Volunteer Engineers: Their Value And Sphere Of Action

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This article was written at the request of Nodal who wrote to Engels on November 19, 1860: “I should feel much obliged, at some future time, if you could let us have a paper on Volunteer Engineers, a subject which is just now attracting much attention. Yours very faithfully. J. H. Nodal.”

The article was published in The Volunteer Journal under the title “Volunteer Engineers”, with no indication of Engels’ authorship. In the Essays Addressed to Volunteers the words: “Their Value and Sphere of Action” were added to the title. The title in this volume is the same as in the Essays.

p. 460

The volunteer army has had, for some time, its infantry and artillery in considerable numbers; it has had its small complement of cavalry too; and now, the last branch of military service, the engineering branch, is gradually being taken up. The subject of volunteer engineers is at present very widely discussed, and it deserves the attention it enjoys. The corps of Royal Engineers is too weak already for the numerous duties it has to perform at home and in the colonies. What will it be in case of a war, and anticipated invasion? Then the numerous fortifications which now are in course of erection, and by means of which the dockyards are being surrounded by vast entrenched camps, will require a considerable number of engineer officers and men for their garrison; and the army in the field, swelled to twice or three times its present number by the addition of the volunteers, will also be in want of a certain complement of engineers, to give it its full liberty of action before the enemy. Unless the corps of Royal Engineers is considerably increased, the duties of this branch of the service must either be imperfectly performed, or they must be performed by volunteers trained for them beforehand.

The number of engineers to be attached to an army in the field is, after all, not very numerous; three or four companies to an army corps of two divisions (16 to 24 battalions of infantry, with a due proportion of cavalry and artillery) would be quite sufficient. Supposing a field-army of 40,000 of the line, 20,000 militia, and 100,000 volunteers, in all 160,000, or 200 battalions, this would give from eight to ten corps, and require about thirty companies of engineers. We will suppose ten companies to be furnished by the Royal Engineers; this would leave twenty companies to be supplied by the volunteer movement. About the same number more volunteer engineers would be sufficient to assist the royals in the defence of the fortified dockyards; so that something like forty companies of volunteer engineers would appear an ample complement for the present strength of the volunteer infantry and artillery. If the number of volunteers should so far increase as to enable them to appear in the field, after deducting garrisons, with more than 100,000 men, one additional engineer for every hundred additional riflemen would be enough; giving 200 engineers (or three companies) for every army corps of 20,000 men.

For the present, then, forty companies, or about 3,000 effectives, would be the maximum engineer force which it might be advisable to create. And it will require a great deal of energy to make them engineers not only in name, but also in reality. We find already now that among artillery volunteers a great deal of time is devoted to company and battalion drill, carbine in hand, although all this work serves for parade purposes only, and will never avail them one jot on active service, be it with field-guns, or be it in fortifications. And we are afraid it will be the same with the engineers. They should, above all things, bear in mind that every hour spent on company drill, beyond what is required to give them a military bearing, a ready and instantaneous obedience to orders, and the capability of moving in good order on a march, is an hour lost to them; that they have quite different things to learn, and that on these, and not on steady marching past, depends their efficiency.

They will have to acquaint themselves— men as well as officers—with the elements of field and permanent fortification; they will have to practise the construction of trenches and batteries, and the making and repairing of roads. If means can be found, they will have to construct military bridges, and even to dig mines. Some of these branches, it is to be feared, can only be taught theoretically, as fortresses in England are scarce, and pontoons also; and not every volunteer can be expected to go to Portsmouth or Chatham to study fortification or assist at the laying down of a pontoon bridge. But there are others which it is in the power of every company to practise. If there was a company of engineers formed here in Manchester, we could show them plenty of lanes in as bad a state as any to be passed by a column in war, and where those whom it concerns would very likely be only too glad to allow them to practise road-making to their heart’s content. It would not be very difficult for them to find a plot of land on which they could construct a few field-works, dig trenches, and erect batteries; especially as such a plot of land would offer both the artillery and rifle volunteers an opportunity of practising such parts of their service as they could otherwise not be made to go through. They might even find spots where they would be allowed occasionally to throw a small bridge of chevalets over one of those high-banked rivers of our neighbourhood, which offer such capital facilities for this kind of bridges wherever their bottom is firm. Such things, and many others of the same kind, should constitute their chief practice; company drill should be gone through rapidly at first, and only taken up again when the corps have got on fairly with their real engineering business; then, in the second winter, the nights may be used for drill with advantage. But if the engineers make it a point, from the beginning, to compete with the rifles in the style of marching past, and in battalion evolutions, to the detriment of their specific education; if the attention of the officers is directed more towards the duties of an infantry officer than to professional education— then the volunteer engineers may depend upon it that in a campaign they will far oftener be used as infantry than as engineers.

There will be little difficulty in finding very efficient officers, if they are selected from the only class fit for the post—the civil engineers. A few months’ theoretical study, and an occasional journey to Chatham, Portsmouth, or Aldershot, will soon make them conversant with most branches of military engineering, and the military education of their companies will help them on. They will learn by teaching. Their own profession compels them to know all the principles of military engineering, and as they must be very intelligent and well-informed men, the application of these principles to military subjects will give them but little difficulty.

We have read a statement in the Army and Navy Gazette respecting some immense military engineering organisation, which is to comprise all the lines of railway in the country, and to promise vast results in case of an invasion.

The shape in which this plan is presented before the public is excessively vague; so far we do not see the immense advantages that are ascribed to it, and rather think that two different things have been mixed up together. No doubt it is of the highest importance to study the strategical bearings of every single line of railway in the kingdom, as well as of the whole network of railways combined. This is so important that we should consider it a grave delinquency if it had not been done long ago, and if there were not now lying in the archives of the Horse Guards, as well as of the various district commanders, very extensive papers embodying the results of these studies. But this is the duty of the staff, and not of the engineers. As to forming the engineers, firemen, platelayers, and navvies of every railway line into a corps of military engineers, we do not see the great advantage of this. These men have already, so to say, a military organisation, and are under stricter discipline than any volunteer corps in the country. What they are expected to do in their quality as volunteer engineers, they are quite as capable of doing in their present capacity. And as in time of war their presence at their present posts would be far more indispensable than now, there can be no earthly use in training them to special branches of military engineering.

These remarks apply to the plan only as far as it has been made public; if it should turn out, hereafter, that it contains other features, we must, of course, reserve our opinion. We may be permitted, however, to point out another advantage to which the vast amount of engineering intelligence in this country may be turned. Most armies have, besides the officers connected with the Sappers and Miners, a number of engineer officers unattached to any companies, and doing special duties. Why not give the civil engineers of England a chance of preparing themselves for this service? The College of Civil Engineers might be made the means to effect this purpose. A few courses of lectures on military engineering, and a short practical course with a company of engineers would do all that is required; an examination, stricdy confined to military subjects, and which in this case would be absolutely necessary, might be made the principal test of admission to the Corps of Unattached Volunteer Engineer Officers; the Government to have, of course, the power to reject candidates considered ineligible. Such officers would be of great service, for it is upon the intelligence of the officers that in this case everything depends; and on an emergency they would better get on with a few volunteer riflemen or artillerymen, placed under their command for the execution of some engineering work, than regular engineer officers with a section or two of infantry of the line told off to them for the same kind of duty.