Our Cavalry

by Michael Frederic Rimington

Conclusions

1. There are risks of doubtful value in action directed on wide lines against the enemy’s flank and rear.

2. The 1870 and American Wars confused the issues and led in some cases to sticky action by cavalry on South African battlefields.

3. In Manchuria the Japanese adopted correct tactics in view of Russian want of enterprise and their own want of cavalry. The rôle of the weaker cavalry was exemplified in some respects.

4. Push on the part of one side will compel the other to bring up more squadrons and lead to the fight of cavalry masses.

5. It is only by special training that cavalry leaders can learn their duties in a general engagement.

6. Much depends on the leader’s initiative, whilst this again depends on his knowledge gained by previous practice in similar circumstances.

There are those who ask, “But where are the Ziethen and Seydlitz cavalry charges nowadays?” Let them call to mind, for it is instructive to do so, the combination of circumstances, and, be it noted, circumstances which may well rise again, which conduced to the success of the cavalry of Frederick the Great.

I. A king general, who had a taste for and knowledge of training cavalry.

II. A training of all ranks suited to the war about to be undertaken.

III. A cavalry with picked leaders quite unencumbered by officers past or unsuited to their work.

IV. Horses well conditioned under the eye of an autocrat, who had the common sense to demand and see that he got, not fat, but fit horses.

V. A skilled direction of the cavalry on the battlefield by a cool and intensely determined generalissimo, such as Frederick the Great undoubtedly was.

Now let us, on the other hand, state the case in the South African operations of 1899–1902. (In almost the same words as regards some paragraphs as were used in 1897.)

I. An unskilled training and inspection of cavalry in the large proportion of cases, often conducted by officers of other arms, and such as tended to inspire all ranks with a desire for display and fine appearance on parade, rather than with a whole-souled yearning for efficiency for the war in hand.

II. The training of cavalry regiments in small, flat twelve-acre drill-fields walled in from the slums of a city, in which cavalry were still stationed for hopelessly out-of-date political reasons. What real cavalry training was possible along the tram lines and between rows of suburban villas?

III. A personnel too largely drawn from towns, and ignorant of the exigencies of campaigning horse-management.

IV. Horses, three-quarters bred, of fair pace and condition, but the latter necessary qualification for a campaign entirely spoiled in most cases by, say, a thirty days’ voyage, followed by a five or six days’ railway journey, then semi-starvation at the end of a line of communication, then some quick work followed by two or three days’ total starvation, then more work, and so on. Constantly our strategy outran our supply arrangements and the condition of our horses.

V. An enemy fighting in their own country, and each man owning two or three hardy, well-conditioned country-breds.

VI. Tactics of the enemy; to hold on to a position with rifle fire, and when seriously attacked or their flanks turned to disperse at a gallop.

Tactics all very well in their way, and just as disconcerting and annoying to our squadrons as they were to Murat’s cavalry in the advance into Russia; but these Parthian tactics are only suited to a limited number of strategical phases, a point difficult to bring home to the mind of those who have not studied strategy. They were tactics which resulted in a loss to the Boers of about 5000 men, generally foot people, at Paardeberg and, later, another 5000 in the Wittebergen. Meanwhile the cavalry to which they were opposed was able, by simple turning movements, to afford the main column, a practically uninterrupted advance from the Orange River to the Portuguese border.

It is strange, indeed, how the lesson of those operations has in many cases been read upside down by a nation which takes no steps to study military history, and which, consequently, forgets that the spirit of vigorous offensive, which did and must result in occasional heavy loss, had been sternly discountenanced by the majority of their press, after the experiences of Black Monday. “Conduct the operations without loss, or, better, by diplomacy—and above all with kindness,” was then the cry.