The General does not always agree with the Regulations of his own Army, and he is specially in conflict with them when he recommends raids by cavalry corps against the enemy's communications. My opinion upon this point is that every plan should be subordinate to what I consider a primary necessity—namely, the absolute and complete overthrow of the hostile cavalry. So long as that cavalry remains intact with its morale unshaken, all our enterprises must of necessity be paralysed. The successful cavalry fight confers upon the victor the command of ground, just in the same way that successful naval action carries with it command at sea. For effective enterprises in either sphere command is absolutely necessary, and can only be obtained by successful battle, whether on land or sea.
I agree generally with the German Regulations when they suggest that raids against communications should not divert cavalry from their true battle objective, and consequently I must venture to differ from the author on this point, though I do not approve of all that the German Regulations say concerning the employment of cavalry in battle. The opinion which I hold and have often expressed is that the true rôle of cavalry on the battlefield is to reconnoitre, to deceive, and finally to support. If the enemy's cavalry has been overthrown, the rôle of reconnaissance will have been rendered easier. In the rôles of deception and support, such an immense and fruitful field of usefulness and enterprise is laid open to a cavalry division which has thought out and practised these rôles in its peace training and is accustomed to act in large bodies dismounted, that I cannot bring myself to believe that any equivalent for such manifest advantages can be found even in the most successful raid against the enemy's communications by mounted troops.
I entirely agree with General von Bernhardi's conclusion that very important duties will fall to the lot of the divisional cavalry in war, and that the fulfilment of these duties has become more difficult of late years. The necessity for, and the value of, divisional cavalry are often not properly appreciated. What the strategical cavalry is to the Army in the greater sphere, the divisional cavalry is to the division in the lesser.
Most cavalry soldiers of good judgment will agree with the lucid arguments of the author on the subject of cavalry armament. It is suggested to us, by critics of the cavalry, that the lance is an impediment to dismounted action. If this difficulty ever existed, it has been overcome by the method of carrying the lance which has been adopted and practised with marked success for the past two years. It is also objected by the same critics that a thin bamboo pole, carried by the side of a mounted man, will hinder him in reconnaissance and reveal his position to the enemy. The mere statement of this argument absolves me from the duty of replying to it.
General von Bernhardi very wisely says that it is not a question whether cavalrymen should fight mounted or dismounted, but whether they are prepared and determined to take their share in the decision of an encounter and to employ the whole of their strength and mobility to this end. In our training during the last few years I have endeavoured to impress upon all ranks that when the enemy's cavalry is overthrown, our cavalry will find more opportunities of using the rifle than the cold steel, and that dismounted attacks will be more frequent than charges with the arme blanche. By no means do I rule out as impossible, or even unlikely, attacks by great bodies of mounted men against other arms on the battlefield. But I believe that such opportunities will occur comparatively rarely, and that undue prominence should not be accorded to them in our peace training, to the detriment of much more solid advantages which may be gained by other means.
I think that every one who reads this book will understand that the sphere of action of cavalry is steadily widening, and is, at the same time, making increased demands as the years go on upon all ranks of the arm. Those who wish to recall what cavalry has done in the past, should read and reread "The Achievements of Cavalry," by Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, one of the very few soldiers in the Army who has taken part as a combatant in European warfare. Sir Evelyn Wood's war record probably surpasses that of any other officer in the Army. His knowledge of horses and his horsemanship are second to none, and though seventy-two years of age, he is still one of the hardest and straightest riders to hounds in England. It should be a constant encouragement to the cavalry that such an experienced and sagacious leader should entertain such a firm faith in the destinies of an arm with which he is so thoroughly conversant.
A few words in conclusion. We hear it said, and see it written, that we ought not to accept any guidance from military Europe, because our own experience of war has been so considerable that we can learn nothing from Europe which we do not know better ourselves. The truth is, that since the Crimean War we have had little or no experience of the kind of effort which will be required of us when next we meet the trained army of a European Power. In deluding ourselves with the false notion that our campaigns of the last fifty years represent the sum of military wisdom, we merely expose our ignorance and conceit, and do our utmost not only to cause disaster, but to invite it.
The cavalry soldier must not be misled by these appeals of ignorance to vanity. Let him continue to study profoundly the training, tactics, and organisation of the best foreign cavalry. Let him reflect long and deeply upon the opinions of such acknowledged authorities as Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood and General von Bernhardi. Let him keep himself abreast with every change in the tendencies of cavalry abroad, so that he may help us to assimilate the best of foreign customs to our own. Finally, let him realise the great intellectual and physical strain that modern war will impose upon the cavalry, and let him preserve the mens sana in corpore sano, that equable balance between study and action, which alone will enable him to rise superior to every difficulty in the great and honourable calling to which he belongs.
J.D.P. French.