But the General wastes his breath in scolding the Regulations. They are more logical than he is, because they do not seriously contemplate this derogatory work of fire. He says, indeed, that unnaturally accelerated attacks on foot by men who do not know how to attack on foot only succeed in peace, and will "lead inevitably to defeat in war," and that to set a time limit to a fire-attack is absurd; but by interspersing qualifying phrases about loss of mobility and loss of time he himself nullifies his own warnings. "The result of an attack on foot," he says (p. 116), "must, of course, justify the lives expended and the time occupied, which must both be regarded as lost in estimating the further operative value of the force." Men who read that will say: "Why waste time at all, then?" It is in flagrant contradiction, of course, with his previously expressed principle that hostile fire imposes fire-action on Cavalry; that there is no choice; that, whether they like it or not, they must engage in this rôle, which, nevertheless, is not their "proper rôle." The clue to the confusion, as always, is his view, founded on mere word-play, that mounted action is unthinkable without shock with steel weapons.
At the end of this section on "Attack and Defence" he continues to play into the hands of the framers of the Regulations which he denounces. Here is an immortal phrase: "The same holds good of the defence. Cavalry will only undertake this when absolutely obliged." This is the kind of maxim which one finds scattered broadcast through Cavalry literature—as if there could be any offence without defence, between or against whatever classes of soldiers. Fancy telling Infantry or Artillery in so many words that they should only undertake defence when absolutely obliged! And yet they are just as much offensive Arms as Cavalry, and by the light of historical facts during the last century a great deal more so.
I need not go into the reason again. The General is in his steel-mood, and is unconsciously limiting offence to the steel weapons. The next instant he is in his fire-mood, pointing out that, however much Cavalry in defence may yearn once more for "free movement" (he means shock), they must be prepared on occasion to defend themselves—i.e., with fire—to the last man. And he very aptly illustrates from the Manchurian War (which at an earlier point he had said to be without interest for Cavalry), pointing to the stubborn defence of Sandepu by a Japanese Cavalry Brigade. We cannot help wishing that Sir John French would quote and confirm an opinion like this, flatly contradicted though it is a little later,[2] and use his influence to erase from our own Cavalry Manual (p. 215) that disastrous injunction that the defences of a position which Cavalry have to hold should be "limited to those of the simplest kind."
If the words "attack" and "defence" have a fatal fascination for both the German and the British authors, General von Bernhardi is equally influenced by another verbal formula, and that is "the combination of Cavalry combat" (or, what is the same thing to him, mounted combat—that is, shock-combat) "with dismounted fighting." "The rôle of Cavalry in the fight will then apparently consist," he says on page 106, "of a combination of the various methods of fighting." It is a tempting formula, tempting by its very vagueness, and calculated on that account to appeal, perhaps, to the less hopelessly conservative German Cavalry officers; but it remains throughout his book literally a formula. How the thing is to be done in practice, how shock is to be "combined" with fire, he never attempts, even from a speculative point of view, to explain. It may sound perhaps easy enough. In the war of 1861-1865, which he professes to take as his model, it undoubtedly was possible, if by no means easy. But times have changed. The modern rifle, whose profound influence on combat he admits, has made impossible the old formations. In his own phrase, it has revolutionized war. It enforces a degree of extension which renders impracticable those sudden transformations to close mass which alone can lead to shock, while the zone of danger it creates is so far-reaching that these mass formations on horseback cannot subsist. The conditions which used to permit leaders to resolve on shock have vanished. The fire-zone used to be so limited that bodies of Cavalry could hang on its outer limit, and seize the rare opportunities which might arise for a short gallop ending in shock. Now we have to deal with artillery and rifles of immense range and deadliness. And if by a miracle you do get into close quarters in your mass formation, you find—crowning disillusionment!—nothing solid on which to exert shock. You used to find it a century ago, because men used to fight in close order, but science has altered that. However, that point does not immediately arise from the question of "combination." The narrow issue there is how to effect the transition from fire to shock, and there is not a word in this volume to elucidate the point. There is not a word in our own Cavalry Manual. The thing has never been done in modern war. The combination of shock and fire tactics is an academical speculation. What we know is that shock has failed, and that the open-order rifle-charge, which has superseded the shock-charge, is evolved naturally from the fire-fight. You must, in the words of Lord Roberts, fight up to the charge, if charge there be; but you can win, as Infantry can win, without any mounted charge at all.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] See infra, pp. 122-123.
TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS