“Why is it,” asks Ardant du Picq, “so hard to use cavalry well?” and replies: “Because the rôle is all movement, all moral; moral and movement so closely allied, that often the movement alone without a charge, without physical action of any sort, makes an enemy retreat, and if that is followed up, causes his total rout. The latter follows from the rapidity of cavalry for those who know how to use it.”
CHAPTER VI
FIRE ACTION IN TACTICS OF CAVALRY V. CAVALRY
A very frequent question, also quite a justifiable one and one which cavalry soldiers must not shirk, but must on the other hand thoroughly understand and thresh out in their own minds, both by practical experiment and theoretical discussion,[24] is the following:—
Since cavalry are armed with an excellent magazine rifle, may they not more easily and effectually inflict loss and defeat on the enemy’s cavalry by that means rather than by employing shock action, with its gambling uncertainty, its losses in men and horses, its need of intense resolution or complete absence of arrière pensée on the part of the leader?
Those cavalry soldiers who have had experience in such affairs, who have thought the matter out and thus obtained certain guiding principles, will reply: “There are certainly many occasions when the conditions of terrain or the nature of the combat favour such action. We have only to mention a rearguard or a running fight and many instances come to mind at once in the case of those pursued.”
Intricate ground always favours fire action, and in small affairs, as a sequel to a dash at the flank of an enemy holding a position on a rough and unrideable kopje, it is obviously the right course.
Of all these occasions it is our intention to take full advantage; never to miss an opportunity. At the same time, practical experience has convinced us that we must guard against such action being adopted to the prejudice of shock action in cases where the latter is of supreme value, and we must also recognize the “inherent weakness of mounted troops who attempt to force a decision with fire action without combining it with shock action.”
In the Report on the Cavalry Division Training, 1909, by General Sir D. Haig, we find the following:—