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Updated: June 1, 2025
This red earth, which, when the Army first arrived, was garnished with grass and flowers, groves, and vineyards, was now beaten by thousands of feet into a hard, dry drill-ground, where, here and there, blasted trees stood like calvaries against the sky. The grass resembled patches of fur on a mangy skin.
The clatter of hoofs on the pavement, the jangle of bit and saber, the occasional word of command, the onward sweep of the well-trained cavalcade, continued for a long time, as if the lovely morning had brought all the cavalry in the city out of barracks. But this is an almost daily sight in Munich. One regiment after another goes over the river to the drill-ground.
This should be done either by shafting or by opening with 'steam-navvies' the whole course of the channel during the 'Dries. Regaining the main road and passing towards the northern town, which is separated from southern Axim by the fort and the grassy drill-ground, we cast a look at a heap of rotting cases at last stored under a kind of shed.
Then a line of British infantry seemed to rise out of the pile of the carpet and I could see them moving with a drill-ground steadiness toward the edge of the woods, only to be lost to the eye in a fold of the carpet or in a changed background.
The captain went to the colonel, and reported his company in a state of mutiny. Colonel Walker immediately mounted his horse, and galloping to our quarters, ordered the men to take their arms and proceed to the drill-ground. Not a man moved to obey this order, although a few would have done so had they not feared the vengeance of their comrades.
I have seen far more excitement displayed on an ordinary drill-ground at home, in the piping times of peace. A sudden appearance of the flag just after the trumpets had sounded "cease firing" brought moisture to the eyes of many a toughened veteran; but even then, with victory still glowing in our grasp, there was not the ghost of a cheer.
He who only knows War from books or the drill-ground cannot realise the whole effect of this counterpoise in action; WE BEG HIM, THEREFORE, TO ACCEPT FROM US ON FAITH AND TRUST ALL THAT HE IS UNABLE TO SUPPLY FROM ANY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OF HIS OWN.
There was really no stockade in the military sense. The enclosure was little more than a drill-ground fenced with rough slabs. These slabs, a few logs, and two or three drays, represented all that had been attempted in the nature of a barricade, and could not have been expected by the least experienced of the insurgent leaders to offer any serious impediment to a charge of regulars.
I was only six years old, but I remember distinctly that when Ludo and I were taken to the Lutz swimming-baths next day, we found first on the drill-ground, then on the bank of the Spree, and in the water, charred pieces, large and small, of the side-scenes of the theatre. They were the glowing birds whose flight I had watched from the tower of the Crede house.
Paradoxical though it sounds, it is true that only fleets which are able to perform regular movements can afford at times to cast them aside; only captains whom the habit of the drill-ground has familiarized with the shifting phases it presents, can be expected to seize readily the opportunities for independent action presented by the field of battle.
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