CHAPTER II The Invention of the Fusil and the Bayonet THE FUSIL The change in tactics, due to the introduction of the wheel-lock and cartridge, received yet a fresh impulse towards the middle of the seventeenth century, when the fusil, or flintlock, made its appearance.
Once introduced, it was speedily adopted. At first it was issued to a few men in each company, or battalion, who became known as fusiliers; but, as its fire was more certain than either the matchlock or wheel-lock, its weight less, and its cost of production not more, it was not long before it was adopted by the line, and by the year 1700 it was in universal use throughout the armies of Europe.
In a book entitled "English Military Discipline, or the Way and Method of Exercising Horse and Foot," published in 1680, we learn that the fusil was then in use in our army, and especially among fusiliers and grenadiers. " . . . Perhaps the fusilier regiments were originally a sort of grenadiers," writes the author; but Grosse ("Military Antiquities," p. 152. Francis Grosse, 1812.) states, that the "first design of fusilier was to guard the artillery," which conveys, as one would expect, in an age in which light infantry tactics were in disrepute, that fusiliers were not meant to serve as light infantry at all, but simply as marksmen, or picked shots. Cooper, in his "Military Cabinet," informs us that in former times the officers of fusilier regiments did not carry spontoons, but had fusils like the officers of flank companies throughout the line. According to Grosse: "Father Daniel says the first grenadiers in the French troops were placed in the King's Regiment, in the year 1667," four to each company, and that, in 1670, they were formed into one complete company for each regiment or battalion. In 1684, we meet with grenadier companies in most British regiments; they were probably introduced about 1678.
Grenadiers appear to have been first raised during the Thirty Years' War. Their main weapon was the hand bomb, or grenade, called after "grenada," the pomegranate.
In "An Abridgement of the English Military Discipline," printed in 1686, by special command for the use of his Majesty's forces, we find that the grenadiers were armed with firelock, swords, daggers, and pouches with grenades, also with hatchets, with which, after having thrown their grenades, they were, on the command of "Fall on!" to rush upon the enemy. "The Exercise of the Foot," 1690, makes no mention of these hatchets which presumably by then had been withdrawn.
THE BAYONET During the last quarter of the seventeenth century we see a steady decline in pikemen and a corresponding increase in fusiliers. During the wars of Louis XIV., the number of pikes was reduced to one-third of the battalion, then to a quarter, to a fifth, and, "at last they were only found in a central group in each company, so small as to be called a picquet, or 'little body of pikes,' whence the word 'picket,' meaning the support of the outposts, probably because the musketeers furnished the sentries and the pikes the support." ("Organisation," p. 148. Colonel H. Foster.)
In 1670, the bayonet was adopted by the French infantry. Originally an invention of the Basque smugglers, who were in the habit of fixing the handles of their knives into the muzzles of their guns, it was now destined to complete the revolution in the art of war commenced by the wheel-lock and the fusil, and still further to reduce the declining of light infantry by supplying every infantry soldier with a detachable pike. In other words, being armed alike, the infantry soldier could act either as a heavy or a light infantryman, and, as was to be expected, he preferred the former service, for, throughout history, it has always been considered the more honourable of the two.
In 1688, it was introduced into the English Army, and at first with disastrous results; for, at the battle of Killiecrankie, 1689, on account of the bayonet then used blocking the muzzle of the musket, the English infantry, under Mackay, lost all power of fire once bayonets were fixed; with the result that with such clumsy pikes as they now possessed, they were no match for the fierce Highlanders of Dundee, whose methods of fighting, in spite of their want of training, more closely approximated to the requirements of war. For, having once discharged their muskets at close range, these Highlanders, drawing their broadswords, threw themselves upon the disordered English soldiers and utterly routed them.
By 1700, the pike had disappeared to all intents and purposes from organised armies. In England it lingered on for still another century in the form of the junior officer's spontoon.
EARLY DRILL OF THE MUSKETEERS It may be of some interest here briefly to set forth the drill of the early British musketeers.
During the greater part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, each company of 140 men consisted of 40 men-at-arms, 10 halberdiers, or battle-axemen, 30 pikemen; these formed the heavy infantry. The light infantry included 20 archers, 20 musketeers, and 20 arquebusiers. A company Of 200 men in line stood as follows: 20 arquebusiers, 20 archers, 20 musketeers, 30 pikemen, 10 halberdiers, the ensign, 10 halberdiers, 30 pikemen, 20 musketeers, 20 archers, 20 arquebusiers. ("Historical Records of the British Army." Richard Cannon.)
In the time of James I. we find that an English company consisted of one hundred men standing in ten ranks," forming a small solid square of ten men each way. This square was divided into four smaller squares known as "escadrons." Both ranks and files had three different distances: "open-order," "order," and "close-order "; the first represented an interval and distance of six feet, the second of three, and the third of a shoulder to shoulder formation. For files, "open-order" was obtained by opening out and extending the arms to the full extent; "order," by placing the arms akimbo, hands resting on the hips. Musketeers were never to be in closer order than the second, namely, "order," and "close-order" was only employed by the pikemen when withstanding a charge. For purposes of training, "open-order" was generally used; and "order," "when embattled before an enemy." Every corps consisted of pikemen and musketeers - the pikemen were drawn up in the centre, the musketeers on the flanks; hence the name of flankers. Only one rank fired at a time.
THE DOUBLE-ARMED MAN It is interesting to note that though the musket had entirely ousted the bow, the question was more than once debated whether the bow should not be re-introduced in place of the musket. William Nead, in 1625, published a book called "The Double-armed Man," in which he suggested, in order to otercome the difficulty of protecting the musketeers by pikemen, to raise a body of infantry armed with both the pike and the bow, in fact, armed similarly to the "Baliares" of the Carthaginian light infantry under Hannibal. These double-armed men were to discharge their arrows until the enemy had approached to within one hundred and twenty paces of them, and then, fastening their bows to their pikes, to charge home. The bow and the pike could be used in all weathers, and it must be remembered that the arquebus could only be fired when the weather was fine; this was a most serious disadvantage (this disadvantage continued up to the time of the invention of the percussion cap, which sealed the fate of the cavalry charge.) Nead's idea was a very ingenious one, and it showed a thorough grasp of the principles of fire and shock tactics. When on the defensive, the rear rank fired over the heads of the front ranks, just as the Grecian archers fired over the sixteen ranks of the phalanx. Though Nead's suggestion was never adopted, his idea lingered on in men's minds, and as late as 1798 we find it revived in a book published by Richard Oswald Mason, in which the author advocated arming the British volunteers with pikes and long-bows in place of with muskets.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY DISCIPLINE The discipline of the English soldier during the seventeenth century was not altogether lacking in moral qualities; it was certainly of a higher order than the discipline which existed a hundred and fifty years later under the misrule of Pitt. From a pamphlet entitled "A worthy speech spoken by his excellence the E. of Essex in the head of his armie before his arrival at Worcester, on Saturday last, being the 24th September, 1642. Published September 29th, 1642," we read the following:
"(1) I shall desire all and every officer to endeavour by love and affable carriage to command his souldiers, since what is done for fear is done unwillingly, and what is unwillingly attempted can never prosper.
. . .
"(3) That you beare yourselves like souldiers without doing any spoil to the inhabitants of the country
. . .
(7) Whosoever shall be knowne to neglect the feeding of his horse with necessary provender, to the end that his horse be disabled or unfit for service, the party for the said default shall suffer a month's imprisonment, and afterwards be cashiered as unworthy the name of a souldier."
These orders, brief though they are, show that soldiers, even as early as the middle of the seventeenth century, were not altogether wanting in high moral grasp on the part of the Earl of Essex.
By the end of the seventeenth century we find, in European armies, automatic drill not only becoming very complex but constituting, practically, the sole training of the soldier. This drill was necessary in order to carry out, with precision, volley firing in three ranks.
In the "Exercise of the Foot," published in London in 1690, the soldier's training is divided under four general headings.
(i.) The Manual Exercise of the musket, which contains 44 different sections.
(ii.) The exercise of the Grenadier. The first words of command begin thus: "Take heed, Granadeers to Exercise your Firelocks." Section 20 reads: "Draw your Bayonet," and Section 21: "Screw your Bayonet in the Muzzel," which points to the plug-bayonet being still in use in 1690, a year after the disaster of Killiecrankie. In all, for the Grenadiers, there are 59 sections.
(iii.) The Exercise of the Pike. 36 Sections. This exercise seems to have been very similar to the bayonet exercise as taught in the British Army twenty-five years ago.
(iv.) The Evolutions. 121 Sections.
We have seen that, as early as the time of Gustavus Adolphus, cavalry were abandoning the arme blanche for the pistol, and that dragoons, for all intents and purposes, had taken the place of the light infantry musketeer. In England, we find no exception to this change in cavalry tactics, and, in the reign of James II., we meet with a fully-equipped horse-grenadier.
"The horse-grenadiers then acted like a company of grenadiers to a battalion, and were armed with muskets and grenades, linked their horses, dismounted, fired, screwed their daggers into the muzzles of their muskets, charged, returned their daggers, fired, and threw their grenades by ranks, the centre and rear ranks advancing in succession through the intervals between their file-leaders; they then grounded their arms, went to the right about, dispersed, and, at the preparative to breaking to arms, drew their swords, and stood by their arms, falling in with a huzza! They then returned their swords, shouldered and slung their muskets, marched to their horses, unlinked and mounted; after which, they fired their pistols and muskets on horseback."
If these absurd gymnastics, which are reminiscent of the tumblings and dancings of the light troops of Rameses II., be correct, they only show how the art of war had retrograded since the one tactical rule of all warfare, namely, "that the act of demoralisation must prepare the act of decision," had been as the corner-stone of battle. This retrogression was complete when the two types of infantry - light and heavy - had merged into one, and when the two forms of action - individual and collective - were thereby restricted from finding expression. In place, we see a mass of moving marionettes, thoughtless and unthinking, turning this way and that, and delivering, by word of command, volleys of ill-directed lead at a line of similar automata standing at attention fifty paces in front of them, to receive such stray shots as do not pass over their heads.