War and the Arme Blanche

by Erskine Childers

But before approaching the facts, I propose, as in Chapter XII., to criticize the attitude of mind which permits a high Cavalry authority to brush aside with such confidence another great war in which the sword and lance fell into complete oblivion. It seems to be perfectly useless for critics of those weapons to heap up masses of modern evidence against them and to prove that there is not a tittle of evidence for them, if we cannot also show to the public the kind of way in which the problem is viewed by those responsible for their retention.

General French held high command in a long, mainly mounted war. Explain away the result as we may, this war did, in fact, produce by long evolution, under exacting stress, a certain type of soldier common to both belligerents—the mounted rifleman. It was a splendid type on both sides, and if we combine the best qualities of Britons and Boers we can, if we please, construct from it an ideal type. At any rate, what these troops did is on record. The greater their excellence in combining, for strenuous practical work, the rifle and the horse, the better the results. This was the criterion of success. Herein lay “dash”; herein, to borrow General French’s words, lay the “highest form of the ‘Cavalry spirit.’” It was by approximation to this standard, and by oblivion of all methods directly associated with the steel, that the regular Cavalry acquitted themselves best. It was our glory, not our shame, that we were able to produce this type, and to make it attain, even in the case of raw volunteers, to such a high standard. It was the glory of our brave enemies that, by virtue of progressive excellence in this type, they were able to make the task of the stronger nation so long, costly, and laborious.

How does General French represent this type when he is deploring the failure of the hybrid type in Manchuria? The Russians, he says, “were devoid of real Cavalry training. They thought of nothing but getting off their horses and shooting,” and had no “Cavalry spirit,” and these, the General says, were “exactly the same principles” which admirers of mounted riflemen advocate. No wonder he resents such advocacy, if such are the “principles,” and no wonder he objects to mounted riflemen who are taught to regard their horses as checks, not helps, to mobility and dash. So far from being his opponents’ “principles,” these are the very principles upon which, under the blighting influence of the arme blanche school, our fine force of existing Mounted Infantry is starved—theoretically, at any rate, into a sort of humble subservience to the steel.

Now, would it not be more natural and normal if, knowing what he knows by war-experience of what mounted riflemen can do, General French were to approach this Manchurian question from a somewhat different standpoint? Should he not consider the possibility that the Russian Cavalry, which was armed “on exactly the same principles” which he advocates—and was not, as he seems to imply, trained only in the firearm—might have failed through lack of excellence in the whole-hearted union of the rifle and the horse, as the joint constituents of that aggressive mobility which constitutes the “spirit” of the mounted rifleman? But no. He rushes at once to the conclusion least capable of proof, the conclusion for which there are no positive data since 1870, and very little then, since there were no smokeless, long-range rifles, nor any type of mounted rifleman to force the issue into prominence.

And to what strange conclusions his contemptuous definition of the mounted rifleman brings him! In the admirable Colesberg operations, when the steel did nothing and inspired nothing, we know that his own Cavalry, under his own direction, were “continually getting off their horses and shooting.” After their thirty-mile ride from Kimberley (and the steel did not help them to ride) to intercept Cronje, the same Cavalry did well only through forgetting their “real Cavalry training,” and taking what he regards as the discreditable step of “getting off their horses to shoot.” So did De Wet’s men in their equally long rides to the fields of Paardeberg and Sannah’s Post. It is true that on many occasions the Cavalry, when in superior force, were too ready, not through lack of spirit but through inherent faults of training, to dismount prematurely and take to the carbine. But at whose compulsion? That of mounted riflemen. And why? Precisely because they had not grasped “the highest form of the ‘Cavalry spirit’”—reliance on horse and firearm in combination. The rifle charge, taught us by the Boers, is, to say the least, not described in an illuminating way by the words “getting off their horses to shoot.” Saddle-fire apart, the words, nevertheless, are perfectly accurate. But the Boers shot to more terrible purpose than the Cavalry shot. Historical truth compels us to add that many of our own mounted riflemen excelled the Cavalry in this respect. The handful of Mounted Infantry, who after a chase of many days pounced on and pinned down De Wet at Bothaville, were working, I submit, on the right “principles.” So were the Australians who hung on the same leader’s heels in the desperate hunt of February, 1901.

If this is General French’s mental attitude towards the Manchurian War, I am afraid we cannot expect to find him expressing himself lucidly and cogently on the subject. Turn back to the passage I quoted. The Japanese, he says, indifferently mounted, indifferent riders, and inferior in numbers—drawbacks, be it noted, which are as serious for genuine mounted riflemen as for Cavalry—did very well, but only as Divisional Cavalry. The meaning is not very plain (for they never did well with the steel), but I take it to be this: In our own army the Divisional Cavalry consist, not of Cavalry, but of Mounted Infantry. Their duties, as officially laid down, are “to assist the Infantry in the immediate protection of the division by supplying mounted men for divisional patrolling in connection with the advanced, flank, and rear guards and outposts; to maintain connection with the protective Cavalry,” and other small duties. Proceeding from this analogy, the General means, I gather, to convey that the Japanese Cavalry, acting in those minor capacities, did very well as mounted riflemen. That is all to the good, and presumably they would have done better still with better horses, better riding, and greater numbers.

Is there not also a presumption that with these added advantages they would have done better still in larger rôles as mounted riflemen? But where is the argument leading us? Here are the Russians. No praise for them, even in minor rôles, and even with their better horses, better riding, immense numbers, and, above all, their “years of training” as mounted riflemen. Surely the latter characteristic alone would have enabled them, qua mounted riflemen, to overcome the few and badly equipped Japanese Cavalry acting as mounted riflemen? Overcome them, I mean, not merely in minor capacities, but in all the large and important functions of Cavalry?

The General tacitly admits that neither side made use of the steel. And yet, why not? One can understand that with these manifold sources of weakness which he details they did not attack Infantry with the steel, but why not attack one another? Was the mutual “terror of cold steel” so great as to neutralize the steel? The two Cavalries frequently met in different capacities and in different shades of numerical strength, strategically and tactically. Surely when both sides carry steel weapons this second total disappearance of the “shock duel,” officially held to be an inevitable feature of modern war, both in the strategical and tactical phases, needs further explanation.

Pursuing our scrutiny with an eye trained to detect the arme blanche bias in its myriad fleeting forms, we detect a clue in the word “enterprises” near the end. This suggests neither the battle-field nor reconnaissance, but distinctly the big raid. We recall Mr. Goldman’s complaint of the strategical mishandling of the Cavalry in South Africa, and his assumption that big raids must end in shock-tactics.

I do not know if this was in the General’s mind when he wrote of “enterprises[“enterprises] which demanded before all a display of the highest form of the ‘Cavalry spirit.’” If it was, I can only respectfully repeat my view, expressed frequently elsewhere, that there is here a radical confusion of thought between combat and strategy, between mobility in its broadest sense and tactics, and Bernhardi would be the first to tell him so. Fortunately, this question of raids is as open to positive demonstration by Manchurian facts as any other point of Cavalry practice. But before even approaching the Manchurian facts, and taking my stand purely on South African lessons, I have shown, I hope, that prima facie the General’s reason for the comparative failure of the two Cavalries is open to the strongest suspicion. The facts themselves dispose of the reason altogether.