rming square, except by passing through an intermediate formation.

(3.) The intervals between the columns are so many gaps, through which
cavalry could easily penetrate, and take the columns in rear.

The line of division columns appears to have been first suggested by
Marshal Marmont, who was a good artillery commander, but not
necessarily, for that reason, a weighty authority on a point of
Infantry Tactics.

15. The manoeuvre of _Advancing by the Flank of Subdivisions_ is
obnoxious to all the objections just pointed out in regard to Division
Columns. On being threatened by cavalry, though the troops would have no
intermediate formation to pass through to prepare for forming square,
they would have to face into column and close to half distance, which
there would often not be time to do.

In addition to this, the flank march being habitually by fours, the
subdivisions would offer a tolerable mark for the enemy's artillery, and
thus be exposed to a destructive enfilade.

And in forming into line, where the leading guides have not accurately
preserved both their alignment and their intervals, which must be the
usual case in the field, there must be more or less delay and confusion,
of which a prompt and active enemy would not fail to take fatal
advantage.

The mode prescribed by the Tactics (Par. 150, School of the Battalion),
for executing the manoeuvre of forming line while advancing by
subdivision flanks, seems also to call for remark; it being "by company
(or division) into line." In other words, each individual soldier
brings a shoulder forward, breaks off from his comrades, and hurries up,
not on a line with them, but detached from them, and moving
independently, to find his proper place. This destroys for the time
being, and at a critical moment, the unity of the subdivisions, and so
impairs the confidence soldiers derive from realizing that they form
part of a compact mass. In thus executing this manoeuvre under fire,
and near the enemy, there is danger of the men becoming confused and
bewildered. For this reason, a better method of forming line would seem
to be to re-form the column by a simple facing, and then to _wheel_ into
line by subdivisions.

16. The worst possible _order of marching_ in battle, for any
considerable number of men, as a battalion, for instance, is by the
flank. Such a line, advancing in what is really a column of fours, would
be rolled up and crushed, on the enemy's attacking its