Attack

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Attack, in its general, strategetical meaning, is held to signify the taking of the initiative in any particular skirmish, combat, engagement, or pitched battle; in all of which one party must necessarily commence with offensive, the other with defensive, operations. The attack is generally considered the more successful, and consequently, armies acting on the defensive, that is to say, in wars of a strictly defensive nature, often initiate offensive campaigns, and even in defensive campaigns deliver offensive actions. In the former case, the object to be gained is that the defending army, by shifting the place and scene of operation, disturbs the calculations of the enemy, takes him away from his base of operations, and compels him to fight at times and places different from those which he expected, and for which he was prepared; and perhaps, positively disadvantageous to him.

The two most remarkable instances of offensive operations and direct attacks, used in strictly defensive campaigns, occurred in the two wonderful campaigns of Napoleon: that of 1814, which resulted in his banishment to Elba; and that of 1815, which was terminated by the rout of Waterloo and the surrender of Paris. In both these extraordinary campaigns, the leader, who was acting strictly in the defence of an invaded country, attacked his enemies on all sides, and on every occasion; and, being always vastly inferior, on the whole, to the invaders, contrived always to be superior, and generally victorious, on the point of attack. The unfortunate result of both these campaigns detracts nothing from the conception or the details of either. They were both lost from causes entirely independent of their plan or execution, causes both political and strategical, the principal of which were the vast superiority of the allied means, and the impossibility that any one nation, exhausted by wars of a quarter of a century, should resist the attack of a world in arms against it.

It has been said that when two armies are set face to face in the field, that army which takes the initiative, or in other words, attacks, has the decided advantage. It would appear, however, that those who have adopted this view, have been dazzled by the splendid achievements of a few great generals, and of one or two great military nations, which have owed their successes to attacks on the grandest scale; and that the opinion requires much modification. Epaminondas, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, and, last not least, Napoleon I, were, emphatically, attacking generals, and won all their great victories, as, in the main, they endured all their great reverses, in actions wherein [they] themselves assumed the initiative. The French owe every thing to the impetuosity of their almost irresistible onset, and to their rapid intelligence in following up successes and converting disasters, on the part of their enemy, into irretrievable ruin. They are by no means equal in the defensive. The history of the greatest battles in the world seems to show that, where the attacked armv has solid and obstinate endurance sufficient to make it to resist, unbroken, until the fire of the assailants begins to die out, and exhaustion and reaction to succeed, and can then assume the offensive and attack in its turn, the defensive action is the safest. But there are few armies, or, indeed, races of men, who can be intrusted to fight such battles. Even the Romans, though magnificent in the defence of walled towns, and wonderful in offensive field operations, were never celebrated in the defensive; and their history shows no battle in which, after fighting all day under reverse and on the defensive, they in the end attacked and won. The same is generally characteristic of the French armies and leaders. The Greeks, on the contrary, fought many of their best battles, as those of Marathon, Thermopylae, Plataea, and many others, but the latter especially, on the plan of receiving the assault until it slackens, and then attacking the half-exhausted and surprised assailants. The same has been the English, and, to a great extent, the Swiss and German system for many ages, and generally successful with those troops, as it has been in later days with the Americans. The battles of Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Waterloo, Aspern and Essling and many others, too numerous to be recorded, were fought exactly on the same principle; and it may be added that in the war of 1812-’14, the Americans successfully retorted on the English, who almost invariably attacked them, and that too—contrary to their usual mode—in column, the plan which they had proved to be so valuable against the French, and which they have still more recently proved against the Russians.

The ordinary modes of attack are the following, when two armies are opposed face to face, in the field, and when both intend to fight. First, and simplest, the direct parallel attack, when the assailing force joins battle, at once, along the whole front, from wing to wing, and fights it out by sheer force. Second, the attack by the wings, either on both simultaneously, or on one first and then on the other, successively, keeping the centre retired. This was Napoleon’s favorite battle, by which, having caused the enemy to weaken his centre in order to strengthen his wings, while he kept his own centre retired and fortified by immense reserves of cavalry, he finally rushed into the central gap and finished the action with an exterminating blow. Third, the attack by the centre, keeping the wings retired and in reserve. This is the most faulty of all attacks, and has rarely been adopted, and, it is believed, never successfully. If an army be forced into this position, it is generally surrounded and annihilated, as was the Roman attacking army at Cannae. It is, on the contrary, an admirable position of defence. Fourth, the oblique attack, invented by Epaminondas, and practised by him, with splendid success, at Leuctra and Mantinea. It consists in attacking one wing of the enemy, with one wing secretly and successively reinforced, while the centre and other wing are retired, but are so manoeuvred as to threaten a constant attack, and prevent the defending party from strengthening its own weak point, until it is too late. This was the favorite method of the Austrian Clerfayt, by which he constantly defeated the Turks; and of Frederick the Great, who was wont to say that “he was only fighting Epaminondas his battles over again,” in his own finest victories.

It is worthy of remark that the Greeks, the French generally, as well as the Russians and the Austrians, have gained all their best battles by attack of columns; which, when they are not effectually checked and brought to a stand, break through the centre and carry all before them. The Romans, the English, and the Americans, almost invariably, have fought and still fight, whether in attack or on defence, in line; in which formation they have always proved able to resist and hold in check the assaulting column with their centre, until by the advance of their wings they can overlap the enemy’s flanks and crush him. It is worthy of remark, that wherever the English have varied from what may be called their national order of attack, in line two deep, and have assailed in column, as at Fontenoy and Chippewa, they have suffered disaster. The inference is nearly irresistible, that the central attack by column is radically faulty against firm and steady troops, although it is sure of success against an enemy of inferior physique and discipline, especially if he be demoralized in spirit.

In attacking a redoubt or field fortification, if it be defended only by infantry, the assailants may march immediately to the attack; if it be defended also by cannon, it is necessary first to silence cannon by cannon. The cannonade is conducted in such a way as to break the palisades, dismount the pieces, and plough up the parapet, and thus to oblige the defending cannon to be withdrawn into the interior. After the attacking artillery has thus produced its effect, the light infantry, principally riflemen, envelop a part of the work, directing their fire upon the crest of the parapet, so as to oblige the defenders either not to show themselves at all, or at least to fire hurriedly. Gradually the riflemen approach, and converge their aim, and the columns of attack are formed, preceded by men armed with axes and carrying ladders. The men in the front rank may also be furnished with fascines which both serve as bucklers and will assist in filling up the ditch. The guns of the work are now brought back and directed against the assailing columns, and the attacking riflemen redouble their fire, aiming particularly upon the artillery men of the defence who may attempt to reload their pieces. If the assailants succeed in reaching the ditch, it is essential that they should in the assault act together, and leap into the work from all sides at once. They therefore wait a moment upon the brim for a concerted signal; and in mounting upon the parapet they are met by howitzer shells, rolling stones, and trunks of trees, and at the top are received by the defenders at the point of the bayonet or with the butt of the musket. The advantage of position is still with the defenders, but the spirit of attack gives to the assailants great moral superiority; arid if the work be not defended by other works upon its flanks, it will be difficult, though not quite unprecedented, to repel even at this point a valiant assault. Temporary works may be attacked by surprise or by open force, and in either case it is the first duty of the commander to obtain, by spies or reconnoissance, the fullest possible information concerning the character of the work, its garrison, defences, and resources. The infantry are often thrown in an attack upon their own resources, when they must rely upon their own fertile invention, firing the abatis by lighted fagots, filling up small ditches with bundles of hay, escalading palisades with ladders under the protection of a firing party, bursting barricaded doors or windows by a bag of powder; and by such measures decisively and boldly used, they will generally be able to overcome any of the ordinary obstructions.