EXERCISE XIII.The Company in Retirement.
The men have been practised in retirement in pairs in Exercise II., and the sections and platoons have also learned their part in Exercise VI. It remains to train the company for this duty, which it might have to do either as acting as rearguard to the battalion, whether the latter was, or was not, in conjunction with other troops, or as if effecting its withdrawal when isolated. In both cases the procedure and distribution are pretty much alike. In the former case, the company, if it gets into difficulties,maybe able to get help from the rest of the force, but in the latter it will not be able to do so, and the commander should be especially careful to have in hand some portion of his company which he can use to extricate any detachment which gets “tied up.†On the other hand, it is very desirable that the main body should not be called on to reinforce the rearguard when the company is not acting alone. So that in both cases you should be prepared to meet eventualities from your own resources. Again, a rearguard isbound to have the majority of its force in action in order to hold back the enemy and present an appearance of force, so that it is not always possible to set apart a portion of so small a body as a company to act solely as reserve, and to remain continuously outside the actual combat. The solution of the difficulty seems to lie in an intelligent application of the principles of rearguard fighting given in F.S.R., 71 to 73, and the early but timeous withdrawal from the fighting line of a portion of the company who move back to a position in rear from which they can cover the withdrawal of the remainder, but are still available to be thrown into the fight, if it is necessary to inaugurate some sort of a counter attack to give portions heavily engaged a chance to break away from close grips. It is important in this exercise to teach non-commissioned officers and men to be ready to adopt quickly any method of withdrawal that may be ordered, because the nature of the ground must determine the way in which a withdrawal can best be effected, and the nature of the ground may vary every few hundred yards. Therefore I merely suggest some ways of practising retirements, and during the course of the exercise you should change from one to another, and also encourage commanders to act on their own initiative,when, as will probably happen, your system of inter-communication fails to act with sufficient speed and accuracy. I.T., 137, gives general rules as to the action of platoons and sections, and the standard set up in Exercises II. and VI. should be adhered to. Send out the skeleton enemy with orders to follow up the retirement, but not to close in under six hundred yards.
(a) Get the whole company deployed into one line of platoons, with intervals between them, occupying a wide front, four to eight hundred yards, the men at five or more paces extension. This may seem too wide a front, but, after all, the intervals between the platoons are only two hundred and forty yards, and an enemy trying to break straight through the line would be under fire at one hundred and twenty yards or less, while a wide front is the best precaution against having your flanks turned and your retreat intercepted.
Send back a platoon from one of the flanks to take up quickly a position in rear clear away from the firing line; three hundred to six hundred yards is not too much; let it open fire, and let the remainder of the firing line work back by retirement of alternate sections, each running back thirty or forty yards, beginning this movement from the flank from which the first platoonwent, the platoon on the other flank holding on and only giving ground when the two centre platoons have got well on their way to the line on which the first platoon is halted. This is a slow retirement, but gives a maximum of continuous fire and the flanks are strong.
(b) With the whole company extended in one line, and no intervals between platoons. Retire by short rushes of alternate sections; the rushes must be quite short, twenty yards at most, so that the sections that have retired can fire through the intervals of the rear portion of the line the instant that it begins to retire. This is meant for use after an unsuccessful assault, and only on flat ground.
(c) With the company extended in one line, but with intervals between the platoons. Order the flank platoons to retire and take post to cover the withdrawal of the two centre platoons, who remain in position till the flank platoons are ready to open fire. Watch how the platoon commanders handle their platoons; they should do so artfully, as taught in Exercise VI.
(d) Retire by half-companies, two platoons together, using your subalterns as half-company commanders, and putting the onus of finding suitable covering positionson them, merely telling them to cover each other’s retirement.
(e) With the company all holding one position, leave the scouts or picked men to cover the retirement by rapid fire, and withdraw the remainder at full speed, then cover the retirement of the scouts by the fire of the whole from a position in rear. Watch that the scouts creep back from their cover without letting the enemy know they are going; and of this screen of scouts the flank men ought usually to be the last to go in order to make the enemy believe that the position is still occupied.