Friday, June 7th, 1861.

MAJOR-GENERAL THE HONOURABLE JAMES LINDSAY, M.P.

in the Chair.

CAMPS OF EXERCISE.

BY COLONEL J. LE COUTEUR, Jersey Militia Staff, A.D.C. to the Queen.

I THINK it proper that an officer who has retired for many years from the active service of the army, should offer some apology for presuming to read a paper on a subject so much more practically known to many, if not to all, who may now be present. From my position as commanding officer of three regiments of militia for above a period of thirty years in the island of Jersey, and subsequently as adjutant-general to the whole force, I have been lead to read much on military subjects, and have reflected deeply, not only on that most important of all considerations the defence of the country, but also on the best method of training troops in camps of

exercise.

I was once asked by that accomplished officer, the late Major-General Torrens, whether I thought the camp at Chobham was all that was required for instruction? My reply was to the effect that the highly-distinguished commander, who handled that beautiful force with such consummate skill and ease, seemed to be making it a school for the brigadiers and commanding officers, rather than one for the juniors and soldiery. How so? Troops should be taught to move in order of battle, with every requirement of war,-guides, pontoon train, engineer establishment, military train, camp equipage, commissariat,-to encamp at distant uncertain points, to entrench a position, with a view to its defence against a superior force. General Torrens quite agreed with this view, but added that such expenditure as those movements might require would not yet be tolerated by the country; the money voted for Chobham was already expended, it would be useless to ask for a further supply just now.

Camps of exercise, or camps of instruction, have existed from the earliest periods, under the immediate direction of the Most High. The disposition of the Hebrew encampment was first laid out by the command of God. Cyrus, one of the most favoured of the heathen world, a general among the greatest and wisest, was not only himself trained in a camp of exercise, but he established one more perfect, in which his officers and soldiers were exercised to feats of arms, trained to martial array, and to field movements. The modern institutions of the "Legion d'honneur," or the "Victoria Cross," are imitations of his celebrated band of "alike

honoured." Yet, great as they were in personal merit and warlike accomplishments, he was surpassed by none of the "alike honoured." His consummate discrimination of merit was only equalled by the nobleness and liberality with which he rewarded it.

In a later period, before touching upon the purpose of a modern camp of exercise, it may not be deemed uninteresting to consider shortly to what end the greatest master of the art of war formed camps-whether as temporary camps of resistance, or camps of permanence.

In his first invasion of England, Cæsar landed his five legions, with 2,000 horse, from 800 vessels.

A great army of Britons had been assembled to oppose his landing. Appalled by the vastness of the fleet, they retired to the mountains. Cæsar having landed his army, chose a safe site for his camp, left a force to entrench it, and then marched against the enemy. The following morning, having forced the weakly barricaded camp of the Britons, he found the position well chosen, and immediately resolved to fortify it for his own army. The next morning, intelligence having been conveyed to him that a dreadful storm had caused infinite damage to his fleet, he returned and drew all his remaining ships within the fortifications of the camp. Ten days were employed in this duty, during which the soldiers had no intermission of fatigue, not even during night, until the camp was sectirely

fortified.

From this camp Cæsar sent out foraging parties, and, although these and the camp itself were repeatedly attacked with extraordinary valour by the British, the camp remained impregnable.

From that base of his operations Cæsar conquered the Britons. As the period of the equinox drew nigh, taking advantage of an extraordinary calm, he suddenly re-embarked his army, with a great body of prisoners, set sail about ten o'clock at night, and by day-break brought his whole fleet safe to the continent of Gaul. In this instance he insured a constant supply of stores for the repair of his fleet, as well as rations for his men, by being master of the Channel:

On another occasion, Cæsar, having planned an excursion towards the Scheldt against Ambiorix, sent all the baggage of his army to Atualica, a castle and camp which he had strongly fortified the previous year. Quintus Tullius Cicero, with the fourteenth legion and 200 horse, was left in its command. Cæsar was to be absent only seven days, during which he had enjoined Cicero to allow no one to quit the camp. On the seventh day, the men, becoming weary of confinement within the camp, were urgent to quit it; Cicero weakly yielded; sent half his force, or five cohorts, with carts and camp followers to forage: At this very moment a body of 2,000 horsemen of the Sicambri, who had been urged to attack the Roman camp, on being assured of its defenceless condition, and the absence of Cæsar with his army, suddenly attempted to force the entrance of the camp. The cohort on guard could scarcely withstand the attack. A centurion of the first rank, who was among the sick in garrison, rushed, though incompletely armed, to the assistance of the guard, and, although he bravely sacrificed his life, the post was maintained, and some confidence was restored; meanwhile the foragers returning, assaulted the enemy, who after much loss were driven off, and the camp was saved. In this in

stance the prudence and foresight of the great commander were nearly set at nought by the imprudent weakness of Cicero, in yielding to the wishes of his men, and disobedience of orders. Cæsar, on returning, only complained of the sending out the cohorts to forage, observing, "That in war nothing ought to be left to fortune, whose power appeared evidently in the sudden arrival of the enemy, and much more in their coming up unperceived to the very gates of the camp." Few armies have ever been better trained than the Roman. Their system can be applied with advantage to any army.

Recruits for the Roman armies were selected from country labourers, as should be the case with our own, rather than from the population of towns; field labourers being more simple in manner, and hardy of frame. In their training, the practice was rigorous, methodical, and exact.

The recruit was furnished with an osier shield and a wooden club, each of them double the weight of the military shield and sword; with these he was trained twice in the day in attack and defence, and especially taught to give point the manual of the javelin, and the shooting with arrows was taught scientifically, as the use of the rifle is to be now. When the soldier was deemed perfect in his elementary drill, he was taught evolutions and complex movements, to open or close ranks, to form square with celerity, and from square to form into the triangle or wedge, to move in these formations and in a hollow circle. Thrice in a month, fully accoutred and armed at all points, carrying sixty pounds weight of kit, the Roman soldiers marched four thousand paces, or above a two-hours' march from the camp, at times on a plain, at others over broken ground. The centurion was not only selected for his skill and prowess in the use of arms, but he was to be sober, vigilant, and active, more prompt to act than to speak, zealous to maintain his company in discipline, to see that it was suitably clothed, and well provided with good shoes. It is not a little remarkable, that the forecast of a savings bank was to be found in the stock purse for every cohort, and a general purse for the whole legion. Although in common, it had the same tendency as a savings bank to create a local attachment to the service.

During the decadence of the Roman state, the whole scene was corrupt; morals were licentious, and civil liberty drifted into slavery.

From the moment the Romans became enslaved, their armies felt the stain, and their discipline and conquests fell together.

Ancient traditions taught the Franks to claim the Romans as their kinsmen; yet, in the medieval ages which followed the fall of the Roman empire, very little, if any, of that exact and stern discipline, which had been the soul of its armies, was retained. The barbaric sovereigns of Britain and of Gaul adopted the Roman insignia and imagery for the assertion and demonstration of their authority, but the trappings did not constitute the force.

It is after a lapse of seventeen centuries, that the armies of Britain and of Gaul have returned to that stern and steady discipline which have rendered them, combined, as renowned as the tenth legion of Cæsar, and as irresistible !

During a long period, which may strictly be called the feudal days, or those of chivalry, training to arins belonged rather, to the feudal lords

and their immediate retainers, archers, or men-at-arms, than to great armies, or the people at large.

The invention of gunpowder, its application to the purposes of war, and the use of firearms and artillery rapidly revived strategy and tactics. In the fourteenth or the fifteenth century, though there may not have existed camps of exercise, yet the training of troops must have become pretty general, for the Emperor of the French, in his "Past and Future of Artillery," states that the best infantry of that period, the English archers, the Swiss and the Lansquenets, were mostly without defensive armour. The English archers at Agincourt, according to an eye-witness, Le Fevre de St. Remy, were without armour, and barefooted. Louis the Eleventh of France established an entrenched camp two leagues in length, in which to instruct his troops. These troops, says Philip de Commines, were composed of mounted men-at-arms of his free companies, trained to alight when necessary, with an artillery, which could be easily transported where wanted, and a great number of carts and chains.

At so early a period as 1476, the Swiss must have been carefully trained in camps of exercise.

They were formed in heavy battalions in solid squares with as much front as depth, composed of artillerymen (coulevriniers), halberdiers, and pikemen in varied proportions. The artillerymen were either placed in front, or on the flanks of the battalion. The pikes destined to resist cavalry were firmly fixed on the ground. The halberts, much shorter, were of signal use when the melee took place. Their army, according to the usage of the period, was formed in three corps; but instead of moving in rear of one another, or in column, they moved en échellon, the centre corps marching straight on the foe, while the two others attacked his flanks. Their artillery, composed of light guns, was placed within the intervals of infantry. To protect the guns, and to clear the line of march, they had musketeers, who acted as skirmishers, and were named the forlorn hope (enfants perdus).

They feared no cavalry, as this could not break their ranks; and as to artillery, which alone could furrow their compact masses, this, owing to its discharge being slow, gave little cause for alarm. Firm to receive its first fire, they rushed on the guns, in order that they might seize and turn them on the enemy. Sentence of death was passed on any who should quit his ranks. No cries were allowed, but a deadly silence enforced. With tactics, however, valour has changed its nature, coolness and compact order have replaced headlong bravery and single combat. These troops were found to be invincible, and Louis the Eleventh took six thousand of them into his service. On these he re-organised the French army, leaving, writes a contemporary, three treasures to his successor, a standing army of 60,000 men, a marvellous train of artillery, such as had never been seen, and all his frontier towns well fortified.

About the early part of the seventeenth century, or 1610, Prince Maurice of Nassau introduced a new system of manoeuvre, quite different from the very deep and square columns or lines which had prevailed. He formed his battalions of 500 men, ten deep, and his squadrons, from 100 to 200, five deep. These enabled them to form from columns into lines with greater celerity. The Emperor of the French gives the credit of

having rendered armies more flexible, and of having introduced a new order of battle, to him rather than to Henry the Fourth and his immortalised minister Sully.

The northern Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, may be said to have taken the hint from Maurice of Nassau, but his mighty and inventive genius stepped at once from the unwieldly and inconvenient depths of order of battle to what may be called Dundas' tactics. In his camp of exercise he formed his regiments into companies, sections, and sub-divisions (Corporalschafften), each having a chief file and coverer, so that every private, without appeal to his officers, knew his place. Each company was composed of 72 musketeers and 54 pikemen; eight companies formed a corps of 1008 men, and two regiments a brigade. The king had seen that, with the old deep formations, the rear ranks were thrown into disorder by the front ranks, especially when a heavy fire from artillery mowed down whole ranks. Gustavus formed his regiments in six ranks while moving, and three deep in order of battle. The front rank kneeling, the second stooping, the third erect. The pikemen were distributed so as to receive cavalry. Guns were attached to the regiments, so that each brigade was a moveable fortress. The wonderful success which attended his arms, prove the sagacity and greatness of his designs. He abandoned the system of forlorn hopes, or tirailleurs, because he deemed that battles were to be won by masses, not by skirmishers. Chemnitz states, "No one equalled him in leading an army to battle, in covering a retreat without loss; or in encamping in security in the open field by rapidly covering it with entrenchments. It was impossible more perfectly to understand fortification, attack, and defence!”

To severe discipline he added most liberal and impartial justice. Favour was unknown. No one could rise but by merit. He partook in hardships with his soldiers, and in camp slept in the open air when they did so.

The tactics of Gustavus Adolphus form an era in war! Camps of instruction were instituted by Louis XIV. of France, and although no great changes were introduced in the movements of infantry by that monarch, the greatest honour belongs to Vauban for his improvements in the science of defence and attack, in a word, of Fortification!

In 1778, forty battalions and 20 squadrons, with 40 guns, were formed into a camp of instruction at Vausseiux, under Marshal Broglie, besides a smaller force of ten battalions and nine squadrons in a camp at Paramé. Here the vexed questions between the older system of manoeuvre and that introduced by the great Frederick were canvassed and worked out by the manoeuvres then carried on. The true relative value of the two systems was appreciated. It was seen that neither was absolute or exclusivethat the variety of movements and the operations of war require the employment of various modes of formation and deployment; that consequently troops act best in those movements which are admitted to be the most simple and prompt, leaving it to the coup-d'ail of the general to choose on the field of manoeuvre or battle such as the circumstances of the moment should make preferable. A later writer, after some critical remarks on the disastrous conclusion of the war with the Anglo-American States, after tendering his admiration of the English constitution and government in high terms of praise, proceeds to offer warnings, which are not more out of season now than they were then: "While all the nations of Europe are