Of European nations we alone know the full truth, because we alone have evolved the first-class mounted rifleman, and we alone know his supreme value. England bought that secret with two hundred millions of money and twenty thousand lives. Why not make use of it?
CHAPTER XIV
THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
Soon after Bernhardi published his second edition of “Cavalry in Future Wars,” the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 broke out. Like the Boer War, it fulfilled to the letter all his prognostications as to the value of fire for Cavalry and belied all his theories as to the “collision of Cavalry masses.” Whether he regarded it as abnormal, I do not know. But here, to our own arme blanche school, as we might have expected, is another “peculiar” war.
It was the second great land war between civilized races since the invention of the smokeless, long-range magazine rifle. It was attended by many circumstances which were absent in South Africa. Both armies were constructed on the European model; both were regular, not volunteer; both were in very large force; both possessed steel-armed Cavalry. The war, in shorts, may be said to have been the complement of the Boer War in illustrating all those conditions which were not present in South Africa, but which are likely to be present in a European war. Much of the terrain was even better than South Africa for shock-tactics. Though from the Yalu to Liao-yang the campaign was fought in a mountainous area, from the Tai-tse-ho northward vast open plains, unfenced, unobstructed, of a character not to be met with in any likely European war-area, were the rule.
What happened? No shock. That is not quite literally true of inter-Cavalry combats, for history records one almost laughably trivial case of pseudo-shock. There are said to have been others between patrols in the early days.[[79]] Not a single charge against riflemen on foot. The lance and sword were nowhere. In combat the rifle was supreme, banishing the very thought of the sword even from the minds of those who carried it, and inspiring the only effective action for Cavalry as for Infantry.
I ventured to describe the Boer War as presenting a mass of evidence, vast, various, cogent, against the steel, and in favour of the rifle. Here is another mass of complementary evidence, equally vast, various, and cogent, drawn from the very type of war which our soldiers now envisage—namely, one waged between European armies—in a temperate climate, at any rate in the matter of heat, and in which both Cavalries possess the arme blanche.
Before he begins even to think about explanations, I want the reader to grasp the broad facts in all their naked simplicity. Four years of war in all in South Africa and Manchuria, under every imaginable condition. No shock. In our war a few small cases of pseudo-shock, which belong strictly to the realm of the rifle. Numerous rifle charges, some very deadly. In both wars the rifle supreme, the steel negligible. What miraculous combination of circumstances could warrant our calling the Manchurian War in its turn “peculiar”?
In England, the arme blanche theory for a moment seemed to be in great danger. Some prompt and decisive counter-stroke was indispensable. There could be no compromise here, nothing but a bold lunge straight at the heart would suffice to fell the now formidable heresy. What form did the stroke take? I give it in the words of General Sir John French:
“That the Cavalry on both sides in the recent war did not distinguish themselves or their arm is an undoubted fact, but the reason is quite apparent. On the Japanese side they were indifferently mounted, the riding was not good, and they were very inferior in numbers, and hence were only enabled to fulfil generally the rôle of Divisional Cavalry, which they appear to have done very well. The cause of failure on the Russian side is to be found in the fact that for years they have been trained on exactly the same principles which these writers” (i.e., advocates of mounted riflemen) “now advocate. They were devoid of real Cavalry training, they thought of nothing but getting off their horses and shooting; hence they lamentably failed in enterprises which demanded, before all, a display of the highest form of the ‘Cavalry spirit’” (Introduction to Bernhardi, p. xxvii.).
It is true that these words were published in 1906, when information was still limited; but they appear unmodified in the edition of 1909, and they are in strict accordance with the theory on which our Cavalry are at this moment trained. To bring them into line with the facts as now known would be to declare the arme blanche theory a myth, and to shatter the system based on it.