We are prepared, then, for the inevitable. Since for Bernhardi Cavalry must have some “mounted” tactics, clearly those mounted tactics must be derived from the steel. Yet, by the end of Chapter iv., what a chasm seems to have intervened between the firearm and the steel! For the latter weapon he has, explicitly or implicitly, eliminated every combative opportunity save those of complete demoralization in the enemy. The General leaps the chasm with splendid intrepidity. Hitherto the natural inference from his writing is that the firearm has far surpassed the steel in importance, and in several later passages, after leaping the chasm, he speaks of its importance as “equal.” But in the first lines of Chapter v., “Tactical Leading in Mounted Combats,” when his revolutionary instincts must be curbed, all he admits is that dismounted action has “increased considerably in importance.” Then follows the explicit recantation, the confession of the true faith:
“It nevertheless remains the fact that the combat with cold steel remains the chief raison d’être of the Cavalry, and when the principles have to be considered according to which troops have to be employed upon the battle-field, the actual collision of Cavalry ‘masses’ remains the predominant factor.”
The logical hiatus, so familiar in all writers on shock, is complete. There is no attempt made to bridge it. One can almost hear the ghost of Frederick the Great whispering in the impious General’s ear: “What is all this despicable talk about dismounting? Betray the steel? Never!”
Remark that in making this sudden transition the General passes instantly from a general consideration of the uses of Cavalry in war, mainly fire-uses (where any weapon is mentioned at all), to the specific consideration of the “collision of Cavalry masses,” which I will assume for the moment to mean the inter-Cavalry shock fight, the absence of which, from modern battle-fields, he, like General French, seems to regard as unthinkable. “Battle-field,” in its context, evidently means “general battle-field of all arms.” Previously, in Chapter ii., he has referred to that other opportunity for the “Cavalry duel”—namely, in strategical reconnaissance by the independent Cavalry, where, also, I take him to assume that the duel is a shock duel. This battle-field “collision” is the “predominant factor,” and it is here, if I read his real inner meaning aright, and, for practical purposes, here only, that the steel weapon will find its opportunity.
‘If I read his real inner meaning aright;’ I am bound to make that reservation. One has to make such reservations in criticizing all “shock” literature at the present day, because the irruption of the unruly firearm into the sacred precincts of shock results in obscurities the task of unravelling which can only be compared to the elucidation of a difficult Greek text. Two incompatible things have to be reconciled, and it is beyond the wit of man to depict their reconciliation in clear and logical language. How easy it would have been for Bernhardi (if he really meant it) to say early in his book, “For Cavalry the predominant factor is the collision (i.e., the mutual collision) of Cavalry masses. In this inevitable class of encounter the steel is, and must be, supreme; therefore the steel must be the dominant weapon for Cavalry. Otherwise, and for all other purposes (except, for example, the pursuit of utterly demoralized Infantry and one or two other very rare opportunities) the firearm has usurped its place,” and then arrange his treatment of the subject frankly and clearly from this point of view. Then—if one only could extort from him his definition of a “mass”—one would have something concrete and definite to deal with. But such a course would have compelled him to rewrite his entire work, and to open his eyes to the inconsistencies with which it teems, just as the same course would compel the compilers of “Cavalry Training” to court self-stultification. It is ludicrous first to vest Cavalry with the full fire-power of Infantry, who are to have no fear of Cavalry, and then to say that the steel weapon must decide the mutual combats of Cavalry, who are riflemen plus horses. Even as it is, the jar of the ill-locked points (if I may change my metaphor) is audible as Bernhardi passes from one set of rails to the other. By the time he has reached this Chapter v. he has already, thanks to fire, almost banished the “battle-field” from consideration. “Cavalry has been driven out of its former place of honour on the battle-fields of the plains” (i.e., from the only terrain fit for shock). But surely the collision of Cavalry masses on the battle-field, this “predominant factor,” must involve a “place of honour.” What can there be more honourable than the defeat of the enemy’s mounted troops? In South Africa such a defeat would have signified the defeat of the whole Boer army on any given occasion. But I do not want to cavil over words. Take the General’s summary at the end of Chapter ii., “Duties during the War.”
“If, after this short survey of the many fields of action open to horsemen in the future, we ask the decisive question, ‘Which tasks in the future will need to be most carefully kept in mind in the organization and training of this arm in peace-time?’ we shall not be able to conceal from ourselves that it is in the strategical handling of the Cavalry that by far the greatest possibilities lie. Charges even of numerically considerable bodies on the battle-field can only lead to success under very special conditions, and even for the protection of a retreat our rôle can only be a subordinate one. But for reconnaissance and screening, for operations against the enemy’s communications, for the pursuit of a beaten enemy, and all similar operations of warfare, the Cavalry is, and remains, the principal arm. Here no other can take its place, for none possesses the requisite mobility and independence.”
The meaning of this is plain, if we remember that Bernhardi contemplates only one type of horsemen, Cavalry, which are the only troops with the “requisite mobility and independence” to reconnoitre, screen, and pursue. It is a truism that horses facilitate these objects. Their weapon is a distinct question, and all that precedes is an implicit condemnation of the steel, at any rate for anything in the nature of mixed combat. The reader will bear in mind the passages on pursuit.
Now, in the light of this passage and all that precedes it, read the chapter on “Leading in Mounted Combats.” Combats against whom? Surely against mounted Cavalry? Surely “collision” must, in its context, mean that? Yet for twenty full pages we read on, more and more bewildered, through passages more and more suggestive of mixed general combat, until on page 83 we come with a shock to the isolated consideration of “Cavalry duels,” which he declares to be “essential,” though he admits that they led to “mutual paralysis” and “deadlock” during the war of 1870. A moment later, and for the rest of the chapter, he is deep once more in fire and all that appertains to fire on the modern “battle-field.” And he ends with an eloquent purple patch on the “real work” of Cavalry being in pursuit.
Happily, in the case of Bernhardi, one is dealing with what au fond is not a complex mental structure. He does not arrange his subject with any ulterior purpose. He does not seriously attempt to reconcile faith with science, the arme blanche with the firearm. He passes from one to the other with complete insouciance, instinctively locking the thought-tight door which divides them, and bestowing on both the enthusiasm of an ardent nature. But the enthusiasm is of significantly different qualities. For the firearm it is predominantly technical and scientific; for the arme blanche it is romantic. In this very chapter, having delivered himself of the raison d’être, he enlarges on the difficulties of manœuvring and leading masses of Cavalry for shock, and shows himself acutely alive to the artificiality of the whole system, to its liability to fall to pieces under stress of a few rifle-shots, and to the absolute impossibility of effecting a sudden tactical transformation to fire-action under pressure of unforeseen conditions, after an advance has begun. The steel is treated poetically. For some reason it has always been regarded as a poetical element in war. In these days of scientific brutality, the less poetry unfounded on hard science and hard facts the better. It is better to be busy in battle with a prosaic weapon than to be idly weaving dreams which never come true. In Bernhardi, the poetry being on the surface, the profound physical and moral fallacies, underlying the arme blanche for Cavalry, become the more patent.
Take, for example, this conception of the indispensable inter-Cavalry shock fight, which, as I say, I think he really believes to be the only serious rôle of the steel, though, by the way, he never explicitly says in speaking specifically of the Cavalry duel, that it must be a shock duel (p. 83). I suspect that such a categorical axiom would revolt his common sense. Remember once more that he regards the ideal Cavalry qua riflemen, as the equals of Infantry, technically and morally. Read back, or forward, and see what he says about the steel versus Infantry, about Cavalry having been driven out of their place of honour on the battle-fields of the plains, about the revolution in conditions caused by arms of precision, etc. Then recollect that Cavalry, unlike Infantry, have horses, allow for country which is not a plain, and construct your own picture of the duel. Lastly, test your picture by South African experience, where the duel, without a trace of shock, lasted for two and a half years, and include, as the finishing touch, the fact, which Bernhardi only once dimly adumbrates and has not seriously envisaged, that mounted riflemen can charge.