Moving 17th Century Soldiers
 

Doubling Files By Advancing to the Left Intire

Command:
"Double your files to the left/right intire, advancing!"

By increasing the number of soldiers in the resulting files, this doubling thereby increases the depth of the files - and increases it forward.

Should the files after doubling be commanded, say, to "Close left to Order," then the frontage will be reduced.

A slight variation of this doubling is: "Double your files to the left by division, advancing!"  Instead of "files intire" (single files at the onset) the officer or sergeant designates divisions within the unit, say, two files for each division.  With this, every other division places itself in front of standing divisions.

An additional variation has every other file move back instead of forward.  The command is: "Files, double your depth to the left intire, every man falling behind his Bringer-Up!"  An extra motion is strongly advised for this, which is to have the soldiers in the files that will move to "Face about."

Colonel Barriffe said of this doubling: "Let the antiquity of the doubling plead for its excellency, and if that may hold for a rule, then this may be ranked among the best."