It appears that in battle there is as great difficulty in handling the saber as in handling the bayonet. Another difficulty for the cavalryman lies in the handling of the musket. This is seen in the handling of the regulation weapon of the Spahis. There is only one important thing for the cavalryman, to be well seated. Men should be on horseback for hours at a time, every day, from their arrival in the organization. If the selection of those who know something about horses was not neglected in the draft, and if such men were, made cavalrymen, the practical training of the greater number would be much more rapidly concluded. I do not speak of the routine of the stable. Between mounted drills, foot drills might be gone through with in a snappy, free fashion, without rigidity, with daily increasing speed. Such drills would instruct cavalrymen more rapidly than the restricted method employed.
A dragoon horse carries in campaign with one day's food three hundred and eight pounds, without food or forage two hundred and seventy seven pounds. How can such horses carry this and have speed?
Seek the end always, not the means! Make a quarter of your cavalrymen into muleteers, a quarter of your horses into pack animals. You will thus secure, for the remaining three quarters unquestioned vigor. But how will you make up these pack trains? You will have plenty of wounded horses after a week of campaign.
CHAPTER IV
ARTILLERY
If artillery did not have a greater range than the rifle, we could not risk separating it far from its support, as it would have to wait until the enemy was but four or five hundred paces away to fire on him. But the more its range is increased, the further away it can be placed from its support.
The greater the range of artillery, the greater freedom of action from the different arms, which no longer have to be side by side to give mutual support.
The greater the range of artillery, the easier it is to concentrate its fire. Two batteries fifteen hundred meters apart can concentrate on a point twelve hundred meters in front of and between them. Before the range was so long they had to be close together, and the terrain did not always lend itself to this.