Cavalry in Future Wars

by Friedrich von Bernhardi

The General must use his judgment to decide where the chief weight of his mission lies, the principal characteristics he must impress upon his operations, and how the subsidiary purposes can be best served without applying half-purposes to the primary object. It is these considerations—the reduction of the complicated to the simple—which create the chief difficulties which weigh upon the mind of the Leader. The capacity of coming to a correct decision in every special case is a mark of the intellectually capable Commander, and of itself gives a certain guarantee of its success by rendering possible the concentration of the force upon the decisive point; but it will not alone suffice to insure success. Boldness and energy of character is the final determining cause of successful results.

Above all, every Cavalry leader must be inspired by the determination to keep the initiative under all circumstances, and never to relinquish it to his opponent. The initiative alone guarantees successes, often in a degree which one was hardly entitled to expect, for it forces the enemy to accept the law from our hands, disturbs his strategical combination, compels him to fight before his troops are united, and often gives to the numerically weaker the opportunity of establishing a relative local superiority. One must, therefore, endeavour to introduce as much of the initiative and offensive element as circumstances will permit even in the execution of defensive missions.

A Leader must never allow himself to be hindered in an advance, or be driven into an attitude of expectation by the passive opposition of the enemy's Cavalry, as so often happens in peace.

In all such cases, when a direct frontal attack holds out no prospect of success, he must immediately initiate a wide turning movement outside the effective range of the enemy's Artillery, and sacrifice without hesitation his own line of retreat. Victory restores at once the original line of advance, and the outflanking movement threatens also the enemy's retreat.

It is never permissible to wait until driven into action by superior commands, but one must always endeavour to reap, on one's own initiative, the utmost possibilities the situation holds out.

In this way we shall save the troops excessive exertions and purposeless riding about, for since the Headquarters can never grasp the situation as rapidly or as thoroughly as the General actually on the spot, it follows that their orders will generally arrive too late. Hence they often lag behind events, and call for excessive exertions, night and forced marches if the purpose is to be attained. The records of the Campaign of 1870-1871 give innumerable instances of these facts, based on experience. Finally, resolutions should never be made dependent on circumstances which may happen in the future, but must always be based on something positive, which must be followed up with all conceivable energy and circumspection. This most necessary circumspection on the part of the Leader demands a clearness of expression in the issue of orders which must never leave the subordinate officers and troops in doubt, and should always reflect a clear and determined purpose.

It is, however, equally necessary that the superior Leader must himself be clear as to how he means to carry out his purpose, has also considered all other possibilities, and has made his arrangements in such a manner that, if necessary, he can give his operations a different direction. This must be particularly the case where success depends on cunning surprise. As concerns the first point, this will require the more thorough consideration, because it is most particularly difficult to change the strategic direction of a large body of Cavalry when once it has been launched forward on a broad front. In such a case the whole carefully-elaborated network of patrols would be left, so to speak, hanging in the air. To divert it sideways into a new direction is generally impracticable; it would, in fact, in most cases be impossible to transmit to all the advanced detachments the news of the change in the dispositions.

A new system of patrols will, therefore, be absolutely necessary to save both energy and time, and the necessity for instituting this new service will be particularly detrimental to our whole operations, because the information from the new direction will generally arrive too late to be of service.

It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that the Cavalry Leader should not only reconnoitre in the direction prescribed by the higher Command for its particular purpose, but should also scout independently in every direction, and inform himself of all the circumstances in the whole district over which he is operating; if necessary, organize for himself an intelligence system.[14]

In short, he must exercise such prevision that he can never be overtaken by circumstances; and in every case in which action is called for in a new, and, perhaps, unexpected direction, he should be prepared to meet the emergency. In this way he will save himself much time and energy, but it will facilitate his very difficult task essentially if he is always kept informed in sufficient time of the views and possible intention of the Chief Command; for unless this condition is complied with, it will be impossible to insure that the whole energy of the Arm will be directed to the carrying out of its reconnoitring functions in conformity with the views entertained at Headquarters. It must be characterized as one of the most suicidal errors when the superior Command conceals its purposes from its executive organs. Diffused activity, waste of energy, misunderstandings, and confusion would be the inevitable consequences, and military history—not the least that of 1870-1871—gives a long rôle of illustrative examples.