“It is not easy to reconstruct from the fragmentary telegrams that
have come through from the front the tactical nature of the great
and happily decisive victory upon the Tusco which has just ended
the campaign. So far as one can judge, His Royal Highness the
Commander-in-Chief lay _en biais_, reposing his right upon the river
itself and his left upon the Cañon of the Encantado, his centre
somewhat advanced ‘in gabion,’ his pivot points refused, and his right
in double concave. Upon a theory of Ballistic and Shock, which all
those who have read His Royal Highness’s daring and novel book of
thirty years ago, entitled ‘Cavalry in the Field,’ will remember, our
Corps Artillery and reserve of horse were doubtless some miles in the
rear of the firing line. The enemy, with an amazing ignorance of the
elements of military knowledge, appear to have attacked the _left_ of
this position. It is an error to which we should hardly give credence
were not the telegrams so clear and decisive on this point. The reader
will immediately grasp the obvious result of such a piece of folly. His
Royal Highness promptly refused _en potence_, wheeled his left centre
round upon the Eleventh Brigade as a pivot, and supported this masterly
move by the sudden and unexpected appearance of no less than thirty-six
guns, the converging fire of which at once arrested the ill-fated and
mad scheme of the enemy. The rest is easily told. Our centre retaining
its position, in spite of the burning zeal of the men to take part in
the general advance, the right, which had not yet come into action, was
thrown forward with a sudden, sweeping movement, and behind its screen
of Cavalry debouched upon the open plateau which dominates the left
bank of the Tusco. After that all was over; the next news we shall have
will certainly be the capitulation of our broken foe, unless, indeed,
he prefer to be destroyed piecemeal in a scattered flight.”
VI
EXTRACT FROM THE NOTE OF THE MILITARY EXPERT OF THE POPULAR JOURNAL
OF UTOPIA: FORMERLY A SERGEANT IN THE COMMISSARIAT DEPARTMENT OF THE
ARMY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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