i.—study.
“trust thyself. every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
i venture to address my first recommendation to professional soldiers, volunteer soldiers, and civilians alike. study your own great war. shut your ears to those who say it is abnormal. study it with an open mind, forming your own opinion, and remembering that this is your experience.
with the facts and conditions of your own modern war thoroughly in your head, re-study other wars, including the last great war in manchuria. note the progress made during the last fifty years in the precision, range, and smokelessness of the firearm, compared with the unimprovable nature of the steel weapon. ask yourself if the professional cavalries in these various wars were alive to the lesson of this revolution, and whether their successors, judged by their own writings, are alive now to the lesson. and do not, i beseech, when you hear it said (with truth) that the “principles of war” never change, be misled into imagining that the steel weapon for horsemen is one of the “principles of war.”
picture past wars, such as the franco-german war, by the light of the knowledge actually then in existence, but unused, as to the possibilities of the rifle in the hands of mounted men. reckon the opportunities lost, and ask yourself if the successes gained by the steel might not 355have been gained equally well even in those days by first-class mounted riflemen.
remember all the while in constructing out of precedents this “case law” that there is a “common law” behind, a physical principle, which is independent in the last resort of all psychological and historical associations. follow it out, as i have often suggested in terms of vulnerability and mobility, constantly using the foot-riflemen as an analogy. but realize that the bayonet, which is used as the climax of a fire-fight on foot, is not the analogue of the sword or lance, which are used from horse-back only, on a system impossible to associate with fire. superimpose the moral and psychological factors—in one word, the spirit—bearing in mind that the best weapon will promote the best spirit, and inspire the most fear in the enemy. lastly, take training, and reflect whether it be possible for a hybrid type to attain perfection in two highly exacting and, under modern conditions, profoundly antagonistic methods of fighting. weigh the terrible cost of not reaching perfection, the humiliation of being impotent even against inferior infantry, and doubly impotent against superior mounted riflemen.
in studying the functions of mounted troops with the aid of the official “training books,” constantly distinguish weapons from mobility, the combat phase from the pre-combat phase. do not be enticed into assuming that men armed with steel weapons can ride, drill, scout or man?uvre better, by virtue of those weapons. on the contrary, observe how steel weapons, not only by their mere weight in metal and leather, but by their manifold corollaries, react harmfully on mobility and intelligence, and in the case of the lance on visibility as well. remember that in war every ounce and every inch tells, and that there is no other weapon on which to save weight. nobody as yet suggests dropping the rifle. that is admittedly indispensable.
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ii.—nomenclature.
the grand distinction between the foot-soldier and the horse-soldier is the horse. the link which unites them is the rifle. we need some classification which emphasizes both the distinction and the link. all our terms, as at present used, are misleading. those ancient and simple names, cavalry and infantry, are really all we want, but their significance is blurred by the modern intrusion of mounted infantry and its unofficial synonym, mounted riflemen, and yeomanry.
“mounted infantry” is a very bad name, because, though accurate in a sense, it suppresses the common element, the rifle, and emphasizes the horse, which is the distinguishing element, by a sort of contradiction in terms, as though one were to say, horse-foot-soldiers. and in the very act of emphasizing the horse it belittles both that noble animal and its rider. it seems to say, “mount by all means, but above all dismount”; “continually get off your horse”—"ignore the horse," to adapt expressions now familiar to the reader.
“mounted riflemen,” though far better than “mounted infantry,” is also unsatisfactory (1) because it suggests a non-existent distinction between foot riflemen and infantry, (2) because it suggests a non-existent class of mounted troops who are not riflemen.
of course, the source of all this confusion is the retention of the steel weapon for our existing regular cavalry, and the hybrid type which results.
i myself should strongly advocate the total abolition of all the modern jargon, and a return to the primitive simplicity of cavalry and infantry. those names will live; nothing can extirpate them, and if they stood alone their very isolation would force into prominence the really fundamental points of similarity and dissimilarity in the troops they represent. of course, there will always be 357different qualities of cavalry, as of infantry, corresponding to length and continuity of training, and the most difficult and exacting functions will naturally be allotted to the best-trained troops. but do not let us make the sword or lance the criterion of excellence. let us select any other criterion but that, paying at least so much of a compliment to modern war experience. do not let us tell the relievers of mafeking or de wet that they cannot engage in a strategical raid; the australians that they cannot pursue; de la rey, the new zealanders, and the riflemen of the rand that they cannot charge. do not let us impress upon our mounted infantry, with their south african traditions, that because they have no sword or lance, they cannot play the big, fast game they played in south africa. by all means, if it is convenient, give them the limited functions of divisional cavalry, but do not put it on the ground of defective armament. give them a chance to realize their own worth, and do not commit the crowning folly—crime it might well be called—of singling them out from all the army for what is in effect a lecture on the “terror of cold steel.”
iii.—armament of cavalry.
i now come to the central object of my volume. my own belief is that reform here must be radical. if it were possible, as the united states cavalry find it possible, to place the sword in a thoroughly subordinate position, and keep it there, accepting whole-heartedly all the logical consequences of its subordination, there would be little objection to its retention. nobody can deny that it can be useful on very rare occasions, though i hope to have proved that the rifle, in expert hands, can do better, even on those rare occasions.
but experience proves that in this country it is utterly impossible to keep the sword or lance subordinate. their 358fascination seems to be irresistible. they laugh at facts and feed men on seductive fictions. we know what the course of reaction has been. for a brief space after the south african war it was in fact made officially subordinate. then the sword regained its old domination. now the lance, from the cold shades of “ceremony,” has become a combative weapon, also dominant, and in the case of lancer regiments, sharing its supremacy with the sword, so that we have now what i venture to call the preposterous spectacle of horsemen armed with no less than three weapons, one of which, when at rest, adds several feet vertically to visibility. of the respective value of the lance and sword in combat, where combat takes place, i say nothing, but on every other ground the lance is utterly indefensible. at the combined army man?uvres of 1909, for example, lancers were operating in hedge-bound country, like that which covers so large a part of england, and where lances constantly make just the difference between concealment and exposure. they are incompatible with effective fire-action.
but that after all is a secondary matter. what makes compromise impossible is the fact that the steel weapon carries with it logically the whole theory of shock. add the firearm and you are faced with dilemmas from which there is no escape. you cannot even take the elementary step of attaching it to the man, instead of to the saddle, without prejudice to the idea of shock. you cannot, as “cavalry training” tacitly admits, carry sufficient ammunition. drop shock, and logic would tear aside the veil, and leave the steel weapon discredited. it could not live on “extended formations,” eight-yard intervals and thin makeshifts of that sort. there plainly it would be trenching on the legitimate sphere of the rifle, and throwing its own inferiority into prominence. the steel involves shock, and shock involves a whole structure of drill, training and equipment, which are not only antithetical 359to fire-action, but prejudicial to general mobility. splendid troops, with keen commanders and careful training, like our regular cavalry, manage to attain a fairly high standard in both fire-action and shock-action; no one can doubt that who witnessed the man?uvres of 1909. but reconnaissance was admittedly imperfect, and the conditions were peace conditions. time spent in training for the steel is time robbed from other training. none know better than general french and other cavalry officers with war experience how tremendously exacting is the standard of excellence required of the mounted rifleman, and how vital the importance of saving weight. war teaches us that only by exclusive and unremitting attention to the use of the horse and rifle in combination is it possible to make good mounted riflemen.
they can never know enough, never practise enough. and, when the last word is said, there remain those “out-of-door habits and sporting instincts” which are so difficult to imitate artificially, and for whose absence it is so difficult to compensate by drill and discipline.
but surely no better material exists in any european country than in this for the production of good mounted riflemen. we have the men, and we have the experience. we are leagues ahead of germany, where steps are only now being taken to provide the cavalry with a carbine equal in power to the infantry rifle; leagues ahead of austria and france; leagues ahead of russia, unless since 1905 she has revolutionized her training. and yet we are blind to our good fortune; not only blind but enviously imitative of the errors of foreigners, who in turn are ignorant of our elements of strength. colonel repington, our ablest military publicist, and one of the best friends the cavalry or the army at large ever had, warns the cavalry that their shock-action needs improvement, by comparison with continental standards, while 360bernhardi and de negrier passionately exhort their countrymen, to wake up to the efficacy of the rifle. but bernhardi cannot bring himself to give up the steel, so, as the most reputable exponent of compromise we can find, we copy into our drill-book those of his maxims on fire which can safely be quoted without fatally injuring the case for the steel. it is enough to make angels weep! observe once more that we are courting failure in neglecting our own aptitudes. our cavalry school believes in the inevitable shock duel, and prophesies “negative” results for fire in the encounters of rival cavalries. continental schools believe the same, so that both cavalries in a european war, oblivious, as of old, of their real battle duties, will seek the shock duel if level ground can be found for it. if our single division is beaten in a brute contest of weight we shall be reaping the fruits of compromise. but the more likely contingency is that the same old cruel and pointless censure will be meted out to both cavalries, for “mutual paralysis” and “idleness” on the battle-field.
all this proves, i submit, that compromise is impossible. sword and lance should be abolished, and the training book rewritten in the light of that abolition. with nothing but the rifle to depend on, a new, pure, equality magnificent, and far more fruitful spirit would at once permeate the whole force. there can be no such thing as a hybrid spirit, and the cavalry know it; hence the re-enthronement of the steel spirit. but inculcate unreservedly the true aggressive fire-spirit, or rather the horse-and fire spirit, and you will get it in a form which would astonish the old european cavalries.
from “cavalry training,” even as it now stands, extract and marshal lucidly all the functions which cavalry are now supposed to perform with the rifle, whether in offence or defence.[85] realize the tremendous responsibilities 361involved, and remember that in any even of these functions to pit half-trained riflemen against first-class riflemen, whether infantry or mounted, is to court failure, and possibly humiliating and disastrous failure—for the sake of what? of obtaining not even perfection, but mediocrity in a class of tactics whose value rests on no proofs from any war since the invention of the smokeless modern rifle.
dismiss these distracting and meaningless distinctions between the “cavalry fight” and other fights, between “mounted action” and “dismounted action,” which are now treated as though they had no connection with one another, and as though in the swift and various vicissitudes of war it were possible to sort troops into classes or to foresee from moment to moment which tactics to employ. realize that under present arrangements there is, and can be, no provision whatever for that rapid transition from one to the other which battle conditions demand if cavalry are to play the fast, confident game they should play. a man with a horse is a man with a horse. make him feel it at all times. do not tell him that a wound inflicted from the saddle counts in some mysterious way more than one inflicted on foot. explain that mounted action and dismounted action may alternate with lightning rapidity, and merge in one another in a thousand ways. in teaching the charge with the rifle do not make the subaltern refer to two distinct chapters, one dealing with the ride into decisive range, another with his action when he dismounts—perhaps only a few yards from the objective—for the fire-climax. and for very shame avoid such puerilities as the direction that before embarking on dismounted action additional ammunition is to be served out.
make the mere mention of “cavalry ground” an offence punishable by fine. tell cavalry that all ground which a horse can approach at all is ground for them, and all 362equally honourable and fruitful ground. tell them to welcome inequalities as the indispensable condition of surprise, not to hanker after open plains, where surprise is impossible. get rid, too, of the equally demoralizing notion that in order to fulfil their supreme function in action their horses must perpetually be in a condition to gallop fast.
saddle-fire for mounted troops is optional, according to capacity. but it should certainly be adopted by professional cavalry, and practised regularly. i need not discuss the difficulty of learning saddle-fire. the mere fact that it is officially enjoined for picked mounted infantry in a three months’ training proves its feasibility, to say nothing of its combat-value. obviously it cannot be regarded as an absolutely essential concomitant of mounted action. a vast amount was accomplished without it in south africa, and our own men, even in their best work, never used it. nor was it used by either side in manchuria, because neither side came near the south african standard of mounted rifle-tactics. but that it may be, if used at the right moment, skilfully, and for certain definite ends, of very great value, we know both from our own experience and from american history. it has genuine moral effect, and may have material effects of an importance out of all proportion to the actual loss of life inflicted, whether in horse or men. a few random bullets may stampede a crowd of led horses, or throw into disorder a regiment massed for shock. in the pursuit of mounted men by mounted men, in the running mêlée, so to speak, experience shows that skilled shots and riders can bring down men with aimed fire. a revolver might be better for this purpose, but the multiplication of weapons is on all accounts to be avoided. the rider must feel in every moment of his field-life that he and his rifle are one for all purposes.
it goes without saying, therefore, that the rifle should 363be slung, as even the russians and japanese slung it, and, as bernhardi recommends, on the back.
but for the arme blanche there would be plenty of time to learn not only saddle-fire, but much beside in the inexhaustible lore of the mounted rifleman. for example, a good first-hand knowledge of entrenchment is absolutely essential, as anyone can see who looks in “cavalry training” for the fire-functions allotted to cavalry; and at least one sharp lesson in south africa drives home the same moral. to allocate a small detachment of royal engineers is to trifle with the subject. entrenching tools, in the use of which the troopers themselves have been practised, should accompany every regiment or brigade. remember the cavalry at hei-kou-tai and pen-hse-hu. if you give men firearms at all, you must teach them thoroughly the defensive as well as the offensive use of firearms, for the two things are one. men who cannot defend cannot attack.
a truce, then, to the rhetoric about cavalry being essentially an arm of offence. ?a va sans dire. every combatant arm is an arm of offence. infantry would regard such an exhortation as a poor compliment. of course we know and make full allowance for the reason of the exhortation—namely, that the arme blanche is by its very nature only a weapon of offence, and that in cavalry theory the arme blanche is the supreme source of dash. get rid of this theory, and you get rid of all excuse for the exhortation.
the arme blanche gone, the path of progress in every department opens out broad and clear. we want light, lithe, wiry men, and horses to match—horses at any rate in which nothing of any moment is sacrificed to size, and of which hardihood is the predominant characteristic. small horses were far the hardiest in south africa and manchuria. high speed is altogether secondary; looks are nothing.
364the vexed question of the weight of general equipment (apart from the extra weight of steel weapons) i regard as outside the scope of this volume. the margin gained by abolishing steel weapons should be used for extra ammunition. in south africa our men carried 130 rounds, the japanese in manchuria 150 rounds.
should the troopers carry a bayonet? that is an interesting question, because it forces us to contrast the relative powers and duties of the foot-rifleman and the horse-rifleman. it is an open question, not vital, because the weight of a bayonet is small, and it does not impose a separate system of tactics. it may be said on the one hand that mobility and surprise are the grand advantages possessed by mounted riflemen over foot-riflemen, and should compensate for the bayonet, which, in point of fact, scarcely justified itself in south africa. the boers lost little by the lack of it, even in storming entrenchments at night, while their charges in the open were based directly on the idea, first of a swift stunning ride in, then on destructive magazine fire. that is the true idea, and we should not forget it. the bayonet suggests the slow, if less vulnerable, approach of men on foot. even in the case of infantry, critics of both the great modern wars associate over-close formations and unskilful skirmishing with an exaggerated idea of the importance of the cold steel. i except port arthur conditions, where horsemen were not wanted.
on the other hand, all british riflemen find confidence in the bayonet, and, as lord roberts truly says, it may be exceedingly useful in a dismounted night attack. war since 1865 proves that cavalry must have the power to press home an assault against entrenched infantry. as mishchenko discovered, they cannot make the simplest raid without it. in strict logic, therefore, the trooper needs the bayonet if the infantryman needs it. only let us be sure that the utility of the bayonet is fully great enough to warrant the possible risk of making the trooper 365forget that normally his horse gives him a great tactical advantage over infantry, and a range of opportunities unknown to them. whatever we decide, let us not act in mimicry of “potential foes.” if the new german carbine has a bayonet, as i believe it has, let us not make the bayonet a fourth weapon in imitation, but a second weapon to fortify the rifle.
on man?uvre not strictly connected with any special weapon i only wish to repeat the clear lesson of south africa and the wise counsel of bernhardi, that the less cavalry, when in free and independent movement, are taught to rely on the support of horse artillery the better.
i need scarcely say that we should erase the last vestiges of the idea that cavalry should count on the support of mounted riflemen. if we abolish the arme blanche that distorted and unwholesome idea dies a natural death.
the conditions of service constitute a most important point. for officers the force should be as cheap as any other part of the army, the career ouverte à tous les talents. every stimulus should be given for the accession of the best men, both mentally and physically, and selection should be rigid. cavalry is a very important arm, demands the most varied powers, and should command the highest talent. it is a relatively small force, it has highly specialized functions, and of all arms it is the least easy to replace in the thick of a war. it must be a comparatively expensive force to maintain, but the expense should fall on the state which it serves. that perhaps is a counsel of perfection for the state in its relation to officers of all arms, but if it softens anywhere, it should soften in the case of the cavalry.
and the source of the present excessive standard of expense? analyze the whole matter carefully, and you will find at the back of it that enemy to progress, the arme blanche. abolish that, and, with a little friendly help from the state, the evil will cure itself.
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iv.—mounted infantry.
we touch here special questions of finance and administration which complicate the issue. but a clear mind on the question of armament and tactics will help immensely to simplify the problem. let us begin by calling them for all purposes “cavalry.” that ought to be a simple and unobjectionable change, because in combined operations they are, in fact, called cavalry, and are allotted the duties of divisional cavalry. the name changed, what follows? logically, no doubt, that they should be merged in the cavalry. apart from the steel weapon, their characteristics are the same. apart from the shock-charge, and assuming equal length of training, their functions and powers should be precisely the same. they are mounted riflemen, as the cavalry should be. on the other hand, there is an advantage, no doubt, from the point of view of expense and simplicity, in the plan of abstraction from infantry battalions for short periods of mounted service; but i suggest that the advantage is small by comparison with the evils of the system. (1) in war, when fresh contingents have to be raised (as they surely will have to be raised), the abstraction, as we know to our cost, weakens the efficacy of the infantry battalions. (2) though the soldier’s prior training (presumed to be thorough) as an infantryman is of immense help to him in learning the work of a mounted rifleman, it is wholly impossible for him, in the short time available, to obtain all the trained aptitudes and instincts of a first-class mounted rifleman.
is it not common sense that, if we go to the expense of providing professional soldiers with horses at all, we should go a little farther, and make them thorough professional horsemen, during their whole training? should we not rather add to the cavalry than abstract from the infantry? i am sure it would pay us well.
367but whether or no this step is taken, and whether or no the arme blanche is abolished, let us at all events revise their instruction in the light of war-experience, abandoning all this excessive stress on their character as infantry, laying all the stress we will on their character as riflemen, and equal stress on their character as horsemen. of course, as long as they remain, so to speak, improvised horsemen, their responsibilities must be appropriate to their efficiency, but they should not be taught to feel that they lose something by the lack of a steel weapon. by all means let them act as a “pivot of man?uvre” for regular cavalry, where the two arms are acting together, if, as mounted riflemen, they are less efficient than cavalry. but away with this absurd notion that their support on such occasions is intended to leave cavalry leisure and opportunity for indulging in shock. away, above all, with the demoralizing insinuation that if caught “in the open,” whatever that vague and elusive phrase may mean, they are, owing to the possession of horses, actually more vulnerable to attack by the steel than infantry; that to meet this contingency, they must form square, an operation long obsolete in the case of the infantry, except for savage warfare. this is just the way to make them lose all confidence not only in the very weapon which infantry are taught to rely on so implicitly against the steel, but in the horse itself. i wonder if the existing mounted infantry believe in the suggestion after their previous training as infantry. if any one of them, does, i can only say to him: “read once more and learn by heart page 92 of ‘infantry training’ (‘meeting an attack by cavalry’). remember you now have a horse; exercise your common sense, and you will conclude that unless you are ‘surprised’ in a sense which would be a disgrace to soldiers of any class or type, mounted or dismounted, you have an immense advantage over cavalry acting ‘as such.’”
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v.—yeomanry.
here are volunteer mounted riflemen; a keen, vigorous force, composed of some of the best elements in the nation, but without prior training as infantry, obtaining a very small amount of field exercise, with horses specially provided for such occasions. they belong to the same type as mounted infantry; but, through no fault of their own, are less efficient. yet, for some inexplicable reason, they are called “cavalry,” and receive, in an appendix to “cavalry training,” three special pages, which begin with the direction that “yeomanry should be so trained as to be capable of performing all the duties allotted to cavalry, except those connected with shock action.” let us follow out the effect which these words are calculated to have upon the mind of an average member of the yeomanry. at the first blush the sentence wears an air of simplicity. having no lance or sword, the yeoman clearly cannot practice shock. but what are the “duties connected with shock action” which he must not perform? if he were to begin by studying bernhardi, he might very well come to the satisfactory conclusion that the only opportunity for shock was in the collision of huge cavalry masses. but he need not read bernhardi, because bernhardi, he is informed, inspires “cavalry training.” in “cavalry training” he searches in vain for an exhaustive list of these duties. he finds emphasis on the big shock duel, with its “positive” result, but no qualification in respect of smaller duels. he hears about the “cavalry fight,” which is clearly a shock fight, and also about cavalry in “extended order,” charging infantry, and wonders if this, too, is shock, and presumes on the whole that it is. eventually he comes to the conclusion, and the very reasonable conclusion, that he is lost without a steel weapon, irretrievably lost if he meets cavalry, and at the best, perhaps, weak in aggression 369against infantry. if he refers to “mounted infantry training,” it is only to find that even this arm, with its professional character and longer continuous training, is taught to fear the steel weapon. reverting, therefore, to his original proposition, that the sword is absolutely essential, he appeals to be equipped with the sword.
but what, meanwhile, of that terrifically deadly weapon, the rifle? with his eighteen days’ field training, is he yet fit to meet on terms of fire professional mounted riflemen, to say nothing of swordsmen and lancers? is he, with his limited practice and his double function of horseman and rifleman, fit to oppose even volunteer infantry? he has vague recollections of a war in which large numbers of volunteer troops under his own appellation met small numbers of skilled mounted riflemen, did remarkably well under the circumstances, but on the whole were completely outmatched. but the uncomfortable memory is soon stifled. that was an “abnormal” war. cavalrymen say it was abnormal. he need not study that war, and in point of fact i am afraid it is true that the majority of our volunteer mounted officers do not study it. why should they, when german theorists and german battles are presented to them on the highest authority as the best guides to education?
i am fully aware that many yeomanry officers resent the demand for a steel weapon, and take the line of common sense in the whole matter. but the opinions i have represented must be reckoned with, for they will grow, as the war fades farther into the past and the reaction to steel in the cavalry gathers strength. in the summer of 1909, there was a correspondence in the times initiated by an anonymous “squadron leader” of yeomanry, who represented that to send swordless yeomanry into war was sheer murder; that in the face of cavalry they were “unarmed sheep”; that he cared nothing about the boer war (of which, indeed, he was 370evidently quite ignorant); that it was “peculiar”; that our cavalry and foreign cavalries believed in the arme blanche, and that for his part he pinned his faith on authorities like general von pelet narbonne, the german author of “cavalry in action.”
of all the many pernicious effects of the survival of the arme blanche, this indirect encouragement to our volunteer horsemen to belittle the good weapon and hanker for the bad weapon is one of the worst. the responsibility rests absolutely on the arme blanche school of thought. there is no valid answer to the demand. they, least of all, can combat it. nor would there be any valid answer if the mounted infantry raised the same demand. every mounted man should have a sword, or none. in war you cannot sort out troops so that one class need only meet its own corresponding class. germans, for example, have no steel-less cavalry. by hypothesis, therefore, our yeomanry cannot take the field at all against them. and how, on the same hypothesis, are our mounted infantry, acting as “divisional cavalry,” to meet german divisional cavalry?
meanwhile, it is impossible to make any other recommendation to the yeomanry than this. regard yourselves as belonging to the highest type of mounted soldier—that is, to the mounted riflemen. concentrate on the rifle and the horse. the more you do that and the more the hybrid professional horsemen waste their energies in compromise, or destroy their efficacy in concentrating on the steel, the fitter you will be to meet them in war.
vi.—imperial mounted troops.
it is for the imperial general staff to grapple with this question. we are dealing here with men who will never really believe that a steel weapon is the distinguishing mark of a superior cavalry. how the steel weapon at 371present is to be submitted to them in an intelligible and natural way, i do not know. without it the whole problem solves itself. it will be possible then to arrange for their inclusion in an imperial army on some definite and reasoned basis, with functions defined according to their capacity as mounted riflemen.
vii.—conclusion.
i hope i have written nothing in this volume which does not come within the bounds of fair criticism. i have written strongly, because i feel strongly on a point about which every englishman, soldier or civilian, has a right to feel strongly. we have wasted too much energy, brains and splendid human material on the perverse pursuit of a phantom ideal. it is painful, at this moment, to see a great current of keenness and ability so misdirected and misapplied.
let us trust our own experience, shake off this crippling superstition, and start afresh on lines which we have proved to be successful.
