War and the Arme Blanche

by Erskine Childers

To illustrate this, let me return once more to the “shock duel,” as between (1) independent Cavalries operating strategically, (2) on the general battle-field. The former case is dealt with in “Cavalry Training” on pages 193, 194, and in Bernhardi on pages 29–31; the later case on page 206 of our Manual, and on pages 82–84 of the German book. Bernhardi talks always in vague terms of the Cavalry duel, without mentioning shock, though I grant that he assumes it. But I am perfectly sure that he would not go so far as to say what “Cavalry Training” says on page 194: “On such occasions dismounted action will at the best have but a negative result,” and within the space of a few lines to contrast this “dismounted” action (so limited) with a “vigorous mounted offensive.” Even with his non-recognition of mounted fire-action, this is just the kind of proposition which he seems, by a sane, if unconscious, instinct, to avoid. In point of fact, on page 267 he uses the epithet “negative” for exactly the opposite purpose, applying it to the “results obtained by our Cavalry in 1866 and 1870 ... simply and solely because in equipment and training they lagged behind the requirements of the time,” a passage which must be read with page 83, where he deplores the “mutual paralysis” of the duels of 1870. And all this, let it be remarked, while still believing, with “Cavalry Training,” that fire-action is of an essentially dismounted, semi-stationary character, in spite of the lessons of South Africa. If his pen had begun to frame the word “negative” in the sense intended by “Cavalry Training,” he would in that instant have been converted.

The solemn discussion of the indispensable shock duel in modern war reminds one of the polemics of medieval schoolmen. It is carried on in vacuo, without the remotest application to the facts of war, without even one backward glance at South Africa, without support even from the wars of 1866, 1870, and 1877, and without a gleam of encouragement from the Russo-Japanese War. Bernhardi on page 83 makes a pathetic effort to explain its failure at Mars la Tour, and the consequent absence of any decisive effect of the Prussian Cavalry upon the battle-field, in spite of their superiority, by saying vaguely that “neither their training nor the comprehension of their duties was on a level with the requirements of the time.” For the real reason turn to his chapters on fire-action and to the passage I have just quoted from page 267, noting “equipment.” The truth is that their training for shock was too good, and the comprehension of their shock duties so rooted as to be paralyzing. Why should the Cavalry, of all arms, have lacked dash when the rest of the Prussian army was afire with dash, when Infantry commanders had so often to be blamed for excessive rashness? Why, indeed, save that Cavalry dash was founded on the wrong weapon? As usual, when hard pressed, Bernhardi relapses into poetry, and urges his Cavalry to “stake their souls” and “risk the last man and the last horse” (p. 84). How strangely these antique dithyrambs ring! Do not Infantry stake their souls, and risk their last man, and all the rest of it? Not a whit braver than the Cavalry, did not they, simply because they had a good weapon, show more aggressive tackling power in South Africa than the Cavalry? It is cruel to brave men to give them a bad weapon, tell them to found their dash on it, and then to blame them for lack of dash; doubly cruel and doubly absurd to tell them that they are par excellence an arm of offence, as “Cavalry Training” tells them on page 187. They are not a more offensive arm than Infantry or Artillery. Defensive soldiers are a contradiction in terms. How explain the mechanical repetition, decade after decade, in spite of all disillusionment, of this axiom—that it is peculiarly the province of Cavalry to sacrifice their last man in winning victories? As a fact, all arms, in honourable rivalry, must and do make supreme sacrifices for supreme ends. The explanation is that the arme blanche is solely a weapon of offence, which has lost its utility and kept its fascination. The idea, I think, can be traced to the days when the duties of reconnaissance were relatively light, and when Cavalry were reserved on the battle-field for special steel functions, such as pursuit, or some desperate assault. All that is changed, by universal recognition. Reconnaissance is infinitely more difficult, exhausting, and important. On the battle-field special opportunities for the steel never, in fact, arise. But Cavalry must be busy, and busy with the rifle.

A last word on the “Cavalry duel.” That it must be one of the grand objects of Cavalry to overcome the enemy’s Cavalry is a truism. Whether, in the strategical action of independent Cavalry for the purpose of discovering hostile intentions and dispositions, it is best to pursue from the beginning a policy of wide dispersion, or to concentrate at the outset and drive the enemy’s independent Cavalry off the field, has often been debated, and is settled now by Bernhardi and “Cavalry Training” in favour of concentration. It is all pure theory, unsupported by any facts either from Manchuria or from South Africa, where our reconnaissance was very bad. Let us, however, for the sake of argument, follow them. But that this collision, either of the concentrated independent Cavalries, or of concentrated Cavalries, in whatever capacity, on the battle-field, must take the form of shock, and can only be decided by shock, is, surely, a preposterous thing for serious men to waste time in proving. De Negrier, with the simplest illustrations from modern war, kills it with ridicule. In England, at any rate, you cannot get conditions of shock for large masses of Cavalry without deliberate selection from a small choice of areas. In practising as independent units, so as to represent rival strategical Cavalries, we choose suitable areas, and arrange for shock ground adaptable to it. In practising for the general battle-field we can obtain the conditions for shock between large masses of opposing Cavalry only by arranging friendly appointments between the two sides, as at Lambourne Downs on the third day of the general Army manœuvres of 1909. And in all cases, of course, we carefully impress upon both Cavalries that collisions without shock are “negative.” Perhaps war in England is another “peculiar” war, like the Boer War. But in regard to terrain every war in Europe will be “peculiarly” bad for shock, as compared with South Africa.

Probe to the bottom this delusion about the “negative” effect of fire-action, and you will find for the hundredth time the confusion between mobility and combat. Suppose that one of the Cavalries consists at a given moment of Infantry, a paradoxical state of things which often happened with the Japanese in Manchuria. The action of this Infantry will not be negative, as against Cavalry using shock and only shock. Consult “Infantry Training” and the Manchurian War, and you will find that Infantry, averagely well led and trained, can go where they please, both in reconnaissance and combat, without fear of the lance or sword. Where they fail is in mobility, and that is why we use horsemen for all the duties of war which require high mobility. If the horsemen have Infantry rifles, and use them well, in conjunction with the horse, then, indeed, in combat as well as in speed, in tactical as well as in strategical mobility, they outmatch Infantry, and impose negative action on them. Not otherwise, and precisely the same thing applies a fortiori to mounted combats.

Another point: What are “masses”? I take the word from Bernhardi, who seems not to contemplate shock without great masses, the greater the better. Between the mass and the patrol, where is shock to come in? The patrol, where combat is necessary, according to “Cavalry Training,” acts chiefly with fire, and Bernhardi says the same. For what size of unit does shock begin to be specially applicable? “Cavalry Training” is dumb. Bernhardi, more frank, as usual, seems to imply that it is really applicable only to very large masses. But why this mystery? Why should not even patrols use it? Shock is silent, and therefore suitable. Does it make any difference whether the unit is 10, 50, or 100 strong, or 500, or 1,000, or 5,000? From the arme blanche point of view it is wiser to leave the question unanswered. The answer would throw a flood of light on the “peculiar” conditions of South Africa, where during a great part of the war the numbers engaged were comparatively small.

Once more I commend this topic to those Yeomanry officers who are asking for the sword, not with the ambitious dream of using it in “mass,” but with the idea that for small casual combats it is a necessity. It was never so used in South Africa, and if they realized what inexperience with the rifle involved for the Yeomanry in that war—what miserable humiliations and losses—they would be silent. But why should they be silent, as things are? High authorities tell them the war was peculiar, and recommend them to study German books. It is difficult to speak with restraint on this matter.

Let the reader study closely “Cavalry Training” and “Mounted Infantry Training” in the light both of Bernhardi and of the South African War. Without undervaluing their many excellences, let him apply the searchlight to all parts which have any bearing on weapons, and ask himself whether that point has been thoroughly thought out, and brought logically into line with modern experience. I have said little about “Mounted Infantry Training.” I wonder what Bernhardi would think of it. Tantalizing speculation! Would he give them “the place of honour on the battle-fields of the plains” which he denies to Cavalry? Would he give them or deny them reconnaissance and pursuit? How would he class them? What would his feeling be when he found them exhorted in one breath to use saddle-fire in the manner of the Boers (with their congenital “habits and instincts”), and in the next to form square to repel Cavalry—a form of defence abandoned even by Infantry?

I now leave Bernhardi, whom, if he be intelligently read, with an eye to the Cavalry for which he wrote, I venture to regard as one of the most serious enemies the steel has ever had, and one of the best advocates of the rifle.

But when we compare him, in his two diverse moods, with the German Official Historians with the Austrian Count Wrangel, with the British “Cavalry Training,”[“Cavalry Training,”] with the French system of training, with Colonel Repington, General French, and Mr. Goldman, and with the facts of modern war, what irreconcilable contradictions, what a tangle of self-refutation and mutual refutation!

And what is our grand motive in following this enfant terrible? I repeat the words which were my text: “We must not be deficient in a weapon possessed by potential foes.” Probably the same motive dimly influences our potential foes. Who knows how far this imitative instinct extends? It must strike foreigners as a very remarkable fact that in spite of a three years’ war without shock we have reverted to shock. To whom do they probably look for the explanation? No doubt to distinguished soldiers now in high authority, and so the process of mutual mystification goes on, the blind leading the blind. But the proverb scarcely applies to the case of Bernhardi’s influence upon our own Cavalry. That, it seems to me, is the case of a guide with a sure instinct, but short sight, leading one who knows the way, but has wilfully bandaged his eyes.