German Influence on British Cavalry

by Erskine Childers

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS

("Die Feuerwaffe beherrscht die Taktik")

I.—General von Bernhardi on South Africa.

"The rifle (or literally, the firearm) rules tactics." The phrase was originally my own, but the General has done me the honour of adopting and sanctioning it, and I may fitly bring this criticism of his writings to a conclusion by briefly noting the occasion and origin of this remarkable admission. My book, "War and the Arme Blanche," was published in March, 1910, a month before the publication in England of his own second work, "Cavalry in War and Peace," whose consideration we have just concluded. In the course of the summer of 1910 the General published a series of articles in the Militär Wochenblatt criticizing my book, and those articles were translated and printed in the Cavalry Journal of October, 1910.

The critic covers limited ground. He makes no rejoinder or allusion of any sort to my own chapter of detailed criticism upon his own earlier work, "Cavalry in Future Wars." He scarcely notices my discussion of the Manchurian War. He confines himself almost wholly to the South African War, and makes it plain (1) that his knowledge of that war is exceedingly deficient; (2) that his principal explanation for the comparative failure of our Regular Cavalry in that war was that they were timidly led; (3) that he had misunderstood the nature of the case which I had endeavoured to construct against the arme blanche, and that, so far as he did understand it, he agreed with my conclusions.

1. Internal evidence shows—what one would naturally infer from the extraordinary conceptions of the technique of fire-action for mounted troops developed in his book—that the General[7] has never studied closely the combats of our war, except, perhaps, in such publications as the German Official History, which leaves off at March, 1900, practically ignores the mounted question, regards the Boers throughout as Infantry (presumably because, though mounted, they did not carry lances and swords), and, as a result of this method of exposition, is of no value towards the present controversy. Unfamiliar with the phenomena of our war, the General nevertheless taunts me, who argued solely from the facts of war and went not an inch beyond the facts, with being a "speculative theorist"—a taunt which comes strangely from an author who declares in his current volume (p. 7) that "the groundwork of training" for modern Cavalry can only be created from "speculative and theoretical reflection." He proceeds further to obliterate my humble personality by remarking that I am "naturally devoid of all war experience," and that he would never have taken the trouble to discuss the subject at all if Lord Roberts had not declared his agreement with what I had written. The personal point, of course, is wholly immaterial, and I welcome his perfectly correct choice of an opponent. But his spontaneous allusion to war experience raises a somewhat important point. Until reading the words, I had never dreamed that my own war experience was a serious factor in the discussion. I have never alluded to it or argued from it; but since the point is raised, let me say to General von Bernhardi that, in common with some hundreds of thousands of my countrymen here or in the Colonies, I have had, in a very humble capacity, a certain kind of war experience, of which he, as a reflective theorist, stands in bitter need. We have seen the modern rifle at work in what he calls "real war." We have seen what he has only reflected about and imagined—the revolution wrought by it on the battle-field since the days of 1870. He has not; and if he had, he would have avoided many of the painful solecisms and blunders which disfigure his work, enlightened as that work is by comparison with the retrograde school he attacks.

2. Timid Leading.—The Boers, says the General, were a "peasant militia," who were "tied to their ox-waggons," "incapable of assuming the offensive on a large scale," in "disappearing smaller numbers against greatly superior numbers," "not often strong enough either to charge the English Cavalry or to attack the English Infantry," "directed by halting leadership," and so on—altogether, according to the General's standards, a most contemptible foe, hardly worthy of the steel of a respectable professional Cavalry, and certainly not the kind of foe to force such a Cavalry to abandon its traditional form of combat. But there was the rub. Our Cavalry, it seems, was even more contemptible. They "made no relentless pursuits, despite the lack of operative mobility in the enemy"; "they did not attack even when they had the opportunity"; and "one could scarcely find a European Cavalry which was tied down to such an extent during the big operations as the Boers, or one which, against such little resistance, did not try to overcome it as the English." He cites the action of Dronfield,[8] where Sir John French was in command, as a specific instance, and in as plain language as it is possible to use without penning the word "cowardice," accuses the Cavalry present of that unpardonable crime. "Mr. Childers," he remarks with perfect truth, "relates the story without any spite to show the little value of English Cavalry equipment and training. I think it shows much beside."[9] (The italics are mine.)

I do not know if this kind of thing will finally compel Sir John French to examine more thoroughly the foundations of his own belief in the lance and sword, and to apply more searching criticism to the works of the "acknowledged authority" whom he lauds to the skies as a model and Mentor for British Cavalrymen. I should hope that, on their behalf, he now resents as hotly as I resent the contemptuous patronage of an officer holding and expressing the view that "any European Cavalry"—and he afterwards expressly names the German Cavalry—would have shown more aggressive spirit in South Africa than our own—more aggressive spirit, be it understood, with the lance and sword; for if that be not the meaning, the General's lengthy appreciation of the worth and exploits of the rival forces in South Africa is, in its context, as part of a hostile criticism of my work, either destructive of his own argument or meaningless. Sir John French refuses to read through British eyes the plain moral of the war for Cavalry. This is his reward, and it is of no use to pretend that he does not deserve it. Anyone who throws the dearly-bought experience of his own countrymen to the winds, and runs to foreigners who have no relevant experience for corroboration of an outworn creed, gratuitously courts the same humiliation.

Perhaps I make too much of a point of pride. Let Sir John French at any rate see the amusing side of the situation. He has set forth[10] his own four reasons for the failure of the lance and sword in South Africa: (1) The lightning speed of the Boers in running away from combat—a habit which left our Cavalry nothing even to reconnoitre; (2) the fact that our military object was nothing less than the complete conquest and annexation of the enemy's country; (3) that, owing to the release of prisoners who fought again against us, we had to contend with double the number of men nominally allowed for; (4) the condition of the horses.

The last factor the German author does not pretend to take seriously as an explanation of the failure of the Cavalry; and with regard to the first three his view, as far as it receives clear expression, is diametrically the reverse of that of Sir John French. So far from alleging that the Boers "dispersed for hundreds of miles when pressed," he dwells repeatedly on the immobility imposed by their ox-waggons, says that they were "tied down" to an unparalleled extent, and censures the Cavalry for what he regards as their unparalleled slackness in attack against such a vulnerable and unenterprising enemy. So far from agreeing that there was "nothing to reconnoitre," he points out that the Cavalry "did not understand reconnaissance by Cavalry patrols," a statement true enough in itself, but valueless without the reason—namely, the mistaken armament and training of the Cavalry—a reason which would, of course, have applied with infinitely greater force to "any other European Cavalry," because no Cavalry but our own would have had the invaluable assistance of Colonial mounted riflemen, armed and trained correctly. So far from finding an excuse for the failure of the lance and sword in the fact that our aim was conquest and annexation, he appears in the last page of his article to argue that, had these weapons been used more "relentlessly," the British nation would not now be in what he evidently regards as the degrading situation of having Boers on a footing of political equality with British citizens! Finally, so far from pleading the abnormal accretions to the Boer Army through the release of captured prisoners, he makes a particular point of our vast numerical superiority and of the "disappearing smaller numbers" of the enemy.