field artillery is concerned, may be briefly summarized as (a)
employment of great masses of guns; (b) forward position of guns in the
order of march, in order to bring them into action as quickly as
possible; (c) the so-called "artillery duel," in which the assailant
subdues the enemy's artillery fire; and (d) when this is achieved, and
not before, the thorough preparation of all infantry attacks by
artillery bombardment. This theory of field artillery action has not,
even with the almost revolutionary improvements of the present period,
entirely lost its value, and it may be studied in detail in the
well-known work of von Schell, _Taktik der Feldartillerie_ (1877), later
translated into English by Major-General Sir A.E. Turner (_Tactics of
Field Artillery_, 1900). In one important matter, however, the precepts
of Schell and his contemporaries no longer hold good. "It is absolutely
necessary that the object of the infantry's attack should be cannonaded
before it advances. To accomplish this, sufficient time should be given
to the artillery, and on no account should the infantry be ordered to
advance until the fire of the guns has produced the desired effect."
This, the direct outcome of the slaughter at St Privat, represents the
best possibilities of breech-loading guns with common shell--no more
than a slow disintegration of the enemy's power of resistance by a
thorough and lengthy "artillery preparation." Against troops sheltered
behind works (as in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78) the common shell
usually failed to give satisfactory results, if for no other reason,
because the "preparation" consumed an inordinate time, and in any case
the hostile artillery had first of all to be subdued in the artillery
duel.