Bayonet, bullet, and maneuver: how Suvorov controlled the combat range
When Turkish fire halted the first line near Rymnik, Suvorov didn't wait. He sent his grenadiers forward, and they didn't even return fire—in a single burst, they reached the battery and charged with bayonets. The line infantry followed them, wasting no time in firing volleys. A brief hand-to-hand fight, and the fortification, which had been shelling the Russian ranks just moments before, was taken.
In the previous article in the series - Suvorov's Soldier: A School of Training and Obedience — We discussed how the training and discipline of Suvorov's soldier were forged. Now let's look at how this training was translated into tactics—into the ability to manage fire, bayonets, and distance.
An aphorism that was read incorrectly
There is a logic behind this scene that was later turned into a proverb: "A bullet is a fool, a bayonet is a fine fellow"In the popular consciousness, it has long lived a life of its own: as a slogan of bayonet obsession, disdain for shooting, and a general rejection of fire. Meanwhile, in the original text, it is not a slogan, but a conclusion embedded in a chain of reasoning.
The full version sounds different from the shortened version: "Save a bullet for three days, and sometimes for an entire campaign, when there's nowhere to get one. Shoot rarely, but accurately. Thrust firmly with the bayonet; the bullet will miss, but the bayonet won't. The bullet is a fool, the bayonet is a fine fellow."The "stupidity" of a bullet here is tied to the chance of hitting a target due to poor training and a meager supply of ammunition, and not to the fire itself. A bullet can "misfire" and go into the air; a bayonet strike in close combat with good training is more reliable.
The same logic—comparing a reliable result with scattered fire—is captured in the collection “Suvorov’s Testament,” prepared by K. Pigarev in 1943: "One man can stab three, sometimes even four, with a bayonet, but a hundred bullets fly into the air."This is about the arithmetic of the result, not the commander's tastes. English-language quotations include a translation attributed to "The Science of Victory": “The bullet is a mad thing; only the bayonet knows what it is about", meaning "the bullet is crazy, only the bayonet knows what it's doing." Even in this loose translation, the original meaning—the reliability of the strike versus the randomness of the shot—is not lost.
But the logic of the same "Science of Victory," which Suvorov wrote in 1795–1796, summing up the Turkish campaigns, is different: infantry fire opens the way to victory, and the bayonet secures it. Fire opens — that is, it starts a fight, not ends it. The aphorism is directed against a senseless firefight, not against the bullet.
The Economics and Physics of Fire
To understand the harshness of the wording, we need to return it to the conditions of the late 18th century. The main thing weapon The infantry rifle—a smoothbore flintlock—was muzzle-loaded. Its effective range was short, its spread wide, and its rate of fire was two to three rounds per minute, with the best units achieving more. Loading itself required skill and composure: removing the cartridge, biting it off, loading the powder, inserting the bullet, and pushing it with the ramrod—all under fire.
Effective volley fire at enemy lines in the late 18th century was typically conducted from a distance of around 50–100 meters; estimates vary depending on the army and testing methods. This was the working limit: beyond that, there were too many "bullets in the air," and closer, hand-to-hand combat began. Between these limits lies a narrow strip where shooting is worthwhile, and Suvorov sought to utilize it rather than waste it.
Economics were added to technology. Gunpowder and lead were expensive; their production, transportation, and storage cost resources. Teaching a soldier to fire "in broad daylight" meant not only wasting supplies but also reinforcing the habit of aimless shooting. With recruits' low literacy and limited time for marksmanship training, simply increasing the number of shots didn't produce a proportional increase in effectiveness. This is where the bullet became a "fool"—stray, random.
Against this backdrop, the "rarely, but accurate" approach seems prudent. Suvorov demanded that the bullet be saved and aimed at a specific enemy, not fired in their direction. For him, shooting was a deliberate act, not a release of tension. He trusted fire. He distrusted random shooting.
Line, column, arrows
His infantry formation consisted of three elements, each with its own task. The core remained the line: battalions in three or four ranks, stretched out along the front. The longer the line, the more barrels fired simultaneously; even with poor accuracy, a massed volley created a dense field of fire. The line required drill, standing shoulder to shoulder, and moving to the sound of a drum; without these, it would disintegrate into a mob.
Suvorov didn't break this foundation. His instructions discuss proper formation, how to establish camp, how to advance to attack, and how to hold the front under fire. A keen eye—the first quality of a commander in Suvorov's system—here also means the ability to mentally envision how the formation will fall on the terrain.
The column gave flexibility to the linear formation. It was deeper than the line and narrower in front; however, it moved more easily along roads, navigated gorges, and changed direction. In the Russian army, the column was long considered a marching formation. Suvorov actively used it in battle: columns brought troops to the enemy's position faster and with fewer losses, and then deployed into line before attacking. Historians see this as a step away from purely linear tactics toward a more flexible system.
The third element was a loose formation of riflemen, rangers, and special teams. Scattered across the terrain, they occupied cover and fired accurately at the most dangerous targets: officers, artillery servants, dense masses of infantry. Suvorov had already tried similar techniques during the Seven Years' War, operating in small units outside the rigid confines of the line. Later, light infantry became established as a regular part of the army, and its role became integrated into the overall battlefield scenario.
So each element did its part: the line attacked and stood under attack, the column moved troops across the terrain, the riflemen gnawed out the enemy’s formation piece by piece.
Distance control
All three elements are subordinated to a single task: managing distance. Effective shooting is only possible over short distances; attempting to engage in firefights from a distance would result in wasted shots and wasted time. Therefore, troops must quickly move through the danger zone and engage in close combat, where training, morale, and physical preparedness are decisive.
Hence the famous marches. A typical daily march for infantry of that era was 25–30 km. Sources note that Suvorov's troops often covered 30–40 km in a day, and in some cases up to 50–60 km (the figures, however, vary from source to source and clearly refer to exceptional advances). According to some estimates, the march before Rymnik itself covered approximately 100 km, taking over two days and a half, and the corps reached the enemy earlier than expected; the exact figures differ in the sources. Such speed was only possible with a special organization: stages alternated with short rest stops, food prepared in advance, and the load distributed evenly. The march here is the battle itself, its first act.
Suvorov had no tolerance for passive waiting. He considered standing motionless under fire a direct increase in losses: his troops were either attacking or maneuvering. This also had a moral aspect. The fewer soldiers exposed to fire, the less time there was for fear and doubt. A swift attack transformed the agonizing wait into a brief interval, followed immediately by combat. That's why he taught attacking on the move, after a march, without lengthy preparations, exploiting surprise and the psychological impact.
Historical An engraving depicting the Battle of Rymnik in 1789, created by Thomas von Trattner circa 1790
Eye and a blow to the wing
In his system, speed isn't a matter of running at random, but of quickly executing a well-thought-out plan. The triad of "eye, speed, and onslaught" describes not only the commander's plan but also the operation of the battle formations themselves. Eye is the assessment of the terrain, forces, and direction of attack. Speed is both the speed of troop movement and the speed of decision-making: one is ineffective without the other; a delay in issuing orders devalues a rapid march. Onslaught is the bayonet and the pressure exerted on the enemy's will.
Suvorov wrote to his godson: "Continually practicing how to take in everything with one glance will make you a great commander."This advice is addressed not only to the strategist but also to the tactician: to see the battle as a whole. He believed the best attack was a strike "on the wing," a blow to the flank, rather than to the center. A flanking attack breaks formation, threatens communications, and can collapse the entire enemy line. Columns and skirmishers ensured a concealed advance to the desired point, and speed reduced the time the enemy had to figure out the maneuver. Suvorov was not afraid to attack in bad weather, early in the morning, and at night, where darkness and fatigue gave the enemy the upper hand, and his own training allowed him to maintain formation in poor visibility.
The 1789 battle demonstrates how the triad works as a whole. The precision lay in the selection of a fortified camp as a key point and the timing of the attack, before the Turks had time to complete their trenches. Speed lay in the hundred-kilometer march that brought the corps to the field ahead of schedule, and in the cavalry being launched into the attack from the gaps between the infantry units before the enemy had time to recover. The onslaught lay in the bayonet charge, which followed immediately behind the cavalry, without a lengthy exchange of fire. The fire brought the troops to the attack line; the bayonet decided the rest. And what it looked like up close—the grenadiers and line infantry storming the battery—was shown at the beginning of the article.
Fire as preparation and two myths
All this means that fire doesn't disappear for Suvorov; its role changes. Artillery and rifle preparation is meant to weaken the enemy, disrupt their formation, and disrupt their command and morale, creating the conditions for a decisive attack. During assaults like Izmail and in field battles, artillery was often positioned closer to the front lines than prescribed by regulations: this increased the risk to the crews, but enhanced both the destructive and psychological effects.
A common pattern emerges in many of his battles. Skirmishers in open formation pick off dangerous targets, artillery delivers a short, concentrated strike, followed by a brief volley firefight between the lines, deliberately brief to prevent the enemy from recovering. Then the lines and columns launch a bayonet charge, and after a breakthrough, fire resumes, this time for pursuit. This is a generalization of numerous battles, not a canonical "recipe" from the original source, but the direction of all the episodes is the same.
Hence the analysis of two persistent myths. The first concerns the "anti-fire" Suvorov, who supposedly rejected shooting. We have seen that he demanded consistent, economical fire and considered it the beginning of victory. He was fighting not fire, but the illusion that a firefight in itself brings victory to those with more ammunition and better cover.
The second myth concerns a "special Russian bayonet strike" with a complex trajectory and butt action, familiar from Sergeyev-Tsensky's novel "Sevastopol Harvest." Actual instructions on bayonet combat—both Russian documents from the late 1830s and those from the mid-19th century—emphasize a direct thrust with a lunge as the primary technique, without literary manipulation. This casts doubt on the descriptions of "special" Russian techniques, especially since the documents themselves are several decades removed from Suvorov's era. Suvorov's bayonet combat was not a secret art, but a rational set of simple techniques, honed to the point of automatism.
This was the basis of his divergence from the Prussian school. Prussian tactics emphasized drill, precise firefights between lines, and prolonged firefights under strict discipline. Suvorov learned from this approach and recognized its strengths, but he saw a weakness: the loss of initiative in protracted firefights, where the advantage lies in the reserve of resources. He did not reject fire—he subordinated it to the bayonet. For the Prussian school, fire was almost an end in itself; for Suvorov, it was a means of preparing the attack.
From distance to common purpose
The battle formation of Suvorov's infantry was not a "bayonet line," but a system of distance control. The line provided fire, the column provided movement, the riflemen broke the enemy's formation, marched and flanked, and chose the timing and point of impact. "A bullet is a fool" precisely where training is poor and fire is disorganized; where fire is consistent, this characteristic loses its validity. Suvorov simply couldn't guarantee a high level of fire in every campaign, so he relied on what he could: the bayonet, speed, and spirit.
Rymnik also demonstrated the next level of this logic: cavalry from intervals of infantry units, followed by a bayonet charge. How infantry, cavalry, and artillery were combined into a single working mechanism is a topic for another discussion. "The Syntax of Combat: How Suvorov Combined Infantry, Cavalry, and Cannons"It is here that the structure finally emerges, thanks to which Suvorov himself, as a commander, never lost a single major battle, despite all the limitations of the era, having fought dozens of battles.
Main literature
- Suvorov A. V. The Science of Victory (text from 1795–1796). — Moscow: Voenizdat, 1987.
- The Testament of Suvorov / compiled by K. Pigarev. — Moscow: Voenizdat, 1943.
- Bogdanov A. P. A. V. Suvorov: the birth of tactics // Military History Journal.
- Kersnovsky A. A. History of the Russian army: in 4 volumes. - M.: Golos, 1992. V. 1.
- Russian army and fleet in the 18th century: Essays. - M.: Voenizdat, 1958.
- Bogdanovich M. I. The campaigns of Rumyantsev, Potemkin, and Suvorov in Turkey. — St. Petersburg, 1852.
Information