At Klip Drift, then, the conditions were abnormally favourable to the offence, and when we are seeking evidence concerning the effect of modern rifle-fire upon mounted troops in rapid movement, we must be careful to have these conditions in mind. Still, the facts are there, to be noted: complete success of the horsemen, practically no loss. If Klip Drift stood alone, we should at least be justified in assuming that, under certain circumstances, a large body of troops on horseback, boldly and skilfully led, could face rifle-fire with impunity. But Klip Drift does not stand alone. It is only one—and by no means the most interesting—of a great number of episodes illustrating the same problem, and proving that, under far less favourable conditions—whether of numbers, ground, dust, or surprise, and without support from Artillery—mounted men not only can pass a fire-zone unscathed, but make genuine destructive assaults upon riflemen and guns. But—and upon this reservation hangs the whole thesis I am upholding—the mounted men who do these things must be mounted riflemen, trained to rely on rifle and horse combined, and purged of all leanings towards shock. Otherwise they will not get their opportunities, or, if they accidentally get them, will not be able to use them.

This revolution in mounted tactics was not to come from the Cavalry. It should have come from them. With the exception of our raw Mounted Infantry, the Boer Police, and the small permanent corps maintained by the South African Colonies, they were the only professional mounted troops in the field of war. In them alone lay the tradition of the mounted charge in any shape or form. They alone had, in fact, put the mounted charge into practice. Theories apart, they alone were endowed by years of training with the drill and discipline requisite for that orderly deployment and swift united movement which were exhibited at Klip Drift, and which are the essential characteristics of any charge, under fire or not under fire, by whomsoever made, with whatsoever weapon, and for whatsoever purpose. Unique as the conditions were at Klip Drift, it seems strange that the true lesson did not enter the minds of French and the other Cavalry officers present. They cannot have imagined that shock had anything to do with success. The widely extended formation deliberately adopted was not peculiar to Cavalry, nor was speed peculiar to Cavalry: both were the natural attributes of all mounted troops. They must have realized, one would have thought, that the rifle was dominating the battle-field, causing those extended formations on both sides, preventing shock, and—because it was united with the horse—enabling the enemy to get away, alarmed, but without pursuit or appreciable loss, and ready to return shortly afterwards and to put up a good fight on the following day, again against superior numbers.

The bewildering paradox is that at bottom they did realize these things, though they did not reach the point of drawing the logical inference. Otherwise it is impossible to explain either Cavalry action up to this point or the general impression prevalent at the time of this charge, that it was an extraordinarily perilous and daring performance. Why perilous and daring if the Cavalry, with their steel weapon, are superior to mounted riflemen? If these Boer mounted riflemen had been represented by an equal or even a much greater number of Continental Cavalry, armed with short carbines like our own Cavalry, and relying mainly on the sword, would the performance have been then considered extraordinarily perilous and daring?

Questions of this sort ought, I submit, to expose to any unprejudiced mind the fallacies underlying the arme blanche theory. But what does the old school say? Let us turn to the German official critic’s remarks on Klip Drift, remembering the praise which has been showered upon his work, and that it is Germany which, even at this hour, inspires our Cavalry ideas. I quote the paragraph in full, as an example of the workings of the Cavalry mind and of its blindness to realities:

“This charge of French’s Cavalry division was one of the most remarkable phenomena of the war; it was the first and last occasion during the entire campaign that Infantry was attacked by so large a body of Cavalry, and its staggering success shows that, in future wars, the charge of great masses of Cavalry will be by no means a hopeless undertaking, even against troops armed with modern rifles, although it must not be forgotten that there is a difference between charging strong Infantry in front and breaking through small and isolated groups of skirmishers.”[[25]]

It will be seen that the writer’s method of evading the true moral is to call the Boers “Infantry.” In other words, he shuts his eyes to the whole point at issue. The Boers were not Infantry. They were mounted riflemen corresponding to German Cavalry, but with many added functions, and possessing the offensive and defensive power of Infantry. They had reached the field on horses—it might well have been that they could not have reached it in time without horses—they were acting in defence, dismounted, against crushing odds; but their horses were not far behind them, available for retreat, vulnerable also to attack. They left the field safely on these horses, and a number of them soon returned on these same horses to fulfil the vitally important function of masking the flank march of their own main body. Meanwhile, few as they were, they had compelled the Cavalry to conform to conditions imposed by the rifle and to take the line of least, not of most, resistance. If they had been German Cavalry of that date, trained primarily for shock, with poor firearms and little practice in skirmishing, they would not, in the first place, have had the confidence to take up the extended position which these men took up, unsupported and facing an army. And if they had taken it up, they could not possibly have rendered even a direct frontal attack, however conducted, in any degree dangerous except to Cavalry of exactly their own stamp. If, on the other hand, they had been Infantry, nothing but a miracle could have saved them from complete destruction without any charging at all. The most indifferent operations on their rear and flanks, either by our Cavalry or Mounted Infantry or Colonials, would have sufficed to pin them to their ground, while the Infantry, six times their strength, disposed of them. But, of course, the whole supposition is visionary. If they had been Infantry, they would not have been there at all.

In any case, had they been either Infantry or Cavalry, no critic would permit himself to speak of the “staggering success” of the day’s operations. But what becomes of sanity when that unfashionable type, the mounted rifleman, is in question, particularly if he is an “irregular”? Let the reader only take the trouble to substitute the words “mounted riflemen” for the word “Infantry” wherever it occurs in the German paragraph, and note the disastrous effect upon the Cavalry theories of the writer. It is like finding the key-word to a cipher.

But I may be misleading the reader by taking advantage of the German writer’s unconsciously ambiguous use of the word “Cavalry.” To him, as to all Germans, that word means mounted troops whose distinguishing feature is a steel weapon and the capacity for shock. As I have already explained, French’s troops were not acting as “Cavalry” in this sense. If they had been, there might be some ground for the tameness and caution of the German inference—namely, that in future wars such charges will be “by no means a hopeless undertaking”; an inference further qualified by the remark (perfectly true) that this was only a case of “breaking through small and isolated groups of skirmishers,” by a whole division, be it remembered. Surely a most damaging admission for an upholder of shock! We may wonder what the critic would have thought if he had stopped to the end of the war, and had seen the situation at Klip Drift reversed—800 Boers making a direct frontal charge upon three thousand stationary troops and several batteries of guns, and coming within measurable distance of success.

Such is Cavalry comment on Cavalry action. It is typical and authoritative, or I should not spend so much space on it. Mr. Goldman[[26]] speaks of the “madness” of the charge “according to all military rules,” of the “climax of daring” which prompted it, and of the justification it gave to “the advocates of bold Cavalry action.” Note the implied syllogism: Cavalry carry the arme blanche; this was a successful charge by Cavalry; therefore the arme blanche is justified. This is not to misinterpret Mr. Goldman, for in a special appendix devoted to proving the superiority of Cavalry over mounted riflemen, and under the heading “Shock Action,” he expressly instances this charge as testimony. The “Official History” is scarcely less misleading.[[27]] Without any instructional analysis of the physical and moral factors, it describes the charge as the most “brilliant stroke of the whole war.” Such indiscriminating extravagance of praise does a world of harm. The critic, in his hazy enthusiasm, mixes up two distinct aspects of the attack—its strategical and its tactical aspects. On the assumption, upon which French acted and was compelled to act, that Kimberley needed relief, and that it was worth while to wreck the Cavalry horses and neglect Cronje’s main force in order to effect this relief, he may truly be said to have carried out his strategical task brilliantly, even with allowance for the numbers under his control and for the co-operation of the Infantry. Tactically, too, upon the same assumption, he did the right thing promptly and well, and deserves all the higher credit because he was a pioneer in the experiment of subjecting horses to modern rifle-fire. But in a serious history uncoloured by the emotions of the day, to call the charge, regarded as a tactical feat, the most brilliant stroke in the war is an abuse of language which would not be tolerated for an instant if any other class of troops but Cavalry were in question. Judged by a reasonable standard of risks, numbers, and achievements, either set of combatants in any one of the bloody and stubborn fights at this date just beginning in Natal for the final relief of Ladysmith deserved more praise. Among mounted operations the attack at Bothaville (October, 1900), many other British attacks, and many Boer attacks, were more admirable.

What must follow logically from such exaggerated laudation? That it takes a division of Cavalry to pierce merely—not to roll up or shatter—a thin skirmishing line, and even then it is a brilliant feat. What, then, of future wars—Continental wars? At Klip Drift we can scarcely dissociate the leading brigade from the three following brigades. Practically the whole division was acting as a unit for one purpose. In the whole of the Crimean, Franco-Prussian, and Austro-Prussian Wars of the last century, there is not, so far as I am aware, a single instance of a division of Cavalry charging as one homogeneous unit. Rare were the charges of more than one regiment; rarer still those of more than one brigade.[[28]] In these wars large armies, approximately equal, were arrayed against one another. And the method was shock—exerted upon substantial bodies of men—true physical shock, for which mass cannot be too dense or coherence too close. Even if we cling to shock, and persuade ourselves that Klip Drift was an example of it, where are our standards?