Friedrich Engels

The Volunteer Artillery

Written in the first half of October 1860.
From the English.

["The Volunteer Journal, for Lancashire and Cheshire" No. 6, October 13, 1860]

The question of the Volunteer Artillery is of great importance and should be discussed in detail, all the more so as the role it is to play in the defence of the country does not yet appear to have been clearly determined.

It is obvious that the first question to be solved is the actual sphere of action of the Volunteer Artillery. Until this is done, there will never be a uniform system of training in the various corps; and since the science of artillery encompasses the most diverse fields, it would indeed be difficult to teach volunteer officers and men the whole of it, both theoretically and practically. The various corps would, if required in action, appear with very different qualifications for the tasks they would have to fulfil, and some company, if given a special task, would be too little qualified to carry it out.

In the following observations we by no means presume to determine what the Volunteer Artillery should or should not be; we merely wish to point out some of the conditions under which both volunteer and any other artillery must be formed, in order to prepare the ground for the discussion to which we invite and from which an understanding of the proper field of activity of the volunteer artillery corps must eventually result.

The whole of the artillery is divided into field artillery, which has to operate in the field with the infantry and cavalry and is equipped with horse-drawn guns, and into siege or garrison artillery, which serves heavy guns in fixed or protected batteries for the attack on or defence of fortified places. If in a regular army the length of the soldiers’ service and the specialised scientific training of the officers make it possible to train the whole body of men in both branches of artillery at least to such an extent that in an emergency every company can be employed on any task, this is not the case with volunteers, who—officers as well as soldiers—can devote only a part of their time to military duties. In France, Austria, and Prussia the field artillery is kept entirely separate from the garrison or siege artillery. If this is so in regular standing armies, there must certainly be reasons for it which are operative far more strongly in a volunteer army.

The fact is that the mere serving of a field gun differs little from that of a heavy gun in a battery, so that the men of a volunteer company could easily learn both. But the duties of the officers are by their nature so different in the two cases that nothing but professional training and long practice can qualify anyone to perform both equally well. The chief qualities of a field artillery officer are: rapid military coup d’œil; a thorough appreciation of ground and distances; a perfect knowledge of the effect of his guns, enabling him to hold his ground against an attack up to the last moment without losing any of his pieces; long experience of the capabilities of horses and their treatment in battle; and finally a good deal of dash combined with prudence. For an officer of the garrison or siege artillery, scientific education, theoretical knowledge of all branches of artillery, fortification, mathematics, and mechanics are required. Further, the ability to apply everything to good advantage, patient and sharp attention to the construction and repair of earthworks and the effect of concentric fire, and courage, stubborn rather than dashing. Give the captain of a nine-pounder battery the command of a bastion, and it will cost even the best man a good deal of practice before he is equal to the task; put an officer who has served for years only with siege guns at the head of a battery of horse-drawn artillery, and it will take quite a while before he has shed his methodical slowness and regained the decisiveness his new weapon demands. With non-commissioned officers, who lack the scientific education of their superiors, the difficulties will be still greater.

Of the two, the garrison artilleryman seems to be the easiest to train. Civil engineers possess all the preliminary scientific knowledge the matter requires and will very soon learn to apply the scientific principles with which they are familiar to the artillery. They will readily learn the handling of the various mechanisms used for moving heavy guns, the construction of batteries, and the rules of fortification. They therefore form the stratum from which the officers of the Volunteer Artillery should mainly be selected, and these will be especially suited for the garrison artillery. The same applies to the non-commissioned officers and gunners. All men who have had much to do with machinery, such as engineers, mechanics, and blacksmiths, will form the best material, and for this reason the great factory centres should form the best corps. Practice firing with heavy guns may be impossible in the interior of the country; the sea is, however, not so far from our inland towns in Lancashire and Yorkshire that excursions to the coast could not be organised from time to time for this purpose. Besides, actual target practice with heavy guns in the battery, where the first graze of each shot can be seen and the men can correct themselves, is not of such paramount importance.

There is another argument against attempting to raise a volunteer field artillery: the cost of the guns and their teams. Some companies may, if they club together, indeed be able to bear the expense of hiring teams for a few guns during the summer months and exercising with these in turn; but neither soldiers nor officers will thereby be trained into serviceable field artillerymen. The cost of equipping a field battery of six guns is, roughly calculated, about equal to that required to raise a whole battalion of infantry. No company of the Volunteer Artillery could afford such expenditure. Considering what a disgrace the loss of a gun on the battlefield signifies, one may well doubt whether a government would ever be inclined, in the event of an invasion, to equip the Volunteer Artillery with field guns, horses, and drivers on the same conditions under which the volunteers are provided with small arms.

From these and other reasons we come to the conclusion that the proper sphere for the Volunteer Artillery is the manning of the heavy guns in fixed batteries on the coast. An experiment with field artillery may be unavoidable in inland towns in order to keep up the interest in the movement, and it will certainly do neither officers nor men any harm to be made as familiar as possible with the handling of light horse-drawn guns; but we confess that, from our own personal experience with the arm, we doubt very much their eventual efficiency in field service. After all, they will have learned a great deal that will be equally useful to them in the use of heavy guns, and they will soon be equal to the task if they are employed on these.

There is another point to which we wish to draw attention. The artillery is, far more than the infantry and cavalry, an essentially scientific arm, and as such its effectiveness will depend mainly on the theoretical and practical knowledge of the officers. We have no doubt that Major Griffiths’ “Artillerist’s Manual” is now in the possession of every volunteer artillery officer. The contents of the book show with what a variety of subjects an artillery officer, and even a non-commissioned officer, must make himself familiar before he can exhibit any proficiency in his arm. Yet the book is only a brief outline of what a competent artilleryman ought to know. Besides the regular company and battalion drill common to infantry and artillery, there are the knowledge of the many different calibres of guns, the knowledge of their carriages and platforms, their charges and ranges, and the different projectiles; further, the construction of batteries and the science of fortification, permanent and field fortifications, the manufacture of ammunition and fireworks, and finally that science of gunnery which at the present moment is so excellently receiving new additions through the introduction of rifled cannon. All these things must be learnt both theoretically and practically, and they are all of equal importance; for whenever the Volunteer Artillery is called to active service it must get into difficulties if all these branches have not been attended to. Of all volunteer corps, the artillery is therefore the one in which the efficiency of the officers is of the greatest importance, and we hope and believe that they will exert themselves to the utmost to acquire that practical experience and theoretical knowledge without which they would be found wanting on the day of trial.