The reflection on our British cavalry made, we believe, by a cavalry officer, that it was well drilled but badly instructed for war in 1899, appears to be a genuine and well-founded one. How to escape it in future must be our squadron leaders’ chief concern. Napoleon said: “It is not my genius that suddenly reveals to me, in secret, what I should say or do in an unforeseen circumstance. It is reflection, it is meditation. I always work at dinner, at the theatre; at night I wake up to work.”
Above all, let us study in our instruction how best to make moral go hand-in-hand with method; without this what army can do great things? Have not civilization, education (conducted on our own lines), the insidious lessening of animus all conspired against our soldier’s moral in war? How much simpler and more effective was the modus operandi of the Zulu Impis clearly enunciated in their war chant, “If we go forward we conquer, if we go back we die”; their ruler invariably putting to death all who returned from an unsuccessful expedition.
Conclusions
1. That interest must be sustained.
2. That with cavalry above all arms, there is a need for a very stern discipline.
3. That only a really good man can lead a cavalry squadron.
4. That flat-catching must be sternly discountenanced.
5. That a wise delegation of certain points of instruction and horse-management to section leaders will have valuable results.