Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1877 — The Russian Method of Attack. [ARTICLE]

The Russian Method of Attack.

A war correspondent with the Eighth corps of the Russian army writes: “To illustrate the method of attack in the Russian army, which is as in the German army by the company column, the Colonel called four of his orderlies, each one to represent a company, and stationed them in what is called the “ cross ” formation; that is, there stood a man representing a company at each of the four points of the figure of the cross. They moved forward retaining these relative positions; they changed direction to right or to left, still maintaining the same; in the former case the company which had been the right flanking company becoming the leading company; in other words, marching at the head of the cross; in the latter case, the .previous left flanking company taking the leading position. He told me that in each battalion there was one company of tirailleurs, or light infantry, whose duty it was more especially to skirmish. On occasion, the tirailleur companies might be if a rifle battalion or brigade were required; but this, in the natnra

things, would be seldom. There is, he siad, no cavalry attached to an infantry division of the Russian army, with the exception of a few Cossacks to act as orderlies and carry dispatches; all the cavalry of each corps is massed into the cavalry division of that corps and operates independently.”