. He reduced the ranks of the musketeers to six, organized his army into brigades, each consisting of two regiments of two battalions each I,000 strong. Each battalion was divided into eight companies each of which had 72 musketeers and 53 pikemen. He gave up the "echequier" formation and drew up his order of battle in line, the infantry in the centre and the cavalry on the flanks. In the Thirty Years War (q.v.) he used his artillery to break up the Imperialist squares by an overwhelming fire from a distance, and then charged home. Such tactics, combined with the flexibility of his troops in manoeuvre, won him his two great battles, namely, Breitenfeld (q.v.) in 1631, and Liitzen (q.v.) in 1632. He never mastered, as Frederick the Great did, the tactics of artillery against an enemy who had taken up a strong defensive position such as that held by Wallenstein at Nuremberg in 1632. To do so a powerful howitzer

was necessary, and failing this a mobile force of who could outflank the obstacle and attack the enemy, or his supply columns, in rear. After Gustavus's death we find this frequently taking place. Armour is discarded and the lance is laid aside, cavalry being armed with pistol and sword. Rocroi (q.v.) in 1643 i was won by the French cavalry under Conde, and in England it was the cavalry of Cromwell which proved the decisive arm, since the infantry line found great difficulty in manoeuvring, and if its flanking cavalry were beaten it could be readily attacked in rear. The increased use of cavalry from Rocroi to the end of the 17th century marks the tactics of this period as one of manoeuvre; to fall upon the flank, or rear, of an enemy, is the controlling idea. Turenne was a master of these tactics, and for the first time since the opening of the infantry cycle the attack equipoised the de fence. To assist cavalry mobility frontal fire is necessary, conse quently skirmishers vanish and a rigid line is formed. The prin cipal idea of Montecuccoli's order of battle is resistance, for as he says : "The secret of success is to have a solid body so firm and impenetrable that wherever it is, or wherever it may go, it shall bring the enemy to a stand like a mobile bastion, and shall be self-defensive." If once the enemy can be brought to a standstill, that is fixed by fire, the cavalry can manoeuvre. Marshal Luxem burg is a worthy disciple of Turenne. The battle of Fleurus (q.v.) in 1690 is a masterpiece in the art of manoeuvring, and so is that of Neerwinden (q.v.) in 1693.

The Solidification of Infantry.

The steady improvement in fire-arms, and the introduction of the socket bayonet by Vauban in 1687, reduced infantry to one type. The distinction be tween pikemen, musketeers, fusiliers and grenadiers was given up, and during the war of the Spanish Succession (17o1-14) all foot were armed with the flintlock and the bayonet. Mobility was now reduced to a minimum, and battles are decided by order and co hesion followed by the cavalry charge. In this war Marlborough won most of his victories by cavalry, and when infantry played a prominent part, as at Malplaquet (q.v.) in 1709, the losses were appalling. The pike had vanished and had been replaced by the bullet, so that volleys of bullets in place of push of pikes now governed tactics.