“we study the past to foresee the future.”
in these bustling days of headline-up-to-date newspapers, one shrinks from reminding one’s readers that xenophon gave excellent advice to cavalry trainers and leaders—advice which a cavalryman will recognize is quite as applicable to-day as it was in those distant ages; since details with regard to grooming horses on hard stones, exercising cavalry in rough ground, and so on are by no means out of date. there is every reason to believe that alexander, and later rome and carthage at their zenith as military nations, had proportionately as highly-trained cavalry as is possessed by any nation of to-day. those who have fought in rearguards and running fights realize that the parthian method of fighting must have required the highest training and moral. the cavalry of the predominant nations were drawn from those who kept horses for their own sport and amusement, and for the gratification of their pride, and who felt they were better fighting men on a horse. the descendants of the horse-lovers2 of those ages are with us to-day; they are those who love danger, excitement, and pace, and who find in the blood-horse an animal which shares their love for these, and will generously sacrifice its life or limbs in the co-partnership.
those who have never felt the sensation of a really good horse bounding and stretching away under them, and the consequent elation, the wonder as to “what could stop us?” cannot grasp what a cavalry soldier’s feelings are in the “charge.”
following the centuries which saw the final success of the ordered phalanx of rome, time after time the more savage races of horsemen—attila with his hunnish squadrons or abdur-rahman with moslem hordes—drive all before them, anticipating the flight of peace-loving, easy-going farmers and traders, living on the country and carrying off what pleases them.
then held sway
the good old rule ... the simple plan, that they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can.
ages roll by, the picture changes. the days of norman chivalry animate and fire the imagination. the hunter warriors, knights, and squires lead their troops in battle array, throwing them into the combat at the decisive moment.
broken bones incurred whilst unhorsing a friend, or a shrewd spear-thrust when cleaving to the chine a foe, in single combat, were adventures by no means to be declined or avoided.
chivalry or enthusiastic religious zeal qualify the3 rougher side of their devotion to arms and horsemanship.
in all ages the horse-lovers, the best-mounted nations, have carried all before them. ceteris paribus this is true to-day. then came the days of “villainous saltpetre,” and many began to doubt and to number the days of cavalry; and always after a time there rises the cavalry leader who, emerging from the dangers of a youth spent in war and sport, sees that pace, weight, moral, and the “àpropos” make up for all the odds, if only leaders, men, and horses are trained, and their weight and pace rightly applied.
next in order come gustavus adolphus; cromwell, our great cavalry leader, and his ironsides riding knee to knee, and rallying immediately after the shock; frederick the great, and his captains, ziethen and seydlitz, and their ordered application of masses of cavalry. then grand old blücher,1 and his antagonists of the napoleonic era, murat, lasalle, curély.
certain fixed principles keep cropping up which appear to have guided these heroes in their movements and dispositions. they are:—
4
a. cohesion in the ranks, or knee-to-knee riding.
b. the moral effect of advancing horsemen.
c. the flank march.
d. the “àpropos” charge ridden well home.
e. surprise.
f. the immediate rally.
g. the necessity of a reserve.
h. training of the individual man and horse.
i. care of the horse’s condition.
the more we are able to read and learn of their views of training, leading, and applying the shock of cavalry, the more we see how little which is new can be written on the subject.
the same view may be taken of the fire action of cavalry. the best cavalry leaders have always recognized its great value, where not put forward as an alternative to the “àpropos” charge, and when not substituted by the “weakening” leader for the dangerous but more decisive shock action—that action in which we must have “no half measures, no irresolution.”2 but the very fact that they may themselves have at some time weakened to the extent of shooting at the enemy from afar, instead of resolutely going in at the unknown, must have made these leaders recognize that the “charge” must be kept in the front as our ideal.
those who cannot understand the predilection of the most advanced and thoughtful cavalry soldiers for l’arme blanche should ponder on the success of the zulu dynasty. its founder insisted that his men should be armed only with the stabbing assegai and would not allow them to throw their assegais. he knew what shock tactics meant and the moral inspired by their successful adoption.
5 a study of history shows the advocacy of ballistics from the horse at a charging enemy to have been periodic during the last 2000 years in peace time, and also that failure has invariably followed its adoption in war. it is not now seriously considered by any nation.
whatever the cost, whatever the method, he who tries first to “handle” his enemy is the one with whom “moral,” that incalculable factor, will rest. hear what a great trainer of cavalry, writing probably over fifty years ago, said:—3
it cannot be too often repeated that the main thing is to carry out the mission at any price. if possible this should be done mounted and with the arme blanche, but should that not be feasible, then we must dismount and force a road with the carbine. i am convinced that cavalry would not be up to the requirements of to-day if they were not able under certain circumstances to fight on foot, nor would it be worth the sacrifice that it costs the state.
but if the croakers were alarmed at a sputtering rifle fire, what will the faint-hearted of our time say to the new and alarming factor which has now been introduced. batteries of horse artillery, firing up to sixty or more low trajectory shells per minute, must now be reckoned with. these shells contain 236 bullets, weighing 41 to the pound.
if the de blochs and other theorists paused and wondered what would happen to cavalry when magazine rifles were invented, what will be their attitude now? let them be reassured. but the6 words of those who reassure them must ring true and be purified from the dross of the first thought, “how can we do this and save our own skins?” let them be born of the stern resolve, “at all costs we will kill, capture, or put to flight our enemies.” we must evolve tactics which will enable us to use every new factor and to deny them to the foe.4
leave them to judge whether the plan of those tactics will be dashed off by the pen of the ready-writer as a result of experiences gained during a whitsun-week holiday on some suburban training ground, or whether the soldier who has felt the sharp stress of an enemy’s victory, the heavy hand of adversity and the rough lessons of retreat, who has seen the barometer of his men’s fate rise and fall under cyclonic conditions, will painfully and doubtfully elaborate it.
cromwell, frederick, galliffet, these with bitter experience of the everyday imperfections of human nature, and a well-weighed determination to insist on tactics which will override those weaknesses, did not attempt to avoid or shirk the difficulty of losses. a cool contempt for the contingencies is the primary qualification in the search for successful methods in cavalry tactics, as well as in the encounter itself.
turning now to the detached duties of cavalry,7 of security and information, no less do we see the recurrence of the same ideas. the curélys and de bracks, the mosbys, the cavalry who, “like a heavy shower of rain, can get through anywhere,” such come right down to us from ancient history.
the daring hearts who, trusting in a good horse and a knowledge of woodcraft, torment the enemy, whether in camp, bivouac, on the march, or on the line of communication, are a product of all campaigns, ready to the hand of those who know where to find them, and how to inspire them aright so as to get the very best out of them. and what will good men not dare and undergo for a word of praise or encouragement from one whose soul is in what he says?
again and again, what is learnt in the hard school of campaigning, and generally where that campaign has been lost, carries the best lesson. has any nation set itself more resolutely to correct the faults of its cavalry5 than the french nation after the 1870 war?
conversely, the nation that wins, learns little or nothing; no lesson is worse than that of easy success in small wars. witness the russian successes in central asia for a series of years, followed by the débacle of their cavalry action in the manchurian war when pitted against an enemy whose cavalry was scarcely “in being,”6 and the erroneous conclusions arrived at in regard to cavalry by those8 who only saw the first portion of the operations in south africa 1899–1902.
von moltke is credited with saying: “people say one must learn by experience; i have always endeavoured to learn by the experience of others.”
the real lessons learnt from war are extremely difficult to impress on the taxpayer, who, in modern great britain, only reads of them in the newspaper, and who at best does not wish to pay for one more cavalry soldier than is absolutely necessary.
the cavalry leader must recognize that the arm is expensive, therefore it cannot afford to be inactive; it is the hardest arm to replace, therefore it must be used to the full.
in all ages cavalry7 have been expensive, and one may well wonder if the frugal mind of the taxpayer balances them against who can say what pictures of dead and wounded, indemnity, pillage, lost trade, and damaged prestige, or whether he looks at one side of9 the balance-sheet only, and forgets that from which they may save him.
ignoring these mundane views, it is still the duty of the cavalry leader who has patriotism in his soul, to keep his heart young and his muscles trained, and to leave no stone unturned in peace time in his preparation, as a sacred duty, for war; just as in war it is his duty to sacrifice his men, his reputation, his horses, everything, in order to turn the tide of battle or render the victory decisive.
let officers of cavalry remember that he who in peace time cannot sacrifice his pleasures to his duty, will in war find it much harder to give up his life or aggrandisement, possibly in accordance with an idea or order with which he does not agree, or in which he sees no sense.
this is the serious side; mercifully there is a lighter side to war, and it is well known that the hair-breadth escapes of themselves or others, and the “hard tack” form the most amusing and abiding recollections of a war to those who have participated in it.
against ill chances men are ever merry.
withal no cavalry leader is likely to succeed unless there is something of the gambler’s spirit in him, the gambler who can coolly and calmly put down his everything on the cards:—
he either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small, that dares not put it to the touch, to gain or lose it all.
