In conclusion, I would ask you, my brother officers, in whatever part of the Empire you may be serving, whether in the mounted or dismounted branches, whether in the Cavalry, Yeomanry, Mounted Infantry, or Colonial Mounted Corps, whether in the Artillery, Engineers, or Infantry, to read this book with an unbiassed mind, and not to be put off by the opening chapters, or to throw the book on one side with some such remark as, “This is written by a civilian, and what can he know of the subject?” Remember that most of our finest military histories have been written by civilians. I would ask you to study the facts for yourselves, weigh the arguments, follow the deductions, note the conclusions, and then do one of two things. Either traverse the facts, refute the deductions, and upset the conclusions, or admit the facts, agree to the arguments, acknowledge the deductions, and accept the conclusions.
WAR AND THE ARME BLANCHE
CHAPTER I
THE ISSUE AND ITS IMPORTANCE
My central purpose in this volume is to submit to searching criticism the armament of Cavalry. That armament now consists of a rifle and a sword in all regiments, with the addition of a lance in the case of Lancers. I shall argue that the steel weapons ought either to be discarded or denied all influence on tactics, and a pure type of mounted rifleman substituted for the existing hybrid type. I shall contrast the characteristics and achievements of this pure type with the characteristics and achievements of the hybrid type. I shall argue that a right decision in the case of Cavalry carries with it indirect consequences of the most far-reaching importance in regard to the efficient training of all our other mounted troops, regular or volunteer, home or colonial—troops which belong almost entirely to the pure type, but on whose training the mere existence of a hybrid type, with a theory of tactics derived from the steel, reacts unfavourably.
I cannot do better than begin by quoting two passages from page 187 of the latest edition of “Cavalry Training” (1907). They constitute an epitome of the case I wish to combat, and I challenge almost every proposition, express or implied, contained in them. The first runs as follows:
“From the foregoing it will be seen that thorough efficiency in the use of the rifle and in dismounted tactics is an absolute necessity. At the same time the essence of the Cavalry spirit lies in holding the balance correctly between fire-power and shock action, and while training troops for the former, they must not be allowed to lose confidence in the latter.”
Beginning with the first sentence, I challenge two assumptions implied in it: first, that “thorough efficiency in the use of the rifle and in dismounted tactics” (by hypothesis an absolute necessity) is compatible with thorough efficiency in shock action, also, by hypothesis, a necessity; second, that thorough efficiency with the rifle is confined to what the compilers of the drill-book call “dismounted tactics.” Passing to the second sentence of the same quotation, I challenge the definition of the “essence of the Cavalry spirit” there laid down. This definition is borrowed word for word from a German book, originally written before the Boer War and republished in 1902, when the war was ending, by an officer—the distinguished General Bernhardi—who founded his conclusions not on experience but on report, and addressed those conclusions to the German Cavalry, whose tactics, training, and organization by his own admission were, and seemingly are still, so dangerously antiquated in the direction of excessive reliance on the steel as to present no parallel to our own Cavalry. I challenge the Cavalry spirit so defined because it is a hybrid spirit, impossible to instil and impossible to translate into “balanced” action, even if the steel deserved, as it does not deserve, to be “balanced” against the rifle. I challenge the definition still further, because it is not even an honest definition. Affecting to strike a just balance between the claims of the rifle and the steel, it does not represent the facts of existing Cavalry theory and practice in this country. Though borrowed from a German authority, it is even less to be relied on as representing the facts of German theory and practice, nor does it correspond to the general tenor of the very handbook—"Cavalry Training"—in which it appears. Those facts and that tenor find their really honest and truthful expression in the second quotation, which runs as follows:
“It must be accepted as a principle that the rifle, effective as it is, cannot replace the effect produced by the speed of the horse, the magnetism of the charge, and the terror of cold steel.”
I challenge both the form and the essence of the statement: its form because the words imply that “the speed of the horse and the magnetism of the charge” are exclusively connected with the use of the cold steel; its essence because the principle laid down is fundamentally unsound.
I want to induce all thinking men, whether professional soldiers or not, who take an interest in our military progress, to submit this theory of the arme blanche once and for all to drastic investigation, in the light of history—especially of South African history and Manchurian history—in the light of physical principles, and in the light of future Imperial needs. Above all, I want them to examine the case made for the theory by Cavalry men themselves, and to judge if that case rests upon an intelligent interpretation of new and valuable experience, or, rather, upon a stubborn adherence to an old tradition whose teaching they have indeed been forced to modify, but have not had the good sense to abandon. The principles laid down by professional men for the use of their own arm must of course exact the greatest respect, but they are not sacrosanct, and if they are found to rest on demonstrably false premisses they deserve to be discarded.