Cavalry in Future Wars

by Friedrich von Bernhardi

It was found by experiment that a couple of pounds of straw per horse could easily be saved per day, and again ample funds for a supplement to the ration were available, a measure particularly applicable when the price of straw rules high. This year, too, as the expenditure on the riding-school was closed, the manure fund was also available, and the horses did nearly as well as before.

I would not maintain that similar results are everywhere obtainable. The price of grains varies; the receipts from manure are everywhere different; in some garrisons peas and beans are difficult to obtain; the cost of transport also fluctuates. But all this is no reason why we should not seize an advantage even if we cannot always retain it. Even a few years of more and better food bring about an improvement in the horses, which lasts for a considerable time, and every effort, therefore, should be made to obtain these advantages offered by price variations whenever it is possible to do so.

It is well to call attention to the fact that to accustom horses to the most varied food—rye, barley, wheat, etc.—is part of their indispensable training for War, where such foods are all they can get, as the experience of our last War sufficiently demonstrated. To this end it is necessary—and I wish particularly to insist upon this point—that our Regimental Commanders should have the utmost latitude of action within certain fixed limits, and should not be dependent on the consideration of the Commissariat, with its innumerable regulations and formal considerations. I consider the objection sometimes urged against me that in the purchase of supplementary foods by the Regimental Commander there would be an opening for fraud and speculation on the part of under officials quite untenable, for a proper system of audit and check could be quite easily devised.

The capacity of the Commander to manage affairs in a businesslike manner can hardly be called in question, and his interest in the matter would grow in proportion to the degree of freedom allowed to him.

Next in importance to the question of food comes the preparation of the horses for efforts of long duration. That this preparation must go hand in hand with the food question is obvious, but apart from this interdependence, it is not possible to keep horses always up to the necessary standard of endurance; for this training not only throws heavy strains on the muscles, joints, and sinews, but on the nervous system of the animal, and in particular attacks the nerves of the stomach if maintained too long. If one wishes to preserve one's material, the horses must be allowed from time to time a thorough rest, during which their feeding must enable them to put on the degree of fat which is requisite for health.

The best time for this rest is about Christmas, during which one can reduce the work to the very minimum, and feed with 'Rastfutter' hay, maize, malt—dried brewer's—molasses, even potatoes; and also, after reaching the highest points of the training for galloping, there must be a certain relaxation of the strain to give the nerves time to recuperate.

Generally, the course of training must be conducted from the standpoint of what War demands, and never allowed to assume the characteristics of the racing stable, for the purposes of the two are entirely distinct, and this is particularly the case with regard to the gallop.

It is precisely in this respect that the necessities of War are not always seen with sufficient clearness.

We obtain from our troops by means of most careful preparation quite remarkable performances in galloping. I have myself seen whole regiments cover 8,800 yards (5 miles) at the regulation gallop, and the horses at the end of it had still both strength and wind to increase the pace. On such and similar performances we then base our tactical exercises both for the Brigade and Division, and many horses are sacrificed as a consequence. Now, I am the last man to suggest that accurate drill at the gallop is not the crowning work of all tactical education, but it must be accomplished under War conditions, and it cannot be too persistently insisted on that all these tactical pictures and the deductions founded thereon, which we attain in the manner indicated, have practically nothing to do with real War at all.

In these peace exercises we usually ride with considerably less than field service weights, on specially selected and favourable ground, and on specially trained horses. All these conditions are wanting in War. Then horses must carry their full marching-order kit, and generally they will be entirely lacking in specific training for this fast kind of work. The ordinary pace on the march and patrol is the marching trot; only single patrols have now and again to gallop, the troops as a whole only on the rare occasions when a charge has actually to be delivered. Then, the carefully-selected conditions of the drill ground are generally lacking; and, finally, in all War strength squadrons there are always some augmentation horses and remounts, whose weaknesses must be taken into account if they are not to be broken down at the very beginning of operations, as too often happened in 1870, in which case it would have been better to have left them behind from the first. Thus the galloping possibilities are reduced most considerably, and it is only with these reduced possibilities that the Leader can safely reckon.