A GENERAL’S LETTERS TO HIS SON ON MINOR TACTICS NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Copyright, 1918 By George H. Doran Company Printed in the United States of America...

It has very forcibly been brought home to me that not only young officers joining their units from training establishments, but also those who have been in France and have come back wounded, are often very ignorant on those points in minor tactics which they have not learnt through actual experience on the battlefield, and that this is especially the case with regard to the proper control of fire. The battlefield is an expensive place to acquire knowledge which can be gained elsewhere, and it be

December 1, 1917. My dear Dick ,— It is now nearly nine months since I wrote the last of my letters of advice to you, and since then you have yourself been in France and have had many experiences and hairbreadth escapes. I am very thankful that your wound is only a slight one, and am glad that within a couple of months you will probably once more be able to take your place in the fighting-line, for that is where your country demands your presence. It behoves you, in the meantime, to seize every

W , X , and Y are three pill-boxes about 150 yards apart. We are attacking in the direction of the arrows, that is, in a northerly direction. Our men following close behind the barrage took pill-boxes W and Y ; but, partly owing to the conformation of the ground and partly for other reasons, we failed to take X , and this pill-box is now holding up the whole of our advance between W , wood, and Y , knoll, with a machine gun, which is being fired from the inside of the pill-box, and which sweeps

The brigade to which you belong has entered a town from a southerly direction, and you are opposed by an enemy who has entered it from a northerly direction. The company of which you are in command has been allotted the ground between the roads B F , C G , both inclusive, your flanks are protected, the streets are about thirty feet broad with pavements five feet broad, houses run all along the streets. ( a ) If you were to tell off a section to prevent the enemy advancing along the street B F fr

An advance guard, of which the company you command forms part, has been pushed forward to seize a position of which the ridge B-I forms a part. The main body should reach the position some eight hours after your arrival there. You have been told that your first object is to prevent the enemy’s cavalry seizing the position. The enemy’s cavalry, accompanied by horse artillery, may be expected in the proximity of the position within an hour or so after your arrival, but it is unlikely that his infa

The banks of the River Lea are steep, the river is about four feet six inches deep, except near the ford. The bottom is muddy. At the ford it is forty yards broad, in most other places about twenty yards. The fields on either side are firm. The roads shown on the sketch are dry and dusty. The soil is chalky. The depth of the river at the ford is two feet six inches. The date is June 20. One of the orderlies attached to you reports that at Slag Farm there is a large quantity of wire, some of it b

My dear Dick ,— I will set you another problem. The force to which you belong has made a night march. Your platoon now forms part of a new outpost line. You halted in a ditch at line marked D , with a thin hedge on the enemy’s side of it, which gives you good cover from view. Your idea was to use this place as the headquarters of your picket, and as soon as it was thoroughly light to throw groups out in front. Your platoon consists of forty men and a Lewis gun. Soon after dawn and when your men

The situation is exactly the same as in Problem 5 a , except that instead of a platoon advancing towards you, there is a whole company marching in fours, with four groups 100 yards in front of it. What action would you take? Exactly the same as in Problem 5 a . The enemy is in this case four times as strong as you are, but the effect of surprise should more than make up for this, and the first minute after you open fire should decide the action in your favour....

The situation is again exactly the same as in 5 a and 5 b , except that a whole battalion with eight groups 200 yards in front of it is advancing. In this case the situation is changed. You are an outpost, and your first duty is to warn your main body in case of an attack and to give it time to prepare itself. It is just possible that if you allow the battalion to approach to within 300 yards you might deal it such a blow as to almost destroy it; but if, on the contrary, the covering groups were

My dear Dick ,— In this letter I am going to set you another fire problem. It is one in which, presuming that the men are fairly well trained in musketry, everything depends on the orders given by the company commander. You are in command of a company and are marching in a northerly direction along the road W B E , with scouts in front of you. On reaching the top of the ridge at B your scouts halt and beckon to you. You go forward and see what appears to be an enemy’s battalion at X , by the ban

My dear Dick ,— The following is a problem in trench warfare such as you may be called upon to solve any day in the trenches. The company of which you are in command has succeeded in getting into a trench a section of which is given in the diagram. It has only incurred about 10 per cent. of casualties. The trench is the last of the German system, and there is a clear field of fire for about 100 yards in the direction in which the enemy has retired; after that there is a thick wood. Your telephon

After hard fighting you have driven the enemy out of the trench A B C , and he has retired up the communication trench D E F in the direction of his supports. You are in command of a platoon and have been ordered to take steps to prevent the enemy again advancing along the communication trench E D B . It is not the intention of your commanding officer to advance at present any farther than the points he has already reached. The time is an hour before dark. What steps will you take to carry out t

My dear Dick ,— This week my letter will be a short one, as it only contains one very simple problem. You are on outpost duty and have been told that the General is very anxious to get one or two live prisoners. Your picquet is at some cross-roads a quarter of a mile south of the road A B marked on the map. You have reason to believe that it is probable that the enemy will patrol down the road A B . A B is a good road with strong fences on either side of it, and with ditches on the road side of

My dear Dick ,— The problem I am setting you to-day has to do with fire control. You are on outpost facing in a northerly direction and are in command of a picquet consisting of the headquarters of a platoon with a Lewis gun and thirty men at G . A man who has been sent in from a group on your left tells you that a company of the enemy is moving across your front from left to right along the road A B C D E F . He says that the company is marching with an advanced guard of one platoon about 200 y

Let us first of all consider how many rounds a minute you could expect the troops under your command to fire in the following circumstances: ( a ) If the fire were only to be continued for two minutes. ( b ) If it were to be kept up for half an hour. In other words, in the two minutes you could fire at the average rate of over 4,000 rounds a minute, but for half an hour could only keep up an average rate of about 800 rounds a minute. Another thing to be considered is that your average of hits at

What you should always aim at is to obey the spirit of an order rather than its letter. You know Captain A. to be a reliable officer, and he says that he fears that he cannot hold out until 10.30. If the enemy seize A trench before that hour, not only will your retreat be cut off, but the object of ordering A and B Companies to hold the bridges so as to enable the main body to get a good start will be defeated. The nearest hostile infantry to you, at E , is some two miles off, that is to say, so

B Company will at once march to D wood and occupy D farm....

I am marching immediately to D farm, which I hope to reach before 10 a.m. From this place I shall be in a position to facilitate your retreat and prevent your being pursued farther than A wood. You may retire as soon as you see that I have established myself in the farm buildings. Having accomplished the object for which we have been sent out, I shall continue my retirement to X . These twelve little schemes I have set you are, as I think you will admit, all very simple, but I am willing to wage