German Influence on British Cavalry

by Erskine Childers

Such is the material which forms his text. And we may ask at once, is a book based on such an appalling state of affairs, and addressed exclusively to a Cavalry described as being given over to ancient shibboleths, mischievous delusions and antiquated assumptions—is such a book likely to deserve the effusive and unqualified praise of our own foremost Cavalry authority? Is it likely to be worthy of becoming the Bible of a modern and progressive Cavalry, such as Sir John French considers our own Cavalry, trained under his own guidance, to be? Is it likely to be "exhaustive," "convincing," "complete"?

To suppose so is to insult the intelligence of our countrymen. We do not teach the ABC in our Universities. Our natural science schools do not assume that their pupils belong to the "Dark Ages," and waste two-thirds of their energy in laborious refutations of such extinct superstitions as witchcraft. The education of our sailors to modern naval war is not conducted on the assumption that the Navy consists of wooden sailing-vessels whose inadequacy to modern conditions must be elaborately demonstrated. A gunnery course—and the reader will note the analogy—does not consist mainly of arguments designed to prove that the cutlass is no longer so important a weapon as the long-range gun and the torpedo. Nor—in the military sphere—are our Infantry and Artillery instructed with a view to weaning them from the cult of the pike and the catapult.

So, too, we may be quite sure that there is something radically wrong when our Cavalry, in their search for an authoritative exposition of modern Cavalry tactics, are reduced to relying on a foreign writer who writes for a Cavalry ignorant of the elements of modern Cavalry tactics, and a good half of whose work is taken up with scoldings and appeals which from our British point of view are grotesquely redundant. All that is good in what von Bernhardi says about fire-action we know from our own war experience. All his errors about fire-action we can detect also from our own war experience.

We should expect Sir John French to comment on these facts, to warn his readers that the book under review was written for a Cavalry unversed in modern war and blind to its teaching. We should expect some note of pride and satisfaction in the fact that his own national Cavalry did not need these scathing and humiliating reminders that war is not a "theoretical" and "childish" pastime, but a serious and dangerous business; some hint to the effect that perhaps we, with our three years' experience of the modern rifle, may have something useful to tell General von Bernhardi about principles which he has framed in the speculative seclusion of his study. Not a word, not a hint of any such warning or criticism. The topic is too dangerous. Once admit that South Africa counts—to say nothing of Manchuria—once begin to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" of the German's speculations, and the arme blanche is lost. Instead, we have the passionless reservation from Sir John French that "he does not always approve" of those German Regulations, so many of which von Bernhardi thinks prehistoric and ludicrous, and at the end of his Introduction we have a fervent appeal to the British Cavalry not to "expose our ignorance and conceit" by overvaluing our own experience, but to "keep abreast with every change in the tendencies of Cavalry abroad," and to "assimilate the best of foreign customs" to our own. "Keep abreast!" What an expression to use in such a connection! "Best foreign customs!" Where are these customs? There appears to be only one answer—namely, that these customs are in reality the very customs which von Bernhardi attacks with such savage scorn, and yet by such ineffective and half-hearted methods that he leaves them as strong as before. His qualifications and reservations give Sir John French a loophole, so that what, read through English eyes, should be a final condemnation of the steel becomes to him a vindication of the steel.

The link between the two writers is that both disregard the facts of modern war. Since these facts are fatal to the steel theory, both are compelled to disregard them. What wars, then, according to the German expert, are the uneducated German Cavalry to study? He deals with this point on page 5. He dismisses the wars of Frederick the Great and Napoleon. He dismisses the Franco-German War of 1870-71, as we might expect from his earlier work, where he pointed out how meagre and feeble were the performances of the Cavalry compared with those of other Arms. He dismisses the Russo-Turkish War for the same reason, and, by implication, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. All these wars, he says, "present a total absence of analogy." Then, entirely disregarding the whole period in which science perfected the firearm, he dismisses the wars in South Africa and Manchuria. And he comes back to what? The American War of Secession of 1861-1865, which "appears to be the most interesting and instructive campaign for the service of modern Cavalry," but which is "almost unknown" in Germany. In any other branch of study but that of Cavalry an analogous recommendation would be received with a compassionate smile. The element of truth and sense in it—and there is much truth and sense in it—is so obvious and unquestioned as not to need expression for the benefit of any well-informed student. The American horsemen discovered that the rifle must be the principal weapon of Cavalry, and through that discovery made themselves incomparably more formidable and efficient in every phase and function of war than the European Cavalries, who ignored and despised the American example in the succeeding European struggles. So far the writer is on the sound ground of platitude.

But has nothing notable happened since 1865? A very important thing has happened. The Civil War firearm is now a museum curiosity. Science has devised a weapon of at least five times the power—smokeless, quick-firing, and accurate up to ranges which were never dreamt of in 1865. Even the American weapon reduced shock to a wholly secondary place, and gave fire unquestioned supremacy. The modern weapon has eliminated shock altogether, and inspired new and far more formidable tactics—just as mobile, just as dashing, just as fruitful of "charges," but based on fire. Von Bernhardi cannot bring himself to contemplate this result. He must have his lances and swords, and is compelled therefore to go back to 1865, when the death-knell of those weapons was already being sounded; and in doing so he writes his own condemnation.

This is how his book opens: "The great changes which have taken place in military science since the year 1866 have forced all arms to adopt new methods of fighting. It was first and foremost the improvement in the firearm which wrought the transformation on the battle-field." (My italics.) Since the year 1866! And yet the Cavalry are to go back to a war prior to that year for their instruction, and are to neglect the only wars in which the improved firearm has been tested! In point of fact, General von Bernhardi shows no sign of having closely studied even the American War of 1861-1865 with a view to finding out how the Americans used their firearms in conjunction with their horses. On this vital technical matter he writes throughout from a purely speculative standpoint, without a single allusion to the American technical methods, much less to the methods of our own and the Boer mounted riflemen of 1899-1902.

We must add in fairness that the General seems to be conscious that a war half a century old cannot be implicitly relied on for instruction, and he concludes his historical remarks, therefore, by the depressing conclusion that "there remains, then, nothing for us—with no practical war experience to go on—but to create the groundwork of our methods of training from theoretical and speculative reflection."

On this question of the most instructive war for Cavalry study Sir John French preserves an eloquent silence. He dismisses South Africa and Manchuria, but he does not echo the recommendation as to America. Thereby hangs a tale. For years before the South African War, for years before von Bernhardi was heard of in England, the ablest military historian of our time, the late Colonel Henderson, had been dinning the moral of America into the ears of our Cavalry authorities, without producing the smallest effect. His prophecies were abundantly justified—more than justified, for he wrote on the basis of the rifle of 1865, and the rifle of 1899 totally eliminated the shock-tactics which were still practicable in 1865. He died in 1902, before the Boer War was over, but in one of the last essays written before his death he told the Cavalry that shock was extinct. "Critics of the Cavalry work in South Africa," he says, "do not seem to have realized that the small bore and smokeless powder have destroyed the last vestiges of the traditional rôle of Cavalry" ("Science of War," p. 376).

It can be readily understood, therefore, that to refer our Cavalry of the present day to Colonel Henderson's brilliant and learned writings upon the American Civil War, would be a course highly dangerous to the interests of the lance and sword. Sir John French confines himself to urging his subalterns to read such "acknowledged authorities" as Sir Evelyn Wood and General von Bernhardi. But why is Sir Evelyn Wood singled out? Eminent as he is, he has not the requisite modern war experience. Why not Lord Roberts, who has, and who is the only living British officer with a European reputation? General von Bernhardi himself has not been on active service since 1870, when he served as a Lieutenant in the war against France. Sir John French will not advance the cause of the arme blanche in that way. He cannot stifle knowledge by an index. He need not agree with Lord Roberts, but to ignore him when speaking of "acknowledged authorities," to accuse him by implication of making "appeals from ignorance to vanity," is unworthy of Sir John French. If he believes in his cause, let him urge the Cavalry to hear both sides; it can do no harm. For my part, I would most strongly urge every Cavalry soldier to read von Bernhardi and Sir John French.