Our Cavalry

by Michael Frederic Rimington

A very important point to impress on your men is the following. No horseman should believe that he cannot escape capture, or that a bullet will hit him. Let it be clearly understood by all that, as the saying goes, “A horseman and a heavy shower of rain can get through anything.” Snap-shots fired by men in haste, or when excited, never do hit any one who is mounted and moving, especially if the firer is being “peppered” himself. A very good reason this for arranging for covering fire, if only by one rifle, when riding up to ground likely to be held by the enemy’s pickets. Another point to be remembered by scouts is that when they get into the dead ground, which is almost always to be found in front of a hill, they should always change both their pace and direction, and arrive at the top of the hill both sooner and at a different point from where they might be reasonably expected to arrive. Again, scouts in their advance should invariably look out for an alternative line of retreat, especially if they cross an obstacle such as a brook, ditch, or strong fence. They should not expect to see the enemy’s picket or videttes if they deliberately dismount in view and look for them. But if they ride back over a hill, disappear, and then creep back at another point, they are pretty sure to see some heads coming up.

In all the arrangements to be made for sending out scouts, never neglect the value of darkness for getting near the enemy’s lines, or through their line of pickets. What can be done with ease then, is impossible in daytime for the cleverest scout in the world, and it is foolish and unfair to scouts to ask them to do this; in fact, it is seldom asked for except by officers unacquainted with their business. All who have attempted to shoot big game, even in a fair moonlight, are aware how uncertain their aim is then. Consequently, if a scout stumbles on a sentry or picket at night, it is twenty chances to one that he gets off without a bullet in him. This fact it is well to remember when posting your own pickets, whom you should protect from being rushed by wires and ropes stretched a foot from the ground, some ten yards or so from their post, rather than trust to their rifle fire, for the “bullet is a fool.”

As will be seen from the above, pickets, Cossack posts, and observing parties should be in position, halted and invisible to the enemy before dawn, and should not, as a rule, be withdrawn till dusk covers them from the enemy’s observation. It seems puerile to urge these obviously common-sense precautions, and they would be omitted were it not that experience shows that they are most studiously neglected by our regular and irregular troops till bitter experience teaches their necessity.[59]

Sniping by nervous sentries, which will always take place the first few nights on which untrained or unseasoned troops are, or think they are, in contact with the enemy (note the Dogger Bank episode with Rozhestvenski’s fleet), must, and can be, at once firmly put a stop to. To do so, give orders that the C.O., adjutant, and regimental sergeant-major of the corps, in whose section of outposts it occurs, are at once to go and spend a couple of hours in the outposts, and then on their return to report whether “all is quiet in the outpost line.”

Young men, especially, are apt to get “rattled” when “on sentry go,” and to imagine small bushes and so on are the enemy’s scouts. Even fireflies are known to have been mistaken for the enemy’s lanterns and subjected to a heavy fire. When the fire had ceased, and it became evident that they were fireflies and not the enemy with lanterns, the commander of the picket was much annoyed at receiving an order to “Push in now and kill the remainder with the bayonet.” Sentries had far better rouse the rest of the group quietly in case of the enemy really being on the move towards their picket, and then all may fire a volley at “point blank” range only.

It is frequently desirable to impress the enemy with a mistaken estimate of your strength. This might be done by sending a detachment out some hours before dawn towards your base, then before it is light they turn round and march in to your bivouac in full daylight and in sight of the enemy as reinforcements.

There are obviously many plans by which an enemy can be deceived as to the strength of your force, if you can work behind cover, by first showing a number of men in one place and then in another. It is well to remember that even if an enemy sees you acting with duplicity the effect is by no means a bad one, as next time he sees you moving in your real direction he may think the action is for his benefit, and covers a movement from an entirely different direction.

In the outposts a knowledge of strategy and battle tactics is most necessary, and every officer should try to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the terrain, geography, and strategical issues of the campaign, otherwise he may miss great chances, and his extracts from the information, which he will get first of all, may be valueless instead of being such as will bring him to the favourable notice of his superiors. Nor should his superiors forget the late Admiral Makarov’s opinion, that “a sub-lieutenant acting intelligently and sensibly was more useful to the state than a flag officer who was carrying out to the letter an order which he did not clearly understand.”

In regard to terrain, if, as is most probable, the map is on a very small scale, the general direction of the watershed is one of the best general helps in finding the way.

It is absolutely necessary for any cavalry scout moving at night to know enough of the stars to orient himself and to guess correctly the time. British troops serve in so many parts of the world that no special instructions can be given, but Orion is one of the constellations which may prove useful, and which is quite unmistakable.