Friedrich Engels

Attack

Written between July 14 and August 10, 1857.

From the English.

["The New American Cyclopædia", Volume II]

Attack, in the general strategic sense, means taking the initiative in a skirmish, an engagement, a combat, or a pitched battle. In this, one side must necessarily always begin with offensive operations, the other with defensive ones. The attack is generally considered the more successful operation, and therefore armies acting on the defensive, i.e., in wars of a strictly defensive character, have often initiated offensive operations and even deliver offensive actions in defensive campaigns. In such a case, the intention is that the defending army, by changing the place and scene of the action, disrupts the enemy’s calculations, draws him away from his base of operations, and compels him to fight at other times and in other places than he had expected and taken into account in his preparations, which may possibly be unfavourable to him.

The two most remarkable examples of offensive operations and direct attacks in strictly defensive campaigns are found in the two great campaigns of Napoleon: that of 1814, which resulted in his banishment to Elba, and that of 1815, which ended with the defeat at Waterloo and the surrender of Paris. In both these extraordinary campaigns, the commander, acting strictly in the sense of the defence of an invaded country, attacked his opponents on all sides and on every occasion; and although he was generally far outnumbered by the invaders, he always managed to be superior to the enemy in the attack and, on the whole, victorious as well. The unfortunate outcome of these two campaigns detracts neither from their conception nor from their details. Both were lost for reasons entirely independent of their plan or its execution; they were causes of a political and strategic nature, chiefly the immense material superiority of the allies and the impossibility that a nation—exhausted by a quarter of a century of war—could withstand the attack of a world in arms.

It is asserted that, of two armies facing each other on the battlefield, the one that takes the initiative or, in other words, attacks, has the decisive superiority. However, it seems that those who hold this view have been dazzled by the brilliant achievements of a few great generals and one or two great military nations which owe their successes to attacks on the grandest scale. This opinion requires considerable qualification. Epaminondas, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, and, not to be forgotten, Napoleon I, were distinctly generals who favoured the attack; they all gained their great victories as well as their great reverses primarily in actions in which they had taken the initiative. The French owe everything to the impetuosity of their almost irresistible attack and their quickness of perception, which enables them to exploit their successes and turn the misfortunes of their enemies into total ruin. In defence they are by no means so good.

The history of the greatest battles of the world seems to prove that the defensive action is the safest, provided the army attacked has sufficient stamina to offer stubborn resistance until the fire of the attackers slackens, until exhaustion and reaction set in among the attackers, and then it can in its turn pass to the offensive and attack. But there are few armies or, indeed, seldom nations capable of fighting such battles. Even the Romans, although superb in the defence of fortified towns and astonishingly good in offensive operations in the field, did not earn glory in the defensive; their history contains not a single battle in which, at the end of a day full of reverses and defensive fighting, they finally passed to the attack and won. This also holds generally true for the French armies and commanders. By contrast, the Greeks fought many of their best battles, such as those of Marathon, Thermopylae, Plataea and many others, but especially the last-named, according to the plan of withstanding the enemy’s attack until it slackens, and then, in their turn, passing to the offensive against the half-exhausted and surprised attackers. The same system was applied for centuries by the English, and on a larger scale also by the Swiss and Germans. It had generally proved successful with the armies of these peoples, and later with the Americans as well. The

battles of Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Waterloo,
Aspern and Essling,
and many others which, owing to their great number, cannot be cited here, were fought on exactly the same principle; and it may be added that the Americans successfully repulsed the almost incessantly attacking English in the war of 1812–1814, and did so even when the English—contrary to their usual practice—attacked in column, a method which had proved so effective in fighting against the French and, more recently, against the Russians.

When two armies stand opposite each other in the field for battle, the usual forms of attack are the following:

First, —the simplest to execute—the direct parallel attack, in which the attacking army enters the battle at once along the whole front from wing to wing and defeats the enemy army by sheer strength.

Second, the attack on the wings, carried out either by both simultaneously or successively, first on one wing and then on the other, while the centre is held back. This was Napoleon’s favourite tactic, by which he compelled the enemy to weaken his centre in order to strengthen the wings, while Napoleon held back his own centre, reinforced it with enormous cavalry reserves, until he finally thrust into the weakened centre of the opponent and ended the action with a crushing blow.

Third, the attack on the centre, with the wings withdrawn and held in reserve. Of all forms of attack, this has the most defects. It has been rarely used and, one may say, never successfully. If an army is forced to fight in this position, it is generally surrounded and annihilated, like the attacking Roman army at Cannae. This is rather an excellent defensive position.

Fourth, the oblique attack, invented by Epaminondas and applied by him with brilliant success at Leuctra and Mantinea. It consists in attacking one wing of the enemy with a wing that is secretly and gradually reinforced, while the centre and the other wing are held back in the meantime, but manoeuvred in such a way that they pose a constant threat of attack and prevent the defending side from sending reinforcements to its weak point until it is too late. This was the favourite method of the Austrian Clerfayt, with which he repeatedly defeated the Turks, and also that of Frederick the Great,

who was wont to say that in his best victories he ‘merely refought the battles of Epaminondas’.

It is noteworthy that the Greeks, and generally also the French as well as the Russians and Austrians, won their best battles by column attacks which, if not effectively checked and brought to a halt, broke through the enemy’s centre and drove everything before them. The Romans, the English, and the Americans have almost invariably, whether in attack or in defence, fought in line and still do so today; in this formation they always succeeded in resisting the charging columns with their centre and holding them in check, until by the advance of their wings they could envelop the flanks of their enemy and crush him. It is noteworthy that the English always suffered a disaster whenever they deviated from their two-deep line as their quasi-national attacking formation and stormed forward in columns as at Fontenoy and Chippewa. The conclusion forces itself almost irresistibly that the central attack by column against firm and steadfast troops is extremely faulty, although its success is assured against an enemy of little physical strength and discipline, and especially with a demoralized fighting spirit.

If a redoubt or field fortification to be assaulted is defended only by infantry, the attackers can proceed at once to the storm; but if it is also defended by cannon, the cannon must first be silenced by cannon. The cannonade is carried out to destroy the palisades, silence the guns, plough up the parapet, and thereby compel the withdrawal of the guns ready for defence into the interior. After the attacking artillery has in this way achieved its effect, the light infantry, primarily skirmishers, envelop a part of the defensive work, directing their fire on the crest of the parapet in order to force the defenders either to show themselves not at all or at least to fire in haste. The skirmishers gradually approach and concentrate on their target. Assault columns are formed, preceded by soldiers equipped with axes and ladders. Sometimes the soldiers of the first rank also carry fascines, which are intended to serve as cover and also for filling the ditch. The guns of the defensive work are now brought forward again and trained on the storming columns. The attacking skirmishers increase their fire, aiming particularly at the artillerymen of the defence who may be trying to reload their pieces. If the assailants succeed in reaching the ditch, it is decisive that they act together in the storm and simultaneously penetrate the defensive work from all sides. They therefore halt for a moment on the edge and wait for the agreed signal; in climbing the parapet they are struck by howitzer shells, rolling stones, and logs, and at the top are received by the defenders with the bayonet or the butt of the rifle. The advantage of position still lies with the defenders, but the attacking spirit gives the assailants a great moral superiority, and if the defensive work is not covered by other works on its flanks, it will be difficult—though not wholly without precedent—to repel a bold assault at this very moment.

Temporary defensive works can be attacked by surprise or by open assault, and in both cases it is the first duty of the commander to obtain, through spies or reconnaissance, the best possible information about the character of the defensive work, its garrison, means of defence, and resources.

The infantry is often thrown into the attack left entirely to its own resources, having then to rely on its own rich inventiveness, such as setting fire to abatis with burning brands, filling small ditches with bundles of hay, climbing palisades on ladders under cover of a firing party, blowing up barricaded doors or windows with a bag of powder, and by such resolute and bold measures it will generally be able to overcome any ordinary obstacle.