Part II of my two-part article on land-battles during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

How Battles were Fought.

If two armies were going to do battle, for example, back in the 1770s during the American Revolution, it usually played out like this:

Soldiers formed ranks and lines. They would march out into the battlefield, shoulder to shoulder, holding their muskets against their shoulders. When they had reached a good spot, officers ordered their soldiers to halt. When the enemy had also stopped marching, an officer would yell out three orders:

1. “Make Ready!”

The order to ‘make ready’, meant that you were expected to take a firm grip on your musket, in preparation for firing.

2. “Take Aim!”, or alternatively, “Present Arms!”

The order to ‘take aim’ meant that all muskets dropped from their previously vertical position to a horizontal position, ready to be fired. Now was also the time you sought out your target. A similar order, ‘present arms’ meant that you were to present (prepare) your weapon for firing, by bringing it down, ready to shoot.

3. “Fire!”

Rather obvious. On this order, you pulled the trigger. One musket going off isn’t that impressive. But imagine 100, 200, 500 or even a thousand muskets going off at once. The noise was deafeningly loud and the amount of smoke produced by the burning blackpowder could leave you standing in a haze of your own gunsmoke.

Here comes the confusing part, which most people, quite understandably, are at a loss to rationalise.

Once you fired, you stood there like a headless chicken, waiting for the enemy to fire back at you and kill you. During this time, you were probably reloading your musket. Meanwhile, about 20 yards away, another guy with a musket is about to blow your flipping brains out! Once he’d fired, if you were still alive, you and your chums brought your muskets to bear again, and fired back. This went back and forth, like two thousand men playing a deadly game of lead tennis. Given that the majority of battles were fought like this, how the hell did anyone expect to win?

Here come your two supporting wings of the army, to help you fly to glory. Cavalry and Artillery.

The point of warfare in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and even as far back as the 17th century, was to break the enemy’s line. Once the line was broken, you could charge ahead into the disrupted enemy soldiers and hack them to pieces, winning the battle, claiming the land, and advancing your army to victory! So, how did you break the lines?

Usually, you just shot at each other until one line broke, but as you might have guessed, this was slow, tedious and a terrible waste of both ammunition and manpower. To rectify this, officers would call on their artillery to dispatch the enemy to an early grave. Artillery (cannons and mortars), would shoot cannonballs into the enemy lines to try and break them. Most people think that you shot explosives into the enemy lines, the explosives blew up, and the line was broken. No. No, no, no, no, no. That is not what happened.

Most cannons fired roundshot (see ‘Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail, pt II’ for cannon ammo), big black cannonballs. These balls were designed to smash their way through the enemy lines like wrecking-balls, ripping off limbs, kicking up soil and smoke to blind the enemy, and to cause mass confusion. Don’t forget that soldiers often stood shoulder to shoulder, which made them ideal targets for cannons and their wide variety of ammunition. With enough artillery, you could disrupt the lines bad enough that you then moved onto your next attack, either a cavalry charge or a bayonet charge. The other popular kind of ammunition was case-shot, which turned your cannons into massive shotguns. Caseshot was devastating to closely-packed infantry. Sometimes, you fired double-case or double-canister, which sent twice the amount of musket-balls at the enemy, ripping them apart. Occasionally, you would use explosive shells, but this wasn’t done as frequently as you might think.

After you and the enemy had exchanged a few hundred rounds of lead at each other, it was time to really break the enemy’s lines. After bombarding them with artillery and depending on the situation, you either ordered your officers to charge, at which all your soldiers lowered their muskets and bayonets, and charged at the enemy, spearing them and cutting them up, or you sent in your cavalry, which galloped in, swords swinging and slashing, outrunning the fleeing enemy soldiers and slicing their heads off. With the enemy lines broken, you could charge ahead and win the battle. The title of this article, to ‘hold the line’, comes from battles such as these. The order to ‘hold the line’ (which today, means to persevere and hold out against all odds), meant that all soldiers were to reform their ranks and lines, so as to form a solid wall of soldiers, capable of fending off the enemy.

Winning a Battle.

Making sure your side won in battle was a tricky thing to do. There wasn’t much that you could do about artillery except try and dodge the cannonballs. Against cavalry, you could try and form an infantry-square and mow down the horses as they charged at you, or you could try and knock them out with your own artillery. Often, picking a good battlefield was a big factor in whether you won or lost. Even today, it’s an important factor in warfare. If you intended to be successful, you usually picked a battlefield that was sloped or hilly, and put your army on the high-points such as at the top of a ridge or hill. This meant that you could see further, your artillery could shoot further, enemy cavalry charges had to fight their way uphill, and you could sit pretty and shoot at the enemy while it struggled uphill towards you with bayonet charges.

Changing Tactics.

Tactics like these lasted a surprisingly long time. From the Medieval Period, starting with archers, through the English Civil War, using matchlock muskets, through the American Revolution, using flintlock muskets, through the American Civil War, using caplock rifles. In fact, tactics such as these lasted right up until the early 1910s with the coming of the First World War. Unfortunately by that time, the machine-gun had arrived, and was capable of ripping apart soldiers who marched in closed ranks into battle, which meant new tactics had to be devised…