Friedrich Engels

An English Volunteer Inspection

Written in August 1862.

[“Allgemeine Militär-Zeitung” No. 44, 1 November 1882]

Since you permitted me to report in your paper on the volunteer review at Newton in August 1860, two years have passed. Perhaps your readers will be interested, after so long an interval, to learn something once more about the condition and tactical training of the English Volunteer Force.

I may shortly deal with the strength and present organisation of the volunteers in context; today I shall confine myself to stating that the official effective strength of the Volunteer Army is 162,800 men, thus stronger than ever before, and shall proceed directly to illustrate the tactical training of this army by an example.

On 2 August, the Inspector-General of all the Volunteers, Colonel McMurdo, held a review at Heaton Park, an hour from Manchester, of the contingent furnished by that city. The troops consisted of the first, second and third Manchester “regiments” (6th, 28th and 40th Lancashire Corps) and the “regiments” supplied by the suburbs of Ardwick and Salford (33rd and 56th Lancashire). Of these so-called “regiments”, however, only three (the first and third Manchester and the Ardwick Corps) appeared at battalion strength; the other two together formed one battalion; these battalions varied from 18 to 22 files per company, eight companies formed a battalion and, including officers, they averaged about 400 men strong. Also present were the volunteer cavalry (32 men) and artillery (two one-pounder amusettes lent by Mr. Whitworth and about 150 men, formed as infantry, acting as the gun escorts), likewise from Manchester. The infantry could have appeared 100–150 men stronger in most battalions, but the commanders appear to have taken care that untrained men stayed at home.

The terrain (the southern part of the park belonging to the Earl of Wilton, where races were formerly held) presents a ridge falling away from west to east; on the right and left it is bounded by valley bottoms, which towards the front, before the eastern foot of the hill, unite into a level meadow about 800 paces square. The stream accompanying the northern foot of the hill, beyond which the ground rises again, bounded the terrain on that side; in all other directions it was enclosed by the woods lying along the park wall. Fenced-in or free-standing small thickets, as well as isolated trees and here and there a swampy spot, break up the otherwise entirely open character of the terrain.

Colonel McMurdo’s reviews, in contrast to the great mass of those customary among the volunteers, are always held without a programme fixed in advance and communicated to the troops; the gentlemen never know beforehand what they will have to do. In return, however, the movements he orders are solely those actually used before the enemy, and exclude all tactical artifice. McMurdo, the son-in-law of the conqueror of Sind, Sir Charles Napier, and his chief of staff in India, is no pedant, but a thoroughly practical soldier, and his whole activity with the volunteers has proved that he is just the man for his present post.

The brigade received the inspector as usual in line. After the opening formalities, he had quarter-distance columns formed (the English column customarily used for mass movements outside the enemy’s rifle fire), closed to the centre, and changed the front of the column line to the right forward, so that the aforesaid flat meadow and the woods of the eastern park wall lay before the front. During these movements, which were carried out swiftly and without disturbance, the cavalry swarmed out, passed through the woods and opened fire against the supposed enemy, but soon fell back. The right wing battalion (6th Lancashire) was now drawn forward, four companies thrown out as skirmishers, four as supports; the two following battalions (the combined 28th and 56th Lancashire and the 33rd Lancashire) deployed, while the left wing battalion (40th Lancashire) remained in column and, together with the cavalry, formed up 200 paces to the rear as a reserve. The two guns stood on a hill edge on the right wing of the skirmish line. Until the order to advance was given, skirmishers, supports, and the deployed line lay flat on the ground. In this position, the brigade presented quite a warlike appearance, such as one is not accustomed to at the ordinary volunteer manoeuvres; one saw that a real soldier was in command.

The signal to advance and fire sounded for the skirmish line. The dispersed engagement was conducted without particular distinction. The men, accustomed to schematic skirmishing on the open plain of their drill ground, were far too anxious about the direction to think of cover. Terrain features and woods were a closed book to them. There were, in addition, fenced-in thickets that were not to be entered and completely confused the men; one company halted before one such thicket in the narrow valley bottom and fired into it with the greatest composure, while the rest of the line had long since worked its way around and was already in front of it. Moreover, the skirmish line gradually swung entirely over towards the left flank, so that the woods towards which the cavalry had been thrown were barely or not at all attacked, and the front of the deployed line was more and more exposed. Since the design and course of the manoeuvre did not appear to motivate this movement in the least, I must presume that it was based on an oversight. The artillery advanced firing with the right wing of the skirmishers, generally took up positions quite without cover, and if my field glass did not deceive me, the gun-wheels frequently stood aslant on the slope.

The skirmishers were reinforced for a moment by throwing out the supports, and then called back; the deployed line had meanwhile advanced and opened file fire. The fire of the right wing, especially the 28th Lancashire, was very fierce and almost too hurried; in the centre, on the right wing of the 33rd Lancashire, it was feeble and interrupted by long pauses; on the left wing it was rather disorderly. A part of the line stood here close behind a terrain undulation of almost twice a man’s height, which, however, did not hinder them from blithely blazing away. The 40th Lancashire had, in the meantime, advanced from the reserve position to within 200 paces behind the line and deployed; on its right, the reassembled 6th Lancashire deployed. Both wheeled back the left flank sections of the companies to make room for the first line to pass through, which was now breaking off by companies in double files and retiring. I confess that I cannot at all reconcile myself with this movement, here prescribed by regulations; this time I liked it worse than ever. The regulation is that the retiring first line wheels about and advances in line to within a company front length of the second, likewise deployed, line, then breaks off by companies and passes through the gaps formed as above. If the first line retires only for lack of ammunition, is but little shaken, and no immediate attack is to be feared, such a manoeuvre may be feasible at the double-quick; but for an active enemy this would certainly be the moment to send his masses forward. Here, however, the thing was not even done according to regulations. The first line immediately broke into companies, and in this formation, which was, moreover, executed quite slovenly, had to retire a full two hundred paces without being covered by skirmishers.

The 6th and 40th Lancashire Regiment now, for their part, opened file fire, which was considerably more uniform and better sustained than that of the two other battalions. After about 4–5 cartridges per man had been fired – the artillery had continuously fired from the right wing of the respective first line – the halt was sounded, and with this the first act of the manoeuvre came to an end. Hitherto, Colonel McMurdo had treated his brigade as a detached corps entering upon an independent engagement with a supposed enemy; the positions and movements all related to the opposite terrain occupied by the enemy. From now on, he drew the four battalions together into one line, which appeared as the supposed first line of a larger detachment. The narrow space no longer permitted regard to be taken of the opposite terrain, and in order to keep the men together for mass movements, all further skirmishing was also dispensed with.

[“Allgemeine Militär-Zeitung” No. 43, 8 November 1862]

First, the first line changed front left forward, whereby it came into the prolongation of the earlier-mentioned northern valley. The remaining battalions formed up on its left, and the whole line opened file fire. It was then prolonged more and more to the left, as from the right wing onwards the battalions broke off successively by companies, marched behind the front towards the left wing, mar-

… moved off and formed again there. After the left wing had in this way been pushed almost up to the woodlands of the western park wall, the front was drawn back in a quarter-circle to the right, pivoting on the left wing. With the exception of the left-wing battalion, this movement was carried out, as usual, by folding the battalions into quarter-distance columns, marching them onto the new alignment and deploying — all very rapidly and in the greatest order, though on a steep hillside. As the battalions deployed again, I was walking along the front of the 40th Lancashire Corps, saw each company arrive on the line of alignment, and must say that our best-drilled continental line troops could certainly have done this more elegantly and “smartly,” but surely not more steadily and more quickly. During the movement Colonel McMurdo several times loudly expressed his full appreciation to the battalion. The 6th Lancashire Corps also deployed quickly and in good order; I have seen this manoeuvre carried out far more slovenly by French line regiments. — After some file firing, the brigade advanced in echelons from the left wing, with 100 paces distance between battalions, halted and formed square at the double. This was not particularly well done in places, as the march through bushes had scattered the men somewhat. The battalions deployed again, moved up into the alignment of the left-wing battalion, each delivered a volley that was generally round enough, and now the whole brigade advanced in a single line. I wish that some of the officers, so numerous in Germany, who are of the opinion that movements in line cannot be carried out with young troops, had seen the advance of this line of 640 files. The terrain was as uneven as one could wish. The front ran across a ridge falling away fairly steeply on three sides, the ground was full of holes and hummocks, and there were many individual trees besides. Nevertheless, the line moved forward several hundred paces in perfect order, with sufficiently good direction, closed and without wavering, especially the two battalions in the centre (6th and 40th), and Colonel McMurdo expressed his full satisfaction with this movement, both on the spot and afterwards to the staff officers. At the close he had the charge sounded, and off they went in true Volunteer style at full run about a hundred paces down the slope into the open field — more a race than a charge. When the halt was sounded, the 40th Lancashire Corps stood there, poorly aligned but compact and closed up, the sixth not quite so orderly.

On the wings, however, especially the left, things had gone very untidily; the men were badly mixed up, several had fallen, and one man of the front rank had been wounded in the calf, because here the second rank had partly still had its bayonets levelled. With that the manoeuvre ended, the troops formed for defiling, defiled and went home.

I believe an example of this kind will give the readers of the “Allgemeine Militär-Zeitung” a far more graphic picture of the nature and the degree of training of these Volunteers than all doctrinal expositions. Though the number of troops concentrated was only small, for that very reason it allowed the execution of more practical movements than is otherwise the case in larger musters of Volunteers here; for the latter one never finds sufficient space here. Besides, the battalions present gave quite a good average of the English Volunteer corps: two of them, as will have been seen, were significantly ahead of the other two and represented the consolidated battalions of the larger towns; the other two, further back in their training, already because of the more mixed elements of which they are composed, represented more the corps formed in the countryside and in smaller towns. On the whole one may say that the Volunteers have become sufficiently settled in the principal battalion movements; they form columns and deploy, they move in columns and in line with sufficient, here and there even with great, assurance. One would do well, on the other hand, to spare them the artificial deployments and countermarches that the English regulations, like so many others, still contain. The Volunteers know dispersed combat — always the weak side of the English — only insofar as it could be imparted to them on the drill ground, yet here too there is a significant difference between the various battalions. The mistakes that occurred at this inspection, as will have been seen, are not in the least different from the mistakes one sees daily at the exercises of our continental peacetime armies, although these armies have the advantage of being led by officers grown grey on the manoeuvre field. It is by no means to be denied that the officers of the English Volunteers still form the weak side of the whole corps, although a significant improvement is visible here too. Those who
delight in the parade march
will find the Volunteers more advanced in this art as well than they expect. Finally, as regards their performance on

the shooting range, they can unconditionally measure up to any standing army of Europe and assuredly contain on average more good marksmen per battalion than most line troops. Summa summarum, after three years the experiment may be regarded as completely successful. England has, almost entirely without cost to the state, created an organised army of 163,000 men for national defence — an army that has been so far drilled that, according to the varying degree of training of the battalions, it needs only to encamp and exercise another three to six weeks in order to become a thoroughly serviceable field force. And even in the very worst case, any invasion attempt will always be obliged to leave the English that much time.