German Influence on British Cavalry

by Erskine Childers

Then, why, we ask, all this reasoned instruction about Cavalry making its way to the crisis and delivering its charge? Why not have said at the outset that their normal action must be something quite different? Instruction for remote improbabilities is practically useless. What the commander wants to know is what to do as a general rule, especially when a wrong decision may, owing to the extent of the battle-field, involve him in ignominious impotence. Such is Cavalry literature. Serious men in any other walk of life would not tolerate exposition of this sort.

We discover now that the Cavalry are not, after all, to make their way to the crisis and charge. That was conventional rhetoric. In reality they are to act on the rear of the hostile army, "upon the reserves, the column of supply, the heavy Artillery, etc." "It is here that opportunities for decisive action must be sought." Well, obviously that is a different proposition altogether. Why not have begun with it? Habit—just the irresistible habit of associating Cavalry with shock, and of calling shock their "proper rôle," although it is only their "exceptional" rôle. For, of course, such action as the author now indicates is purely a matter of fire. That is why no such decisive attack upon the rear of a great Army has ever in recent times been accomplished by European Cavalry. The Cavalries of the sixties and seventies in the last century were absolutely incapable of such action, owing to their lack of fire-power. He is no doubt thinking of his model war, the American struggle of 1861-1865, and if he were truly candid, he would tell his countrymen that the brilliant exploits of the Civil War leaders in raiding communications and "hostile reserves" were performed solely through the rifle.

The author is perfectly aware that the modern rifle has five times the power of the rifle of 1865, but he has not the courage of his own opinions, and descends to misty compromise. "Such action must, of course, be conducted with a due co-operation between mounted and dismounted action." What is the use of a rule like that? "Against intact hostile reserves the firearm will be principally used." Why "principally"? Will not these intact reserves, to say the least, "take up a defensive attitude," and therefore render a fire-attack, according to his own repeatedly formulated rule, absolutely indispensable? "Against columns of waggons it will be well to commence by fire-action." Why "commence" only? Is there no lesson from South Africa here? On what single occasion were lances and swords of the smallest value in attacks on transport? Not on one. And on how many occasions did mounted riflemen, destitute of these weapons, capture transport and guns and rout reserves? We all know—Sir John French knows—what our troops suffered in this way. Why does he not warn his countrymen, instead of telling them that these German speculations are brilliant, logical, conclusive, complete?

Look once more at the great Manchurian battles. Observe, for example, the great battle of Mukden, (with its awful record of massacre by firearms), when a Japanese Cavalry brigade, acting with Nogi's turning force, endeavoured to operate on the Russian rear. It was miserably weak numerically, and it failed to accomplish anything "decisive"; but it did wonders, as it was, purely through fire. Has any critic, however enamoured of the arme blanche, ever suggested that, however strong, it could have accomplished anything with the lance and sword? The very suggestion is preposterous. Fire ruled that terrific struggle from first to last. Look at Mishchenko's pitiful Cavalry raid on the Japanese communications in January, 1905; and observe the shame which overtakes Cavalry who cannot fight on foot: whole brigades paralyzed by squads of isolated riflemen, reminding us only too painfully of Dronfield and Poplar Grove; Cossacks pathetically charging stone walls with drawn swords; disaster and humiliation clouding the whole sordid drama. Sir John French's contribution to our enlightenment on the Manchurian War, in his Introduction to Bernhardi's first book, "Cavalry in Future Wars," was that the Cossacks failed through excess of training as riflemen. He has not repeated that statement in his Introduction to the second book. He scarcely could.

All the world knows the truth now—namely, that the Cossacks, as one who rode with them said, "once dismounted, were lost." They did not know how to handle rifles, and all their humiliations may be traced to that fact. Nor did the Japanese Cavalry at first, and they were equally impotent. But they learnt, and learnt to admirable purpose, as the records show. If he cannot repeat and confirm what he said in his first Introduction, why is Sir John French altogether silent on the point in his second Introduction? Well, it was an awkward dilemma for him; for Bernhardi himself (p. 97), in his chapter on Raids, alludes to Mishchenko's raid in highly significant, though characteristically obscure, language. And if he follows up the clue, the reader may understand why it is that only on this one solitary question of raids, out of all the multitude of topics dealt with in the two books, Sir John French "ventures to differ" from the German author, pronouncing, for his own part, against them. Von Bernhardi expressly founds his advocacy of the raid on the American Civil War. "The idea," he says naïvely, "is taken" from that war. As though the Boers who made the raids of 1901, of which he never seems to have heard, took their ideas from that war or any other! Their ideas were the fruit of their own common sense. Now, the Civil War is particularly dangerous ground in England for advocates of the arme blanche, although it is safe enough ground in Germany, where nobody studies it, and where there has been no Henderson to immortalize the exploits of the great Cavalry leaders. Fire, and fire alone, rendered the American raids possible.

I need scarcely say that there is no incongruity in discussing together the raid proper and the attack on the reserves and communications of a great Army from which my digression originated. The weapon factor is precisely the same in both. Rifles are rifles and lances are lances, whatever the strategical or tactical scheme which bring them into play.

We turn lastly to the rôle of that portion of theoretically indivisible Cavalry mass which is maintained as a "reserve behind the front" (p. 204). The author's method is the same: first, to expound at length the duties and powers of this body as though they were its normal duties and powers, and then to state that these normal duties and powers—in other words, the "proper rôle"—of the force concerned are, in nine cases out of ten, impracticable and visionary. He first represents the great mounted charge as the primary object, the great mounted charge, moreover, against Infantry; for in this case there will be little chance, he says, of having "to deal with the hostile Cavalry." He proceeds to lay down the truly delightful maxim that the force is to mass behind "that part of the fighting line where the ground is adapted for a charge of large masses," though he has taken great trouble to show in the previous chapter, quite correctly, that this is precisely the kind of ground upon which important struggles will not centre. Then, in flat defiance of all he has said about charges against Infantry, he advocates what in effect is our old discredited friend the "death ride" against unshaken and victorious Infantry (p. 208), "in order to relieve our own exhausted Infantry," etc. The Cavalry are to "ride through the hostile Infantry, and fall upon the Artillery," although we know already that the author "can conceive no case in which Cavalry can break through detachments of all arms," and that an enemy who takes up even a defensive attitude can only be attacked by dismounted action. But in a flash of recollection of a prior maxim, he enjoins that not only the preliminary deployment, but the formation for attack in widely extended order, must take place "beyond the effective range of the enemy's fire"; for "once outside this zone ... nothing else can be done but to gallop straight for the front." Beyond the effective range of the enemy's fire! What is that range? He has told us before that it must, for average purposes, be reckoned 6,500 yards, or nearly four miles. Conceive a charge of four miles, begun out of sight of the enemy, and in the blissful confidence that at the end of it the "ground will be suitable" for fighting on horseback with steel weapons! He proceeds in this strain for four pages, elaborating his topic with detailed tactical instructions, and then comes the usual nullifying paragraph:

"It must be clearly understood that in this case, as in the other where the Cavalry is on the flank of the army, there will seldom be an opportunity for a charge." What, then, if not a charge? Half a page of fervid generalization. "The first essential is that victory shall be won.... The Cavalry must not shrink from employing its whole force on the fire-fight." We are bidden, rightly enough, to study the ancient lesson of Fredericksburg. But it is now 1911. And we know what the author's views of the fire-fight for Cavalry are—that, owing to the burden of led horses, it is never on any account to be attempted, unless there is an assurance of complete moral, tactical, and numerical superiority. Cadit quæstio once more. Our reserve becomes a dummy.

There remain two topics in connection with the great pre-arranged battle of all arms—"Pursuit and Retreat" and the "Rôle of the Divisional Cavalry." I shall take the latter first, and, with little comment, merely appeal to the reader's sense of humour. "In the battle of all arms," says the General, "as soon as fighting contact has been established with the enemy, and the close and combat reconnaissance is then probably at an end, the divisional Cavalry must endeavour to gain touch with the Army Cavalry in order to strengthen the latter for the battle. In so doing it must not, of course, lose all connection with its own Infantry division." Remember that the Army Cavalry is, by hypothesis, well outside our flank of a battle area which may be of any extent from ten to seventy miles. Picture the various divisional Cavalries along this front endeavouring to "gain touch" with the Army Cavalry, while not losing connection with their own respective divisions.