Part 482

TABLE fouillee, Fr. That which instead of being saliant is indented: it is commonly adorned with a border.

TABLE d’attente, Fr. See RUSTICATED TABLE.

Crowned TABLE. In architecture, one which is covered with a cornice, and in which is cut a basso relievo; or a piece of black marble incrustated for an inscription.

Razed TABLE. In architecture, an embossment in a frontispiece for the putting an inscription, or other ornament in sculpture.

Rusticated TABLE. In architecture, one which is picked, whose surface appears rough, as in grottoes.

TABLE. In literature, an index, a repertory, at the beginning or end of a book to direct the reader to any passage in it.

The Round TABLE. A table to distinguish military merit, which was first invented by king Arthur, who succeeded his father Uther Pendragon, king of the Britons, who was brother to Aurelius Ambrosius, and third son of Constantine. Arthur was the 11th king of England, from the departure of the Romans, and was crowned about the year 516.

Having expelled the Saxons out of England, conquered Norway, Scotland, and the greatest part of France, (where at Paris he was crowned) this monarch returned to his native country, and lived in so great renown, that many princes and knights came from all parts to his court, to give proof of their valor in the exercise of arms. Upon this he erected a fraternity of knights, which consisted of twenty-four, of whom he was the chief; and for the avoiding controversies about precedency, he caused a round table to be made, from whence they were denominated Knights of the Round Table. This table, according to tradition, hangs up in the castle at Winchester, where they used to meet at Whitsuntide.

TABLE de marbre, Fr. A marble table. During the monarchy of France, there were two courts of jurisdictions, which were called Tables de Marbre, or marble tables; one was that of the constable, and the Maréchaussée or police of France; and the other that which gave directions for the general clearing of the forests, and the purifying of stagnant waters. They are so called from the meeting being held round a large marble table.

TABLEAU, Fr. A description, a catalogue. It likewise signifies a chimney-piece.

TABLETTE, Fr. A flat thin stone, which is used to cover the outside of a wall belonging to a terrace, or the border of a bason, &c.

TABLIER, Fr. Apron. It likewise signifies an outside cover made for ornament, or to prevent any thing from being damaged by the weather. In the old French army the kettle drums had two of these aprons or covers; one made of damask or sattin, on which were embroidered the arms of the king, or of the general to whom they belonged, and the other of black leather.

TABLIER de pont levis, Fr. That part of a draw-bridge, which is raised for the purpose of shutting a gate, and to prevent access to it, and upon which persons pass when the bridge is let down.

TABLOUINS, Fr. A word used in the artillery. The thick boards or planks that constitute the platform upon which cannon is mounted in battery.

TABOUR, TABOURET, TABOURINE, TABRET. A small drum, beat with one stick to accompany a pipe. It was anciently used in war.

TACHE, Fr. properly means job, or a regular rate for labor. Workmen are thus hired and paid by the day or by the lump.

TACKLE. The weapon or arrow shot from a bow, was so called by the ancient Welsh.

TACKLES are more particularly used for small ropes running in pullies, the better to manage all kinds of ordnance. See GIN.

TACTICS. A word derived from the Greek, signifying order. Tactics consist of a knowlege of order, disposition, and formation, according to the exigency of circumstances in warlike operations. These dispositions are severally made, or one disposition follows another by means of manœuvres and evolutions. Hence the necessity of paying the greatest attention to the first principles of military art; and hence the absurdity and ignorance of some men, who would pass for great and able tacticians, without having grounded themselves in the elements of their professions. As well might a person assume the character of a complete arithmetician under a total ignorance of the first rules.

General tactics are a combination or union of first orders, out of which others grow of a more extensive and complicated nature, to suit the particular kind of contest or battle which is to be given, or supported. Let it not, however, be inferred from this, that evolutions or movements and tactics are one and the same. They are, but there is still a discernable difference between each of them.

Tactics (or as the French say, La Tactique, tactical art) may be comprehended under order and disposition: an evolution is the movement which is made by one corps among a larger number of corps, and eventually leads to order. Manœuvres consist of the various evolutions which several corps of a line pursue to accomplish the same object. The higher branches of tactics, or la grande tactique, should be thoroughly understood by all general officers; it is sufficient for inferior officers and soldiers to be acquainted with evolutions. Not that the latter are not to be known by general officers, but that having already acquired a full knowlege of them, they ought to direct their attention more immediately to the former; carefully retaining at the same time a clear apprehension of every species of military detail, and thereby obviating the many inconveniences and embarrassments which occur from orders being awkwardly expressed to the staff, and of course ill understood by the inferior officer. It may be laid down as a certain rule, that unless a general officer make himself acquainted with particular movements and dispositions, and preserve the necessary recollections, it is morally impossible for him to be clear and correct in his general arrangements. Of all mechanical operations, founded upon given principles, the art of war is certainly the most compendious, the most enlarged, and the most capable of infinite variety. Almost every other science and art are comprehended in it; and it should be the constant object, the chief study, and the ultimate end of a general’s reflections. He must not be satisfied with a limited conception of its various branches; he should go deeply into all its parts, be aware of its manifold changes, and know how to adapt movements and dispositions to circumstances and places.

It will be of little use to a general to have formed vast projects, if, when they are to be executed, there should be a deficiency of ground: if the general movements of the army should be embarrassed by the irregularity of some particular corps, by their overlapping each other, &c. and if through the tardiness of a manœuvre, an enemy should have time to render his plan abortive by more prompt evolutions. A good general must be aware of all these contingencies, by making himself thoroughly master of tactics.

The Prussian tactics under Frederic the Great, had for their principal object to concentrate forces, and thereby choose the most suitable points to attack an enemy, not at one and the same time, but one after another; the tactics which have been uniformly pursued by the French, since the commencement of their revolution, have been founded upon the same principles: as well as to apply the method to several points, and to attack all points with divided forces, at one and the same time.

TACTICS of Europe. The following observations respecting the tactics of Europe, may be useful to those who have not the Am. Mil. Lib.

In the time of the Romans, the Gauls and other nations on the continent fought in the phalanx order; it is this order which still prevails through all Europe, except that it has been till lately deficient in the advantages and utility which Polybius ascribes to it, and is injured, by defects unknown in the ancient phalanx.

In Turenne’s days, troops were ranged 8 deep, both in France and Germany. Thirty years after, in the time of Puysegur, the ranks were reduced to 5: in the next Flanders war to 4; and immediately after to 3, which continues to be the order of the French armies; the ranks of light troops only are reduced to 2.

This part of the progression from 8 to 3 being known, we easily conceive how the files of the phalanx had been diminished from 16 to 8 in the ages preceding Turenne. It is to be presumed, that this depth was considered as superfluous, and it was judged necessary to diminish it, in order to extend the front. However, the motive is of very little consequence, since we are now reduced to three ranks; let us see what qualities of the phalanx have been preserved, and what might have been added thereto.

To shew that the defects of the phalanx were preferred in Europe, we suppose two bodies of troops, one of eight thousand men, ranged as a phalanx, sixteen deep; the other a regiment of three battalions, consisting only of fifteen hundred men, drawn up in three lines, after the same manner. Those two bodies shall be perfectly equal and alike in extent of front, and shall differ in nothing but in the depth of their files: the inconveniences and defects, therefore, occasioned by the length of the fronts are equal in both troops, though their numbers are very different; hence it follows, that, in Europe, the essential defects of the phalanx were preserved and its advantages lost.