"What a decisive blow the 20th Division could have struck, if it had been employed in one body!" (v. Liebert).[1]
The decision is usually brought about by pressure on a
flank, but it might become necessary to accomplish this result
by launching large masses against some point of the hostile
front.[2]
The difficulties of accomplishing this are best illustrated by the situation of the IIIrd Army Corps on the afternoon of August 18th, 1870, when Prince Frederick Charles yielded to the entreaties of General von Alvensleben and permitted him to advance south of the Bois de la Cusse.[3] Similar situations resulted in the case of the Austrian 1st and VIth Army Corps at Königgrätz, the French IIIrd and IVth Army Corps, on a front of 2.75 km., with the Guards in rear, between Noisseville and Failly, and, finally, the advance of the 1st East Siberian Rifle Division at Wafangu. The French regulations likewise contemplate a decisive attack made by large masses on a narrow front. If these troops which are to clinch the success gained by the fighting line, are deployed on the front laid down in regulations, they will be unable to use their weapons. It isn't mechanical shock action, but fire effect that decides the battle. In such a mass of troops, only fractional parts will be able to fire, the major portion is crowded together and becomes a dense, defenseless target, exposed to all the psycho-*
- ↑ Gen. St. W., I, p. 595. Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften, 18, p. 580.—v. Scherff, Kriegslehren, II, p. 146.—Essay by v. Liebert published in Supplement of the Militär-Wochenblatt, 1895. From the description contained in the 4th Supplement of the Militär-Wochenblatt, 1895, p. 177. It appears, at any rate, that the support given by the 39th Half-Brigade was not absolutely necessary. On the right flank as well, a united employment of the force for the attack of Hill 970 ought to have been possible; as it was, regiments were cut up in making isolated assaults, which had no effect whatever on the outcome of the general action. Kunz, Kriegsgeschichtliche Beispiele, 8/9, p. 128, et seq.
- ↑ General Minarelli-Fitzgerald, Infanteriemassen im Angriff. Colonel Csicserics von Bacsany of the Austrian Army, in a brilliant study entitled Die Schlacht (Vienna, 1908), argues that with the increased combat frontage of armies, local successes have no longer the same Influence on the outcome of the battle as of old. Compare, for example, the envelopment of the Russian left flank at Liao Yang, and the penetration of the line at Yuhuntun (Mukden), with the effect produced by the capture of Chlum and St. Privat on the outcome of the battles of Königgrätz and Gravelotte, respectively.
- ↑ Der 18. August, pp. 484 and 558, sketches 34 and 35.
