A more important thing, however, than the dress has been the armament of the Royal Horse Artillery. Its greatest deeds have been wrought with the 6-pounder; but that was not its invariable weapon. Talking merely of the pre-amalgamation days[4]—the days which belong to history instead of to-day, when rifled ordnance was unknown in Horse Artillery—there were even then not unfrequent changes of armament. One troop, as we shall see hereafter, went on service with 12-pounders; on the eve of Waterloo, owing to the want of guns of position, three troops received 9-pounders, instead of the 6-pounders which they had brought from England; and coming to later days, at the commencement of the Crimean War, the two troops, C and I, which first left England were armed with 6-pounders; but, on reaching Varna, C Troop was ordered to exchange them for 9-pounders; and I Troop would have been left behind, for inability to do the same, had it not been that Lord Raglan yielded to the urgent entreaties of its commander, Colonel Maude, to allow it to accompany the expedition.
During the Peninsular Campaign, the armament of a troop was as follows:—2 9-pounders, or 2 heavy 6-pounders; 1 heavy 5½-inch howitzer; 3 light 6-pounders; 6 ammunition Lefroy. waggons; 3 reserve waggons, and 4 other carriages. Compared with the simplicity of modern Horse Artillery armament, the presence of three different guns in the same troop, with the consequent necessity of a variety of ammunition, seems a very complicated and undesirable arrangement. This was frequently felt at the time; and at the change of armament made before Waterloo, a foreshadowing of the modern harmony of weapons might be detected in the arming of I Troop—Bull’s—with 5½-inch howitzers only. And right noble was the service done by that troop on the 18th of June.
During the season of starvation between 1819 and 1848, the guns attached to the skeleton troops were 6-pounders. With the augmentations, a proportion of howitzers made its re-appearance.
The proper armament for Horse Artillery, in the days before the substitution of rifled ordnance put an end to the discussion, was exhaustively treated by Sir Robert Gardiner. His arguments are interesting even at the present day, when the perfection of Field Batteries, and their ability to carry more gunners into action by means of the new-pattern carriage, have combined to make not a few question the necessity of so expensive an arm as Horse Artillery being retained. If we substitute the 9-pounder rifled gun for the old 6-pounder, and the 16-pounder for the old 9-pounder, in Sir Robert’s remarks, we shall find his arguments as applicable Report on the Artillery by Sir R. Gardiner, 31 Mar. 1848. to the later as to the former controversy. “There can be no greater mistake than to put rivalry or comparisons, or to expect the same results from the employment of Horse Artillery as of Brigade (i. e. Field) Artillery. Though one and the same arm, they are equipped and intended for totally distinct purposes. The necessary quick movements of the Horse Artillery could not be attained by 9-pounders; the telling effect of 9-pounders could not be expected from Horse Artillery. One is intended to act with Cavalry, and, from the nature of its equipment and the lightness of its metal, is expected to maintain at all times, and under all circumstances, of bad roads, of rough, hilly, or broken ground, the same pace as Cavalry; and, in short, to bring artillery into action wherever Cavalry can act.... I can name two instances in which, while acting with cavalry, any other than Horse Artillery would have been perfectly useless. One, the affair of Morales, in Spain; the other, the movement from Quatre Bras to the position of Waterloo. Both were specially movements of Horse Artillery, and both tried the wind and speed of our horses. In the latter movement particularly, through a deep cross country, any Artillery differently equipped would have inevitably fallen into the hands of the enemy. In all light movements of the Infantry of an army, Horse Artillery is as indispensably necessary and as exclusively effective, as it is with cavalry. I have myself, in cases of reconnoissance, been withdrawn from the Cavalry for the moment, to cover movements in which heavier Artillery could bear no part.... On the other hand, if Horse Artillery has its distinct advantages over heavier guns, so likewise the latter have their distinct purposes, for which the employment of Horse Artillery would be wholly inapplicable and inadequate.... I have known Brigade Artillery as perfect, in its way, as Horse Artillery; but no more comparison can be drawn between them than between Cavalry and Infantry.”
Then follows a remark, which shows how the writer anticipated the changes which have come, and which have done so much to improve our Field Artillery: “Our present Brigades would be greatly advanced in efficiency if, like the Horse Artillery, or the Brigades with the Duke of Wellington’s army in the Peninsula, they were placed under the command and the responsibility of their captains. They should also, to become effective Field Artillery, be placed on the same footing as the Horse Artillery, for their contingent share in all garrison and general duties. They should march to and from the outposts in relief in the same manner as the Horse Artillery; they should combine, like the Horse Artillery, the knowledge of the duties of Cavalry with those of Artillery. They would thus gradually attain that perfection in their own distinctive service, which I believe to be unequalled in the few skeleton troops we possess of Horse Artillery.”
At the time these words were penned, Field Artillery had reached a point of degradation which had hardly been surpassed even in the old days of peasant drivers. Of the six batteries or brigades nominally at Woolwich, two existed on Sir R. Gardiner’s Report. paper, having neither men nor horses. “Two others,” wrote Sir R. Gardiner, “are so little advanced in their necessary drill and training as to be quite non-effective for the purposes of service, or even the common movements of parade and review. Two only might possibly move without causing interruption or confusion to other troops they might be acting with; but that is as much as can be said of them.... The riding and driving of our Brigade drivers is at this moment very bad. With the exception of the Brigades stationed in Dublin, where they have occasional opportunities of moving with other troops, they are unskilful, and ignorant of Artillery movements; at Woolwich they are employed in carter’s work in the civil departments of the Arsenal; and, of course, as long as such a system is pursued they can never become Artillery drivers.... The Brigades in Ireland are more efficient, and fitted to move with other troops, than the Brigades in England. But it is a delusion to say that England has a Field Artillery. There is not a single 9-pounder horsed in the British service—an astounding fact. Nor will it be believed, except by those who know the truth, that the English army has been for years without Artillery attached either to Cavalry or Infantry, for the common purposes of drill and exercise in their combined movements.”
The progress of Field Artillery to its present excellence may be said to date from 1848. Already, before 1856, the Light Field Artillery had regained what it had lost during the economical era which followed Waterloo; and since 1859, when the new brigade system put an end to the incessant change of batteries from field to garrison service, the progress has been continuous. But this progress would have been impossible had it not been that a standard of Field Artillery excellence had been maintained, even under the most adverse and depressing circumstances, by those unequalled skeleton troops of Horse Artillery, whose officers have, by their influence and exertions, done so much to make what may be called medium Field Artillery the admirable service which it now is. It has been said that the influence of the Horse Artillery, during the period between 1816 and 1848, was injurious to the Field Batteries. If it were so, it was in the most indirect manner possible. Economy in our military administration being peremptorily demanded, the only alternative left to the Board of Ordnance was between a very small force of admirable Field Artillery, and a larger force of batteries starved in equipment and incapable of service in the field. The officers of the Regiment, whose position entitled them to be the advisers of the Board, were undoubtedly men whose sympathies lay with the Horse Artillery, in which they had all served; but they were also men who had seen, during the campaigns in the Peninsula, Belgium, and France, what was possible with a well-equipped Field Artillery of less mobility. In deciding on a small but perfect force, rather than a larger and indifferent one, it must be admitted that they acted wisely. The brilliant Field Artillery of the great war would have otherwise become a mere tradition, whereas, under the system adopted, it remained a reality, a model, and a standard. The adoption of the other alternative would have vitally injured the Horse, without much benefit to the Field Artillery; and it would have rendered the reorganisation of both a more difficult, and a more tardy operation. That the Field Artillery suffered terribly during the period mentioned, is too true; but dispassionate study of the Regimental history proves, not what has often been asserted, that the suffering was due to the blighting influence of a corps d’élite but merely to an unwise, an unprofitable, and a singularly short-sighted economy.[5]
A much larger question arises when the policy of a corps d’élite, as a part of a larger body on which it feeds, has to be considered. No subject has been so fruitful of discussion in the Regiment; and nowhere can a decision be more safely arrived at than in a careful study of the Regimental history. There are strong arguments in favour of, and also against, the policy which has existed since the formation of the Royal Horse Artillery; and the best way of arriving at a conclusion is to state these arguments, and to weigh their respective values.
It has been said that the existence of a corps d’élite produces Trochu. “I’énervation de la masse au profit des groupes.” In Hime. stronger language it has also been said: “The more ruthlessly the system of selection is carried out, the more rapidly do the troops from amongst whom the selection is made lose their self-respect and become at first apathetic, and at last inefficient. The corps d’élite, the insatiable parasite, must degenerate in precisely the same degree as the body which feeds it; and the end is, that in the lapse of a few years the whole edifice crumbles, totters, and falls. When the oak falls, the ivy that killed it must fall too.”