A Summer Night's Dream
Introduction
In 1888, an anonymous little book rolled of a press in Germany. Called Sommernachts Traum [A Summer Night’s Dream], this work borrowed its name, but nothing else, from William Shakespeare’s famous play. Thus, rather than telling tales of the mischief made by elves and fairies, this Summer Night’s Dream used a fictional conversation between two officers to argue for a new approach to infantry tactics, one that bore a closer resemblance to the close-order tactics of the age of smoothbore muskets than the open-order methods adopted during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).
Soon thereafter, a translation of the piece, made by John Moore Gawne of the British Army, appeared in the pages of both the United Service Magazine and the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States.
John Frederick Maurice of the Royal Artillery, then serving as Professor of Military History at the Staff College at Camberley, provided an introduction to this translation.
The notes that appear in footnotes were provided by Bruce I. Gudmundsson.
Introduction
J.F. Maurice
I have asked Captain Gawne to translate this German pamphlet, and have urged the editor of this magazine to publish it for the following reasons. The pamphlet, when it appeared a year or two ago, shortly before the issue of the new German regulations for drill, excited a great amount of attention in Germany.1 It has led to a series of answers, some of them written by very able men; and the author has replied to these. On the whole, however, the feeling of most of those who have read the original paper and the replies, is that in point of argument the writer of the present paper has a good deal the best of it. In any case, he gives expression in a most graphic and lively form to certain anxieties which many soldiers of all armies have for some time past entertained as to the present condition of tactical training.
The paper is conveniently divisible into three parts. In the first part, which is here given, the writer lays before us the views of his supposed friend Colonel Hallen, in regard to certain dangers involved in our present system of training, and suggests remedies for them. In the second part he describes with vivid force certain scenes which he himself witnessed during the 1870 campaign. It has long been known to many of us that the writers of the Prussian Official History by no means told, in regard to that campaign, all that there was to be told. It was not their duty to do more than they did in that respect. We have, however, here certain facts which it is of the greatest importance to us to know, none of which have been told us with equal frankness by any of the numerous writers who have given their personal experiences of modern war. Seeing that, as Lord Wolseley long since declared, it is upon these experiences alone that sound conclusions as to our future mode of fighting can be founded, it is of the greatest importance to us to ascertain as accurately as possible what did happen.
The third part forms ‘the dream’ - a picture of the modern battlefield under the conditions of magazine rifles and modern artillery, with the discipline suggested by ‘Colonel Hallen’ applied to it. Many, among who I must confess that I am one, will probably look upon a good deal of it as a dream and little more. It is the part of the pamphlet which seems to me most doubtful. Nevertheless, it suggests many reflections which it can do no one any harm to have laid before them. With these few words, I venture to introduce the readers of this magazine to A Summer Night’s Dream. Independently of its tactical interest, it throws many sidelights upon circumstances in the German army little understood beyond its ranks.
Part I
The conversation has lasted for a long time. At last Colonel Hallen brought it to an end with these words:
‘In short, we suffer from a conflict of principles. As long as that is so, we shall never arrive at a true development of our attack formation. We wish to keep up the discipline of our firing line, and at the same time we wish to fight in dispersed order. We accustom our men to pay the greatest attention to their leaders, and at the same time impress on them the fact that in war they must act for themselves. We try to retain control over the troops and over their fire as long as possible, and at the same time recognize that the mixing of units and confusion are unavoidable. Our desire for discipline and our love of dispersed order pull us in opposite directions. We are involved in a vicious circle, and are groping in the dark because we have no fixed object in view. We are, therefore, content with half measures.
Two alternatives are before us. The first, to remain true to the old love - that is, to surrender order and discipline in the fight, and cease to accustom the skirmishers to the guidance of the leader. Under this system, we accustom the infantry to fight in disordered masses. We train the individual to independence and rapid decisions. In all maneuvers, we train the men to think that crowding and the loss of all guidance is unavoidable. In short, we organize disorder. The idea has little that is attractive in it, at least for an old soldier such as I am.
The other alternative is to give up the attempt to control crowds which have neither discipline, regularity nor leaders. We must, then altogether forsake the dispersed formation and accept as our principle - cohesion not dispersion; mass, not individual fighting; separate units, not mobs. Then there will be not need to organize disorder; but there will be a determined repression of disorder.
I have explained to you before that means by which I believe this goal may be reached. If these means are wrong, others must be tried. If we strive to attain a clearly defined object, the necessary means will soon be found.
We have now gone so far that we must come to some decision. The choice cannot be difficult. In fact, we have already, although unconsciously, chosen and chosen rightly. Read to any Red Indian the paragraph of our infantry regulations referring to the education of the skirmisher.2 It embodies the experiences of the Napoleonic wars on skirmishing. Doubtless the Red Indian would heartily approve of this paragraph, and assure us that his young men could not have better principles for their education as independent warriors. After this, take him to a barrack square or drill ground, and the child of Nature will look about in vain for such independent warriors. He will only see soldiers who dare not leave their places, men who only do what their leader commands.
‘In fact, we have already practically, though not willingly, given up the dispersed fight. Yet we are still so confused in our ideas that any one pleading openly for the abolition of the dispersed fight, and the introduction of firing lines in close order, must expect at first to meet with assertions that his views are unsound.
The present style of fighting is called the “dispersed but regulated” order. It would be almost impossible to express more clearly the inconsistency of this conflict of principles. Would it not be more truly described as the order “not dispersed but unregulated.”
Now, my friend, I have startled you, perhaps irritated you, but - tu l’as voulu Dandin.3 I entered unwillingly on this conversation; but now that I have done so I do not regret it, though you are the only man who could have induced me to speak out.’
‘You will not think me mad. I can even trust your friendship not to reject at once the views so suddenly and unexpectedly put before you, but even, at my request, to think them over. We will resume the argument some day or other.
Now I must stop; it’s very late, and quite time for us to be in bed. Good night.’
So saying, my old friend Colonel Hallen stood up and shook hands. We had had a long and heated conversation.
I was put out, sulky and perplexed. I could not at once think of the right thing to say. Silently I gave him my hand, and turned to show him to his room; but he would not let my hand go, and laughingly added, ‘Now, think over what I have been saying.’
Looking at his honest old face I forgot my annoyance, and said, ‘Yes, Hallen, you have surprised me. That such a gulf should be fixed between your ideas and mine appears impossible to me. What the devil put such ideas into your head, and why did you never say anything to me about them before this evening?’
‘Oh, I’ll tell you all about that some day’, answered my friend, with a laugh, adding more seriously, ‘As to the gulf, it’s not such a big one as you imagine’.
We parted for the evening, I promising my friend to resume the conversation on an early day, and to show him that I had thought the matter over.
My brain whirled. Perhaps I had taken more wine than was good for me. I was not at all satisfied with myself.
During the entire conversation I had maintained an attitude of hostility towards Hallen’s theory, and without going deeply into it, had only uttered short, hostile, and often sarcastic contradictions.
Now I found myself alone, I began more and more to admit, that probably I had never heard anything better worth considering, and that some part of what he had said had occurred to me before. What had seemed new and astonishing to me was at all events the result of earnest reflection, and therefore worthy of my best attention. The ideas which had repelled me during our conversation now attracted me irresistibly.
This often happens with argumentative people. I thought I might have repressed some of my sharp answers, and could have agreed with many of Hallen’s ideas. I felt I had had the worst of it, after all.
Hallen is my oldest and best friend. We were lieutenants together in the same regiment. Later on, the usual fate of soldiers separated us; but we still remained in unbroken sympathy of thought.
After a three years’ separation he had come to spend a few days with me. What had we not to talk over and to relate? In three years a great deal happens among officers of our age. Old soldiers cannot help grumbling. But, besides our grumbles, we had much to discuss. The increase of the army, the new infantry equipment, the repeating rifle, the new musketry instructions, the field exercise, the changes in the drill regulations.4 No one can say we have rested on our laurels during the last two years, and it is encouraging to see that those in authority are as averse to an apathetic halt as to an incautious rush.
No other subject has, however, for two fanatical infantry soldiers the charm of field tactics; especially when the two fanatics belong to different army corps. What is your normal attack? Have you a preparatory and a final stage in your attack? Do you make a practice of mixing up units?
A thousand such stock questions and ideas were started; the discussion of them, always raising fresh questions and answers, is as interesting as useful. The infantry staff officer, promoted into another corps, who tried to bring with him the practice of his old corps or his own private methods, would have a rough time of it at inspections, and would very soon give up the attempt to go against the stream, not without having suffered for his pains. Of course all this is a necessary consequence of the present ferment in tactics.
As usual, we had gone over all this ground in our talk. We had always liked these friendly exchanges of ideas, and, till now, had always talked without reserve. This time, however, to my astonishment, Hallen was keeping something back. Of this, as the day wore on, I became more and more convinced, and, further, that it concerned a subject as to which I had least expected any reserve on his part.
The question of the day is, ‘what influence will the repeating rifle have on our fighting formations’; and nearly all the tactical considerations I have mentioned hinge on it. But whenever I approached this subject, I met with no response. Hallen would either deftly parry my remark, or pass it off with a joke, and start some other subject of interest. I knew his skill in that way, but had never experienced it before in our confidential chats.
Formerly, we had had no great differences of opinion with regard to our infantry fighting formation and training. Neither of us had ever been great admirers of the Regulations.
I resolved to discover, at any price, the reason for my friend’s reserve, and to make him speak out, not merely because the tactical question was important, but still more in the interest of our friendship.
I succeeded in this. After a pleasant supper, we had come home and enticed by the beautiful warm summer night, sat drinking our wine in the veranda. It is at such times as these that a man opens his heart.
To be continued …
To find the other installments in the series, please consult …
Prussia, Kriegsministerium Exerzir-Reglement für die Infanterie [Infantry Drill Regulations] (Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1888) (The link will take you to Hathitrust.org)
Prussia, Kriegsministerium Exerzir-Reglement für die Infanterie der Königlich Preussischen Armee vom 25. Februar 1847: Neuabdruck under Berücksichtigung den bis zum 1. März 1876 ergangenen Abänderungen [Infantry Drill Regulations of the Royal Prussian Army of 25 February 1847: New Printing with the Inclusion of Changes Made Before 1 March 1876] (Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1877) (The link will take you to Hathitrust.org)
Introduced by the playwright Molière in a play called George Dandin, the catchphrase ‘tu l’as voulu, Dandin’ can be translated as ‘this is what you asked for’, ‘be careful for what you ask for’, or ‘don’t complain if I give a lengthy answer to your question’.