Civil War Books
 

scene 1, action

On War

by General Carl von Clausewitz

TRANSLATED BY COLONEL J.J. GRAHAM

1874 was 1st edition of this translation. 1909 was the London reprinting.

NEW AND REVISED EDITION WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY
COLONEL F.N. MAUDE C.B. (LATE R.E.)

EIGHTH IMPRESSION IN THREE VOLUMES


Contents

INTRODUCTION
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
NOTICE
THE INTRODUCTION OF THE AUTHOR


BRIEF MEMOIR OF GENERAL CLAUSEWITZ


BOOK I. ON THE NATURE OF WAR
CHAPTER I. What is War?
CHAPTER II. Ends and Means in War
CHAPTER III. The Genius for War
CHAPTER IV. Of Danger in War
CHAPTER V. Of Bodily Exertion in War
CHAPTER VI. Information in War
CHAPTER VII. Friction in War
CHAPTER VIII.

Concluding Remarks, Book I


BOOK II. ON THE THEORY OF WAR
CHAPTER I. Branches of the Art of War
CHAPTER II. On the Theory of War
CHAPTER III. Art or Science of War
CHAPTER IV. Methodicism
CHAPTER V. Criticism
CHAPTER VI.

On Examples


BOOK III. OF STRATEGY IN GENERAL
CHAPTER I. Strategy
CHAPTER II. Elements of Strategy
CHAPTER III. Moral Forces
CHAPTER IV. The Chief Moral Powers
CHAPTER V. Military Virtue of an Army
CHAPTER VI. Boldness
CHAPTER VII. Perseverance
CHAPTER VIII. Superiority of Numbers
CHAPTER IX. The Surprise
CHAPTER X. Stratagem
CHAPTER XI. Assembly of Forces in Space
CHAPTER XII. Assembly of Forces in Time
CHAPTER XIII. Strategic Reserve
CHAPTER XIV. Economy of Forces
CHAPTER XV. Geometrical Element
CHAPTER XVI. On the Suspension of the Act in War
CHAPTER XVII. On the Character of Modern War
CHAPTER XVIII.

Tension and Rest


BOOK IV. THE COMBAT
CHAPTER I. Introductory
CHAPTER II. Character of a Modern Battle
CHAPTER III. The Combat in General
CHAPTER IV. The Combat in General (continuation)
CHAPTER V. On the Signification of the Combat
CHAPTER VI. Duration of Combat
CHAPTER VII. Decision of the Combat
CHAPTER VIII. Mutual Understanding as to a Battle
CHAPTER IX. The Battle
CHAPTER X. Effects of Victory
CHAPTER XI. The Use of the Battle
CHAPTER XII. Strategic Means of Utilising Victory
CHAPTER XIII. Retreat After a Lost Battle
CHAPTER XIV.

Night Fighting

Night Fighting


BOOK V. MILITARY FORCES
CHAPTER I. General Scheme
CHAPTER II. Theatre of War, Army, Campaign
CHAPTER III. Relation of Power
CHAPTER IV. Relation of the Three Arms
CHAPTER V. Order of Battle of an Army
CHAPTER VI. General Disposition of an Army
CHAPTER VII. Advanced Guard and Out-Posts
CHAPTER VIII. Mode of Action of Advanced Corps
CHAPTER IX. Camps
CHAPTER X. Marches
CHAPTER XI. Marches (continued)
CHAPTER XII. Marches (continued)
CHAPTER XIII. Cantonments
CHAPTER XIV. Subsistence
CHAPTER XV. Base of Operations
CHAPTER XVI. Lines of Communication
CHAPTER XVII. On Country and Ground
CHAPTER XVIII.

Command of Ground


BOOK VI. DEFENCE
CHAPTER I. Offence and Defence
CHAPTER II. The Relations of the Offensive and Defensive to Each Other in Tactics
CHAPTER III. The Relations of the Offensive and Defensive to Each Other in Strategy
CHAPTER IV. Convergence of Attack and Divergence of Defence
CHAPTER V. Character of Strategic Defensive
CHAPTER VI. Extent of the Means of Defence
CHAPTER VII. Mutual Action and Reaction of Attack and Defence
CHAPTER VIII. Methods of Resistance
CHAPTER IX. Defensive Battle
CHAPTER X. Fortresses
CHAPTER XI. Fortresses (continued)
CHAPTER XII. Defensive Position
CHAPTER XIII. Strong Positions and Entrenched Camps
CHAPTER XIV. Flank Positions
CHAPTER XV. Defence of Mountains
CHAPTER XVI. Defence of Mountains (continued)
CHAPTER XVII. Defence of Mountains (continued)
CHAPTER XVIII. Defence of Streams and Rivers
CHAPTER XIX. Defence of Streams and Rivers (continued)
CHAPTER XX. A. Defence of Swamps
CHAPTER XX. B. Inundations
CHAPTER XXI. Defence of Forests
CHAPTER XXII. The Cordon
CHAPTER XXIII. Key of the Country
CHAPTER XXIV. Operating Against a Flank
CHAPTER XXV. Retreat into the Interior of the Country
CHAPTER XXVI. Arming the Nation
CHAPTER XXVII. Defence of a Theatre of War
CHAPTER XXVIII. Defence of a Theatre of War (continued)
CHAPTER XXIX. Defence of a Theatre of War (continued)—Successive Resistance
CHAPTER XXX.

Defence of a Theatre of War (continued)—When No Decision is Sought For


BOOK VII. THE ATTACK
CHAPTER I. The Attack in Relation to the Defence
CHAPTER II. Nature of the Strategical Attack
CHAPTER III. On the Objects of Strategical Attack
CHAPTER IV. Decreasing Force of the Attack
CHAPTER V. Culminating Point of the Attack
CHAPTER VI. Destruction of the Enemy’s Armies
CHAPTER VII. The Offensive Battle
CHAPTER VIII. Passage of Rivers
CHAPTER IX. Attack on Defensive Positions
CHAPTER X. Attack on an Entrenched Camp
CHAPTER XI. Attack on a Mountain Range
CHAPTER XII. Attack on Cordon Lines
CHAPTER XIII. Manœuvering
CHAPTER XIV. Attack on Morasses, Inundations, Woods
CHAPTER XV. Attack on a Theatre of War with the View to a Decision
CHAPTER XVI. Attack on a Theatre of War without the View to a Great Decision
CHAPTER XVII. Attack on Fortresses
CHAPTER XVIII. Attack on Convoys
CHAPTER XIX. Attack on the Enemy’s Army in its Cantonments
CHAPTER XX. Diversion
CHAPTER XXI. Invasion
CHAPTER XXII.

On the Culminating Point of Victory

SKETCHES FOR BOOK VII
THE ATTACK


CHAPTER I.
The Attack in Relation to the Defence

If two ideas form an exact logical antithesis, that is to say if the one is the complement of the other, then, in fact, each one is implied in the other; and when the limited power of our mind is insufficient to apprehend both at once, and, by the mere antithesis, to recognise in the one perfect conception the totality of the other also, still, at all events, the one always throws on the other a strong, and in many parts a sufficient light Thus we think the first chapter on the defence throws a sufficient light on all the points of the attack which it touches upon. But it is not so throughout in respect of every point; the train of thought could nowhere be carried to a finality; it is, therefore, natural that where the opposition of ideas does not lie so immediately at the root of the conception as in the first chapters, all that can be said about the attack does not follow directly from what has been said on the defence. An alteration of our point of view brings us nearer to the subject, and it is natural for us to observe, at this closer point of view, that which escaped observation at our former standpoint. What is thus perceived will, therefore, be the complement of our former train of thought; and it will not unfrequently happen that what is said on the attack will throw a new light on the defence.

In treating of the attack we shall, of course, very frequently have the same subjects before us with which our attention has been occupied in the defence. But we have no intention, nor would it be consistent with the nature of the thing, to adopt the usual plan of works on engineering, and in treating of the attack, to circumvent or upset all that we have found of positive value in the defence, by showing that against every means of defence, there is an infallible method of attack. The defence has its strong points and weak ones; if the first are even not unsurmountable, still they can only be overcome at a disproportionate price, and that must remain true from whatever point of view we look at it, or we get involved in a contradiction. Further, it is not our intention thoroughly to review the reciprocal action of the means; each means of defence suggests a means of attack; but this is often so evident, that there is no occasion to transfer oneself from our standpoint in treating of the defence to a fresh one for the attack, in order to perceive it; the one issues from the other of itself. Our object is, in each subject, to set forth the peculiar relations of the attack, so far as they do not directly come out of the defence, and this mode of treatment must necessarily lead us to many chapters to which there are no corresponding ones in the defence.

CHAPTER II.
Nature of the Strategical Attack

We have seen that the defensive in war generally—therefore, also, the strategic defensive—is no absolute state of expectancy and warding off, therefore no completely passive state, but that it is a relative state, and consequently impregnated more or less with offensive principles. In the same way the offensive is no homogeneous whole, but incessantly mixed up with the defensive. But there is this difference between the two, that a defensive, without an offensive return blow, cannot be conceived; that this return blow is a necessary constituent part of the defensive, whilst in the attack, the blow or act is in itself one complete idea. The defence in itself is not necessarily a part of the attack; but time and space, to which it is inseparably bound, import into it the defensive as a necessary evil. For in the first place, the attack cannot be continued uninterruptedly up to its conclusion, it must have stages of rest, and in these stages, when its action is neutralised, the state of defence steps in of itself; in the second place, the space which a military force, in its advance, leaves behind it, and which is essential to its existence, cannot always be covered by the attack itself, but must be specially protected.

The act of attack in war, but particularly in that branch which is called strategy, is therefore a perpetual alternating and combining of attack and defence; but the latter is not to be regarded as an effectual preparation for attack, as a means by which its force is heightened, that is to say, not as an active principle, but purely as a necessary evil; as the retarding weight arising from the specific gravity of the mass; it is its original sin, its seed of mortality. We say: a retarding weight, because if the defence does not contribute to strengthen the attack, it must tend to diminish its effect by the very loss of time which it represents. But now, may not this defensive element, which is contained in every attack, have over it a positively disadvantageous influence? If we suppose the attack is the weaker, the defence the stronger form of war, it seems to follow that the latter can not act in a positive sense prejudicially on the former; for as long as we have sufficient force for the weaker form, we should have more than enough for the stronger. In general—that is, as regards the chief part—this is true: in its detail we shall analyse it more precisely in the chapter on the culminating point of victory; but we must not forget that that superiority of the strategic defence is partly founded in this, that the attack itself cannot take place without a mixture of defence, and of a defensive of a very weak kind; what the assailant has to carry about with him of this kind are its worst elements; with respect to these, that which holds good of the whole, in a general sense, cannot be maintained; and therefore it is conceivable that the defensive may act upon the attack positively as a weakening principle. It is just in these moments of weak defensive in the attack, that the positive action of the offensive principle in the defensive should be introduced. During the twelve hours rest which usually succeeds a day’s work, what a difference there is between the situation of the defender in his chosen, well-known, and prepared position, and that of the assailant occupying a bivouac, into which—like a blind man—he has groped his way, or during a longer period of rest, required to obtain provisions and to await reinforcements, etc., when the defender is close to his fortresses and supplies, whilst the situation of the assailant, on the other hand, is like that of a bird on a tree. Every attack must lead to a defence; what is to be the result of that defence, depends on circumstances; these circumstances may be very favourable if the enemy’s forces are destroyed; but they may be very unfavourable if such is not the case. Although this defensive does not belong to the attack itself, its nature and effects must re-act on the attack, and must take part in determining its value.

The deduction from this view is, that in every attack the defensive, which is necessarily an inherent feature in the same, must come into consideration, in order to see clearly the disadvantages to which it is subject, and to be prepared for them.

On the other hand, in another respect, the attack is always in itself one and the same. But the defensive has its gradations according as the principle of expectancy approaches to an end. This begets forms which differ essentially from each other, as has been developed in the chapter on the forms of defence.

As the principle of the attack is strictly active, and the defensive, which connects itself with it, is only a dead weight; there is, therefore, not the same kind of difference in it. No doubt, in the energy employed in the attack, in the rapidity and force of the blow, there may be a great difference, but only a difference in degree, not in form.—It is quite possible to conceive even that the assailant may choose a defensive form, the better to attain his object; for instance, that he may choose a strong position, that he may be attacked there; but such instances are so rare that we do not think it necessary to dwell upon them in our grouping of ideas and facts, which are always founded on the practical. We may, therefore, say that there are no such gradations in the attack as those which present themselves in the defence.

Lastly, as a rule, the extent of the means of attack consists of the armed force only; of course, we must add to these the fortresses, for if in the vicinity of the theatre of war, they have a decided influence on the attack. But this influence gradually diminishes as the attack advances; and it is conceivable that, in the attack, its own fortresses never can play such an important part as in the defence, in which they often become objects of primary importance. The assistance of the people may be supposed in co-operation with the attack, in those cases in which the inhabitants of the country are better disposed towards the invader of the country than they are to their own army; finally, the assailant may also have allies, but then they are only the result of special or accidental relations, not an assistance proceeding from the nature of the aggressive. Although, therefore, in speaking of the defence we have reckoned fortresses, popular insurrections, and allies as available means of resistance; we cannot do the same in the attack; there they belong to the nature of the thing; here they only appear rarely, and for the most part accidentally.

COUNTER-ATTACK AND OTHER POEMS

BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON

With An Introduction By
Robert Nichols


TO ROBERT ROSS

Dans la trêve desolée de cette matinée, ces hommes qui avaient été tenaillés par la fatigue, fouettés par la pluie, bouleversés par toute une nuit de tonnerre, ces rescapés des volcans et de l'inondation entrevoyaient à quel point la guerre, aussi hideuse au moral qu'au physique, non seulement viole le bon sens, avilit les grandes idées, commande tous les crimes—mais ils se rappelaient combien elle avait développé en eux et autour d'eux tous les mauvais instincts sans en excepter un seul; la méchanceté jusqu'au sadisme, l'égoisme jusqu'à la férocité, le besoin de jouir jusqu'à la folie. HENRI BARBUSSE. (Le Feu.)

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT NICHOLS PRELUDE: THE TROOPS COUNTER-ATTACK THE REAR-GUARD WIRERS ATTACK DREAMERS HOW TO DIE THE EFFECT TWELVE MONTHS AFTER THE FATHERS BASE DETAILS THE GENERAL LAMENTATIONS DOES IT MATTER? FIGHT TO A FINISH EDITORIAL IMPRESSIONS SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES GLORY OF WOMEN THEIR FRAILTY THE HAWTHORN TREE THE INVESTITURE TRENCH DUTY BREAK OF DAY TO ANY DEAD OFFICER SICK LEAVE BANISHMENT SONG-BOOKS OF THE WAR THRUSHES AUTUMN INVOCATION REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE THE TRIUMPH SURVIVORS JOY-BELLS REMORSE DEAD MUSICIANS THE DREAM IN BARRACKS TOGETHER

CONSCRIPTS

"Fall in, that awkward squad, and strike no more
"Attractive attitudes! Dress by the right!
"The luminous rich colours that you wore
"Have changed to hueless khaki in the night.
"Magic? What's magic got to do with you?
"There's no such thing! Blood's red and skies are blue."


They gasped and sweated, marching up and down.
I drilled them till they cursed my raucous shout.
Love chucked his lute away and dropped his crown.
Rhyme got sore heels and wanted to fall out.
"Left, right! Press on your butts!" They looked at me
Reproachful; how I longed to set them free!


I gave them lectures on Defence, Attack;
They fidgeted and shuffled, yawned and sighed,
And boggled at my questions. Joy was slack,
And Wisdom gnawed his fingers, gloomy-eyed.
Young Fancy—how I loved him all the while—
Stared at his note-book with a rueful smile.


Their training done, I shipped them all to France.
Where most of those I'd loved too well got killed.
Rapture and pale Enchantment and Romance,
And many a sickly, slender lord who'd filled
My soul long since with litanies of sin.
Went home, because they couldn't stand the din.


But the kind, common ones that I despised,
(Hardly a man of them I'd count as friend),
What stubborn-hearted virtues they disguised!
They stood and played the hero to the end,
Won gold and silver medals bright with bars,
And marched resplendent home with crowns and stars

COUNTER-ATTACK

We'd gained our first objective hours before
While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes,
Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke.
Things seemed all right at first. We held their line,
With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed,
And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench.
The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs
High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps;
And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud,
Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled;
And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair,
Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime.
And then the rain began,—the jolly old rain!


A yawning soldier knelt against the bank,
Staring across the morning blear with fog;
He wondered when the Allemands would get busy;
And then, of course, they started with five-nines
Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud.
Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst
Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell,
While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke.
He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear,
Sick for escape,—loathing the strangled horror
And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.


An officer came blundering down the trench:
"Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On he went …
Gasping and bawling, "Fire-step … counter-attack!"
Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right
Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left;
And stumbling figures looming out in front.
"O Christ, they're coming at us!" Bullets spat,
And he remembered his rifle … rapid fire …


And started blazing wildly … then a bang
Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out
To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked
And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom,
Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans …
Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned,
Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed.


THE REAR-GUARD

(Hindenburg Line, April 1917.)

Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.


Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know,
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
And he, exploring fifty feet below
The rosy gloom of battle overhead.


Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie
Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug.
"I'm looking for headquarters." No reply.
"God blast your neck!" (For days he'd had no sleep.)
"Get up and guide me through this stinking place."
Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,
And flashed his beam across the livid face
Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
Agony dying hard ten days before;
And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.


Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
Unloading hell behind him step by step

CHINA'S REVOLUTION
1911-1912


A HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL
RECORD OF THE CIVIL WAR





BY


EDWIN J. DINGLE






WITH 2 MAPS AND 36 ILLUSTRATIONS






NEW YORK
McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY
1912







(All rights reserved.)






TO
THOSE WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES AND
TO THE NEW CHINA PARTY
IN THE HOPE THAT THEIR STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM
MAY HERALD THE DAWNING OF A DAY OF
RIGHT AND TRUTH FOR CHINA
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED







{7}

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This volume is a popular history of the Revolution in China that broke out at Wuchang, Hankow, and Hanyang in October of 1911. The narrative contains a good deal of new information touching upon revolutionism in China, and the events leading up to the present climax. The magnitude of this Revolution cannot possibly be understood yet; but this volume is written in the hope that it will enable the student otherwise untutored to understand much that one absorbs in Chinese life.

When the Revolution broke out, I was residing in Hankow. Throughout the war I remained in Hankow, leaving this centre for Shanghai during the days when the Peace Conference was held in that city. I am a personal friend of the leader of the Revolution, General Li Yuan Hung, and, by virtue of having all the time been in possession of much exclusive information from behind the political curtain, am probably equipped to write of the main doings of the Revolution in that area where its effects were most marked. On the very eve of the Revolution, a book written by myself was published simultaneously in England and America, which contains some strangely prophetic utterances, and will give the reader who has not made Chinese politics a study a general idea of the condition of the country when the Revolution made the scales drop from the eyes of her teeming millions.[1]

{8}

I wish gratefully to acknowledge the kind offices of Mr. Thos. F. Millard, editor of the China Press, for allowing me free use of the columns of that journal. Much of my information has been culled from the C.P., although many of the articles were written by myself for that newspaper, whilst the war was in progress; but I am largely indebted to that paper also for many of my general later facts.

Especially also do I wish to thank the Rev. Bernard Upward, of Hankow, for the assistance he has rendered me whilst this volume was being prepared. The chapter entitled "Some Revolution Factors" is from Mr. Upward's pen, as is also that headed "Yuan Shih K'ai"; many of the illustrations shown in the volume also are reproductions from Mr. Upward's splendid collection. My warm thanks are also due to Mr. Stanley V. Boxer, B.Sc., for the drawings from which the two maps embodied in this volume were prepared, and for the explanatory note accompanying the sketch map of the battlefields.

It should, perhaps, in fairness to myself, be mentioned that, owing to absence from England, I have not had an opportunity of reading the proof-sheets before this volume was printed.

EDWIN J. DINGLE.

HANKOW, HUPEH, CHINA.
April 1, 1912.





[1] "Across China on Foot: Life in the Interior and the Reform Movement." Henry Holt & Co., New York. $3.50. J. W. Arrowsmith, Ltd., Bristol, 16s.






{9}

CONTENTS




CHAPTER

I. THE REVOLUTION

II. THE AFTERMATH

III. GENERAL EXPECTATIONS

IV. GENERAL LI YUAN HUNG'S AMBITIONS FOR THE NEW CHINA

V. A PREMATURE OPENING

VI. THE EARLY HOSTILITIES

VII. THE BATTLE OF KILOMETRE TEN

VIII. THE BURNING OF HANKOW

IX. THE STRONGHOLD OF WUCHANG

X. LI YUAN HUNG SEEKS PEACE

XI. THE FALL OF HANYANG

XII. THE REPUBLIC SEEKS RECOGNITION

XIII. THE PEACE CONFERENCE—A MONARCHY OR A REPUBLIC?

XIV. THE COMING OF SUN YAT-SEN

{10}

XV. YUAN SHIH K'AI'S RETIREMENT

XVI. RECALLED TO SAVE THE MONARCHY

XVII. THE SZECHUEN REVOLT

XVIII. SOME REVOLUTION FACTORS

XIX. THE ABDICATION EDICT

XX. THE OUTLOOK FOR REFORM

CHAPTER VII

THE BATTLE OF KILOMETRE TEN

After these first hostilities men and things began to move with lightning rapidity. By October 27th the Loyalists, strongly reinforced by Imperial troops from the north, held the situation fairly well, fighting with remarkable persistence. What passed during that day and those immediately ensuing should prove a lesson to the Western world. Warfare opened at dawn, and the Imperialists, fighting against a strongly entrenched army of Revolutionists numerically superior but not so well commanded, won a complete victory. The Revolutionists fought bravely, and their losses were heavy.

As will be seen in detail later in this volume, the Revolutionists were expecting the Imperial troops to join them as soon as the real cause of the fighting became known to them, for it was a vital part of the Imperial policy to keep the northern troops in ignorance of the nature of the revolt. The Revolutionists openly declared themselves disappointed. But as a matter of fact, even if the Imperialists had been willing to join, there was no opportunity presented to them. The arrangement of their troops was such that the Honan and Shantung soldiers were in front with the Manchus directly behind them. This was a cleverly designed manoeuvre on the part of the Manchu officers that worked for the success of the Loyalists. The Honan men could neither lay down their arms nor turn back—even if they so wished. An attempt to join the {68} enemy would have brought upon them the fire of the Manchus, and the steady advance of the latter prevented any reverse movement.

Foreign military observers who witnessed the battle of Kilometre Ten unite in saying that the Imperialists made their attack and continued it in the face of stubborn resistance and in the most scientific manner, advancing steadily under the cover of their artillery. From a position some quarter of a mile south of the Kilometre Ten station, the Revolutionary base, I watched for some three hours hardest musketry and artillery fire. The deadly warfare raged across a wide stretch of country lying to the north-east of the Revolutionary headquarters, over swampy ricefields and half-cultivated ground. Big four-inchers opened fire just before seven on a cold, grey morning, and both armies, having moved slightly to the front, were within easy rifle fire of each other. The Revolutionary Army had spread itself in the shape of a right angle, with the bigger guns at either point, and strong lines of enthusiastic infantry entrenched on the north side of the railway line and well fortified behind stone embankments and undergrowth along the river abreast of Kilometre Ten and for some distance below on towards the oil-tanks of the Asiatic Petroleum Company, Ltd.

The Imperialists, returning the Revolutionary gun-fire with marked precision, found their range with the fourth shrapnel, the Revolutionists taking much longer, and having nothing more than the ordinary 1¾ and 3 inch explosives—their great need was shrapnel.

Far across the field was one bank of ever-increasing smoke, and of necessity shooting was vague. But both armies, with an earnestness and energy that one was not accustomed to see in Chinese, kept up smart riflery for two hours, with hardly a moment's lull, showing that the Chinese Model Army, if boasting little else, can boast of men who face battle without flinching. {69} For two hours, at the very edge of the field, I watched operations through my glasses, and then saw Admiral Sah's fleet coming up-river slowly—it had been creeping up for some time. At first it was thought that the Revolutionary guns known to be at Kinshan, a point on the other side of the river almost opposite Yanglo, would open fire upon the fleet, but this did not happen, and not during the whole of the day was there any firing from that side of the river. Shells from both camps were being sent out at a terrific rate. Those from the Imperial Army were seen to be bursting with deadly effect in the Revolutionary ranks, and the poor fellows who were willing to seal the Republic with their blood were seen to fall in hundreds.