The daring hearts who, trusting in a good horse and a knowledge of woodcraft, torment the enemy, whether in camp, bivouac, on the march, or on the line of communication, are a product of all campaigns, ready to the hand of those who know where to find them, and how to inspire them aright so as to get the very best out of them. And what will good men not dare and undergo for a word of praise or encouragement from one whose soul is in what he says?
Again and again, what is learnt in the hard school of campaigning, and generally where that campaign has been lost, carries the best lesson. Has any nation set itself more resolutely to correct the faults of its cavalry[5] than the French nation after the 1870 war?
Conversely, the nation that wins, learns little or nothing; no lesson is worse than that of easy success in small wars. Witness the Russian successes in Central Asia for a series of years, followed by the débâcle of their cavalry action in the Manchurian War when pitted against an enemy whose cavalry was scarcely “in being,”[6] and the erroneous conclusions arrived at in regard to cavalry by those who only saw the first portion of the operations in South Africa 1899–1902.
Von Moltke is credited with saying: “People say one must learn by experience; I have always endeavoured to learn by the experience of others.”
The real lessons learnt from war are extremely difficult to impress on the taxpayer, who, in modern Great Britain, only reads of them in the newspaper, and who at best does not wish to pay for one more cavalry soldier than is absolutely necessary.
The cavalry leader must recognize that the arm is expensive, therefore it cannot afford to be inactive; it is the hardest arm to replace, therefore it must be used to the full.
In all ages cavalry[7] have been expensive, and one may well wonder if the frugal mind of the taxpayer balances them against who can say what pictures of dead and wounded, indemnity, pillage, lost trade, and damaged prestige, or whether he looks at one side of the balance-sheet only, and forgets that from which they may save him.
Ignoring these mundane views, it is still the duty of the cavalry leader who has patriotism in his soul, to keep his heart young and his muscles trained, and to leave no stone unturned in peace time in his preparation, as a sacred duty, for war; just as in war it is his duty to sacrifice his men, his reputation, his horses, everything, in order to turn the tide of battle or render the victory decisive.
Let officers of cavalry remember that he who in peace time cannot sacrifice his pleasures to his duty, will in war find it much harder to give up his life or aggrandisement, possibly in accordance with an idea or order with which he does not agree, or in which he sees no sense.
This is the serious side; mercifully there is a lighter side to war, and it is well known that the hair-breadth escapes of themselves or others, and the “hard tack” form the most amusing and abiding recollections of a war to those who have participated in it.