I. An unskilled training and inspection of cavalry in the large proportion of cases, often conducted by officers of other arms, and such as tended to inspire all ranks with a desire for display and fine appearance on parade, rather than with a whole-souled yearning for efficiency for the war in hand.
II. The training of cavalry regiments in small, flat twelve-acre drill-fields walled in from the slums of a city, in which cavalry were still stationed for hopelessly out-of-date political reasons. What real cavalry training was possible along the tram lines and between rows of suburban villas?
III. A personnel too largely drawn from towns, and ignorant of the exigencies of campaigning horse-management.
IV. Horses, three-quarters bred, of fair pace and condition, but the latter necessary qualification for a campaign entirely spoiled in most cases by, say, a thirty days’ voyage, followed by a five or six days’ railway journey, then semi-starvation at the end of a line of communication, then some quick work followed by two or three days’ total starvation, then more work, and so on. Constantly our strategy outran our supply arrangements and the condition of our horses.
V. An enemy fighting in their own country, and each man owning two or three hardy, well-conditioned country-breds.
VI. Tactics of the enemy; to hold on to a position with rifle fire, and when seriously attacked or their flanks turned to disperse at a gallop.
Tactics all very well in their way, and just as disconcerting and annoying to our squadrons as they were to Murat’s cavalry in the advance into Russia; but these Parthian tactics are only suited to a limited number of strategical phases, a point difficult to bring home to the mind of those who have not studied strategy. They were tactics which resulted in a loss to the Boers of about 5000 men, generally foot people, at Paardeberg and, later, another 5000 in the Wittebergen. Meanwhile the cavalry to which they were opposed was able, by simple turning movements, to afford the main column, a practically uninterrupted advance from the Orange River to the Portuguese border.
It is strange, indeed, how the lesson of those operations has in many cases been read upside down by a nation which takes no steps to study military history, and which, consequently, forgets that the spirit of vigorous offensive, which did and must result in occasional heavy loss, had been sternly discountenanced by the majority of their press, after the experiences of Black Monday. “Conduct the operations without loss, or, better, by diplomacy—and above all with kindness,” was then the cry.
Pursuit
One of the great fallacies, and one to which in England especially we are victims, is that war can be conducted on haphazard principles by the instinct of brave men.