All the nations of Europe now hastened to bring their tactical systems into agreement with the experiences of the Franco-Prussian War. But it took still another war to drive home the conclusions reached by us in 1861-65. The Turks, in 1877-78, armed with the Peabody Martini rifle, a weapon vastly superior to any heretofore used, by their use of the American system of hasty entrenchments compelled the Russians finally to deliver their assaults in suc cessive lines of deployed battalions.
This very brief outline shows us that the revolution wrought in infantry tactics has been due almost wholly to the improvements in the rifle. The most recent of these, namely, the introduction of rapid fire through the use of a magazine, will simply carry on the development along the lines already laid down, while the ad vent of smokeless powder has increased the powers of the defense. All the conditions of the modern combat, therefore, combine to make the frontal attack the exception, flank attack the rule, a principle which is characteristic of modern tactical methods. And it should be recollected that where flank attack is impos sible (e.g., on the western front, War of 1914), frontal attacks are preceded by artillery preparation of so intense a character, that, under these circumstances at least, the artillery is the principal, the infantry, the auxiliary, arm.
But progress has been marked in other directions as well. We may remark the im portance of "combined tactics," or "tactics of the three arms.* This, of course, is not a new idea; it has simply received fuller expression through a more stringent application of the principle of division of labor, growing out of the universal recognition of the corps as a strategic unit. As this is really a complete army in itself, though on a small scale, so its full effect can be felt only in case all the arms composing it act in concert to secure the com mon end. Hence, the powers of the three arms are, perhaps, more accurately measured, their relations to one another better adjusted. The new role of cavalry, too, deserves notice. If it has lost its former weight on the actual battlefield through the power of both infantry and artillery fire, it has gained in consequence of its employment in independent masses. Operating far in advance of the army, it is the purpose of these masses to cover its concen tration and to screen its movements, while seeking at the same time to prevent the forma tion of the hostile forces, and in any case to discover their emplacements, numbers and ob jective.
In other ways, too, it has gained. The dis mounted fire-action of this arm — that is, its action on foot as in infantry—is now recog nized, the alternative being helplessness on the tactical defensive. So highly have we developed
this mode of using cavalry in our own country that many foreign writers have asserted that our cavalry is only mounted infantry. Our an swer is that all European mounted troops are either reluctantly or unconsciously conforming to the type of the American cavalryman of 1864-65, without abating one jot or tittle of their right to be, and to be called, cavalry. In England, chiefly, a solution was sought in the creation of mounted infantry. The idea here was that the horse shall serve purely as a means of rapid transportation, his rider dismounting on reaching the scene of action. No better ex ample can be found Than that furnished by the British themselves in South Africa, in their attempts to cope with the mobility of the Boers. The reader will recognize at once in the mounted infantry a reversion to the original type of dragoon. But mounted infantry has now ceased to exist.
We may fitly this part of the dis cussion by drawing attention to the increased responsibilities devolved by modern conditions of warfare on the private in the ranks. He has ceased to be considered a machine, mere food for powder, a molecule of the mass whose shock is to crush the adversary. On the contrary, as many occasions will surely arise calling for the exercise of sound judgment, so is he expected to be an intelligent element of the national defense, his value to his country bearing a direct ratio to the degree to which his intelli gence can be awakened and trained.
No survey of the subject would be adequate without some reference to the immense develop ment given by the mechanical spirit of the age to the enginery of war. Of course, the im pulse in question is not purely military; it is simply the application to war of a principle per vading every other phase of life. In general, invention nvention that might possibly increase the economy, certainty or rapidity of a displace ment, whether of men, of material or of pro jectiles, has been summoned to give its share of improvement. All inventions bearing on the transmission or acquisition of intelligence have been pressed into service. One of the latter is the balloon; it antedates the century, but the idea of photographing the enemy's position from its car is new. So is the application of wire less telegraphy to purposes of communication in the field; this invention was turned to a military end almost before it had definitely left the inventor's hands.