War and the Arme Blanche

by Erskine Childers

In encounters on horseback with other steel horsemen (assumed, as before, to be pure steel horsemen) it may in a sense be said to be used both in defence and offence, but these encounters do not immediately concern us. If two bodies of horse agree to settle accounts in that way, that is their own affair. The best swordsmen and riders will win. We are contrasting fire and steel, and the steel as against riflemen is only used in offence—why will soon appear. We must picture, then, our steel horseman as acting offensively.

Now, in the physical sphere, while the improvements in the firearm have greatly increased both the zone and degree of the horseman’s vulnerability, there is nothing to redress the balance in favour of the horse or the steel weapon. Both the speed of the former and the efficacy of the latter remain practically constant quantities from age to age. By comparison with firearms, steel weapons may be said to be incapable of improvement. As missiles they have been obsolete for centuries. As manual implements their range is the range of a man’s arm, plus their own length. They cannot be used at any point short of actual contact with the enemy, a point which must be reached with the rider in the saddle, while the growth in the destructive efficacy of the firearm, directed against so large a target as that presented by rider and animal combined, has steadily reduced the horseman’s power of reaching that point without mishap. Even after he reaches it, he still presents the same large area of vulnerable surface as compared with a man on foot.

On the other hand, if and when he obtains contact, he gains in two ways. His weapon gains in efficacy relatively to the firearm, since for the moment the factor of range has been equalized, or almost equalized. Secondly, his horse has a new merit, its weight; but this is not an individual, but a collective merit, only developed by the combined weight of many horses.

That brings me to a consideration of the steel weapon’s sole function in war—the shock charge. We are to regard the man now as a member of a mass. He and his comrades, by the impact due to the united momentum of their horses, aim at producing “shock,” with its stunning physical effect on the defence. Aided by shock, they use their steel weapons.

Now, what are the necessary conditions for the production of genuine shock? First, the horsemen must attack in dense formation, precisely the formation which offers the best target for rifle-fire. Second, in order to make shock effective, the riflemen who are the object of attack must also be in tolerably dense formation, otherwise there is nothing substantial on which to exert shock. This, of course, is one of the greatest of the modern limitations to shock, for the whole tendency in war is towards loose and away from dense formations, the cause being the increased efficacy of firearms.

Thirdly, since the ground must be covered at high speed and with absolute cohesion in order to obtain momentum and to minimize vulnerability, the ground must in every case be such as to permit of high speed, fairly smooth, fairly level, fairly open, and, above all, continuously practicable up to the supreme moment of contact. Any concealed obstruction or entanglement met with in traversing the danger zone may irretrievably compromise the charge. For true shock a ragged, disjointed impact is useless. Clean, sharp, and shattering impact is the only end worth attainment. The ground may fulfil all these requirements up to the last few yards, but in the last few yards a sunk ditch, a wire fence, not to speak of more visible obstacles, such as hedges, walls, earthworks, or any of the common features of an ordinary defensive position, may render the whole enterprise nugatory. If the reader will bear in mind the average character of ground in European countries, he will recognize another serious limitation to the employment of shock.

Fourthly, supposing that all the conditions hitherto enumerated are satisfied, speed is still dependent on the freshness of the horses. Whatever their exertions in the performance of the innumerable and highly responsible duties of Cavalry not necessarily involving combat, the horses must be capable, whenever and wherever the opportunity occurs, of a vigorous gallop, ending with the super-gallop known as the “charge,” at this supreme moment—the one and only moment in which the steel horseman fulfils his rôle. Modern war proves this standard of freshness to be chimerical. In peace-training you may compromise on speed as much as you please, and in point of fact the rigorous directions of “Cavalry Training” (p. 125) are often diluted to a canter ending in a short gallop. Futile compromise! The less speed, the greater and longer the vulnerability of the mass, and the less shock.

Here are four conditions for the effective exercise of shock, each stringent, and, since they must all be satisfied, of a fourfold cumulative stringency. Note again the absence of analogy with the bayonet, which is fixed to the rifle, and comes into use only at the climax of a fire-fight on foot. The four conditions may be mitigated genuinely by one circumstance, which I shall refer to later. At the moment I wish to refer to an alleged mitigation which embraces a profound fallacy, and I beg for the reader’s particular attention to this point, for it is largely on that fallacy, at any rate in our own country, that the arme blanche continues to thrive.

Recall the first two conditions, which may be regarded as counterparts of one another—density of formation, both in the attacking and defending force. The reader will easily understand why the latter condition is so necessary. To propel a massed body of horsemen against an extended line of riflemen is a wasteful expenditure of effort. There will be no shock worth the name, while the mass in motion is almost as vulnerable a target to rifles as though the defence too were massed; fire is convergent instead of direct, that is all. But supposing the horsemen follow suit, and charge in loose, extended order? So they may, but in that case also they will not produce shock, which is the indispensable condition for the successful use of the steel weapon. Here is the heart of the whole matter. Though there is, of course, no fixed moment when shock may be said to disappear, it is plain that with every additional yard of extension, either in the attacking or defending line, or both, shock, which means the violent physical impact of a united body, must diminish. It is equally plain that in proportion to this diminution of shock the chances of the steel weapon rapidly dwindle and the retaliatory power of the rifleman rapidly increases. He is now an individual pitted against a rival individual who has lost the collective power due to mass, while he retains the vulnerability due to large surface presented by his horse. On these terms the rifleman has an immense advantage. He has room to move in, a longer range for his far more deadly weapon, and breathing-time. Let the student beware, then, when he finds it laid down in the textbook that Cavalry, when attacking Infantry, are to charge in “extended order” with the steel weapon.[^[12]] No thoroughly logical upholder of shock—no German, for example—would be guilty of such a solecism. Bernhardi recommends, at the utmost, a “loosening of the files” from the jammed, knee-to-knee rigidity of the charge, as it is to be employed against horsemen. “Only closed lines on a broad front can be relied upon for success.”[^[13]] Our idea of extension could only come from confusion of thought in a period of transition. The reader must watch this point most carefully when we come to illustrations from the South African War. Is there, then, no opportunity for horsemen to charge in extended order? Of course there is; but not for horsemen using the steel. I shall come to the other type in a moment.

I have dealt with the fallacious source of mitigation. Now for the true source—surprise. This factor of course favours the attack, not only of steel horsemen, but of all horsemen, and, indeed, of all troops in any phase of military effort. But it is the soul of mounted effort, because surprise is derived from mobility, and the horse is the instrument of mobility. Surprise, therefore, can mitigate any of the rigorous conditions imposed on shock. For example, the extended riflemen may be caught in flank so suddenly that they can neither develop fire before contact nor deploy frontally to meet it. Or massed infantry may be caught in column of route. But in all cases the degree of surprise requisite can only be measured by the rigour of the conditions, and experience proves, admittedly, that under modern conditions an enormous degree of surprise is necessary for the success of shock against riflemen. On the whole we shall not be far wrong if we lay it down, as Bernhardi plainly indicates, that the best, if not the only, opportunity for the steel against riflemen is in the pursuit of utterly demoralized troops. Here the least degree of shock is necessary, with a corresponding slackening in the rigour of the conditions of shock, but, be it noted, with a corresponding diminution in the efficacy of the steel, which, as I pointed out, is closely dependent on shock. If we reach a point when no shock is possible, the steel becomes no more useful than the rifle.