German Influence on British Cavalry

by Erskine Childers

This is no idle question, and these are no hair-splitting criticisms, because the rules are held to differ in important respects in these various types of combats. In the battle of encounter there are some exceedingly dim indications of an opening for the steel, but an attack upon a "locality" "can obviously only be carried out dismounted" (p. 165). Pass by the old fallacious antagonism between mounted action and rifle action, and regard the essence of this proposition. Once again you have the refutation of the steel theory. The sentence means "fire governs combat." He who fires compels his enemy to accept combat on terms of fire.

But "Where am I?" the harassed student may exclaim. "What of these steel-charges against extended Infantry (and, by inference, against dismounted Cavalry), whose fire enforced extension in the attacking Cavalry?" Well, let him read on. There is hope yet. For immediately after saying that an attack upon an enemy who takes up a defensive attitude can obviously only be carried out dismounted, he adds the sinister words: "It must be a matter, therefore, for serious consideration, whether such an operation shall be undertaken or not." The truth is that he has suddenly remembered those tiresome led horses. "There must be considerable numerical superiority to insure success." There must be a dismounted reserve for fire purposes, and a mounted reserve to secure the safety of the led horses, and "for reconnaissance and for operating against the enemy's flank and rear"; and then follows an acrimonious wrangle with the Regulations on the question of making one reserve, and that mounted, perform incompatible and contradictory functions. But, as usual, our sympathies are with the Regulations.

"Should the Cavalry commander not have at his disposal sufficient force to meet all these demands," says the General, "he will be generally better advised to abstain from the attack and to carry out his mission in some other manner...." "It is only when conscious of great moral and tactical superiority, or when there is any prospect of surprising the enemy, that an attack should be dared without the necessary numerical preponderance" (p. 166). In other words, after his reductio ad absurdum of the steel, the writer in the next breath proceeds to an equally conclusive reductio ad absurdum of the rifle. Any Cavalry leader who acted on the General's principles would be instantly sent home in disgrace. According to these principles, numerically equal bodies of Cavalry cannot fight one another at all unless in those "exceptional cases" where the ground is favourable for the "purely Cavalry fight," when there are no other Arms to complicate the situation, and where neither side even for a moment "takes up a defensive attitude" for any purpose whatever. If any one of these conditions is unsatisfied, the numerically equal forces are mutually paralyzed, and each must seek to "carry out its mission in some other manner." But, alas! by hypothesis there is no other manner. "The attack obviously can only be made dismounted." Presumably, then, these Cavalries are to do nothing at all in modern war.

I am not making an unfair use of isolated passages. In later portions of his work the General frequently repeats his warnings against fire-action without great numerical and moral superiority, though not, perhaps, so frequently and emphatically as he inveighs against impracticable shock-action. Under "VIII.—The Various Units in the Fight" (p. 239), we learn that a "squadron is generally too weak to carry out an offensive fight on foot." By the time you have abstracted horse-holders, "mounted and dismounted reserves," and "patrols and sentries," there is nothing left with which to fight. Similarly, a squadron must never "undertake a defensive fight on foot unless absolutely necessary, or when the led horses can be disposed in a safe place in the neighbourhood, where the flanks cannot be turned, or where the arrival of reinforcements can be relied on." Observe that there is no limitation here as to the strength of the enemy, no demand for numerical or moral superiority. The rule is almost absolute. A squadron can only charge on horseback. So that in average enclosed country, where charges cannot be arranged, two opposed squadrons must maintain a masterly inactivity. We think of the 74 isolated "Zarps" at Bergendal in their desperate defence against enormous odds, and of the 150 Griqualanders who defied a division of Cavalry for a whole day at Dronfield.

But the General is far from stopping with the squadron. "The regiment will seldom be called upon to fight independently, but will operate in more or less close co-operation with other troops." It can act dismounted, but only "against weaker hostile detachments." In defence, however, it is "formidable," because—strange reason—it can detach two whole squadrons to guard the led horses! Well, it is no wonder that the author neglects and discourages the study of modern war. Supposing De Wet, for example, had acted on his principles! His brilliant intervention at Paardeberg was made with 350 men. Or go to Manchuria. Naganuma's masterly raid of January to February, 1905, when he rode round the Russian army and blew up the great bridge of Hsin-kai-ho, was made with 172 Cavalrymen, who acted throughout solely by fire, and would have been impotent without it. The author professes to admire the exploits of the Americans in 1861-1865. What does he suppose their Cavalry leaders would have thought of his theories?

The brigade of two regiments, we learn next, is almost as feeble a unit as a regiment. "It cannot," he says vaguely, "engage an opponent of any strength who may have to be dealt with by mounted or dismounted action, or the two in combination." "In view of its small offensive power, it will run a great risk of suffering defeat, especially when dismounted." In defence, "if the led horses do not require too large an escort," etc., it "may be an important factor of strength."

The division of six regiments (of 400 men per regiment) is a somewhat more useful unit. "If its full strength can be employed in the charge," it "represents, even against troops using the rifle" (what troops? of what strength?), "a considerable fighting power." Nevertheless, it can attack "only weak detachments with a prospect of success." "The resistance of a body of equal strength" (a body of what? how composed?) "when circumstances demand a dismounted attack can never be overcome." Mounted, however, and "charging in close formation," it can attack even a stronger enemy (what sort of enemy?), "regardless of consequences."

Finally, a corps of two divisions "can aim at decisive results," and, alone of all units, can engage in "independent strategic missions," which we may suppose, without further explanation, to mean raids. But in these "fire-power is an important factor," and it is hinted that even the corps will not have enough fire-power.

The General complains that his writings "fall on barren soil." Well they may. Antiquated as the methods of the German Cavalry are, they at any rate intend to fight. A Cavalry educated on the maxims of the author might as well be left at home.

And this is the author that Sir John French, who knows what our own mounted riflemen did in South Africa, holds up as a model to our Cavalry. He has not one word of criticism, not a single reservation, to make on any of the passages I have quoted. On the contrary, he tells our men, in general terms, that it is all true, and implies that the greatest of his compatriot soldiers, Lord Roberts, makes "appeals from vanity to ignorance." A perusal of this chapter, and of Sir John French's effusive eulogy, ought to make every British soldier, home or colonial, indignant.