- isting organizations (this had, indeed, also the advantage that a suitable
leader could be found for carrying a special mission into execution), and to form strong reserves by details from any and all imaginable units. These reserves were frequently not used at all.[1]
On March 5th, 1905, the commanding general of the Xth Army Corps (Zerpitzki) had available one brigade of his 31st Division, one regiment of his 9th Division, one regiment of the VIIIth Corps, three Rifle regiments of the mixed Rifle Corps, the 5th Rifle Brigade, and one regiment of the Vth Siberian Army Corps.[2]
On October 15th, in the battle on the Shaho, the general reserve of the army consisted of 32 battalions belonging to five different divisions and five different army corps. In his order for the battle, Kuropatkin laid particular stress on the necessity of forming reserves (Army Orders dated August 15th, 1904): "Keeping back more than half of the force in reserve is the best guarantee for success." On December 27th, 1904, he made a similar statement.
The reserves are created to be used; every available man
must participate in the decisive stage of the combat. If the
enemy yields before the reserve is launched, so much the better;
if he does not give way, all the troops that are at hand must
be put in. The main thing is to gain the victory; scruples may
be indulged in afterwards. A defeated commander who leaves
the battlefield with troops that are still partially intact, has not
made the most of the means at his disposal for combat, provided
the situation was such that the launching of the reserves
could have secured the victory. As shown by Hastenbeck
(1757), by Idstedt (1850), and by Bapaume, at the moment
of the crisis there is no sharp dividing line between victory and
defeat, and the reserves may decide the fate of the day. The
decision of Archduke Albrecht, during the battle of Custozza
(1866), to push his last reserves into the fight was worthy of
a great commander.
- ↑ On July 31st, 1904, when, in pursuance of orders from General Headquarters, a regiment and a battery was to be despatched to Mistshenko's Cavalry Division, 15 km. away, a provisional regiment of two battalions was formed, without apparent reason, for the purpose from the 139th and 140th Infantry Regiments. In regard to the inclination of the Russians to form detachments, see Löffler, I, pp. 11, 27, 53 and 54.
- ↑ See v. Tettau, Achtzehn Monate mit Russlands Heeren in der Mandschurei, II, p. 483.
