To proceed: “It must be remembered that the mounted rifleman cannot fight on horseback. He has no weapon for that purpose, so that his only means of taking the offensive is to act on foot.... If in open country, the mounted rifleman cannot hope to meet the Cavalryman mounted. In these circumstances he is practically unarmed; for the firmest believer in the rifle will scarcely maintain that the rifle-fire of mounted men is a serious quantity; anyone who has experienced it knows how perfectly ineffective it is.” Well, I leave the reader to judge of the soundness of all this, in view of our experiences in South Africa. It reads like a dream. Is it, to say the least, an adequate treatment of the theme? Surely it would be wiser to make some overt reference to the fine examples of aggressive mobility shown by our Colonial irregulars, or to the Boer charges, if only for the sake of proving their negligibility. This particular passage may have been written before Mr. Goldman (whose narrative of the war ends at Komati Poort) had had full opportunity to study final developments, but his book was published in 1903; he was cognizant when he wrote, at any rate, of Sannah’s Post, and in his preface to, and notes upon Bernhardi (1906 and 1909), he maintains an equally icy silence upon the achievements of mounted riflemen in South Africa, until a passage of warm praise from Bernhardi himself extorts from him the footnote, inaccurate as to facts and mistaken in criticism, which I quoted in the last chapter (p. 254).

I need not pursue this quotation further. The writer eventually admits that in an “enclosed country” (what of the South African terrain?) the mounted rifleman has a certain value, but the most he will yield is that here the “mounted rifleman and the Cavalryman are on an equality.” Truly, an astonishing conclusion! Surely part of this Appendix must have been written before the war and left unrevised? Even then the writer was old-fashioned, for the Mounted Infantry Regulations of 1899, while warning that arm in a general way that they “needed the assistance of Cavalry,” told them that when they cannot get this assistance, their “best security was to be keeping in broken, intersected, woody, or marshy ground, where they would have a great advantage over Cavalry.” It is indisputable that men who spend their whole time in practising rifle-tactics, must be more efficient than men who spend half or more than half their time on shock-tactics. The strange thing is, that Mr. Goldman, in another connection, himself quotes the official warning with approval, as putting the mounted riflemen in their right place. Yet, we may well ask, when in South Africa did mounted riflemen ask for the assistance of Cavalry—that is to say, of Cavalry “as such,” to use General French’s expression? How often, on the other hand, did Cavalry, as such, ask for the support of mounted riflemen, as such?

And these mounted riflemen of ours, who came in so many thousands from so many lands, to do such splendid and such absolutely indispensable work for the Empire? Not a single allusion to them either in this essay or in the Preface to Bernhardi. Boers alone are used for illustration. Anyone without knowledge of the war would infer that the whole of the mounted work on our side had been done by Cavalry. Nor is the conversion of the Cavalry themselves into mounted riflemen mentioned.

One further question of definition before I proceed to the “peculiarities” of the war. What does Mr. Goldman mean by “shock”? He does not define it, nor does “Cavalry Training,” wisely enough, attempt a definition; but under the heading “Shock Action” (p. 410), he adduces as an example of shock the Klip Drift charge, where the Cavalry files were eight yards apart, and the immediate objective of the charge was a sprinkling of extended skirmishers. I should weary the reader if I again exposed this fallacy at length. Shock means impact. This charge was not shock, by any interpretation of that word, nor in the sense in which Bernhardi or any European Cavalry understands it. It was the right pattern of charge, but, as after experience proved, it was essentially the pattern of charge appropriate to mounted riflemen, and it was through blindness to this fundamental difference that the Cavalry never made another like it.

Now for Mr. Goldman’s “abnormalities.”

1. Terrain.—To take this point first, as the least important. Indeed, I scarcely know whether to take it seriously or not. It is rarely expressed elsewhere, and I think Mr. Goldman himself regards it as a desperate resource. After saying, broadly, that “certain physical and local conditions go far to explain why the Cavalry were not more effective with the lance and sabre,”[[67]] he complains that the “boundless plains” were “seamed with ridges and watercourses,” while “the shock-tactics of Cavalry require open ground free from large obstructions like rocky kopjes, thick bush, and strong fences” (i.e., wire fences, which, as he admits, were easily cut, and in time became no hindrance). But, while condemning, apparently, the whole of the Transvaal, he cautiously admits that in the Free State “the conditions were favourable.” Was there ever a more remarkable example of under-statement? What does he expect? Where is his ideal battle-ground of the future? Taken as a whole, South Africa, though its rolling plains were not quite so flat or so free from fences and dongas as the plains of Northern Manchuria, may be regarded as one of the most perfect manœuvring grounds for Cavalry which the civilized world contains. Of course, there were “obstructions” even in the most favourable areas, and, of course, these obstructions had a way of coming into prominence when fighting was afoot. Battles are not fought on billiard-tables. One side or the other usually seeks defensible positions. And why should Cavalry complain of irregularities? How effect surprise on a dead-level plain? It was by using irregularities that mounted riflemen won their most brilliant successes in South Africa. Shock is extinct, precisely because the ground which it imperatively demands makes Cavalry most vulnerable to fire and least capable of surprise.

2. Bad Condition of Horses and Poor Remounts.—I dealt with this point in Chapters VI. and VII. The difficulties of the long voyage and acclimatization, and the imperfections of the remount system, are well known. A preventable cause of wastage, careless management and riding, is also scarcely disputed. On the debatable point of over-weight,[over-weight,] Mr. Goldman, in a separate Appendix, contends that the horses were needlessly over-loaded. All causes together do not explain away tactical facts covering two years. The more closely these facts are scrutinized—even those of actions like Poplar Grove, where the excuse has been most loudly raised—the less adequate the explanation. On inspection it always turns out that the enemy’s skill with the firearm, and our own deficiencies in that respect, are the principal cause of imperfect achievement. Where the Cavalry showed skill with the firearm there they obtained their tactical successes, irrespective of the condition of their horses. In the excellent Colesberg operations no complaint was raised about the horses. When were sabres drawn? Once, but without result, owing to delaying rifle-fire. In the arduous operations for the relief of Kimberley, when the horses were at their worst, the Cavalry achieved their most important success, by intercepting and containing Cronje. On the strategical aspect of these operations, the use of lance and sabre, as combatant weapons, had no bearing whatever. Men do not ride better or quicker for carrying steel weapons; on the contrary, the extra weight and the habits instilled by the shock theory are a hindrance to mobility. Tactically, the Cavalry succeeded or failed in proportion to their skilful or unskilful use of carbine and horse combined; succeeded signally at the Drifts, where they held up Cronje; failed signally in the pursuit north from Kimberley. On the Natal side, the Cavalry horses were as fresh at Talana, a case of failure, as at Elandslaagte, the solitary case of a successful charge. As for Poplar Grove, which Mr. Goldman singles out for illustration, let me give his own words: “How could horses pursue a fleet and mobile enemy after a long day’s engagement, in which they had covered forty miles, and had turned the Boers out of position after position?” How indeed? Does Mr. Goldman seriously expect or demand that in our next war, after four months of hostilities we shall be provided with super-horses capable of the kind of feat suggested—that is, of beginning a galloping pursuit after fighting over forty miles of country? But this is a case where the reading of facts makes such a difference. In point of fact the conditions of pursuit began to be present after twelve miles. The full forty miles can only be arrived at (as I pointed out in my narrative) by counting the unnecessary détours and countermarches caused by failure to break down or ride past trivial flank and rear-guards. In these and many other later operations I have pointed out the intimate connection between horse-wastage and deficiency in direct aggressive power.

From the capture of Bloemfontein to the end of the war the complaint about horses has less and less force. The remount system, of course, was greatly improved. Although the difficulty of acclimatizing foreign animals was never properly overcome, owing to the ceaselessly voracious demands of the field-columns, horses poured into South Africa from all quarters of the globe at an enormous rate, while no less than 158,000 native South African ponies (exclusive of large numbers captured on the veld) were supplied by the Remount Department. Whatever the condition of the horses from time to time, the tactical incidents are of the same general character. Nor, it need scarcely be added, was the disability confined to the Cavalry. All our mounted troops were similarly affected, and the Boers, in spite of their possession of the hardy native pony, must be regarded as being on the whole in a worse position. From first to last they were confined to their domestic supply, and, as I have pointed out, from Paardeberg onwards they suffered considerably from shortage of horses.[[68]] Their advantages were a light load and good horsemanship.

Lastly, let me remind the reader of what I believe to be the real gist and essence of this complaint about horses. The theory of shock among several other rigorous conditions presupposes the presence at any and every moment of fresh horses capable of bearing down upon their objective at a gallop, and during the last fifty yards at the “charge,” and in perfect formation. This condition alone is enough to make shock a negligible factor in future wars—if, that is, Cavalry are going to play the great part in war which they should play, but which they have not played for the last forty years. Mounted riflemen are subject to no such conditions, and would lose half their value if they were. Picture a Boer charge—the little grass-fed ponies breaking from their “trippling” trot to what would correspond in European Cavalry to a moderate canter.

3. Lack of Opportunity.—From ground and horses we pass to the more important part of Mr. Goldman’s case for “abnormality.”[[69]] Though he never admits that Cavalry work fell short in any respect in South Africa, he is evidently conscious that this perfection needs much special proof, and he falls back on the proposition that they did not have a proper chance of distinguishing themselves in their own special line. Two absolutely distinct causes—the one domestic, the other external—are represented as having produced this lack of opportunity: