My Second Year of the War

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Frederick Palmer. My Second Year of the War

My Second Year of the War

Table of Contents

BACK TO THE FRONT

II. VERDUN AND ITS SEQUEL

IV. READY FOR THE BLOW

V. THE BLOW

VII. OUT OF THE HOPPER OF BATTLE

VIII. FORWARD THE GUNS!

X. ALONG THE ROAD TO VICTORY

XI. THE BRIGADE THAT WENT THROUGH

XII. THE STORMING OF CONTALMAISON

XIV. THE CAVALRY GOES IN

XV. ENTER THE ANZACS

XVI. THE AUSTRALIANS AND A WINDMILL

XVIII. A TRULY FRENCH AFFAIR

XIX. ON THE AERIAL FERRY

XXI. BY THE WAY

XXII. THE MASTERY OF THE AIR

XXIII. A PATENT CURTAIN OF FIRE

XXV. CANADA IS STUBBORN

XXVI. THE TANKS ARRIVE

XXVIII. CANADA IS QUICK

XXIX. THE HARVEST OF VILLAGES

XXXI. AU REVOIR, SOMME!

Отрывок из книги

Frederick Palmer

Published by Good Press, 2019

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The swift march of a division or a brigade from reserve to the flank at the critical moment has often turned the fortune of a day. All manoeuvering has this object in view. Superior numbers facilitate the operation, and victory has most often resolved itself into superior numbers pressing a flank and nothing more; though subsequently his admiring countrymen acclaimed the victor as the inventor of a strategic plan which was old before Alexander took the field, when the victor's genius consisted in the use of opportunities that enabled him to strike at the critical point with more men than his adversary. In flank of the Southern Confederacy Sherman swung through the South; in flank the Confederates aimed to bend back the Federal line at Kulp's Hill and Little Round Top. By the flank Grant pressed Lee back to Appomattox. Yalu, Liao Yang and Mukden were won in the Russo-Japanese war by flanking movements which forced Kuropatkin to retire, though never disastrously.

Pickett's charge at Gettysburg remains to the American the most futile and glorious illustration of a charge against a frontal position, with its endeavor to break the center. The center may waver, but it is the flanks that go; though, of course, in all consistent operations of big armies a necessary incident of any effort to press back the wings is sufficient pressure on the front, simultaneously delivered, to hold all the troops there in position and keep the enemy command in apprehension of the disaster that must follow if the center were to break badly at the same time that his flanks were being doubled back. The foregoing is only the repetition of principles which cannot be changed by the length of line and masses of troops and incredible volumes of artillery fire; which makes the European war the more confusing to the average reader as he receives his information in technical terms.

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