'Mad minute'
In his annual musketry course the infantryman fired 250 rounds at targets up to 600 yards away, and this included the ‘mad minute’ in which men had to fire 15 rounds at a target 300 yards distant. Most could do rather better than that, and some could fire almost 30 rounds a minute with little loss of accuracy.
'... success in battle can only be gained by a vigorous offensive ...'
Compare this with the achievement of the flintlock musket only a century before, with its three or four rounds a minute, range of 100 or so yards, and high risk of misfires. But the development of sophisticated firearms was only part of the story.
Infantry training in 1914 warned that wars were not won by standing on the defensive and, like its French allies and German opponents, the British infantry was told that ‘success in battle can only be gained by a vigorous offensive’. Infantrymen still carried bayonets, and were trained to use them.
For the first battle of 1914, however, British infantrymen found themselves confronting a vigorous German offensive, rather than attacking themselves, and they put their expertise with the rifle to good effect. John Lucy met the Germans near the little Belgian town on Mons on 23 August.
'For us the battle took the form of well-ordered, rapid rifle-fire at close range, as the field-grey human targets appeared, or were struck down. The enemy infantry advanced ... in "column of masses", which withered away under the galling fire of the well-trained and coolly led Irishmen. The leading Germans fired standing, "from the hip", as they came on, but their scattered fire was ineffective, and ignored.
'They crumpled up - mown down as quickly as I tell it - their reinforcing waves and sections coming on bravely and steadily to fall as they reached the first line of slain and wounded ... Such tactics amazed us, and after the first shock of seeing men slowly and helplessly falling down as they were hit, gave us a great sense of power and pleasure. It was all so easy.'
There's a Devil in the Drum (see above for details)
