"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." - Churchill

Infanterie von Hessen-Kassel in der Schlacht bei Krefeld - Richard Knötel

I dunno Sir Winston, I can think of any number of other things, not all involve fast aircraft.

I have never, to my knowledge, been shot at. I daresay the hiss of a bullet passing close by might induce me to soil my britches. I can't imagine such a thing. After all, I was in the Air Force, a most civilized service, as in days of yore, we send our officers out to fight. We enlisted pukes just make sure that their trusty steeds are capable of taking them "there and back again*." Rather like knights and squires dontcha know. (Though I do believe that squires were supposed to eventually become knights.)

I have just finished reading Ralph Peters' book, The Damned of Petersburg, and regardless of what you might think of his politics, he writes gripping military fiction. The mud, the blood, the dysentery, the pain and agony are all in there. (I've two of the others in what I just learned is a series of five, Cain at Gettysburg and Hell or Richmond. I think it's safe to say that I'll be ordering the other two, Valley of the Shadow and Judgement at Appomattox in right short order.)

I bring this up because in my blatherings over the past cuppla weeks I think I may have mentioned the purchase of a new war game for my computer, The Seven Years War, which is rather complicated and detailed. Just the way I like 'em. When I have the time to play that is.

I may have been a staff puke in an earlier life, because in this game you can reorganize your units, reassign commanders, and even rename the individual regiments, a thing near and dear to my fussy brain. No doubt I will spend lots of time reorganizing and planning rather than actually marching and fighting.

But I digress, getting shot at, that's today's topic.

In my studies of warfare in the 1600s up through our own Civil War (gomennasai, I'm a Yankee, that's what we call it) I am always fascinated at the fact that the troops stood (for the most part) in tight formations, shoulder to shoulder, out in the open. There was no taking cover for most of the troops. You stood there.

Bear in mind, you were standing there probably after marching some distance to even get to the battlefield. Eating (if there was food) and sleeping when you could, in all sorts of weather. LTC Peters mentions these kinds of things in his books, the kinds of things that the history books and the movies always leave out. (Though in fairness, I have a book, somewhere, with a painting called, I think, The Asides of Glory, which shows a young recruit scrambling out of the bushes, pulling his trousers up, as his sergeant bellows at him to "fall in!")

So now you're standing there, probably hungry, most certainly filthy, and probably dog-tired from marching and trying to sleep the night before and failing miserably. (The prospect of battle in the next 24 hours isn't very conducive of sleep.) Across the fields there are the enemy, also tired, also dirty, probably hungry as well. Then the cannon start up.

That's the thing about these old battles, you didn't just march on up and start shooting at the other side, no, you needed to "soften them up" first. Usually with artillery. You see the flash, then the smoke, and a few seconds later the balls start to arrive. Round iron balls fired from a cannon tend to tear apart the things they hit. When fired at a body of troops, these iron balls will plunge through the ranks leaving a gaping hole. The troops on either side of this hole have been spattered with the blood and gore of the men who are now lying silently, or screaming their lives out, where that ball just passed through.

After a bit of this, some general will decide that it's time to move forward. The drums beat, orders are shouted, and your unit starts to move forward. In formation mind you. There are sergeants with spontoons behind you and to the sides to keep you and your buddies aligned. The spontoons can be used to "coax" the troops into line, I mean spontoons are long and straight so you can keep the line straight, right?

"Uh Sarge, why does it have that nasty pointy thing on the end?"

Sergeant with spontoon
(Source)

"Eyes to your front Chuckles! Mind your alignment."

(For the detail oriented, these guys were known, in some armies, as "file closers." As men dropped gaps would open, these fellows would ensure that the gaps were filled. Right smartly as well. Poking and prodding, yelling, and what have you. At Waterloo a British soldier noted that the sergeants in a nearby German unit, with many young recruits, were literally shoving and beating the near insensate soldiers into the gaps made by French artillery.)

Remember, you're marching forward over crops, maybe a plowed field, maybe brush and long grasses as well. We're not talking about a nice neat parade ground. You're trying to maintain your alignment and your interval, there's stuff on the ground trying to trip you, people are yelling at you, and people are shooting at you.

When you got close enough to the enemy, they would fire a volley in your general direction. Usually not until you were within a hundred yards. Really good units would hold their fire until you were within 25 to 30 yards as smoothbore muskets weren't very accurate beyond about 80 yards. Though they could be lethal much further out, but, as one officer of the time said,

A soldier's musket, if not exceedingly ill bored, will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards; it may even at 100; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded...at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him; I do maintain...no man was ever killed at 200 yards, by a common soldier's musket by the person who aimed at him. - British Col. George Hanger, 1814 (Source)

Now if your unit stopped to fire when in range, the enemy would, no doubt, return the favor. Sometimes the battle would stall right there, two units blazing away at each other, both refusing to advance no matter what the officers and sergeants wanted. The powder smoke would build to the point that if there were no wind, it was like being in a thick, cloying, sulfurous fog. (Burnt black powder smells rather like rotten eggs, and that smoke is white, not black as some historians natter on about. They've probably never seen black powder weapons being fired, let alone a lot of them at once. I have.)

A lot of times the unit which had advanced would gradually back away from the fight, sometimes they might get up the nerve to go in with the bayonet. Bayonets didn't cause a lot of casualties but the sight of a bunch of yelling madmen charging at you with sharp objects on the ends of their muskets might be enough to induce one to recall an appointment elsewhere.

Other times a fresh unit would stumble out of the smoke, fire a volley, and cause the troops to up and vamoose. The really good generals always kept a reserve. Fresh troops applied at just the right moment against wearied and worried soldiers was often enough to yield a victory.

Other times men on big horses would charge out of the smoke and make a hash of tired infantry. To be ready for cavalry (by forming a square formation, though more of a rectangle in reality) you had to know the cavalry was out there and a threat. Because a square made a very nice target for cannon fire.

The old battlefields were nasty and inglorious places. The smell of burnt powder, spilled blood and bowels were nothing like the old paintings. Men didn't fall down and die, looking as if they were only asleep. No, they were blasted apart by cannon, disemboweled by musket shot, limbs lopped off by fire and sword.

It was noisy as well. The roar of all the cannon and musketry in some of the bigger battles must have been deafening. The roll of drums, the blast of trumpets, the shouted orders, the screams. I daresay it must have been absolutely terrifying.

Not exhilarating at all, truth be told.

Unless you survived. Then who knows?

Robert E. Lee, who saw his fair share of battle in Mexico and while commanding the Army of Northern Virginia, is famous for having said, 

It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.

Perhaps it's why the history of humankind reveals a never-ending fascination with warfare. I know I am guilty of that, even knowing its cost. Still and all, I am glad I have not been in combat. Though there is part of me that regrets that. The stupid part.




* With apologies to Bilbo Baggins...