THE METHOD OF CHARGING.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 129, 3 February 1915, Page 7

THE METHOD OF CHARGING.

It is from a distance of five or six hundred yards of its objective that a bayonet charge is generally directed, and provided the defendants are merely armed with rifles a.nd are unsupported by maxims, there is uc resisting it. The gleam of the cold grey steel is quits enough even for the hardiest of defendants, who, as a rule, are only too glad to throw down their arms long before the assailants have reached the first tier of trenches which it. has become their intention to carry. A bayonet charge properly conducted is a very different thing to what it was even a dozen years ago. Previous to that time a whole battalion would have leapt up together, and with a frantic cheer would have made a wild dash for the enemy’s position. It was the lessons taught by the Boers which put an end to this method of procedure, for the process was proved on more than one occasion to be almost suicidal. To-day no brigadier would ever think of ordering a whole battalion to advance simultanechsly in one line against an enemy armed with magazine rifles. Battalions new advance by successive rushes xrcm the right, left, cr centre; sc that while one party is advancing the remainder of the battalion, by keeping up a m r derous fire on the position before them can so check the enemy’s fire that the advance of a company, or even a dou hie company (when not opposed by volleys), may be effected at only average risk.