It is superfluous to remark on the range attained by the Q.F. gun compared with the rifle, but it is to the point to bring to notice that a Q.F. battery is controlled by one individual who is furnished with good glasses, and that the guns have telescopic sights. At a mile he will distinguish his own side. Again the battery’s front is 100 yards compared to the mile of front required by 1770 riflemen. The battery is in action within one minute and thirty seconds, whereas from the time the order is given a brigade of mounted riflemen will not be in action under five minutes at least, and will not be shooting with any degree of accuracy under eight minutes. Further, the fire of a big line of one mile in length cannot be directed, whereas a battery can be switched on and off, or so many degrees to a flank, and so on, by a simple command.
It is obvious, then, that in the attack of infantry, whether unshaken or shaken, the extended line of charging cavalry will find their most reliable support in horse artillery and machine-gun fire and not in the fire of dismounted men.
Henderson would therefore appear to have written at this time under the influence of the then accepted theory that the horse artillery would not be available to assist cavalry in a general engagement. He was also much impressed by the view that mounted infantry should supply the fire power for cavalry and prevent cavalry having recourse to fire action as much as possible; since he considered that the élan of the cavalryman would soon disappear, if once accustomed to dismount and fire as an alternative to shock action when the latter was feasible.
To sum up, present-day opinion is not in favour of mounted infantry being attached to cavalry brigades, but on the other hand horse artillery and machine guns will remain with cavalry in the general engagement, ready for any opportunity.
In order once more to emphasize the opinion that these charges of cavalry on infantry demand exceptional arrangements on the part of the general commanding the cavalry and his artillery commander, the case quoted by Prince Kraft in Letters on Cavalry, page 64, may be cited. Speaking of a French cavalry charge on Prussian infantry at Woerth, a Prussian infantry officer told him that:
At the moment our infantry were falling back down a slope from an attack which had failed, a hail of Chassepot and Mitrailleuse bullets followed them, and every one felt that he would never reach the cover of the wood which lay below them.
Tired to death and resigned to their fate, the whole of the infantry were slowly crawling towards the wood. Suddenly the murderous fire ceased. Every one stopped, astonished, to see what had saved them from the fate which seemed certain to them. Then they saw the French cuirassiers who, as they pushed forward, masked the fire of their infantry and artillery. These cuirassiers appeared to them like guardian angels. With the most perfect calm every man halted on the spot where he stood and fired at the cuirassiers, who were soon swept away by the rapid fire.
He adds at p. 67:
We see, moreover, that cavalry charges, if they break out from the front of their own infantry and mask the fire of the latter, enable the infantry which is charged to gain time, owing to the cessation of this fire, to recover their formation.
The above is one more argument in favour of constantly training our cavalry leaders till it is a second nature to apply shock at right angles to fire effect, and on no account whatever to mask the fire of their own artillery and infantry, and thus become the “guardian angels” of the infantry whom they are attacking.
Von Bernardi appears to lose sight of this, when he says, p. 208, Cavalry in Peace and War: