A Treatise on the British Drill and Exercise of the Company with an Introduction to the Field Exercise of the Battalion Explaining the Different Pos

This historic book may have numerous typos or missing text. Not indexed. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1816. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... of the close column, nor its formation into line, but will get into the rear of their respective battalion as soon as they are disengaged from each other. M. Sf P. At ten. in Cov. Serj. S. 6. Instruction of the Officers. The instruction of the officers of a regiment is the peculiar province of its field officers, whose unremitted attention to this essential part of their duty is so sufficiently pointed out by the object itself as to render any further elucidation unnecessary; but although this position is universally admitted, the methods employed to impart this necessary knowledge to the officers is but seldom sufficient to answer the proposed end. To confine this instruction to the common parade, and imagine that every thing has been done, and this task has been most amply fulfilled by ordering the officers to fall in according to their seniority, to perform the eighteen manoeuvres, or even the whole of the manoeuvres comprehended in the field exercise of the battalion, is altogether to misunderstand what is here intended; and when it is considered that even the junior ensign is often called to take charge of a division, and every officer, in the hour of danger and in the presence of an enemy, under the most critical circumstances, liable to head a battalion, the imperious necessity of having each in his turn posted on the flank of a division, as well as ordered in rotation to take charge of the battalion, and give the words for the execution of a named manoeuvre or directed charge of position, will be most obviously displayed. It is only in pursuing the method just mentioned, that officers will acquire the true knowledge of their profession, and will become adequate to perform on service service what may be there required from them, as Well as to ac...