German influence on British cavalry

FLUENCE

BR-

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

GERMAN INFLUENCE
ON BRITISH CAVALRY

BY

ERSKINE CHILDERS

AUTHOR OF
'WAR AND THE ARM* BLANCHE," "THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS,

" IN THE RANKS OF THE C.I.V."
EDITOR OF VOL. V. OF "THE 'TIMES' HISTORY OF THE WAR1'

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD

1911

[All rights reserved]

PREFACE

£ THIS essay is meant to be read in connection with

^ the facts and arguments adduced in my book of

2c last year, " War and the Arme Blanche," with its

Introduction by Field-Marshal Lord Roberts.

0 From the nature of the case I have not been able

fi to avoid a small measure of repetition, but I have

_ done my best to confine myself to new ground.

^ A word about my object in writing again.

Contemporaneously with the publication of " War

^. and the Arme Blanche,"" General von Bernhardi

* published in Germany his " Reiterdienst," and

o= an English edition, translated by Major G. T. M.

Bridges, D.S.O., under the title " Cavalry in War

and Peace," appeared simultaneously in this

country. Like its predecessor, " Unsere Kaval-

lerie im nachsten Kriege " (translated under the

title " Cavalry in Future Wars "), this new book

by General von Bernhardi was headed with a

iii

407487

iv PREFACE

highly laudatory Preface from the pen of General
Sir John French, who commended it to military
students in this country as a brilliant and authori-
tative treatise on the employment of Cavalry in
modern war. It was included in the valuable
" Pall Mall Series " of military books, published
by Hugh Bees and Co. ; and, in short, unless the
critical faculties and native common-sense of
Englishmen can be aroused, it is likely to become
a standard work. There exists, be it remembered,
no similar work, modern and authoritative, by a
British author.

My object in this essay is to arouse those
critical faculties and that common-sense. With-
out any disrespect to General von Bernhardi, who
writes, not for Englishmen, but, as a German
reformer, for what he regards as an exceptionally
backward Cavalry, I wish to show, not only that
we have nothing to learn even from him in the
matter of Cavalry combat, but that, if we only
have the pluck and independence to break off the
demoralizing habit of imitating foreign models,
and to build on our own war experience and our
own racial aptitudes, we have the power of
creating a Cavalry incomparably superior in
quality to any Continental Cavalry.

PREFACE V

The indispensable condition precedent to that
revival is to sweep away root and branch the
tactical system founded on the lance and sword,
and to create a new system founded on the rifle.

I shall endeavour to show, using von Bernhardi's
" Reiterdienst," with Sir John French's Intro-
duction, and our own official Manuals, as my text,
that in the matter of modern Cavalry warfare no
principles worthy of the name exist among profes-
sional men. The whole subject is in a state of
chaos, to which, I believe, there is no parallel in all
the arts of war and peace. And the cause of that
chaos is the retention in theory of a form of combat
which is in flagrant contradiction with the condi-
tions exacted by modern fire-arms, and is utterly
discredited by the facts of modern war.

The excellence of the translation furnished by
Major Bridges has made it unnecessary for me to
introduce into this essay the various terms and
phrases used in the original German text. After
a study of that text, I am satisfied, if Major
Bridges will permit me to say so, that, obscure as
the author's exposition often is, no part of the
obscurity is due to the translator. I have not
found a technical term of which he has not given
the correct English equivalent, or a passage where

vi PREFACE

he has not accurately interpreted the original
sense.

Let me add that I have been encouraged
further to write this essay by the keen and
instructive controversy which followed the publi-
cation of my book of last year. Incidentally I
have taken the opportunity hi this volume to
reply to some of the criticisms against its prede-
cessor, and to clear up some points which I think

were not fully understood.

E. C.

March, 1911.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY - 1

I. THE GERMAN MODEL - - 1

II. " CAVALRY IN FUTURE WARS " - - 7

H. SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE - 15

HI. THE BRITISH THEORY OF THE ARME BLANCHE - 36

IV. CAVALRY IN COMBAT - . - 53

I. INSTRUCTION FROM HISTORY - - 53

H. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF COMBAT - 66

V. TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS - - 86

I. THE PURELY CAVALRY FIGHT - - 86

n. THE CHARGE UPON INFANTRY - - 94

m. THE DISMOUNTED ATTACK BY CAVALRY 98

VI. THE FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY - 103

I. GERMAN VIEWS - - 103

H. THE BRITISH VIEW - 124

VH. THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS - - - 133

I. GERMAN VIEWS - - 133

n. THE BRITISH VIEW - 164

vii

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAOB

Vm. RECONNAISSANCE - - - 163

I. WEAPONS - 163

n. THE PRELIMINARY SHOCK-DUEL • 168

in. DIVISIONAL RECONNAISSANCE - - 172

IV. SCREENS - - 173

IX. THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS - - - 186
I. GENERAL VON BERNHARDI ON SOUTH

AFRICA - - - 186

H. VIEWS OF THE GENERAL STAFF - 200

m. OTHER CAVALRY VIEWS - - 205

X. THE MORAL ..... 214

GERMAN INFLUENCE ON
BEITISH CAVALRY

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

I. THE GERMAN MODEL.

IMPARTIAL observers of the recent controversy
upon the merits of the lance and sword as weapons
for Cavalry must have been struck by one singular
circumstance — namely, that there exists in our
language no standard modern work upon the
tactics and training of Cavalry in modern war,
written by a Cavalryman, accepted by Cavalry-
men, and embodying and illustrating the lessons
of the two great modern wars waged since the
invention of the long-range, smokeless magazine
rifle. Without such a work, controversy is seri-
ously hampered. The need for it is beyond
dispute.

Whatever the extent of the revolution brought
about by the magazine rifle, a revolution, by

1

2 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

universal admission, there is. Since 1901 a serious
firearm has been substituted for the old carbine
formerly carried by the Cavalry, and the Cavalry
Manual has been rewritten, with increased stress
on the importance of fire. It is also the fact that,
from whatever causes, the lance and sword have
proved, both in South Africa and Manchuria,
almost innocuous weapons. These facts demand,
to say the least, serious recognition from those
who still hold that the lance and sword are the
most important weapons of Cavalry. Angry
letters to the daily press, desultory and super-
ficial articles in the weekly and monthly press,
are not enough. What is wanted is some com-
prehensive and authoritative exposition of what
Cavalry functions are in modern war, how they
have been modified by the firearm, and why,
with chapter and verse, not by way of vague
allegation, the only great wars hi which that fire-
arm has been tested are to be regarded as " ab-
normal " and uninstructive.

For illumination and confirmation on these
matters, we are constantly referred, in defence
of the lance and sword, by our own Cavalry
authorities to foreign countries whose armies
have had no experience at all of modern civilized
war as revolutionized by the modern magazine
rifle. We are referred, above all, to Germany,

INTRODUCTORY 3

and, in particular, to the works of a German
officer, General von Bernhardi, who (1) writes
exclusively for the German Cavalry, without the
most distant reference to our own ; (2) whose own
war experience dates from 1870, when he fought
as a Lieutenant, and who has not seen the modern
rifle used hi civilized war ; (3) who believes that
no wars, ancient or modern, except the American
Civil War of 1861-1865, afford an analogy to
modern conditions, and that the modern Cavalry-
man must base his practice on "speculative and
theoretical reflection " ; (4) who states that the
German Cavalry, owing to indifference to the revo-
lution wrought by the modern firearm, and excessive
adherence to " old-fashioned knightly combats,"
is at this moment wholly unprepared for war
and is trained on Regulations which, though quite
recently revised, he makes the subject of stinging
and sustained ridicule ; (5) who is so ignorant of
the technique of fire-action by mounted troops
that he renders it, unconsciously, more ridiculous
even than shock-action ; and (6) who firmly
believes in the lance and sword, and in the shock-
charge as practised " in the times of Frederick the
Great and Napoleon."

In this strange list of qualifications the reader
will see the makings of a pretty paradox. And a
pretty paradox it is, a bewildering, incompre-

4 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

hensible paradox ; not so much, indeed, that a
German author, born and bred hi a German
atmosphere, should be so saturated with obsolete
German traditions that even in the act of de-
nouncing them he can subscribe to them, but that
British Cavalrymen, headed by Sir John French,
our foremost Cavalry authority, men who have
had three years' experience of war with the
modern magazine rifle, who have seen the arme
blanche fail and the rifle dominate tactics, and
who, eight years before the German Cavalry even
stirred in its sleep, acquiesced in changes in
Cavalry armament and training directly based on
that experience — that these men should acclaim
the works of the aforesaid German author as the
last word of wisdom on the tactics and training
of modern Cavalry, and represent them as such
to young British Cavalrymen, is a circumstance
which almost passes belief.

Still, it is a fortunate circumstance. We have
a body of doctrine to grapple with and controvert.
If we succeed in dissipating the myth of German
superior intelligence on Cavalry matters, we go a
long way towards dissipating the whole of the
arme blanche myth, which hi the opinion of our
greatest living soldier, Lord Roberts — an opinion
founded on lifelong experience of war — is as mis-
chievous a superstition as ever fettered a mounted

INTRODUCTORY 5

military force. The whole of the material is here
— and it is unexceptionable material for contro-
versy— for Sir John French himself contributes
his own views on the subject in the form of lauda-
tory Introductions to both of General von Bern-
hardi's works.

I propose in the following pages (1) to criticize
General Sir John French's views, so expressed ;
(2) to analyze and criticize General von Bern-
hardi's recently published work, " Cavalry hi
War and Peace," and to contrast his teaching
with that of our own Service Manuals ; (3) to try
to show that each General refutes himself, that
both refute one another, and that Sir John
French is, by a strange irony, far more reactionary
than the German officer to whom he directs us
for " progressive " wisdom ; (4) to expose the
backwardness and confusion in every department
of Cavalry thought, here and in Germany, as a
direct consequence of the attempt to found a
tactical system upon obsolete weapons ; and (5)
incidentally to put forward what I venture to
suggest is true doctrine.

This doctrine, briefly, is that the modern
Cavalry soldier is, for practical purposes, repre-
sented by three factors — man, horse, and rifle —
and that it is only by regarding him strictly and
constantly as a mounted, that is to say, an

6 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

especially mobile, rifleman, as distinguished from
the less mobile foot-rifleman, that we can estab-
lish his war functions on a simple, sound, and
logical basis. I ask the reader to hold that clue
firmly as a guide through the perplexities and
obscurities of the topic and the obsolete termin-
ology and phraseology which not only disturb
reasoning but distort and enfeeble practice.

At the outset let the reader grasp the following
historical facts as to the efficacy of swords and
lances in civilized war :

1. Franco-German War of 1870-71 : Six Germans
killed and 218 wounded by the sabre and clubbed
musket counted together. No separate figures for
the lance. [Total German casualties from all
weapons, 65,160.]*

2. South African War, 1899-1902 : No statistics
as to death. About fifty Boer casualties through
lance and sword together, and about fifty more
prisoners taken. [Total Boer and British deaths,
and wounds from all weapons, about 40,000.]

3. Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05 : No exact
figures, but apparently not more than fifty
casualties from lance and sword together. [Total
casualties in action, over 400,000.]

* Report of German Medical Staff. No French figures
available.

INTRODUCTORY 7

II. " CAVALRY IN FUTURE WARS."

Two works by General von Bernhardi have
been translated into English, and widely circu-
lated among our military men. I propose to say
but little about the first, " Cavalry in Future
Wars," because I have already endeavoured to
criticize it hi detail hi my own book, " War and
the Arme Blanche." It is the second work,
" Cavalry hi War and Peace," published only hi
1910, that I wish to make the basis of discussion
hi this volume ; but hi order to explain the
history of German influence on British Cavalry,
it is necessary to recall briefly certain features of
its predecessor.

" Cavalry hi Future Wars " was first published
hi German hi 1899, before the Boer War broke
out. There was a second edition hi 1902, when
the Boer War was drawing to a close, and this
second edition, headed by General French's Intro-
duction, was translated and published hi England
hi 1906. It was a strange work, strangely spon-
sored. The keynote was fire-action for Cavalry,
the moral drawn by the English sponsor shock-
action for Cavalry. The chapters on fire-action,
urging the adoption of a firearm even better than
the Infantry rifle hi substitution for a mere pop-
gun, formed hi themselves a complete refutation

8 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

of shock ; while the chapters on shock, so illogical
and self-contradictory was the method of ex-
position, formed an equally complete refutation
of fire-action.

It is true that the spirit of fire predominated,
that fire was the General's message to his lethargic
brother-officers, but the message was so strangely
expounded that it is no wonder that for ten
years they turned a deaf ear to it. Instead of
telling them at the outset that if they themselves
adopted a good firearm, and learnt to use it pro-
perly, they would immensely enhance the value
of Cavalry for all the purposes of war, he opened
his argument with a melancholy dirge over
the departed glories of the Cavalry owing to
the adoption by other classes of troops of the
deadly modern firearm. They must recognize,
he told them, that they had been " driven out of
their place of honour on the battlefields of the
plains "; that they could henceforward only
attack Infantry who were already so shattered
and demoralized by the fire of other Infantry as
to have reached the point of throwing away their
arms, and much more in the same sense. Never
was such a tactless prophet ! And the pity of it
was that he did not really mean all he said.
What he meant was that the ancient glories of
the arme blanche, when pitted against the fire-

INTRODUCTORY 9

arm, were gone past recall — a circumstance
scarcely worth an elegy, one would imagine,
from a scientific soldier. War is business, not
romance, and if the same or better results can
be produced by an intelligent and dashing use of
the firearm, it is waste of breath to lament the
decay of the lance and sword. It was the main
purpose of the General's work to prove that these
results could be so obtained, and whenever he
warmed to his subject, and fell into temporary
oblivion of the romantic weapons, he proved his
point well enough, in theory.

But, unfortunately, his oblivion of the lance
and sword lasted only as long as he was criticizing
the action of Cavalry against troops not armed
with those weapons. When he came to the
action of Cavalry against Cavalry, both by hypo-
thesis armed, not only with the lance and sword,
but also with the best modern rifle obtainable,
the principle he had just established — namely,
that the rifle imposes tactics on the steel — dis-
appeared, and the opposite principle — -that the
steel imposes tactics upon the rifle — took its
place. I say " principle," but hi this latter case
no reasoned principle based on the facts of war
was expounded, because it seemed never to
occur to the General that Cavalry in combat with
Cavalry would have the bad taste to use their rifles.

10 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Needless to say, it was impossible to sustain
this daring paradox with any semblance of logic
and consistency throughout a book dealing with
all the phases of war. War is not a matter of
definitions, but of bullets and shells. And, in
fact, the General threw logic and consistency to
the winds. In his fire - mood he unconsciously
covered shock-tactics with ridicule, but in his
shock-mood (no doubt, much to the relief of the
victims of his wrathful invective in Germany)
he conclusively demolished the principle of
fire.

This was easily explicable. In the first place,
the General was a German writing exclusively
to Germans, to whom the bare idea of relying on
the prosaic firearm seemed sacrilegious. Merely
to implant that idea in their heads, to persuade
them that the rest of the world was moving
while they were asleep, was a vast enough aim
for a German reformer — too vast an aim, indeed,
as the event proved. In the second place, the
General, so far as the effect of modern fire-
arms was concerned, was working wholly in the
realm of theory. When he first published his
book those weapons had not been tested in
civilized war. The most recent relevant war
experience was that of 1870 and of the other
European wars of that period, when the fire-

INTRODUCTORY 11

arm was exceedingly imperfect. But even then,
as he frankly and forcibly stated, it was in con-
sequence of their neglect of this firearm, imperfect
as it was, that the European Cavalry, the Ger-
man Cavalry included, gave such a painfully poor
account of themselves. He looked farther back,
just as Colonel Henderson and many other critics
in our own country looked back, to the brilliant
achievements of American Cavalry in the Civil
War of 1861-1865, mainly through the agency of
the firearm. But here the firearm was still more
primitive — a fact of which General von Bernhardi
took no account. It was enough for him that
inter-Cavalry shock survived through the Civil
War, though the steel came to be wholly in-
effective against Infantry. That forty years of
scientific progress might have produced a weapon
which would have banished shock in any form
did not occur to him.

Nevertheless, there seemed to be good ground
for the hope that, when he came seriously to
collate and examine the phenomena of the first
great wars since the invention of the modern
rifle — those in South Africa and Manchuria — he
would find in the exact confirmation of his views
on fire, and in the complete falsification of his
views on shock, ground for a drastic revision of
his whole work, with a view, not perhaps to a

12 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

complete elimination of the steel weapons, but to
their complete subordination to the rifle. It is
true that the omens were not very favourable.

Between 1899 and 1902, when his second
edition was published, a great mass of South
African information became available, not in
finished historical form, but in a form quite suit-
able for furnishing numberless instructive exam-
ples of the paramount influence of fire and the
futility of the lance and sword. But the General
made no use of these examples. He confined
himself to a general allusion to the " very im-
portant data obtained in South Africa as to the
employment of dismounted action by Cavalry "
(p. 7), and in a later passage (p. 56) to some com-
mendatory remarks on the " brilliant results "
obtained through mounted charges made with
the rifle only by the Boers in the latter part of
the war. Unfortunately, it was plain that he
had given no close technical study either to these
charges or to the " important data " vaguely
alluded to ; otherwise he would have saved him-
self from many of the solecisms which abound in
his work. Still, the fact remained that the war
was unfinished when his second edition was
published, while another great war broke out
only two years later. It seemed not unlikely
that mature reflection upon the incidents of these

INTRODUCTORY 13

wars would ultimately tend to clarify and har-
monize his views on shock and fire.

Meanwhile the English edition was published,
with its Introduction by General Sir John
French. By this time (1906) the events of our
own war were fully collated and recorded, while
the Manchurian War had also taken place.
Instead of supplying a really useful commentary
upon the German work, written from the point
of view of British experience, instead of drawing
attention to its deficiencies and errors, and point-
ing out how inevitable they were under the
circumstances of its composition, General French
hailed the work as a complete, final, and un-
answerable statement of Cavalry doctrine. Von
Bernhardi, he said, " had dealt with remarkable
perspicuity and telling conviction and in an ex-
haustive manner with every subject demanding
a Cavalry soldier's study and thought." How
Sir John French's readers reconciled this effusive
eulogy with the contents of the book remains a
mystery. As I have said, the only really im-
portant feature of the book was the insistent
advocacy of fire-tactics — and not merely defensive,
but offensive fire-tactics — for Cavalry. This fea-
ture was minimized in the Introduction. In
its place was a vehement attack on the advocates
of fire-tactics in England, the truth of whose

14 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

principles had just been signally demonstrated
in our own war.

There was not a word about the " important
data " to be derived from the war ; not a word
about the Boer charges, of whose terribly de-
structive effects Sir John French knew far more
than General von Bernhardi. On the contrary,
the war was dismissed in a few slighting and
ambiguous sentences, as wholly irrelevant to the
arme blanche controversy, in spite of the fact that,
in direct consequence of the war, our Cavalry
Manual had been rewritten and the Cavalry
fire-arm immensely improved — facts which would
naturally suggest that the war had been in-
structive.

Praise of Von Bernhardi, singular as the form it
took, was by no means academic. In the next
revision of our Cavalry Manual (1907) the com-
pilers borrowed and quoted considerably from
" Cavalry in Future Wars." And yet every
sound principle in that work had years before been
anticipated and expounded far more lucidly and
thoroughly in the fascinating pages of our own
military writer, Colonel Henderson, whose teach-
ing had been ignored by the Cavalry of his own
country.

CHAPTER II

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE

So the matter stood until, early in 1910, General
von Bernhardi produced his second work,
" Cavalry in War and Peace." An admirable
English translation by Major G. T. M. Bridges
promptly appeared, again with an Introduction
by Sir John French.

It must, one might surmise, have given him
some embarrassment to pen this second eulogy.
The previous book had been "perspicuous,"
" logical," " intelligent," and, above all, " exhaus-
tive and complete." Two wars, it is true, had
intervened, but neither, according either to Sir
John French or, we may say at once, to General
von Bernhardi, was of any interest to Cavalry.
What fresh matter, either for German exposition
or for British eulogy, could there be ? That is
one of the questions I shall have to elucidate,
and I may say here that the only new fact for
General von Bernhardi is the recent promulga-

15

16 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

tion of a revised set of Regulations for the
German Cavalry, Regulations which, in his
opinion, though "better than the old ones," are
still almost as mischievous, antiquated, and
" unsuitable for war " as they can possibly
be, and whose effect is to leave the German
Cavalry " unprepared for war." But this is
not a new fact which could properly strengthen
Sir John French in recommending the German
author to the British Cavalry as a brilliantly
logical advocate of the lance and sword, and
it is not surprising, therefore, that the tone of
his second introduction is slightly different from
that of the first.

For the first time there appears a refer-
ence to the German Cavalry Regulations, from
which the English reader would gain an inkling
of the fact that General von Bernhardi is not a
prophet in his own country, and that all is not
harmony and enlightenment among the " pro-
pressive " Cavalry schools of Europe. On one
specific point — raids — Sir John French " ven-
tures to disagree " with General von Bernhardi,
and he writes, also in quite general terms, that
he does not " approve of all that the German
Regulations say about the employment of Cavalry
in battle." But even this latter note of criticism
is very faint and deprecatory ; nor is there

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 17

anything to show that the writer, except on
the one point mentioned, is not thoroughly at
one with the German author's principles. The
main purpose of this Introduction, as of the
earlier one, is to claim that Bernhardi's book
is a triumphant justification of the lance and
sword. It is a " tonic for weak minds," an
antidote against the " dangerous heresies " of the
English advocates of the mounted rifleman,
whose " appeals from ignorance to vanity "
deserved scornful repudiation.

Once more, and in warmer language than ever,
the General protests against the pernicious ten-
dency to attach value to the lessons of South
Africa ; but this time, fortunately, he gives some
specific reasons for regarding the war as " ab-
normal," and I shall devote the rest of this
chapter to an examination of these reasons.

They are four: (l)That the " Boer commandos
dispersed to the four winds when pressed, and
reunited again some days or weeks later hundreds
of miles from the scene of their last encounter."
This curious little summary of the war shows to
what almost incredible lengths of self-delusion a
belief in the arme blanche will carry otherwise
well-balanced minds — minds, too, of active, able
men like Sir John French, who have actually
been immersed in the events under discussion.

2

18 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

One fails at first to see the smallest causal rela-
tion between the phenomena of the war as he
sets them forth and the combat value of the
lance and sword, but the implied argument
must be this : that these weapons could not be
given a fair trial in combat because there was no
combat, or, rather, only combat enough to cause
the hundred casualties and prisoners for which,
by the recorded facts, the lance and sword were
accountable.

We figure a bloodless war, in which at the
mere glimpse of a khaki uniform the enemy fled
for " hundreds of miles " — at such lightning speed,
moreover, that one of the chief traditional
functions of the arme blanche, pursuit, was wholly
in abeyance. Who would gather that there had
been a " black week "; that Botha and Meyer
held the Tugela heights for four months against
forces between three and four times their superior
hi strength ; that Ladysmith (where there were
four Cavalry regiments) was besieged for four
months, Kimberley for the same period, and
Mafeking for seven months ; that for at least
nine months no " dispersion " took place even
remotely resembling that vaguely sketched by
Sir John French ; and that during the whole
course of the war no tactical dispersion took
place which would conceivably affect the efficacy

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 19

of the lance and sword as weapons of combat ?
A mere statement of the fact that the net rate of
Boer retreat, even during the purely partisan
warfare of 1901-02, was almost invariably that
of ox-waggons (two miles an hour on the average),
that until the last year of the war the Boers were
generally accompanied by artillery, and that
from the beginning of the war to the end not a
single waggon or a single gun was ever captured
through the agency, direct or indirect, of the
lance and sword, shatters the hypothesis that
these weapons had any appreciable combat value.

But that is only the negative side of the argu-
ment. We have to deal with a mass of plain,
positive facts in favour of the rifle as an aggres-
sive weapon for mounted troops. The Boer rifle
caused us 29,000 casualties, over 40 guns and
10,000 men taken in action-r-losses which, to say
the least, are evidence that some stiff fighting took
place ; for men who, when " pressed," run for
" hundreds of miles " cannot take prisoners and
guns.

We have before us the details of some hundreds
of combats, in which Cavalry as well as other
classes of troops were engaged, and the only
effective way of testing the value of the steel
weapons is to see what actually happened in these
combats. The result of this inquiry is to show

20 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

that the lance and sword were practically useless
both in attack and defence, whatever the relative
numbers and whatever the nature of the ground.
No serious historian has ever attempted to make
out any case to the contrary. No responsible
man at the time would have ventured publicly
to assert the contrary. It was patent to every-
body— leaders and men — that the Boers were
formidable because they were good mounted
riflemen, and that our bitter need was for mounted
riflemen as good as theirs. It is only when years
of peace have drugged the memory and obliterated
the significance of these events — melancholy and
terrible events some of them — that it is possible
to put forward the audacious claim that the lance
and sword had no chance of proving their value
because the Boers hi variably ran away from them.
It must be evident that if this first reason for
the failure of the lance and sword given by Sir
John French is valid, it would be needless to
proffer any others. And the others he does
proffer only demonstrate further the weakness
of his case. " Secondly," he says, " the war
in South Africa was one for the conquest and
annexation of immense districts, and no settle-
ment was open to us except the complete sub-
mission of our gallant enemy." Such a cam-
paign, he goes on to say, " is the most difficult

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 21

that can be confided to an army," etc. Per-
fectly true — we agree ; but what bearing has this
obvious truth on the combat value of the lance
and sword ?

The issue before us is this : Is a certain mode of
fighting possible in modern days ? Is it practic-
able for men to remain in their saddles and wield
steel weapons against men armed with modern
rifles ? " No," answers Sir John French, " it is
not practicable, if your aim is annexation and
the complete submission of a gallant enemy."
Poor consolation for the unhappy taxpayer who
pays for the maintenance of exceedingly expen-
sive mounted troops, and commits himself to a
scheme of conquest and annexation in the faith
that these troops are efficient instruments of his
will ! Where would Sir John French's argu-
ment lead him, if he only followed it up and sup-
plied the missing links ? But that is the worst
of this interminable controversy. Such nebulous
arguments never are worked out in terms of
actual combat on the battle-field.

Thirdly, says Sir John French, the horses were
at fault. " We did not possess any means for
remounting our Cavalry with trained horses. ..."
" After the capture, in rear of the army, of the
great convoy by De Wet, our horses were on
short commons, and consequently lost condition,

22 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

and never completely recovered it." This is an
old argument, expressed in the old vague, mis-
leading way. The war lasted nearly three years,
beginning in October, 1899. The period referred
to by Sir John French was in February, 1900.
Long before this, when there was no complaint
about the horses, the futility of the lance and
sword, and the grave disabilities under which the
Cavalry laboured owing to their inadequate
carbine, had been abundantly manifest. The
steel weapons may be said to have been obsolete
after Elandslaagte, on the second day of the war.
At the particular period referred to by Sir John
French — the period of the operations against
Cronje and Kimberley — heat and drought did
undoubtedly play havoc with all the horses in
both armies, with those not only of the Cavalry,
but of the mounted riflemen and Artillery on
both sides. In February, 1900, a third of
Cronje's small force was on foot, a pretty severe
disability, since his whole force was scarcely equal
to our Cavalry division alone, with its gunners
and mounted riflemen included, while it was
less than a quarter as strong as the whole army
at the disposal of Lord Roberts. Sir John French
makes use of a misleading expression when he
says that " the Cavalry horses lost condition, and
never completely recovered it." Nine-tenths of

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 23

the horses here referred to succumbed altogether
within a few months, and the Cavalry, like nearly
all the mounted troops engaged in the operations in
question, were completely remounted in June, for
the grand advance from Bloemfontein to Pretoria.

During the succeeding two years of warfare all
the mounted troops, Cavalry included, were
several times remounted. So were the Boer
troops, who, of course, had no remount organiza-
tion at all for "trained " or untrained horses, and
had to be content with anything they could pick
up on the veldt. Yet, besides imposing fire-
tactics on the Cavalry in every type of combat
alike, they invaded the traditional sphere of
Cavalry (and were imitated to some extent by
our own Colonials and Mounted Infantry) by
developing on their own account a most for-
midable type of mounted charge, which during
the last year of the war alone cost us 18 guns
and 2,500 men killed, wounded, and prisoners.
These charges were made with little rats of
starveling ponies, whose extreme speed was
scarcely that of the slow canter of an ordinary
Cavalry charger.

If Sir J. French were to descend to statistics
and facts, he would find it impossible to trace any
causal relation between the efficacy of the lance
and sword and the condition of the horses from

24 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

time to time. The phenomena are precisely the
same under all conditions from first to last.
Everywhere and always the rifle is supreme.
The better the horse, the better help for the rifle —
that is all. In point of fact, he is quite aware
that the principal success of the regular Cavalry
was achieved when the horses were at their
worst — that is to say, in the very period he refers
to, when the Cavalry headed off Cronje and
pinned him, purely by fire-action, to the river-
bed at Paardeberg. Another good performance
— though it was by no means specially a Cavalry
performance ; for mounted riflemen and Infantry
were associated with the Cavalry — was the pro-
longed screening operations in front of Colesberg
(November to January, 1900). There was no
complaint about the horses then, but the sabre
never killed or hurt a Boer. It was only once
drawn from the scabbard, and was speedily re-
sheathed, owing to hostile fire.

I pass to the last and strangest of Sir John
French's reasons for regarding the war as abnormal
in the sense that it gave no opportunity for the
use of the lance or sword. It is this : That, " owing
to repeated and wholesale release of prisoners
who had been captured and subsequently ap-
peared in the field against us, we were called
upon to fight, not 86,000 or 87,000 men, but

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 25

something like double that number or more, with
the additional disadvantage that the enemy pos-
sessed on his second and third appearance against
us considerable experience of our methods and a
certain additional seasoned fitness." Here again
is a proposition which alone is sufficient to destroy
the case for the lance and sword. If, as a defence
of those weapons, it means anything, it must
mean that the Cavalry, by means of their steel
weapons, were perpetually taking prisoners, to no
purpose, because these prisoners were constantly
released. Gradually the enemy learnt " experi-
ence of our methods," that is, of our shock-
methods with the lance and sword, and, armed
with this experience and the " seasoned fitness "
produced by successive spells of fighting, they
eventually countered or evaded those shock-
methods, with what result we are not told. But
such an interpretation is inadmissible. What Sir
John French surely should say is precisely the
reverse of what he does imply — namely, that we
started the war in an ignorance of the Boer
methods which cost us scores of millions of
pounds ; that we slowly learnt experience of those
methods, and ultimately conquered the Boers
and ended the war by imitating those methods.
That is the plain moral of the war, as enforced by
every historian.

26 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Observe that, for the sake of argument, I am
accepting as historically accurate Sir John
French's statement about the advantage pos-
sessed by the Boers owing to the release of their
prisoners. It is almost superfluous to add that
the statement, in the sense he uses it, has no
historical foundation. The truth is exactly the
opposite. The advantage was immensely on our
side. The Boers took many thousands of British
prisoners, but permanently retained none, because
they had no means of retaining them. During
the last year of the war prisoners were released on
the spot. A large proportion of these men fought
again, some several times. No Boer prisoner
of .war — that is, captured in action — was released.
In December, 1900, we had about 15,000 in
our possession ; in May, 1902, about 50,000.

It was mainly by this attrition of the Boer
forces that we reduced them to submission. The
element of historical truth in Sir John French's
proposition is this : that in 1900, after the fall of
Bloemfontein, a considerable number of Boers
surrendered voluntarily, not in action, and were
dismissed to their farms under a pledge not to
fight again — a pledge which they broke, under
circumstances into which we need not enter.
There are no exact statistics as to the numbers
of these men, but at an outside estimate they

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 27

cannot have amounted to more than 5 per cent,
of the total number of Boers engaged in the war.
In any case, the point is totally irrelevant to the
question of shock-tactics. That is a question of
combat, and in combat, as Sir John French is
aware, the Boers were, nine times out of ten,
greatly outnumbered.

Such are Sir John French's reasons for the
failure of the lance and sword in South Africa.
They constitute an instructive revelation of the
mental attitude of the advocates of those weapons.
Is it not plain that we are dealing here with a
matter of faith, not of reason ; of dogma, not of
argument ; of sentiment, not of technical prac-
tice ? The simple technical issue — what happens
in combat ? — is persistently evaded, and refuge
sought in vague and inaccurate generalizations,
which, when tested, turn out to throw no light
upon the controversy.

Sir John French himself manages to demon-
strate in this same Introduction that the ques-
tion is really one of sentiment. It is a seemingly
incurable delusion with him that the whole cam-
paign on behalf of the rifle is an attack of a per-
sonal nature on the war exploits of himself and
the regular Cavalry, instead of being, what it
really is, an attack on the lances and swords
carried by the Cavalry. This delusion carries him

28 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

to the strangest lengths of professional egotism.
In the whole of this Introduction there is not a
line to indicate that any British mounted rifle-
man unprovided with steel weapons took part
in the war, or that the tactics and conduct of
these men have the smallest interest for English-
men or the smallest bearing on the present con-
troversy. No one would gather that our Colonial
mounted riflemen led the way in tactical develop-
ment, and frequently, brief and rough as their
training had been, excelled the Cavalry in effici-
ency, simply because they were trained on the
right principles with the right weapon.

" Even in South Africa," says Sir John French,
" grave though the disadvantages were under
which our Cavalry laboured from short commons
and overwork " [as though these disadvantages
were not shared equally by our mounted riflemen
and by the Boers themselves !], " the Boer mounted
riflemen acknowledged on many occasions the
moral force of the cold steel, and gave way before
it." Then follows a concrete instance, taken
from the action of Zand River in May, 1900.

Anyone familiar with the history of the war
must have felt deep bewilderment at the General's
choice, for purposes of illustration, of this action,
which has not generally been held to have re-
flected high credit on the Cavalry.

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 29

It is needless to discuss the battle in detail,
because the accounts of it are set forth clearly
and accurately enough in the " Official " and
Times Histories, and, inter alia, in Mr. Goldman's
work, " With French in South Africa." As a
very small and unimportant episode in the battle,
there was certainly a charge by a whole brigade
of regular Cavalry against some Boers whom the
Times History describes as a " party," and whom
Mr. Goldman, who was present, estimates at 200
in number ; but it is perfectly clear, from all
accounts, (1) that the casualties resulting from
the charge were too few to deserve record ;
(2) that the charge had no appreciable effect upon
the fortunes of the day ; (3) that the Cavalry on
the flank in question suffered serious checks and
losses at the hands of a greatly inferior force ;
and (4) that Sir John French's turning force, like
General Broadwood's turning force on the oppo-
site flank, completely failed to perform the
supremely important intercepting mission en-
trusted to them by Lord Roberts, and failed
through weakness in mobile fire-action.

Sir John French's version of the action teems
with inaccuracies. All the cardinal facts, undis-
puted facts to be found in any history, upon
which the judgment of the reader as to the efficacy
of the steel must depend, are omitted. There

30 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

are no figures of relative numbers, no times, no
description of the terrain, no statement of casual-
ties. I will instance only one, but the greatest,
error of fact. He writes that " the role of the
Cavalry division was to bring pressure to bear
on the right flank of the Boer army, in order to
enable Lord Roberts to advance across the river
and attack the main Boer forces."

This is a highly misleading account of Roberts's
tactical scheme for the battle. Eight thousand
Boers, disposed in a chain of scattered detach-
ments, held no less than twenty-five miles of
country along the north bank of the Zand River,
their right resting on the railway, which ran at
right angles to the river. We had 38,000 men,
including 12,000 mounted men, of whom 5,000
were regular Cavalry. To have used the mounted
Arm merely to " bring pressure to bear " upon
the Boer flanks would have been a course alto-
gether unworthy of Lord Roberts and the great
army he controlled. He set no such limited aim
before the Cavalry. He planned to surround and
destroy the enemy by enveloping movements on
both flanks, and gave explicit orders to that
effect. French, with 4,000 men, had orders to
ride round the Boer right flank, and seize the
railway in their rear at Ventersburg Road. The
same objective was given to the turning force

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 31

under Broadwood, 3,000 strong, on the Boer left.
Both enveloping operations failed. To " press "
the Boers into retreat was nothing. They must
have retreated anyhow, in the face of an army five
times their superior. The point was to prevent
them from retreating into safety, to cut off their
retreat, and with mounted turning forces together
nearly equal to the whole Boer force this aim was
perfectly feasible, given one condition, which was
not fulfilled — that our mounted troops, headed by
our premier and professional mounted troops, the
Cavalry, could use their rifles and horses approxi-
mately as well as the Boers.

Now let us come to the heart of the matter.

Let us waive all criticism of the accuracy and
completeness of Sir John French's narrative, and
test the grounds of his belief that it was owing to
their fear of the sword that the Boers gave way
when Dickson's brigade charged. The Cavalry
carried firearms as well as swords, and out-
numbered the party charged by at least five to one.
We cannot apply the test of casualties, because
there were so few. The only test we can apply is
that of analogy from other combats. Conditions
similar to those of Zand River were repeated, on a
smaller or larger scale, thousands of times. Do we
find that steel-armed mounted troops had greater
moral effect upon the enemy than troops armed

32 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

only with the rifle ? Did the presence of the
lance and sword on the field of combat make any
difference to the result ? The answer, of course,
is that it made no difference at all. Anyone can
decide this question himself. We know precisely
what troops were present, and how they were
armed, in all the combats of the war.

We can detect many different factors at work,
psychological, technical, tactical, topographical ;
but there is one factor which we can eliminate as
wholly negligible, and that is the presence of the
lance and sword. The same phenomena reappear
whether those weapons are there or not. For
example, during Buller's campaign for the
conquest of Northern Natal (May to June, 1900)
very little use was made of regular Cavalry. Dur-
ing the first phase, the advance over the Biggars-
berg, the six regiments of Cavalry at Buller's
disposal were left behind at Ladysmith. The
mounted work throughout was done mainly by
irregulars. Was it of a less aggressive and
vigorous character on that account, by analogy,
say, with the mounted operations during the
advance of Roberts from Bloemfontein to Pre-
toria ? We find, on the contrary, that the
results were better. The total relative numbers
on the Boer side and our side were about the
same : we were about four to one. But while

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 33

Roberts had 12,000 mounted men, of whom 5,000
were Cavalry, Buller had only 5,500 mounted
men, of whom 2,500 were Cavalry. Do we find
that when the steelless irregulars mounted their
horses, as Dickson's brigade mounted their
horses, and made a rapid aggressive advance —
" charged," that is — the Boers were any less
inclined to retreat ? On the contrary, they were
more inclined to do so. Witness, for instance,
Dundonald's long and vigorous pursuit with his
irregular brigade over the Biggarsberg on May 14.

Or take the Bloemfontein-Pretoria advance, in
which Zand River itself was an incident. Can
we trace any further this alleged " terror of the
cold steel " ? Allowance must be made for the
brief and inadequate training of the Mounted
Infantry and Colonials ; but, even with this
allowance, a study of the facts shows that they
did as well as the Cavalry, and sometimes better.
The only effective local pursuit was made by
Button's Australians at Klipfontein (May 30),
where a gun was captured. These men had no
steel weapons, yet they charged, and rode down
their enemy.

Take Plumer's brilliant defence of Rhodesia
with mounted riflemen. Take the relief of
Mafeking, one of the most arduous and finely-
executed undertakings of the war. Did the

3

34 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

900 troopers of the Imperial Light Horse who
carried it out suffer from the lack of swords and
lances ? They would not have taken them at a
gift. Did their work compare unfavourably
with that of the Cavalry Division, 6,000 strong,
in the relief of Kimberley ? On the contrary,
when we contrast the numbers employed, the
opposition met with and the distance covered
(251 miles in eighteen days), we shall conclude
that the achievement of the irregulars was by
far the more admirable of the two.

An infinity of illustrations might be cited to
prove the same point, but, in truth, it is a point
which stands in no need of detailed proof. The
onus probandi lies on those who defend weapons
which palpably failed. It is the Cavalryman's
fixed idea that " mounted action," as the phrase
goes, is associated solely with steel weapons ;
that soldiers in the saddle are only formidable
because they carry those weapons. Mounted
riflemen are pictured as dismounted, stationary,
or as employing their horses only for purposes
of flight. These fictions were blown to pieces by
the South African War, and the irony of the case
is that Sir John French gratuitously brings
ridicule on the Cavalry by reviving them. If
they are not fictions, the Cavalry stand con-
demned by their own pitifully trivial record of

SIR JOHN FRENCH ON THE ARME BLANCHE 35

work done with the steel. But this is to slander
the Cavalry. They do not stand condemned ;
their steel weapons stand condemned. They
themselves, like all other mounted troops, did
well precisely hi proportion to their skill in and
reliance on the rifle and horse combined. Their
lances were soon returned to store ; their swords,
after rusting in the scabbards for another year,
were also, in the case of nearly all regiments, aban-
doned ; a good Infantry rifle replaced the weak
carbine, and the Cavalry became definitely recog-
nized as mounted riflemen.

No one has ever regarded Sir John French him-
self as otherwise than a leader of conspicuous
energy and resource. But, so far from owing any-
thing to the lance and sword, he suffered heavily
from the almost exclusive education of his troops
to those weapons, and from the inadequacy of
their firearm.

CHAPTER III
THE BRITISH THEORY OF THE ARME BLANCHE

AND now, what in Great Britain is the real
theory on this question ? Let us go to Sir John
French again. The South African War, he says,
is no guide for the future. It is abnormal, for
the reasons stated above. The Manchurian War
he has also stated to be abnormal. Where, then,
is the theoretical advantage of the lance and
sword over the modern rifle ? We are left in
ignorance. The physical problem is untouched.
All we have is the bare dogmatic assertion that
the steel weapon can impose tactics on the rifle.
This is how Sir John French expresses the theory
on p. xi of his Introduction : " Were we to do
so " (i.e., to " throw our cold steel away as useless
lumber "), "we should invert the role of Cavalry,
turn it into a defensive arm, and make it a prey
to the first foreign Cavalry that it meets ; for
good Cavalry can always compel a dismounted
force of mounted riflemen to mount and ride
away, and when such riflemen are caught on

36

BRITISH THEORY OF THE ARME BLANCHE 37

their horses, they have power neither of offence
nor defence, and are lost."

Eight years have elapsed since the Boer War.
Memories are short, and it is possible now to
print a statement of this sort, which, if promul-
gated during the dust and heat of the war itself,
when the lance and sword fell into complete and
well-merited oblivion, and when mounted men on
both sides were judged rigidly by their proficiency
in the use of the horse and the rifle, would have
excited universal derision. The words which
follow recall one of the writer's " abnormal-
ities " already commented on : " If in European
warfare such mounted riflemen were to separate
and scatter, the enemy would be well pleased,
for he could then reconnoitre and report every
movement, and make his plans in all security.
In South Africa the mounted riflemen were the
hostile army itself, and when they had dispersed
there was nothing left to reconnoitre ; but when
will these conditions recur ?" When, indeed ?
There was nothing, it seems, to reconnoitre, be-
cause the enemy always " scattered and dis-
persed." And the Generals were " well pleased "!
" Nothing left to reconnoitre " ! One can only
marvel at the courage of Sir John French in
breathing the word " reconnoitre " in connection
with Cavalry work in South Africa.

407487

He ought to admit that Cavalry reconnaissance
was bad, and that the army suffered for it.
No historian has ever defended it. It was the
despair of Generals who wanted information
as to the position of the enemy. Wits apart,
the rifle ruled reconnaissance, as it obvi-
ously always must rule it. Ceteris paribus, the
best rifleman is the best scout. The Cavalry
were not good riflemen, and were therefore not
good scouts. Not a single Boer scout from the
beginning to the end of the war was hurt by a
sword or lance. Those weapons were a laughing-
stock to foe and friend alike. And Sir John
French's proposition is, not so much that the
reconnaissance was good — presumably, that goes
without saying — but that there was nothing to
reconnoitre, thanks, apparently, to the terror
spread by the lance and sword.

Such a travesty of the war may be left to speak
for itself. But it is very important to compre-
hend the root idea which underlies it, an idea
which, as we shall see, reappears in a less extreme
form in General von Bernhardi's writings. It is
expressed in the words " we should invert the role
of Cavalry, turn it into a defensive arm." The rifle,
it will be seen, is regarded as a defensive weapon,
in contradistinction to the lance and sword, which
are offensive weapons. To sustain this theory,

BRITISH THEORY OF THE ARME BLANCHE 39

it is absolutely necessary, of course, to proceed to
the lengths to which Sir John French proceeds —
to declare, in effect, that there was no war and no
fighting ; for if once we concede that there was
a war, study its combats and compute their
statistical results, we are forced to the conclusion
that the rifle must have been used hi offence
as well as hi defence. Abstract reflection might
well anticipate this conclusion by suggesting
that a defensive weapon and a defensive class of
soldiers are contradictions in terms.

There must be two parties to every combat,
and, unless there is perfect equilibrium in combat,
one side or the other must definitely be playing
an offensive role ; and, even in equilibrium, both
sides may be said to be as much in offence as in
defence, whatever weapons they are using. The
facts mainly illustrate the abstract principle. The
Boers could not have taken guns and prisoners
while acting on the defensive. Talana Hill,
Nicholson's Nek, Spion Kop, Stormberg, Sannah's
Post, Nooitgedacht, Zilikat's Nek, Bakenlaagte,
were not defensive operations from the Boer
point of view. Nor were Magersfontein, Colenso,
Elandslaagte, Paardeberg defensive operations
from the British point of view. Whether the
rifles were in the hands of Infantry or mounted
troops is immaterial. A rifle is a rifle, who-

40 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

ever holds it. It is just as absurd to say
that the Boers who rode to and stormed on
foot Helvetia and Dewetsdorp belonged to
a defensive class of soldiers as it is to say
that the Infantry who walked to and stormed
Pieter's Hill belonged to a defensive class of
soldiers. It is still more absurd to say that the
Boers who charged home mounted at Sannah's
Post, Vlakfontein, Bakenlaagte, Roodewal, Blood
River Poort, and many other actions, and the
British mounted riflemen who did similar things
at Bothaville, were performing a defensive func-
tion, while the Cavalry who pursued at Elands -
laagte were performing an offensive function.
Take this action of Elandslaagte, the solitary
genuine example of a successful charge with the
arme blanche. By whom was the real offensive
work done ? By the Infantry and by the Im-
perial Light Horse acting dismounted, and by
the Artillery. After hours of hard and bloody
fighting, these men stormed the ridge and forced
the Boers to retreat. In the act of retreat they
were charged by the Cavalry, who had hitherto
been spectators of the action.

It might be objected that I am taking a verbal
advantage of Sir John French. He is guilty, it
may be argued, only of the lesser fallacy — that of
thinking that the rifle is a defensive weapon for

BRITISH THEORY OF THE ARME BLANCHE 41

mounted men as distinguished from Infantry.
Not so. He perceives the logical peril of ad-
mitting that the rifle is an offensive weapon for
any troops, and in another passage, when depre-
cating attacks on the " Cavalry spirit " (p. vii),
makes use of the following words : " Were we to
seek to endow Cavalry with the tenacity and stiff-
ness of Infantry, or take from the mounted arm
the mobility and the cult of the offensive which are
the breath of its life, we should ruin not only the
Cavalry, but the Army besides." (The italics
are mine.) It may be pointed out that, but for
their firearms and the mobility and offensive
power derived from them, the Cavalry in South
Africa would indeed have been "ruined" beyond
hope of rehabilitation.

But let us look at the underlying principle
expressed. Infantry are" stiff and tenacious "
(that is, obviously, in defence). Cavalry have the
" cult of the offensive." Those are the distinc-
tive " spirits " of the two Arms. The bitter irony
of it! Which Arm really displayed the most
" offensive spirit " in South Africa ? Study the
lists of comparative casualties in the two Arms
during that period of the war in which Infantry
were mainly engaged. If at Talana, the Battle
of Ladysmith, Colenso, Dronfield, Poplar Grove,
Karee Siding, Sannah's Post, Zand River, Doom-

42 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

kop, or Diamond Hill, the Cavalry in their own
sphere of work had shown the offensive power
displayed by the Infantry in the battles on the
Tugela, or in Methuen's campaign from Orange
River to Magersfontein, or at Driefontein,
Doornkop, Bergendal, and Diamond Hill, the
war would have showed different results. There
was no distinction in point of bravery between
any branches of the Services. Fire-power and fire-
efficiency were the tests, and lack of a good firearm
and of fire-efficiency on only too many occasions
fatally weakened the offensive spirit of the Cavalry.
And what of the " tenacity and stiffness " with
which we must not " seek to endow " Cavalry ?
Ominous words, redolent of disaster ! Have no
they fully as much need of those qualities as
Infantry ? Imagine our Cavalry doing the work
that the Boers had to do on so many score of occa-
sions— to fight delaying rearguard actions against
immensely superior numbers, with no reserves,
and a heavy convoy to protect. We shall be
fortunate if, through reliance on and skill in the
use of the rifle, they display as much tenacity and
stiffness as Botha's men at Pieter's Hill or Koch's
men at Elandslaagte against forces four times
their superior in strength, to say nothing of such
incidents as Dronfield, where 150 Boers defied a
whole division of Cavalry and several batteries ;

BRITISH THEORY OP THE ARME BLANCHE 43

of Poplar Grove and Zand River, where small
hostile groups virtually paralyzed whole brigades ;
or of Bergendal, where seventy-four men held up a
whole army. There was nothing abnormal tacti-
cally or topographically about any of these inci-
dents. Any function performed by the Boer
mounted riflemen may be demanded from our
Cavalry in any future war. Suppose them, for
example, vested with the strictly normal duty of
covering a retreat against a superior force of all
arms ; suppose a squadron, like the seventy-four
Zarps at Bergendal, ordered to hold the car-
dinal hill of an extended position, and their leader
replying : " This is not our business. We are an
offensive Arm. We cannot entrench, and we have
not the tenacity and stiffness of Infantry. Our
business is to charge with the lance and sword."
Would the General be well pleased ?

The reader will ask for the key to this curious
discrimination between the " spirits " of Cavalry
and Infantry. It is this : The lance and sword,
when pitted against the rifle, can, if they are used
at all, only be used in offence. Men sitting on
horseback, using steel weapons with a range of a
couple of yards, plainly cannot defend themselves
against riflemen. Even the Cavalry tacitly admit
this principle, and if they accepted its logical con-
sequence, a logical consequence completely con-

44 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

firmed by the facts of modern war, they would
admit, too, that the sword and lance cannot be
used for offence against riflemen in modern war.
But they will not admit that. " Tant pis pour
les faits," they say. " All modern war is ab-
normal. Our steel weapons dominate combat.
Without them we are nothing."

In these circumstances they are forced to set
up this strange theory — that Cavalry is a pecu-
liarly " offensive " Arm, a theory which the reader
will find expressed in all Cavalry writings. On
the face of it the theory is meaningless. It is a
mere verbal juggle, because, as I said before,
there are two parties to every combat, and
defence is the necessary and invariable counter-
part of offence. All combatant soldiers, including
Cavalry, carry firearms, and if Cavalry choose to
use these firearms in offence, by hypothesis they
will impose fire -action on the defence, whether
the defence consists of Cavalry or any other class
of troops. Conversely, if they use their rifles in
defence, as by hypothesis they must, they will
impose fire-action on the attacking force, be it
Cavalry or any other Arm. In other words, the
rifle governs combat. That is why the lance and
sword disappeared in South Africa. Both in
offence and defence the Boer riflemen forced the
Cavalry to accept combat on terms of fire.

BRITISH THEORY OF THE ARME BLANCHE 45

And what kind of Cavalry do our Cavalry-
men count upon meeting in our next war ? They
count, incredible as it seems, upon meeting
Cavalry not superior, but inferior, to the Boer
mounted riflemen, inferior because, as I shall
show from von Bernhardi, they defy science,
shut their eyes to the great principle of the
supremacy of fire, are prepared deliberately to
abdicate their fire-power, and hope to engage, by
mutual agreement, as it were, and on the under-
standing that suitable areas of level ground can
be found, in contests of crude bodily weight.

And what of the action of Cavalry against other
Arms ? We know Sir John French's opinion
about mounted riflemen. They will gallop for
their lives " defenceless " at the approach of
" good " Cavalry. But Infantry, riflemen with-
out horses, who cannot gallop, but can only run ?
Their case, it would seem, must be still more
desperate. They are not only defenceless, but
destitute even of the means of flight. And
yet even Sir John French credits them, if not
with an offensive spirit, at least with "tenacity
and stiffness," derived, of course, from their rifles.
But their mounted comrades, armed with these
same rifles, lack these soldierly qualities. We
arrive thus at the conclusion that the horse, which
one would naturally suppose to be a source of

46 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

immensely enhanced mobility and power, is a
positive source of danger to a rifleman unless he
also carries a lance or sword.

Here is the reductio ad absurdum of the arme
blanche theory, and I beg for the reader's par-
ticular attention to it. Of course, the conclusion
is hi reality too absurd ; for Sir John French him-
self does not really believe that Infantry are a
defensive Arm. In point of fact, no serious man
believes that Infantry hi modern war have any-
thing whatever to fear from the lance and sword,
and their training-book is written on that assump-
tion. Nor does Sir John French really believe
that Mounted Infantry are a defensive Arm who
run from Cavalry ; otherwise, he would never
rest until he had secured the complete abolition
of our Mounted Infantry, who are now, under his
official sanction, designed to act, not only as
divisional mounted troops against steel-armed
Continental Cavalry, but to co-operate with, and
in certain events take the place of, our own
regular Cavalry hi far wider functions, and are
presumably not going to be whipped off the field
at the distant glimpse of a lance or sword. And
I may say here that the reader can obtain no
better and more searching sidelight on the steel
theory than by studying the Mounted Infantry
Manual (1909) for the rules given about similar

BRITISH THEORY OF THE ARME BLANCHE 47

and analogous functions. Nor, if Sir John French
went the whole length of the theory, would he,
as Inspector-General, have permitted our Colonial
mounted riflemen to think that they might be of
some Imperial value in a future war. It is only
in order to sustain his a priori case for the steel
weapons that he finds himself forced into
the logical impasses to which I have drawn
attention.

There is one further point to deal with before
leaving Sir John French's Introduction. He
admits the necessity of a rifle for Cavalry, and
we may presume him to admit that the Boer War
proved the necessity for a good rifle and the
futility of a bad carbine. When, in his opinion,
is this rifle to be used ? "I have endeavoured to
impress upon all ranks," he writes on page xvii,
" that when the enemy's Cavalry is overthrown, our
Cavalry will find more opportunities of using the
rifle than the cold steel, and that dismounted
attacks will be more frequent than charges with
the arme blanche. By no means do I rule out as
impossible, or even unlikely, attacks by great bodies
of mounted men against other arms on the battle-
field ; but I believe that such opportunities will
occur comparatively rarely, and that undue promi-
nence should not be given to them in our peace
training." (The italics are mine.)

48 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

This is a typically nebulous statement of the
combat functions of Cavalry hi modern war, and,
like the generality of such statements, will be
found to contain, if analyzed, a refutation of the
writer's own views on the importance of the arme
blanche. We ask ourselves immediately why he
thought it necessary to account for the failure of
the arme blanche in South Africa by the elaborate
accumulation of arguments for " abnormality "
developed a few pages earlier. After all, it seems,
the war, in its bearing upon the efficacy of weapons,
was normal. The Boers had no " Cavalry " in
the writer's use of the word — that is, steel-armed
Cavalry. What he assumes to be the primary and
most formidable objective of our own steel-armed
cavalry was, therefore, by a fortunate accident,
non-existent. There was no need to " over-
throw " it, because there was nothing to over-
throw, and our Cavalry was free from the outset
to devote its attention to the "other Arms " —
that is, to riflemen and Artillery — assumed evi-
dently by the writer to be a secondary and less
formidable objective. But here, apparently,
" opportunities " for the arme blanche are to
occur " comparatively rarely " in any war,
European or otherwise, whether the riflemen
show " tenacity and stiffness " or " disperse for
hundreds of miles "; whether the horses are

BRITISH THEORY OF THE ARME BLANCHE 49

perennially fresh or perennially fatigued ; whether
we outnumber the foe or they outnumber us ;
whether annexation or mere victory is our aim.

If only, we cannot help exclaiming, this prin-
ciple had been recognized in 1899 ! We knew the
Boers had no swords or lances : we had always
known it. If only we had prepared our Cavalry
for the long-foreseen occasion, trained them to
fire, given them good firearms, and impressed
upon them that opportunities for shock would
occur " comparatively rarely," instead of teaching
them up to the last minute that fire-action was
an abnormal, defensive function of their Arm,
worthy of little more space in their Manual than
that devoted to " Funerals," and much less than
that devoted to " Ceremonial Escorts."

The root of the fallacy propounded by Sir John
French lies in his refusal to recognize that a rifle
may be just as deadly a weapon in the hands of
Cavalry as in the hands of "other Arms," and,
indeed, a far more deadly weapon, thanks to the
mobility conferred by the horse. If, for example,
Infantry can, as he tacitly admits they can, force
Cavalry to adopt fire-action, a fortiori can
Cavalry, if they choose, force Cavalry to adopt
fire -action. In other words, the rifle governs
combat, as it did, in fact, govern combat in South
Africa and Manchuria. But Cavalry operating

4,

against Cavalry, according to Sir John French,
are not so to choose. We can only speculate
upon what may happen if one side is so unsports-
manlike as to break the rules and masquerade
as another Arm. The stratagem is simple,
because the rifle kills at a mile, and the orthodox
Cavalry may be unaware until it is too late that
the unorthodox Cavalry is playing them a trick.
Meanwhile the best riflemen, whether they have
horses or not, will win, and horsemen who have
spent 80 or 90 per cent, of their time in steel-
training will have cause to regret their error.

But Sir John French contemplates no such
awkward contingencies. We may surmise, how-
ever, that it is owing to an uncomfortable sus-
picion of his own fallacy that in this paragraph
and elsewhere he is so careful to isolate inter-
cavalry combats from mixed combats, and to
postulate the complete " overthrow " of one
Cavalry — an overthrow effected solely by the
arme blanche — before permitting the surviving
Cavalry, in Kipling's words, to " scuffle mid un-
seemly smoke. " He has a formula for the occasion.
In this paragraph it is " when the enemy's
Cavalry is overthrown." On page xiv, speaking
of raids, which he deprecates, he says : " Every
plan should be subordinate to what I consider
a primary necessity — the absolute and complete

BRITISH THEORY OF THE ARME BLANCHE 51

overthrow of the hostile Cavalry "; and on
page xv : "If the enemy's Cavalry has been over-
thrown, the role of reconnaissance will have been
rendered easier," a truism upon which the Boer
War throws a painfully ironical sidelight.

If the reader is puzzled by this curiously super-
fluous insistence on the " overthrow " of the
enemy analogous to the equally superfluous in-
sistence on the " offensive " character of the
Cavalry Arm, he will once more find an ex-
planation in the anomalous status of the arme
blanche. No one would dream of repeatedly im-
pressing upon Infantry, for example, as though
it were a principle they might otherwise overlook,
that their primary aim must be the absolute and
complete overthrow of the hostile Infantry. But
the advocate of the arme blanche is always on the
horns of a dilemma. He dare not admit that the
rifle in the hands of Cavalry is as formidable a
weapon as hi the hands of Infantry, if not a far
more formidable weapon. He therefore in-
stinctively tends to picture steel-armed Cavalry
as perpetually pitted against steel-armed Cavalry.
Both sides are always hi offence until the moment
when one is " completely and absolutely over-
thrown." Then some other roles, very vaguely
delineated, open up to the victor. Needless to
say, this picture bears no resemblance to war.

52 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Troops are not, by mutual agreement, sorted out
into classes, like competitors in athletic sports.
Every Arm must be prepared to meet at any
moment any other Arm, and any other weapon.

Nor do these " complete and absolute " oblitera-
tions of one Arm by its corresponding Arm ever,
in fact, happen. That they could ever happen
through the agency of the lance and sword is
the wildest supposition of all. Compared with
rifles, these weapons are harmless. Even the
most backward and ignorant Cavalry, trained to
rely absolutely on the lance and sword, would, if
it found itself beaten in trials of shock, or, like
the Japanese Cavalry, greatly outnumbered,
resort to the despised firearm, imitate the tactics
and vest itself with something of the " tenacity
and stiffness," as well as with the aggressive
potency, of those " other Arms," which, by hy-
pothesis, must be attacked with the rifle ; and in
doing so it would force its antagonist to do the
same.

CHAPTER IV
CAVALRY IN COMBAT

I. INSTRUCTION PROM HISTORY.

I HAVE gone at considerable length into the
opinions of Sir John French, as expressed in his
Introduction to von Bernhardi's work — partly
because it is more important for us to know what
our own Cavalrymen think than what German
Cavalrymen think, and partly because it will be
easier for the reader to estimate the value of. the
German writer's views if he is already familiar
with Sir John French's way of thinking. We
should expect, of course, to find identity between
the views of the two men, since Sir John French
acclaims the German author as the fountain
of all wisdom ; but on that point the reader
would be well advised to reserve judgment.

I shall now discuss " Cavalry in War and
Peace," and first let me say a few more words
on a very important point — the circumstances of
its composition.

When General von Bernhardi wrote his first
53

54 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

book, " Cavalry in Future Wars," he did not take
the current German Cavalry Regulations as his
text, because they were too archaic to deserve
such treatment. He condemned them hi the
mass, and, independently of them, penned his
own scheme for a renovated modern Cavalry.
After about nine years of complete neglect,
during which the two great wars hi South Africa
and Manchuria were fought, the German authori-
ties decided that some recognition of modern
conditions must be made. They have recently
re-armed the Cavalry with a good carbine, and
issued a new book of Cavalry Regulations.
These circumstances induced the General to write
his second book, " Cavalry in War and Peace,"
and to throw it into the form of a direct criticism
of the official Regulations, which he constantly
quotes in footnotes and uses in the text of his own
observations and constructive recommendations.
What is the result ? The first point to notice
is that he regards the new official Regulations,
" though better than the old ones," as thoroughly
and radically bad. His writings, he says, " have
fallen on barren soil." He condemns them
almost invariably for precisely the same reason
as before, namely, that they virtually ignore the
rifle in practice, and continue the ancient and
worn-out traditions of the steel, with mere lip-

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 55

service to the modern scientific weapon. But a
disappointment was in store for those who had
hoped that the mental process involved in criti-
cizing concrete Regulations, as well as the vast
mass of instructive phenomena presented by the
two wars which, when he wrote first, were still
" future wars " to him, would arouse the General
himself to a realization of the inconsistencies in
his own earlier work.

These hopes have been falsified. The fascina-
tion of the arme blanche was proof against the
test, and the result is one of the strangest military
works which was ever published. Bitter satire
as it is on the official system of training, any
impartial reader must end by sympathizing, not
with the satirist, but with the officials satirized.
They at any rate try to be logical. Their con-
cessions to fire are the thinnest pretence ; their
belief in shock undisguised and sincere. What-
ever follies and errors this belief involves them
in, they pursue their course with unflinching
consistency, sublimely careless of science and
modern war conditions.

Their critic, on the other hand, keenly alive
to the absurdities inculcated, has not the mental
courage to insist on the only logical alternatives.
Faced with the necessity of proving their absurdity,
he refuses to use the only effective weapon avail-

able, gives away his own case for fire by weak
concession to shock, and succeeds in producing a
work which will convince no one in Germany,
and the greater part of which, as a practical
guide to Cavalrymen, in this country or any
other, is worthless. A mist of ambiguity shrouds
what should be the simplest propositions. We
move through a fog of ill-defined terms and vague
qualifications. We puzzle our brains with aca-
demical distinctions, and if we come upon what
seems to be some definite recommendation, we
are pretty sure to find it stultified in another
chapter, or even hi the same chapter, by a
reservation in the opposite sense. The key to
each particular muddle, to each ambiguity, to
each timid qualification, to each confusing doc-
trinaire classification, is always the same — namely,
that the writer, from sheer lack of knowledge of
what modern fire-tactics are, at the last moment
shrinks from his own theories about their value.
What has happened is exactly what one would
expect to happen. In Germany the General
admits his failure, and in England he is
hailed by Sir John French, who politely ignores
his blunders about fire-action, as the apostle of
the steel, instead of what he really is, the apostle,
though the ineffectual apostle, of the rifle.

Let us first be quite clear as to his opinion of

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 57

the present German Cavalry. " While all other
Arms have adapted themselves to modern con-
ditions, Cavalry has stood still," he says on the
first page of his Introduction. They have " no
sort of tradition " for a future war (p. 5). Their
training creates " no sound foundation for pre-
paration for war." It is " left far behind in the
march of military progress." " It cannot stand
the test of serious war." It is trammelled by the
" fetters of the past," and lives on " antiquated
assumptions " (p. 6). Its " mischievous delu-
sions " will result in " bitter disappointment "
(p. 175). Many of the new Regulations " betoken
failure to adapt existing principles to modern
ideas" (p. 361); others "do not take the con-
ditions of reality into account " ; or " cannot be
regarded as practical " ; or are " provisional " ;
and of one set of peculiarly ludicrous evolutions he
uses the delightful phrase that they are " included
in the Regulations with a view to their theoretical
and not for their practical advantages " (p. 333).
He stigmatizes " the formal encounters," the
" old-fashioned knightly combats," the " pro
forma evolutions," the " survivals of the Dark
Ages," the "spectacular battle-pieces," the " red-
tape methods," the " tactical orgies," the
" childish exercises," and " set pieces " of peace
manoeuvres. The origin of the trouble, he says,

58 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

is " indolent conservatism " (p. 366). " Develop-
ment in our branch of the Service has come to a
standstill " (ibid.). The officers do not study
history or the progress of foreign Cavalries. And
he reiterates again and again his general con-
clusion that the Cavalry is unprepared for
war.

Such is the material which forms his text. And
we may ask at once, Is a book based on such an
appalling state of affairs, and addressed exclus-
ively to a Cavalry described as being given over to
ancient shibboleths, mischievous delusions and
antiquated assumptions — is such a book likely to
deserve the effusive and unqualified praise of our
own foremost Cavalry authority ? Is it likely to
be worthy of becoming the Bible of a modern and
progressive Cavalry, such as Sir John French con-
siders our own Cavalry, trained under his own
guidance, to be ? Is it likely to be " exhaustive,"
" convincing," " complete " ?

To suppose so is to insult the intelligence of
our countrymen. We do not teach the ABC in
our Universities. Our natural science schools
do not assume that their pupils belong to the
" Dark Ages," and waste two-thirds of their
energy in laborious refutations of such extinct
superstitions as witchcraft. The education of
our sailors to modern naval war is not conducted

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 59

on the assumption that the Navy consists of
wooden sailing-vessels whose inadequacy to
modern conditions must be elaborately demon-
strated. A gunnery course — and the reader will
note the analogy — does not consist mainly of
arguments designed to prove that the cutlass is
no longer so important a weapon as the long-
range gun and the torpedo. Nor — in the military
sphere — are our Infantry and Artillery instructed
with a view to weaning them from the cult of the
pike and the catapult.

So, too, we may be quite sure that there is
something radically wrong when our Cavalry, in
their search for an authoritative exposition of
modern Cavalry tactics, are reduced to relying on a
foreign writer who writes for a Cavalry ignorant of
the elements of modern Cavalry tactics, and a good
half of whose work is taken up with scoldings and
appeals which from our British point of view are
grotesquely redundant. All that is good hi what
von Bernhardi says about fire-action we know
from our own war experience. All his errors
about fire-action we can detect also from our
own war experience.

We should expect Sir John French to comment
on these facts, to warn his readers that the book
under review was written for a Cavalry unversed
in modern war and blind to its teaching. We

60 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

should expect some note of pride and satisfaction
in the fact that his own national Cavalry did not
need these scathing and humiliating reminders
that war is not a " theoretical " and " childish "
pastime, but a serious and dangerous business ;
some hint to the effect that perhaps we, with our
three years' experience of the modern rifle, may
have something useful to tell General von Bern-
hardi about principles which he has framed in the
speculative seclusion of his study. Not a word,
not a hint of any such warning or criticism. The
topic is too dangerous. Once admit that South
Africa counts — to say nothing of Manchuria — once
begin to dot the " i's " and cross the " t's " of the
German's speculations, and the arme blanche is
lost. Instead, we have the passionless reser-
vation from Sir John French that " he does
not always approve " of those German Regula-
tions, so many of which von Bernhardi thinks
prehistoric and ludicrous, and at the end of his
Introduction we have a fervent appeal to the
British Cavalry not to " expose our ignorance
and conceit" by overvaluing our own experi-
ence, but to " keep abreast with every change
hi the tendencies of Cavalry abroad," and to
"assimilate the best of foreign customs " to our
own. " Keep abreast !" What an expression to
use in such a connection ! " Best foreign cus-

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 61

toms !" Where are these customs ? There appears
to be only one answer — namely, that these
customs are hi reality the very customs which
von Bernhardi attacks with such savage scorn,
and yet by such ineffective and half-hearted
methods that he leaves them as strong as before.
His qualifications and reservations give Sir John
French a loophole, so that what, read through
English eyes, should be a final condemnation of the
steel becomes to him a vindication of the steel.

The link between the two writers is that both
disregard the facts of modern war. Since these
facts are fatal to the steel theory, both are com-
pelled to disregard them. What wars, then,
according to the German expert, are the un-
educated German Cavalry to study ? He deals
with this point on page 5. He dismisses the wars of
Frederick the Great and Napoleon. He dismisses
the Franco-German War of 1870-71, as we might
expect from his earlier work, where he pointed
out how meagre and feeble were the performances
of the Cavalry compared with those of other Arms.
He dismisses the Russo-Turkish War for the same
reason, and, by implication, the Austro-Prussian
War of 1866. All these wars, he says, " present
a total absence of analogy." Then, entirely dis-
regarding the whole period in which science per-
fected the firearm, he dismisses the wars hi South

62 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Africa and Manchuria. And he comes back to
what ? The American War of Secession of 1861-
1865, which " appears to be the most interesting
and instructive campaign for the service of
modern Cavalry," but which is " almost un-
known " in Germany. In any other branch of
study but that of Cavalry an analogous recom-
mendation would be received with a compas-
sionate smile. The element of truth and sense
in it — and there is much truth and sense hi it — is
so obvious and unquestioned as not to need
expression for the benefit of any well-informed
student. The American horsemen discovered that
the rifle must be the principal weapon of Cavalry,
and through that discovery made themselves in-
comparably more formidable and efficient in every
phase and function of war than the European
Cavalries, who ignored and despised the American
example in the succeeding European struggles . So
far the writer is on the sound ground of platitude.
But has nothing notable happened since 1865 ?
A very important thing has happened. The
Civil War firearm is now a museum curiosity.
Science has devised a weapon of at least five times
the power — smokeless, quick-firing, and accurate
up to ranges which were never dreamt of in 1865.
Even the American weapon reduced shock to a
wholly secondary place, and gave fire unques-

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 63

tioned supremacy. The modern weapon has
eliminated shock altogether, and inspired new
and far more formidable tactics — just as mobile,
just as dashing, just as fruitful of " charges," but
based on fire. Von Bernhardi cannot bring him-
self to contemplate this result. He must have
his lances and swords, and is compelled therefore
to go back to 1865, when the death-knell of those
weapons was already being sounded ; and in
doing so he writes his own condemnation.

This is how his book opens : " The great changes
which have taken place in military science since
the year 1866 have forced all arms to adopt new
methods of fighting. It was first and foremost the
improvement in the firearm which wrought the
transformation on the battle-field." (My italics.)
Since the year 1866 ! And yet the Cavalry are to
go back to a war prior to that year for their instruc-
tion, and are to neglect the only wars in which
the improved firearm has been tested ! In point
of fact, General von Bernhardi shows no sign of
having closely studied even the American War
of 1861-1865 with a view to finding out how the
Americans used their firearms in conjunction
with their horses. On this vital technical matter
he writes throughout from a purely speculative
standpoint, without a single allusion to the
American technical methods, much less to the

64 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

methods of our own and the Boer mounted rifle-
men of 1899-1902.

We must add in fairness that the General seems
to be conscious that a war half a century old
cannot be implicitly relied on for instruction, and
he concludes his historical remarks, therefore, by
the depressing conclusion that " there remains,
then, nothing for us — with no practical war
experience to go on — but to create the ground-
work of our methods of training from theoretical
and speculative reflection."

On this question of the most instructive war
for Cavalry study Sir John French preserves an
eloquent silence. He dismisses South Africa and
Manchuria, but he does not echo the recom-
mendation as to America. Thereby hangs a tale.
For years before the South African War, for years
before von Bernhardi was heard of in England,
the ablest military historian of our time, the late
Colonel Henderson, had been dinning the moral
of America into the ears of our Cavalry authorities,
without producing the smallest effect. His pro-
phecies were abundantly justified — more than
justified, for he wrote on the basis of the rifle of
1865, and the rifle of 1899 totally eliminated the
shock-tactics which were still practicable in 1865.
He died in 1902, before the Boer War was over,
but in one of the last essays written before his

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 65

death he told the Cavalry that shock was extinct.
" Critics of the Cavalry work in South Africa," he
says, " do not seem to have realized that the
small bore and smokeless powder have destroyed
the last vestiges of the traditional role of Cavalry "
(" Science of War," p. 376).

It can be readily understood, therefore, that
to refer our Cavalry of the present day to Colonel
Henderson's brilliant and learned writings upon
the American Civil War, would be a course
highly dangerous to the interests of the lance
and sword. Sir John French confines himself
to urging his subalterns to read such " acknow-
ledged authorities " as Sir Evelyn Wood and
General von Bernhardi. But why is Sir Evelyn
Wood singled out ? Eminent as he is, he has not
the requisite modern war experience. Why not
Lord Roberts, who has, and who is the only
living British officer with a European reputa-
tion ? General von Bernhardi himself has not
been on active service since 1870, when he
served as a Lieutenant hi the war against France.
Sir John French will not advance the cause of
the arme blanche in that way. He cannot stifle
knowledge by an index. He need not agree with
Lord Roberts, but to ignore him when speaking
of " acknowledged authorities," to accuse him by
implication of making " appeals from ignorance

5

66

to vanity, " is unworthy of Sir John French. If he
believes in his cause, let him urge the Cavalry
to hear both sides ; it can do no harm. For my
part, I would most strongly urge every Cavalry
soldier to read von Bernhardi and Sir John French.

II. — GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF COMBAT.

To return to the book under discussion. Is
it possible to gain from it any clear and definite
idea of the respective functions and the relative
importance of the rifle and the lance and sword
as weapons for Cavalry ? Unfortunately, no.
We have to deal with hazy generalizations scat-
tered over the whole volume, each with its qualifi-
cation somewhere else. It is true that warnings
against the use of the steel greatly preponderate ;
and although, by selecting quotations from
various chapters, each party to our controversy
could easily claim the General as an adherent
to his cause, the advocates of the rifle could
certainly amass more favourable texts. The
following passage might almost be regarded as
conclusive — "We must be resolute in freeing
ourselves from those old-fashioned knightly
combats, which have in reality become obsolete
owing to the necessities of modern war " (p. Ill)
— if its teaching were not weakened by such a

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 67

maxim as this : " The crowning-point of all drill
and of the whole tactical training is the charge
itself, as on it depends the final result of the
battle " (p. 325). But let us get closer to
his actual argument. The reader should care-
fully study pp. 101 to 105, where, under the
heading " B. — The Action of Cavalry " and
sub-heading " 1. — General," the author discusses
in close detail the action of " Cavalry in the
fight." The reader may wonder why he should
have to wait till the hundredth page for this
discussion. With the exception of some intro-
ductory pages, whose general sense, on the
question of weapons, is against the lance and
sword, the greater part of the first hundred pages
are devoted to " Reconnaissance, Screening, and
Raids," functions none of which, least of all the
third, can be performed without fighting, or at
least the risk of fighting, while fighting cannot be
performed without weapons. The reason probably
is that the author, in arranging his scheme,
instinctively tended, like all Cavalry writers, to
regard reconnaissance as a sphere where Cavalry
can confidently rely on meeting only Cavalry of
exactly the same stamp as themselves, and where
combats will as a matter of course be decided
in the old knightly fashion by charges with steel.
Such a state of things has no resemblance to

68 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

real war. Raids, for example, are invariably
levelled against fixed points and stationary
detachments. The author himself is acutely
aware of this truth, as we shall see hereafter ;
but the postponement of the topic of weapons
until the middle of the book is typical of the
confused arrangement of the whole, a confusion
attributable to the ubiquity of the rifle in all
combats and the insuperable difficulty of sup-
posing it to be an inferior weapon to the steel.

It is impossible, therefore, to adhere strictly
to the order in which the author arranges his
treatise. I shall begin with the general chapter just
referred to, and proceed, as far as possible, accord-
ing to his own order from that point onwards.

First of all, he finds it necessary to reject the
plan of " dividing tactical principles according
to the idea of the pre-arranged battle and the
battle of encounter," a course which gives one
an insight into the lifeless pedantry he has had
to combat in the branch of military science he
has made his own. Unfortunately, his own
classification, so far as it bears upon weapons,
is little better. He distinguishes the " great
battle," in which " the fighting is always of a
pre-arranged nature," from " the fight of the
independent Cavalry," where "it is possible to
distinguish between an encounter and an arranged

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 39

affair." This is vague enough, but what follows
is vaguer. One infers that there is to be little
or no shock in the " great battle," where the
Cavalry " must conform to the law of other arms
in great matters and small." And then, he goes
on : " But the fight is deeply influenced even in
the former case [i.e., in the combats of the
independent Cavalry] by the co-operation of
these other arms, and I believe that only hi ex-
ceptional cases will a purely Cavalry combat take
place — at all events, on a large scale. When
squadrons, regiments, and perhaps even brigades,
unassisted by other arms, come into collision with
one another, the charge may often suffice for a
decision. But where it is an affair of large
masses, it will never be possible to dispense with
the co-operation of firearms, and in most cases
a combination of Cavalry combat, of dismounted
fighting, and Artillery action, will ensue."

What lies behind this ambiguous language,
which, remember, is the outcome of pure " specula-
tion " ? What principle is he trying to express ?
Let us proceed : " We must not conceal from
ourselves the fact that in a future war it will be
by no means always a matter of choice whether
we will fight mounted or dismounted. Rather
by himself seizing the rifle will the opponent be able
to compel us to adopt dismounted action. On

70 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

our manoeuvre grounds the charge on horseback
is always the order of the day, as against Artillery
or machine-guns. The umpires continually allow
such attacks to succeed, and the troops ride on as if
nothing had happened. Equally fearless of conse-
quences, do they expose themselves to rifle-fire ; but
there are no bullets. In real war it is different."
It is needless to point out that the words I
have italicized destroy the whole case for the
steel. They are an admission of the true prin-
ciple that the rifle governs combat, whether the
rifle is used by men with horses or men without
horses. It is characteristic of the author that
he cannot bring himself in this perilous context
in set words to include Cavalry among those who
" seize the rifle " ; but the words themselves
imply it, for we do not speak of Infantry
" seizing the rifle." At a later point the author
is a little bolder in the development of his
meaning. " Our probable opponents, too, will
certainly often advance dismounted. At all
events, they are endeavouring to strengthen
Cavalry divisions by cyclist battalions and
Infantry, and perhaps by Mounted Infantry, and
thereby already show a remarkable inclination
to conduct the fight, even of Cavalry, with the
firearm, and only to use their horses as a means
of mobility, as was the custom of the Boers in

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 71

South Africa " — and he might, of course, add,
of the British mounted riflemen and of the
British Cavalry. If only the author, who has
advanced thus far on the path of common sense,
would just for one experimental moment assume
an open mind on the question of the steel, assume
that it may perhaps be not merely partially,
but wholly obsolete, and study the Boer War
with real care from that point of view ! He
evidently thinks there is something in this idea
of using horses as a means of mobility and the
rifle as the operative weapon. He expressly
warns his Cavalry that their probable enemy is
showing ominous signs of adopting this system,
and that their adoption of it will force the German
Cavalry to conform.

Now mark that magical word " mobility."
It is the germ of a new idea, a faint effort
to escape from the dupery of phrases. Hitherto
he has always spoken of " dismounted action "
as distinguished from " mounted " or " Cavalry "
combat. These phrases are always used by
Cavalry theorists. They take the place of argu-
ment, implying as they do that the use of the rifle
reduces horsemen to the condition of Infantry,
robbing them of mobility and all that glamour
of dash and vigour which illuminates the mounted
arm. The truth lies in the contrary direction.

72 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Without rifle power Cavalry lose all effective
mobility. They can ride about in vacua, so to
speak ; but directly they enter the zone of rifle-
fire they are paralyzed, unless they can use
their horses and their rifles in effective combina-
tion. Then they can do what they please.
Then, if necessary, they can even charge mounted,
though that function is no more inseparably
associated with their action than the charge
at the double is inseparably associated with the
action of Infantry. But is it not somewhat
ludicrous to describe as " dismounted action,"
in contradistinction to " mounted action," a
charge which ends, as the Boer charges ended,
within point-blank or decisive range of the
enemy and culminates in a murderously decisive
fire-attack ?

The worst of it is that General von Bernhardi
will not analyze his own warnings and sugges-
tions and see what they really lead him to.
He appears to see in these troublesome hordes
of " cyclists " and " Mounted Infantry " who
menace the old order of things and are forcing
Cavalry to conform to fire by fire, only auxiliaries
to the orthodox Cavalry. But Cavalry them-
selves carry the very weapon which is promoting
the revolution; nor should any self-respecting,
properly trained Cavalry need to fortify itself

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 73

from these external sources. At a later stage
I shall have to show, from our own Mounted
Infantry Manual, how grotesque are the results
obtained by the theoretical co-operation of steel
and fire in two different types of troops.

And Sir John French ? He has read these
passages, and with one word of manly pride in
the war experience of his own countrymen, home
and colonial — experience bought at terrible cost,
and not without bitter humiliation, in three years
of " real war " — he could set the speculative
German author right, illuminate the tortuous
paths in which his reason strays. So far from
taking this course, he proves himself more
reactionary than his foreign colleague ; for the
reader will see at once that the spirit of passages
quoted above is quite different from the spirit
of Sir John French's Introduction. Von Bern-
hardi is alarmed by the prospect of meeting
mounted riflemen who, as he knows and ex-
pressly admits, will impose upon his Cavalry
fire-tactics of which they are contemptuously
ignorant. He is alarmed at the prospect of the
hostile Cavalry themselves "conducting the fight
with the firearm." Sir John French, as I have
shown, believes, and says, that our mounted
riflemen and our Cavalry, if they act as such,
will " become the prey of the first foreign

74 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Cavalry they meet," running defenceless and
helpless from the field. This is an example of
the way in which Cavalry science proceeds, and
it is a wonder that collaborators of the eminence
of General von Bernhardi and General Sir John
French do not see the humour of the thing, to use
no stronger expression.

One watches with amusement the process by
which the German author endeavours to soften
the shock of the revelations he has just made to
a Cavalry acutely sensitive about its ancient
traditions. One of his plans, here and in many
other parts of the book, is to play with the
words " offence " and " defence," which, as I
pointed out in commenting on Sir John French's
Introduction, have such a strangely perverse
influence on the Cavalry mind. " It lies deeply
embedded in human nature," he says (p. 105),
" that he who feels himself the weaker will act
on the defensive " ; and on the next page : " In
general, it may be relied upon that defence will
be carried out according to tactical defensive
principles, and that with the firearm." Here is
another example (italicized by me) : " Mounted,
the Cavalry knows only the charge, and has no
defensive power, a circumstance which strengthens
it in carrying out its offensive principles by relieving
its leader of the onus of choice " (p. 113). Observe

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 75

the idea suggested by these passages — namely,
that the rifle is only a defensive weapon. Subtle
indirect flattery of those who carry those terrible
weapons of " offence," the lance and sword !
But, alas ! what he calls the " offensive spirit "
must accept the terms imposed by the baser
weapon. " It requires an enormous amount
of moral strength," he says, " to maintain the
offensive spirit, even after an unfavourable con-
flict, and continually to invoke the ultimate
decision anew." There is a romantic atmosphere
about this which might appeal to his hearers.
Spent with charges, brilliant, but perhaps not
wholly successful, they must resign themselves
eventually to more sober, if less " knightly,"
methods. But this is not what he really means.
He has just said that even in combats of the
independent Cavalry the shock-charge will occur
only " in exceptional cases." The probable oppo-
nents are to " advance dismounted " — hi other
words, to attack dismounted. This, he warns the
Cavalry, will necessitate fire-action on their part.
Why talk, then, about "relief from the onus of
choice " ? What is to happen when both sides
are at grips on terms of fire ? Is there a mutual
deadlock, both remaining in " defence "? In that
case there would be no battles and no necessity
to go to war at all. Surely the common sense of

76 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

the matter is that the rifle rules tactics, and that,
ceteris paribus, the best riflemen will attack and win.

At heart the General believes this — his whole
book is a witness to this fact — but how can he
expect to get his beliefs accepted if he continually
stultifies those beliefs by soothing ambiguities
about the "offensive spirit "? Nor does he
confine himself to ambiguity. Take a passage
like this from p. 19, at the very outset of his
chapter on " Reconnaissance, Screening, and
Raids " : " The very essence of Cavalry lies in
the offensive. Mounted, it is incapable of tactical
defence, but in order to defend itself, must surrender
its real character as a mounted arm, and seize
the rifle on foot." (The italics are mine.)

Conceive the mental chaos which can pro-
duce an expression of an opinion like this at
the beginning of a work designed to reform the
backward German Cavalry. Here, stated in
formal, precise terms, is the very doctrine
upon which that Cavalry works ; which, as the
author himself a hundred times assures us, is
the source of all its " antiquated assumptions "
and of its total unpreparedness for real war.
The framers of the Regulations have only to
point to this passage, and then, with perfect
justice, to consign all the General's tirades first to
mockery and then to oblivion. Sir John French,

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 77

again more reactionary than his German confrere,
seizes on this passage, to the exclusion of all
which contradict it, and triumphantly produces
his own analogous formula. To neglect the steel,
he says, is to " invert the role of Cavalry, and
turn it into a defensive arm."

While Sir John French sticks to his point,
and elaborates it even to the implicit denial of
an offensive spirit to Infantry, General von
Bernhardi is perfectly conscious of the absurdity
of maintaining that it is only " in order to defend
itself " that Cavalry " seize the rifle " on foot.
We obtain, perhaps, the best insight into his
method of reasoning in A II. (" Attack and
Defence "). On p. 112 he says that Cavalry
should " endeavour to preserve their mobility
in the fight, and that mounted shock-action,
therefore, should be regarded as its proper role
in battle." This quotation is an excellent one
for the advocates of the steel, but it would reduce
to impotence any Cavalry which acted upon it.
And we ask immediately, what is the sense
of calling shock the " proper role " of Cavalry,
when, according to the author himself, it is only
to be used in exceptional cases, even in fights of
the independent Cavalry, and when riflemen, who
advance dismounted, can render it impracticable ?
Why not say at once that the proper or normal

role of Cavalry is fire-action, and the exceptional
or abnormal role shock-action ?

The fallacy, of course, lies in the word I have
italicized, " therefore," implying that mounted
action and shock-action are synonymous, and that
there is no mounted action without shock-action.
It is natural enough that the author should turn his
back on South Africa and Manchuria when he has
to maintain such a proposition as this ; but how
does he reconcile it even with the facts of the
American Civil War, which he holds up as the
most valuable guide to modern Cavalry ? Stuart,
Sheridan, Wilson, and the other great leaders, would
have laughed at it, and they used wretchedly
imperfect firearms. They rode just as far and to
just as good purpose whether they used the firearm
or the steel, and they fought to win, with whatever
weapon was the best weapon at the moment.

The General himself expresses the right idea
when he says in another passage " that it is not
a question whether Cavalrymen should fight
mounted or dismounted, but whether they are
prepared and determined to take their share in
the decision of an encounter, and to employ the
whole of their strength and mobility to that end."
That is plain common sense ; but how is he to get
it acted upon by a Cavalry to whom the very idea
is strange if he calls shock the " proper role " of

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 79

Cavalry, and contrasts the " offensive spirit "
inherent in it with the defensive use of the rifle ?
Yet he redeems the rifle handsomely enough in
numbers of other passages. " It must be kept in
view," he says on p. 113, "that it is the offensive
on foot that the Cavalry will require," and he
condemns the Regulation which inculcates the
opposite principle and deals with the fire-fight
only as a method of action from which Cavalry
" need not shrink." He shakes his head gravely
over the ominous suggestion in the same Regula-
tion that cyclists and Infantry in waggons are to
be added to the Army Cavalry, in order, by fire,
to " overcome local resistance." In a flash of
insight he perceives the possibility of those
heretical Mounted Infantry masquerading as
the hostile Cavalry, and necessitating cyclists
and Infantry in waggons to dislodge them before
the " knightly combats " can be brought about.
"It is a matter of significance," he solemnly
observes, " that Infantry in waggons may be de-
tailed to accompany the strategic Army Cavalry."
There will soon be a demand, he prophesies,
" for Infantry from the Army Cavalry when there
is any question of a serious attack on foot, and
herewith the free action of the Cavalry will be
limited once and for all." Is there no lesson
from South Africa here ?

80 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

The fact is that the kind of thing he fears
happened from the first, and continued to happen
until the Cavalry abandoned steel weapons and
became mounted riflemen. During the first
year of the war there was no independent
Cavalry force operating strategically without
the assistance of mounted riflemen. There
could not have been, because the fire-power
of the Cavalry was insufficient, and there is
and can be no independence in modern war
without a high degree of fire-power. Cavalry
leaders usually asked also for the tactical assist-
ance of mounted riflemen. The theory, surviving
even now in the current manuals, was that those
troops were to form a " pivot " for the shock-
action of Cavalry. The theory, of course, was
exploded from the first, and sometimes the
mounted riflemen became the most effective
and mobile portion of the composite force.
Mounted riflemen were a truly independent Arm.
They never asked for the assistance of Cavalry
on the ground that Cavalry carried steel weapons.
The rifle was all they cared about, and they had
good rifles of their own. while the Cavalry had
bad carbines. The only big independent Cavalry
enterprise during the first year of the war — the
divisional march across the Eastern Transvaal
in October, 1900 — was a fiasco. The Cavalry

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 81

formed but an escort to their own transport, and
developed no offensive power.

Von Bernhardi, just now thoroughly in his
fire-mood, strongly condemns the theory of depen-
dence on other Arms, which will " tie the Cavalry "
to the very troops from which they expect support.
" The army Cavalry, then, can only preserve its
independence if it can rely upon its own strength
even hi an attack on foot." He goes on to
criticize Regulation No. 456, which lays down
that " Cavalry must endeavour to bring dis-
mounted attacks to a conclusion with the utmost
rapidity, so that they may regain their mobility
at the earliest possible moment." The regula-
tion, which has its counterpart hi the British
Manual, indeed, is laughable to anyone who has
seen modern war. Troopers who spend 90 per
cent, of their time on exercises with the steel will
necessarily attack badly, clumsily, and slowly on
foot, and it is a cruel jest to tell them to attack
quickly and brilliantly. In a fire-contest the best
riflemen will attack the quickest and do the best.

But the General wastes his breath in scolding
the Regulations. They are more logical than he
is, because they do not seriously contemplate this
derogatory work of fire. He says, indeed, that
unnaturally accelerated attacks on foot by men
who do not know how to attack on foot only

6

82 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

succeed in peace, and will " lead inevitably to
defeat in war," and that to set a time limit to a
fire-attack is absurd ; but by interspersing qualify-
ing phrases about loss of mobility and loss of
time he himself nullifies his own warnings. " The
result of an attack on foot," he says (p. 116),
" must, of course, justify the lives expended and
the time occupied, which must both be regarded as
lost in estimating the further operative value of the
force" Men who read that will say : " Why
waste tune at all, then ?" It is in flagrant contra-
diction, of course, with his previously expressed
principle that hostile fire imposes fire-action on
Cavalry ; that there is no choice ; that, whether
they like it or not, they must engage in this role,
which, nevertheless, is not their " proper role."
The clue to the confusion, as always, is his view,
founded on mere word-play, that mounted action
is unthinkable without shock with steel weapons.
At the end of this section on " Attack and
Defence " he continues to play into the hands of
the framers of the Regulations which he denounces.
Here is an immortal phrase : " The same holds
good of the defence. Cavalry will only undertake
this when absolutely obliged" This is the kind of
maxim which one finds scattered broadcast
through Cavalry literature — as if there could be
any offence without defence, between or against

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 83

whatever classes of soldiers. Fancy telling
Infantry or Artillery in so many words that they
should only undertake defence when absolutely
obliged ! And yet they are just as much offensive
Arms as Cavalry, and by the light of historical
facts during the last century a great deal more so.

I need not go into the reason again. The
General is in his steel-mood, and is unconsciously
limiting offence to the steel weapons. The next
instant he is in his fire-mood, pointing out that,
however much Cavalry hi defence may yearn once
more for " free movement " (he means shock),
they must be prepared on occasion to defend
themselves — i.e., with fire — to the last man. And
he very aptly illustrates from the Manchurian
War (which at an earlier point he had said to be
without interest for Cavalry), pointing to the
stubborn defence of Sandepu by a Japanese
Cavalry Brigade. We cannot help wishing that
Sir John French would quote and confirm an
opinion like this, flatly contradicted though it is
a little later,* and use his influence to erase
from our own Cavalry Manual (p. 215) that
disastrous injunction that the defences of a position
which Cavalry have to hold should be " limited
to those of the simplest kind."

If the words " attack " and " defence " have a
* See infra, pp. 122-123.

84 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

fatal fascination for both the German and the
British authors, General von Bernhardi is equally
influenced by another verbal formula, and that
is " the combination of Cavalry combat " (or,
what is the same thing to him, mounted combat —
that is, shock-combat) " with dismounted fight-
ing." " The role of Cavalry in the fight will then
apparently consist," he says on page 106, " of a
combination of the various methods of fighting."
It is a tempting formula, tempting by its very
vagueness, and calculated on that account to
appeal, perhaps, to the less hopelessly conservative
German Cavalry officers ; but it remains through-
out his book literally a formula. How the thing
is to be done in practice, how shock is to be " com-
bined " with fire, he never attempts, even from
a speculative point of view, to explain. It may
sound perhaps easy enough. In the war of 1861-
1865, which he professes to take as his model,
it undoubtedly was possible, if by no means easy.
But tunes have changed. The modern rifle,
whose profound influence on combat he admits,
has made impossible the old formations. In his
own phrase, it has revolutionized war. It enforces
a degree of extension which renders impracticable
those sudden transformations to close mass which
alone can lead to shock, while the zone of danger
it creates is so far-reaching that these mass forma-

CAVALRY IN COMBAT 85

tions on horseback cannot subsist. The con-
ditions which used to permit leaders to resolve
on shock have vanished. The fire-zone used to
be so limited that bodies of Cavalry could hang on
its outer limit, and seize the rare opportunities
which might arise for a short gallop ending in
shock. Now we have to deal with artillery and
rifles of immense range and deadliness. And if
by a miracle you do get into close quarters in your
mass formation, you find — crowning disillusion-
ment ! — nothing solid on which to exert shock.
You used to find it a century ago, because men
used to fight in close order, but science has
altered that. However, that point does not im-
mediately arise from the question of " combina-
tion." The narrow issue there is how to effect
the transition from fire to shock, and there is not
a word in this volume to elucidate the point.
There is not a word in our own Cavalry Manual.
The thing has never been done in modern war.
The combination of shock and fire tactics is an
academical speculation. What we know is that
shock has failed, and that the open-order rifle-
charge, which has superseded the shock-charge,
is evolved naturally from the fire-fight. You
must, in the words of Lord Roberts, fight up to the
charge, if charge there be ; but you can win, as In-
fantry can win, without any mounted charge at all.

CHAPTER V
TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS

I. — THE PURELY CAVALRY FIGHT.

("Das rein reiterliche Gefecht.")

THESE two sections which I have been criticizing
will give the reader a general idea of the way in
which von Bernhardi regards the action of Cavalry
in modern war, and of the perplexities which be-
set him through mingling of the old philosophy and
the new. Let us follow him through subsequent
sections of head B (" Action of Cavalry ").
The third section deals with " Cavalry in
combat against the various Arms, mounted and
dismounted," and he first deals with what he
calls the " purely Cavalry fight," which he
now assumes to be a fight with the steel against
other Cavalry. We must remember that if either
side elects to use the rifle ; or if the ground is
unsuitable (and on page 201 he argues at length
that " possible European theatres of war are but
little suitable for charges," and that suitable areas
are only found in peace by deliberate selection) ;

86

or if either side, from numerical weakness or
choice, is acting on the " defensive " (defence with
the steel being ex hypothesi impossible), this steel
combat will not take place.

Under the circumstances it seems scarcely worth
while to talk about it, but let us waive that
objection. We at once become impressed with
a very remarkable fact — namely, that after all
the centuries, extending far back into the mists
of time, during which the mounted steel-combat
has been used, its most learned and enthusiastic
advocates cannot at this day agree upon the
elementary rules for its conduct. Observe that
I am excluding the modifications caused by
missile weapons. Following the author, I am
assuming a combat between two bodies of
Cavalry who decline to use their firearms, and
mutually agree to collide with steel weapons on
horseback, outside the zone of fire, on a piece of
level ground without physical obstruction. For
this type of combat the conditions are the same
as in the year one. The three factors — horse,
man, and steel weapon — have undergone no
appreciable change, and by this time the rules
ought to be fixed. Yet we find the General at
once falling into tirades against erroneous systems,
and bitterly denouncing the Regulations of his
own Army.

88 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

"The lance," we learn on page 267, "is the
Cavalryman's most important weapon," yet the
drill laid down for the lance the author declares
to be worthless. " No one would fight in this
manner in war ; how this is to be done our men
are not really taught." What a confession after
all these ages, from the Crusades onwards ! And
if the lance is really the most important weapon,
and if Sir John French really believes, as he says
he believes, hi the infallibility of General von
Bernhardi, why has he not seen to it that all
British Cavalry regiments are armed with lances ?
It would seem to be mad folly to permit our
Hussars to go into battle destitute of there " most
important weapon." But let us look a little
closer into the characteristics of this terrible
weapon. On page 175 we learn that " in the
close turmoil of the fight it is very difficult to
handle with success, besides which it easily
becomes unserviceable on striking an object too
heavily. Should it pierce a body at the full speed
of a horse's gallop, it will generally bend on being
drawn out (if, indeed, the rider in his haste extri-
cates it at all), and then becomes unserviceable."
So there must be a sword also, which is to be
drawn, apparently, on the instant after the
impalement of the first hostile horseman. Our
own authorities take a brighter view. In their

TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS 89

Manual the trooper is bidden to impale the foe
through and through with his lance, but he is to
" withdraw it with ease from the object into which
it has been driven." On the other hand, the object
in question is to be represented in peace by a
sack filled with chopped hay or a clay dummy,
neither of them objects of a texture quite ade-
quate to the purpose (see " Cavalry Training,"
pp. 309-310).

It is almost cruel to lift the veil from these
domestic mysteries and differences, and, indeed, I
am almost afraid my readers will suspect me of
quoting, not from eulogies, but from skits on the
arme blanche. But the words are there for any-
one who cares to look them up, and I ask, is not
it almost inconceivable that serious soldiers in
the year of grace 1911, when war is a really serious
matter of scientific weapons, should solemnly call
a weapon with such characteristics the most
important weapon of the Cavalryman ? Need-
less to say, the author himself refutes his own
proposition in a hundred passages of this very
work. But Sir John French ignores those pas-
sages, and in his own Introduction pens a warm
defence of the lance ; though whether he believes
in the " pin-prick policy " which the German
authority seems to advocate, or in the plan of
" striking the object heavily " at all costs, he does

90 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

not inform us. After all, it matters little. The
taxpayer need not quail at the expense of pro-
viding fresh lances to every regiment after every
charge. The rest of the world looks on with
languid interest while the Cavalry authorities
carry on their solemn controversies as to the
relative merits of steel weapons used from horse-
back. Even in the Franco-German War the
killing effect of lances and swords was negligible.
Six Germans were killed by the sabre, and perhaps
as many by the lance. Of the total of 218 German
casualties from the sabre and clubbed musket,
138 were in the Cavalry, whose total losses by fire
and steel combined were 2,236. In the great
civilized wars since the invention of the smokeless
magazine rifle the casualties from lance and
sword have reached vanishing-point.

But if lances and swords are harmless to the
enemy, they are emphatically harmful to those
who carry them. They not only inspire the wrong
spirit, but they mean extra weight and additional
visibility. Sir John French (p. xvi) cheerfully defies
physical laws. He scouts the idea that " a thin
bamboo pole will reveal the position of a mounted
man to the enemy." That is one of the fond illu-
sions of peace. And in peace even a short-sighted
layman could prove the contrary by ocular
demonstration, and digest the moral, too, by

TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS 91

watching Lancers operating among the lanes and
hedges of England. In war there are field-glasses
— and bullets.

It is the same with tactics as with weapons.
The German author is for the knee-to-knee riding
of Frederick the Great, as opposed to the looser
stirrup-to-stirrup riding which has been intro-
duced because " the modern firearm obliges us to
take refuge in broken country, where the closest
touch cannot always be kept." A pretty sound
reason, we should imagine, but the General will
have none of it, and I think this passage is the
only one in the book where he disagrees with the
Regulations in the matter of a concession to the
modern rifle. Generally it is the other way, and,
indeed, it is a most bizarre paradox to hear him
calling upon the shades of " Frederick the Great,
Seydlitz, and the prominent Napoleonic leaders,"
after saying at the beginning of the book that the
wars of these heroes " presented a total absence of
analogy " to modern Cavalry students. Reverting
suddenly to common sense, he goes on to denounce
the rally from the melee, which all Cavalry,
including our own, assiduously practise in peace.
The motive for this wonderful manoeuvre is " that
troops may quickly be got in hand ready to be
led against a fresh foe." "It is astounding," he
complains, " that we should give way to such

92 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

self-deception." Rallies are " delightfully easy in
peace," but an " absolute impossibility in war."

The troops who have charged are apparently to
be useless for any purpose whatever for an in-
definite period, and strong supporting squadrons
immediately behind them must carry on the
fight. But the new Regulations do not allow for
these supports. What do they enjoin ? We are
not told here, and have to look in another part
of the book under " Depth and Echelon " (p. 221
et seq.), when, calling once more upon Frederick
the Great and Napoleon, he attacks in un-
measured terms, as the offspring of mere " peace
requirements," the German system of echelon
formation, which leads to " tactical orgies " at
manoeuvres. Echelon apparently is designed to
permit of easy changes of front, but in war the
opportunity for such changes " never — literally
never — occurs." And yet somehow we sympa-
thize with the framers of the Regulations. Read
their inimitable disquisition on echelon, quoted
as a footnote on page 224. " In the collisions of
Cavalry " there is going to be " uncertainty as to
the strength and intentions of the enemy." But
Cavalry acting against Cavalry (supposing, we
wonder, they turn out not to be Cavalry ?) never
demean themselves by dismounting to recon-
noitre. Thev reconnoitre for one another hi

TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS 93

mass, and gain the necessary " flexibility " by
echelon — if need be, by a double echelon. When
they find the enemy, they can at the last moment,
if necessary, change front completely, and have
at them. " If this did occur," says the General,
" it would presuppose the entire failure of recon-
naissance, and the corresponding incapacity of
the leader." He proceeds to a pitiless exposure
of the puerilities and unrealities of the system ;
but, to tell the truth, the exposure excites only
a feeble interest. Insensibly he trenches on the
realms of fire, and immediately stultifies his own
appeals to Frederick the Great and Napoleon.
After pages of obscure lucubration about Cavalry
combat, he suddenly envisages (p. 230) what is,
of course, the hi variable case, when " total un-
certainty prevails as to whether the combat will
be carried out mounted or dismounted," and says
that in such cases there can be no " stereotyped
tactical formations either of units or of smaller
bodies within them." " Cad it quaestio," we ex-
claim, with relief. Why appeal to Frederick the
Great ?

In "Formations for Movement" (pp. 232-238)
he continues his unconscious reductio ad ahsurdum
of shock. " Movements in such close formation
right up to the moment of deployment " (and he
describes those enjoined by the Regulations)

94 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

" cannot go unpunished upon a modern battle-
field." The Regulations " cannot be regarded as
practical," and are " pretexts for hidebound
drill enthusiasts." It is all very well, but these
hidebound gentlemen are perfectly right in their
own way. They are following his own models,
Frederick the Great and Napoleon, in whose days
such movements were perfectly possible. They
believe hi shock and minimize fire, and their Regu-
lations, if unpractical, are at least logical.

II. — THE CHARGE UPON INFANTRY.

So much for the "purely Cavalry fight." We
come on page 128 to the mounted charge upon
dismounted riflemen, whom, in the manner usual
with Cavalry writers, he assumes to be Infantry,
though it is obvious, of course, that they may
be unconventional Cavalry, who, from a sense
of fun or a sane instinct for fighting, have
determined to play a practical joke on devotees
of the pure faith. Here both he and the Regula-
tions are up to a certain point in harmony with
one another. As a concession to modern condi-
tions, the charge is to be in extended order. Here
the General has changed his views since writing
" Cavalry hi Future Wars." There the principles
of Frederick the Great were supreme in all

TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS 95

charges, with just a faint concession towards a
" loosening of the files " in a charge against
Infantry. Now " wide intervals " are to be em-
ployed. Sir John French ignores the change of view
on an absolutely vital point of tactics, but allows
us to infer that he, one of the very men who saw
the imperative necessity for the new view, favours
the old view ; for he described von Bernhardi's
first book as absolutely complete and faultless.
To return, however, to the German author. It is
amazing that, having reached this point, he should
not trouble to investigate the phenomena of
modern war with a view to finding out what actu-
ally happens in an extended change of this sort.
He writes in the clouds, just as though there were
not a mass of experience bearing on the point.

The experience, which a child can understand,
amounts to this : If you extend, and, a fortiori,
if your enemy is extended also, you lose all hope
of " shock," that is, of physical impact ; and
with the loss of this impact you lose the funda-
mental condition precedent to the successful use
of steel weapons on horseback — the condition
which Frederick the Great's leaders had, but
which ours have not. You also lose momentum,
speed, because the modern rifle, by immensely
widening the bullet-swept zone, necessitates a
far longer gallop for the charging force. The

96 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

German Regulations realize this, for they enjoin
a slower pace, expressly on the ground that
" impact " is not to be aimed at. Very well :
no shock ; comparatively low speed. What is
going to happen ? Your steel charge is useless.
Individual troopers, bound by their code of
honour to remain in the saddle, and pitted
against individual riflemen on foot, are helpless,
an object of derision to gods and men. Our
own Infantry Manual openly treats them as
helpless and negligible, and in a few curt lines
gives directions, proved in war to be sound, for the
event of such a charge, should it take place.

But, in fact, it does not take place. Our
Cavalry in South Africa had literally thousands
of chances of making such charges, supposing
that they were feasible. But they were not;
instinctively the leaders felt that they were
not, and ceased to think of making them. At the
tune when, if ever, any given leader should
have made up his mind to charge, he was, unfor-
tunately, as a general rule, in that condition of
painful " uncertainty as to the strength and
intentions of the enemy," to which the German
Regulations allude. He could not, in the German
fashion, ride about in mass to reconnoitre, because
the Boers, perversely refusing to believe in the
tactics of Frederick the Great, did not co-operate

TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS 97

in the game. He had, therefore, the choice
between idleness and fire-action. He chose
fire-action, and once engaged in fire-action, he
found that he had to stick to it. It was physically
impossible to " combine " fire-action and steel-
action, even if there had been an opening for
steel-action, which there was not. That is the
whole story, and Sir John French, if he chose,
could tell General von Bernhardi all about it.

I believe Sir John French himself never saw
a Boer or British mounted riflemen's charge, but
he ought to know the evidence on the point ; it
is extensive and precise.* It goes to show that it
is sometimes possible, even against the modern
rifle, to charge in widely extended order, even at
a canter, and even into close quarters, on horse-
back ; but it can be done only by fighting up to
the charge hi the normal way of fire-action, and
by casting to the winds the ancient notion that it
is beneath a trooper to dismount. Sooner or
later he has got to dismount, so as to use effective
aimed fire against the riflemen opposed to him.
They will not mind his sword, whose range is a
couple of yards, while their weapon is of any range
you please, and squirts bullets Mke a hose.

Frederick the Great's Infantry firearm was
another matter. Even in 1861-1865, as von Bern-

* See "War and the Arme Blanche," Chapter XI.

7

98 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

hardi would discover if he cared to look close
enough into his own chosen war, steel-charges
by Cavalry against Infantry eventually became
extinct. The Confederate Infantry used to jeer
at the futile efforts of the Federal Cavalry.

Needless to say, the German Regulations only
touch the fringe of what is practicable. It is
only the leading line, they lay down, and not
necessarily the whole even of that, which is to
adopt wide intervals. Von Bernhardi easily
shows the folly of these half -measures, and of
the " arbitrary assumption that a line of Cavalry
1,500 or 2,000 yards wide can cross a mile of
country stirrup to stirrup at the regulation pace
of the charge " (p. 128).

III. — THE DISMOUNTED ATTACK BY CAVALRY.
We pass to the dismounted attack by Cavalry,
and the reader will realize now, if he has not
before, that it is due to unfamiliarity with the
technique and true possibilities of fire-action
that the General clings to the discredited tactics
of Frederick the Great in defiance of his professed
enthusiasm for the rifle. For the dismounted
attack by Cavalry, " the principles," he says, " are
the same as for an attack by Infantry " (p. 133).
But the led horses render the business " consider-
ably more difficult." " There is also a certain

TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS AEMS 99

difference according as the opponent is Cavalry
or Infantry " ; for in the former case he may
charge your led horses. It is here and in the pages
which follow that the reader can get the clearest
insight into the mental attitude of Cavalrymen
towards that arbiter of modern war, the rifle.

All turns on the magical word " Cavalry,"
which derives its significance from the arme
blanche. Those weapons give Cavalry their
" proper role." If under stress of fire they
" abandon " this role, they become Infaiitry ;
but they are worse off than Infantry, because
they are embarrassed by their led horses, which
present difficulties from which Infantry are free.
The horse becomes a danger and an encumbrance,
just as Sir John French tacitly assumes it
to become, when he says that mounted riflemen
always flee defenceless before good Cavalry,
while Infantry show " tenacity and stiffness."
No wonder, then, that Cavalrymen grow indignant
at the criticism of their steel weapons. It is
bad enough to be converted into a hybrid between
good Cavalry and bad Infantry, but it is worse
still to undergo a metamorphosis into a pure type
of bad Infantry, that is, into mounted riflemen.

If we once grasp this point of view, we bring
light into this tangled controversy, and we can
bring into sharp contrast the rational point of

100 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

view, as the facts of war demonstrate it. We
perceive instantly the falsity of the antithesis
between the weapon and the horse. The mounted
rifleman is a foot rifleman plus a horse, and the
horse is not an embarrassing encumbrance, but
a source of enhanced power. It is the intrusion
of the steel weapons, not the intrusion of the
horses, which introduces "difficulties." Witness
von Bernhardi's own scathing exposure of the
German Regulations for combat with the steel.

Space forbids me to follow him far into his
remarks upon his bugbear, the led horses. There
are probably about 150,000 persons now living
who, by war experience, know more than he
does about this purely technical question ; yet
he spins feverish dreams about it out of his own
brain, without a glance at the rich and varied
material provided by three years of war in South
Africa ; without a glance at Manchuria, where
the Japanese Cavalry converted themselves into
excellent mounted riflemen ; without a glance
even at the American methods of 1861-1865,
where the problems that worry him were success-
fully solved. As usual, he has no difficulty in
exposing the absurdities of the Regulations, but
his own comments and suggestions are sometimes
even less admissible. Behind the incubus of
the horse we perceive that additional incubus,

TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS 101

the lance. He pictures the unhappy horse-
holders wrestling ("a practical impossibility ")
with armfuls of lances, as the Regulations bid
them (p. 137), and .concludes that if you are to
make these men guardians, not only of the horses,
but of these precious but exacting impedimenta,
it will not do to detail only one man out of four
to act as horseholder. On the other hand, if
you detach more, you weaken the firing line so
much that the whole business becomes scarcely
worth while. And yet, if you don't weaken
the firing line, how are you to guard the led
horses against attack from some other quarter ?
They, it appears, must have a complete firing
line of their own. But, disregarding this necessity,
the Regulations contemplate reinforcing the main
firing-line from the horse-holders (p. 139), so
making the armfuls of lances still bigger. And
then what is to happen if, in a " real fight," the
brigade wants to advance and the Brigadier is
told it can't, because some of the horse-holders
are fighting, and the lance-encumbered remnant
cannot move ? And so on. He seems, so far
as I understand him, eventually to throw up hi
despair the problem of keeping the led horses
" mobile," and to fall back on the plan of
" immobility," a plan which he himself in several
passages admits can be used only when there is

no likelihood whatever of any sudden call upon
the led horses either for advance or retreat. If
the Regulations, as he says, are "not suitable for
real war," neither is his counsel of despair. The
chapter is quite enough to cure the most liberal-
minded Cavalryman of his last lingering inclination
towards fire-action, even though he is told that
fire-action must be used in all but " exceptional
cases." " Abandon my proper role for this ?"
he might answer. "No. My proper role is
good enough for me, as it was good enough for
Frederick the Great."

There is worse to come ; but let me comment
here upon the astounding fact that Sir John
French should regard chapters like this as sound
instruction for war. Our Cavalry profess, at any
rate, to have now solved the lance-problem during
fire-action by their latest method of carrying the
lance. But that is a minor point. It is the ignor-
ance of, and pessimism towards, fire-action, as
disclosed in this and subsequent chapters, which
ought chiefly to strike English readers. And all
Sir John French has to say is that " we expose our
ignorance and conceit " in accepting the teach-
ing of our own war experience, and that our duty
is to assimilate the best foreign customs.

CHAPTER VI

THE FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY

I. — GERMAN VIEWS.

FROM his general remarks on the action of
Cavalry, mounted or dismounted, against the
various Arms, mounted or dismounted, the author
passes to " IV. — The Fight of the Independent
Cavalry " (p. 141), and the reader almost at once
finds himself straying in a fog caused by the
author's refusal to face straightforwardly the
simple dominant fact that " Cavalry " are also
riflemen. What does " Independent " mean ?
One would naturally assume it to mean what it
means in our own Cavalry's phraseology, the
" strategical " Cavalry which operates on a self-
supporting independent basis, as distinguished
from the divisional Cavalry, which is attached to,
and dependent on, the various Infantry divisions.
And this is the signification which the author
gives to it in the opening words of the chapter.
" Such fights," he says, " will occur during the
offensive reconnaissance of the Cavalry, in
103

104 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

screening, and in enterprises against the enemy's
communication and lines of approach " (that is,
in raids), functions which are classified in the
same order in the early part of the book as the
normal functions of the Independent Cavalry,
operating, in the first instance at any rate,
against a hostile Independent Cavalry of the
same stamp and vested with corresponding func-
tions. We expect, accordingly, to hear a great
deal about the "purely Cavalry fight," or shock-
combat ; but, to our bewilderment, after less
than a page of exceedingly obscure reference
to the " exceptional cases," where, owing to the
absence of " other arms," such combats occur,
the author proceeds to examine what he evidently
regards as the normal case, " when the co-opera-
tion of other arms can seriously be counted on,"
and the whole of the forty-eight pages which
follow implicitly assume that other Arms, whether
in the shape of Artillery, Infantry, cyclists, or
what he vaguely calls " partisans," are present.
Artillery alone are enough, he says, to scatter
to the winds " purely Cavalry tactical principles,"
and " to set the stamp of fire upon the develop-
ment of the fight " (p. 144). The unfortunate
Cavalry subaltern must feel the ground sinking
under his feet. The book he is studying,
" Cavalry in War and Peace," is a treatise for

Cavalry on purely Cavalry tactical principles,
and yet these principles cease to exist if even
Artillery are on the scene, as in most normal cases
it is assumed to be on the scene. Both in Germany
and in England Horse Artillery is a recognized
and integral part of the Independent Cavalry
force whose functions the author is now con-
sidering. What is more, rifles are an invariable
factor in the same force, German or English, or,
indeed, in any force of Cavalry of whatever size,
and however engaged, because they are carried
by the Cavalry troopers themselves. And rifles,
as the author will soon explain, make still worse
havoc of purely Cavalry tactical principles. In
other words, there are no such principles.

We may cut the matter short by merely ad-
vising the reader to solve his perplexities in
the succeeding chapters by substituting for the
word "Cavalry," whenever it occurs, the words
" mounted riflemen," which, steel weapons apart,
are what Cavalry are. There he will have a key
to most of the contradictions and ambiguities,
and can form his own opinion on the lucidity
and force of the injunctions laid down. The
truth is that the General, in speaking of " other
arms," really means not only other Arms of
the service (i.e., Infantry and Artillery), but
other weapons, as distinguished from lances and

106 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

swords, carried by Cavalry themselves — that is,
rifles.

Armed with this clue, let us begin.

We must classify, says the author, with his
critical eye on the Regulations, " for if we take
all the various principles evolved from different
tactical situations, and jumble them illogically
together, or discuss them from points of view
which are not closely based on the probable
happenings of reality, we run a danger of confusing
the judgment instead of clearing it." He pro-
ceeds himself to involve our judgments in
irremediable confusion.

First of all, fights, according to the old phrase,
are either offensive or defensive. Offensive
fights are of two sorts : " battles of encoun-
ter," where the " enemy is also pressing forward,"
and "attacks against localities or positions."
Defensive fights are of only one main character :
they require the defence of localities, positions,
and defiles. Then, in quite a separate category,
comes a third class of fights — namely, " surprises,
which merit separate consideration " — a con-
sideration, it may be noted, that they never get.
The author forgets all about them. It matters
little. His classification as it stands is as far
removed from the " happenings of reality "
as any classification could be ; and to divorce

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 107

surprise, generally supposed to be the soul of
all mounted action (because horses mean high
mobility) from " battles of encounter," " attacks
on localities," and other sorts of fights, is only
to supply the crowning element of unreality.
It must be remembered that his most compre-
hensive classification (of which the above is a
subdivision) distinguishes between " the fight
of the Independent Cavalry " and the " action
of Cavalry in battle," by which latter phrase he
means the great battle of all Arms ; and that
battle, he has said, is " always of a pre-arranged
nature " — that is, lacking in opportunities for
surprise. One would have imagined, therefore,
that if he wanted an antithesis between surprise
and something else, he would oppose the pre-
arranged battle to the fight of the Independent
Cavalry. Not so. " Surprises " are left out in
the cold and eventually forgotten.

And what of these other sorts of fights defined
under their various heads ? Perhaps I had
better take them in detail, rather than attempt
a general diagnosis.

What is the battle of encounter ? I have
collected all the allusions I can find to this battle,
in the hope of supplying an intelligible definition,
but have to admit failure. On page 102 it is
distinguished from an "arranged affair," a distinc-

108 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

tion which in peace suggests those carefully-
planned " knightly combats " on level pieces of
ground, but which in war does not carry us very
far. On page 147, however, the special case of
a battle of encounter where " an opponent is
unexpectedly met with," receives separate con-
sideration. On page 142 it seems to denote the
case " where the enemy is also pressing for-
ward," again a somewhat nebulous description,
for it is the common way of enemies to press
forward. On page 143 one thinks for a moment
that it is to be confined to " lesser bodies of
Cavalry, unaccompanied by other arms " ; but
one speedily finds allusion to " larger bodies of
Cavalry, accompanied by a proportion of other
arms," and the co-operation of other arms
becomes the predominant feature of the whole
discussion. Yet on page 194, in discussing the
action of the army Cavalry on the flank of a
great battle, the author speaks of a battle of
encounter between the rival Cavalry masses, as
though this type of fight were confined to
Cavalry. Again, on page 154 it is held to include
the passage of defiles, though the defence of
defiles, a function which is the necessary counter-
part of the passage of defiles, is, as we have seen,
regarded as belonging to a separate type of combat.
We have noted also the distinction between

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 109

the battles of encounter and " attacks of
localities," and between these latter and the
defence of localities (as though there were any
antithesis between an encounter on the one
hand and an attack or defence on the other !).
But what is a " locality," an attack on which is
distinguished from a battle of encounter ? Here
is a fresh mystery. A " locality," on page 174, is
distinguished from a " prepared position," which
Cavalry, he says here, are never to attack or
defend,* and it appears, in fact, to be simply
a place on which troops are (a " place within the
meaning of the Act," we cannot help exclaiming).
In the first words of the section on " Attack of
Localities " this attack is explained as one upon
" an enemy who takes up a defensive attitude."

If, therefore, hi a battle of encounter, when
both sides are " pressing forward," one side or
the other halts temporarily (without preparing

* " With them [the Cavalry] it will never be a case of
prepared positions — which Cavalry as a rule will neither
attack nor defend — but of actions resulting from a battle of
encounter."

This is directly contradicted on p. 342, where it is laid down
that " attacks on an enemy in position," as explicitly dis-
tinguished from " battles of encounter," are said to be " very
necessary in time of war, " and should be repeatedly practised "
in peace. The same injunction is repeated on pp. 343 and 345.

This is a typical example of the textual self-contradictions
in which the book abounds.

110 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

or entrenching a position), the other side is in the
position of attacking a locality ; and if the former
party repulses the attack and resumes its advance,
then the position is reversed. Or if there is a
temporary equilibrium in the fight, when neither
party can make headway, then both are attacking
and both are defending localities. But some such
phenomena as these are common to all combats.
Where, then, is the battle of encounter ?

This is no idle question, and these are no hair-
splitting criticisms, because the rules are held
to differ in important respects in these various
types of combats. In the battle of encounter
there are some exceedingly dim indications of
an opening for the steel, but an attack upon a
" locality " " can obviously only be carried out
dismounted " (p. 165). Pass by the old fallacious
antagonism between mounted action and rifle
action, and regard the essence of this proposition.
Once again you have the refutation of the steel
theory. The sentence means " fire governs com-
bat." He who fires compels his enemy to accept
combat on terms of fire.

But " Where am I ?" the harassed student
may exclaim. " What of these steel-charges
against extended Infantry (and, by inference,
against dismounted Cavalry), whose fire enforced
extension in the attacking Cavalry ?" Well, let

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 111

him read on. There is hope yet. For imme-
diately after saying that an attack upon an enemy
who takes up a defensive attitude can obviously
only be carried out dismounted, he adds the
sinister words : " It must be a matter, therefore,
for serious consideration, whether such an opera-
tion shall be undertaken or not." The truth is
that he has suddenly remembered those tiresome
led horses. " There must be considerable
numerical superiority to insure success." There
must be a dismounted reserve for fire purposes,
and a mounted reserve to secure the safety of
the led horses, and "for reconnaissance and
for operating against the enemy's flank and
rear"; and then follows an acrimonious wrangle
with the Regulations on the question of making
one reserve, and that mounted, perform incom-
patible and contradictory functions. But, as
usual, our sympathies are with the Regulations.

" Should the Cavalry commander not have
at his disposal sufficient force to meet all these
demands," says the General, " he will be generally
better advised to abstain from the attack and to
carry out his mission in some other manner. ..."
" It is only when conscious of great moral and
tactical superiority, or when there is any prospect
of surprising the enemy, that an attack should
be dared without the necessary numerical pre-

112 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

ponderance " (p. 166). In other words, after his
reductio ad absurdum of the steel, the writer in the
next breath proceeds to an equally conclusive re-
ductio ad absurdum of the rifle. Any Cavalry
leader who acted on the General's principles would
be instantly sent home in disgrace. According
to these principles, numerically equal bodies of
Cavalry cannot fight one another at all unless
hi those "exceptional cases " where the ground
is favourable for the " purely Cavalry fight,"
when there are no other Arms to complicate
the situation, and where neither side even for
a moment " takes up a defensive attitude " for
any purpose whatever. If any one of these
conditions is unsatisfied, the numerically equal
forces are mutually paralyzed, and each must
seek to " carry out its mission hi some other
manner." But, alas ! by hypothesis there is
no other manner. " The attack obviously can only
be made dismounted." Presumably, then, these
Cavalries are to do nothing at all hi modern war.
I am not making an unfair use of isolated pas-
sages. In later portions of his work the General
frequently repeats his warnings against fire-action
without great numerical and moral superiority,
though not, perhaps, so frequently and emphatic-
ally as he inveighs against impracticable shock-
action. Under " VIII. — The Various Units in the

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 113

Fight " (p. 239), we learn that a " squadron is
generally too weak to carry out an offensive fight
on foot." By the tune you have abstracted horse-
holders, " mounted and dismounted reserves,"
and " patrols and sentries," there is nothing left
with which to fight. Similarly, a squadron must
never " undertake a defensive fight on foot unless
absolutely necessary, or when the led horses can
be disposed in a safe place in the neighbourhood,
where the flanks cannot be turned, or where the
arrival of reinforcements can be relied on." Ob-
serve that there is no limitation here as to the
strength of the enemy, no demand for numerical
or moral superiority. The rule is almost absolute.
A squadron can only charge on horseback. So that
in average enclosed country, where charges cannot
be arranged, two opposed squadrons must main-
tain a masterly inactivity. We think of the 74
isolated " Zarps " at Bergendal in their desperate
defence against enormous odds, and of the 150
Griqualanders who defied a division of Cavalry
for a whole day at Dronfield.

But the General is far from stopping with the
squadron. " The regiment will seldom be called
upon to fight independently, but will operate in
more or less close co-operation with other troops."
It can act dismounted, but only " against
weaker hostile detachments." In defence, how-

8

114 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

ever, it is " formidable," because — strange reason
— it can detach two whole squadrons to guard the
led horses ! Well, it is no wonder that the
author neglects and discourages the study of
modern war. Supposing De Wet, for example,
had acted on his principles ! His brilliant inter-
vention at Paardeberg was made with 350 men.
Or go to Manchuria. Naganuma's masterly raid
of January to February, 1905, when he rode round
the Russian army and blew up the great bridge of
Hsin-kai-ho, was made with 172 Cavalrymen,
who acted throughout solely by fire, and would
have been impotent without it. The author pro-
fesses to admire the exploits of the Americans in
1861-1865. What does he suppose their Cavalry
leaders would have thought of his theories ?

The brigade of two regiments, we learn next, is
almost as feeble a unit as a regiment. " It
cannot," he says vaguely, " engage an opponent
of any strength who may have to be dealt with
by mounted or dismounted action, or the two
in combination." " In view of its small offensive
power, it will run a great risk of suffering defeat,
especially when dismounted" In defence, " if the
led horses do not require too large an escort," etc.,
it " may be an important factor of strength."

The division of six regiments (of 400 men per
regiment) is a somewhat more useful unit. " If

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 115

its full strength can be employed in the charge,"
it " represents, even against troops using the
rifle " (what troops ? of what strength ?), "a
considerable fighting power." Nevertheless, it
can attack " only weak detachments with a pros-
pect of success." " The resistance of a body of
equal strength " (a body of what ? how com-
posed ?) " when circumstances demand a dis-
mounted attack can never be overcome."
Mounted, however, and " charging in close
formation," it can attack even a stronger enemy
(what sort of enemy ?), " regardless of conse-
quences."

Finally, a corps of two divisions " can aim at
decisive results," and, alone of all units, can
engage in " independent strategic missions,"
which we may suppose, without further explana-
tion, to mean raids. But in these " fire-power
is an important factor," and it is hinted that even
the corps will not have enough fire-power.

The General complains that his writings " fall
on barren soil." Well they may. Antiquated as
the methods of the German Cavalry are, they at
any rate intend to fight. A Cavalry educated on
the maxims of the author might as well be left
at home.

And this is the author that Sir John French,
who knows what our own mounted riflemen did in

116 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

South Africa, holds up as a model to our Cavalry.
He has not one word of criticism, not a single
reservation, to make on any of the passages I have
quoted. On the contrary, he tells our men, hi
general terms, that it is all true, and implies that
the greatest of his compatriot soldiers, Lord
Roberts, makes "appeals from vanity to igno-
rance." A perusal of this chapter, and of Sir John
French's effusive eulogy, ought to make every
British soldier, home or colonial, indignant.

Its conclusion (pp. 245-246) is not the least re-
markable part of it . "It will seldom be possible, ' '
says the General, conscious, seemingly, that his
counsels have not been vividly luminous, " and
generally unnecessary to undertake or carry out
the very best course of action, for we may certainly
count on numerous errors and vacillations on the
part of the enemy, especially in the case of Cavalry
warfare." Well, we may heartily endorse the
words I have italicized.

Then, as a last desperate resort, come high-
sounding generalities. " The indomitable will to
conquer carries with it a considerable guarantee
of success . . . and the offensive is the weapon
with which he [the Cavalry leader] can best
enforce his will." Offensive !

The reader may infer from the passages I have
quoted that it is not necessary to examine in

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 117

close detail the General's instructions for the
" battle of encounter " and the " attack of
localities." He will trip at every ambiguous
sentence, baffled by contradictions or qualifica-
tions somewhere else, and perpetually befogged
either by the vague word " enemy " or the im-
plied distinction between " Cavalry " and " other
arms " — a distinction which is generally irrele-
vant, since all Arms are linked together by that
great common denominator, the firearm. I have
already noted how the presence of artillery dis-
sipates " purely Cavalry tactical principles."
Modern artillery fire, he says, necessitates deploy-
ment at 6,500 yards from the enemy at least.
That is nearly four miles away, and the questions
at once arise, Who are these invisible troops
with Artillery ? What is their strength and com-
position ? Have they some of those troublesome
cyclists and Infantry, or some of those unorthodox
Mounted Infantry or Cavalry acting improperly
as Mounted Infantry, who will make an additional
complication in a situation already compromised
by Artillery ?

The German Regulations are superbly indif-
ferent to these questions, and accordingly come
hi for fresh condemnation. Cavalry are supposed
to know at four miles what the composition,
strength, and intentions of the enemy are, and

if the enemy is Cavalry (the cyclists and Infantry
prescribed by the Regulations themselves are
ignored), the echelon system (previously outlined)
is to provide for all contingencies. The author
pitilessly dissects this childlike scheme. " In peace
manoeuvres," he remarks caustically, " there is
always a tacit understanding that the enemy is
no stronger than one's own force." In war it is
otherwise. To clear up the situation " energetic
contact with the enemy by fire-action is neces-
sary." " Only by a protracted action can the
enemy be forced to disclose his strength and in-
tentions," and " a protracted fight can only be
carried out by fire-action." Perfectly sound, we
agree ; and then we remember, with a start, those
terrible led horses, and the doctrines founded on
them. " It is only when conscious of a great moral
and tactical superiority, or when there is any
prospect of surprising the enemy, that an attack
should be dared without the necessary numerical
preponderance." In other words, the author once
more categorically contradicts himself. After first
saying that fire-action — and " protracted," " ener-
getic " fire-action — is the only means of forcing
the enemy to disclose his strength and intentions,
he adds in the next breath that such action is on
no account to be undertaken unless the enemy's
strength is already known, and he is known to bo

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 119

greatly inferior, either numerically, or tactically
and morally ! Is it any matter of surprise that
the Germans are slow to listen to General von
Bernhardi ?

The same deadly instinct for self-refutation
dogs the General through his satire on the regula-
tion method of " passing a defile " (p. 154). In
peace " one side is kept as far from the defile as
possible, in order that the passage on the other
side may be possible," and that both may have
the luxury of a knightly combat. These practices
the General prophesies will lead to " enormous
losses hi war," and he pleads for a modicum of
commonplace fire-action. " Whether," he gravely
remarks, " the attack be undertaken mounted or
dismounted will depend upon the attitude of the
enemy and the attendant circumstances." Yes,
but we know from other sources what that means
— namely, that if the enemy shows a " defensive
attitude," the attack will be by fire; but that
there will be no attack at all, even so, unless he
is greatly inferior, either morally and tactically
or numerically.

Later we have a condemnation of Regulation
No. 519, which directs the Army Cavalry, not
only to drive the hostile Cavalry from the field,
but to press back or break through " detachments
of all arms." " I cannot conceive," says the

120 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

General, "any real case in which Cavalry can
break through hostile detachments of all arms."
Poor Cavalry ! If mounted riflemen laboured
under such a disability, there would have been no
South African War at all — literally none.

Then Regulation No. 403 falls a victim. It is
certainly an easy prey. " Personal observation
[i.e., by the commander] is always the best, and
is essential in the case of offensive action against
Cavalry." The Regulations, of course, assume
that both Cavalries disdain to use their rifles,
and whirl about in huge ordered masses up to the
moment of contact ; but the author plaintively
argues that fire rules the situation, and makes the
zone of combat such that it is utterly impossible
for one individual to have ocular perception of
all that is going on. " One brigade will often
fight on foot, the other mounted," he complains,
" so that a handling of a division according to
rule is practically impossible." True comment,
but how futile !

Then, conscious (as he so often is conscious)
that his counsels may have a damping effect on
his hearers, he ends in a burst of poetry. " The
enemy's fire must not paralyze the idea of offen-
sive action " (he means shock, though he does not
like to say so). " We must act ' regardless of con-
sequences,' ' wrest victory,' " etc., according to

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 121

the hackneyed Cavalry phraseology, upon which
modern war throws such a pitilessly searching light.
The next section, " Attack of Localities,"
needs little further comment. This attack must
be done exclusively by fire, but in practice it can
never be done. That is the only deduction we
can arrive at. But there is one highly important
point. At the end of the section the bewildered
reader finds himself involved in a lengthy discus-
sion on the sword and lance in mounted combat —
a discussion from which I have already quoted,
and which arises out of a radically false analogy be-
tween those steel weapons and the bayonet carried
by the foot-soldier. If Cavalry have to do the same
work as Infantry, should not they carry bayonets ?
That is how the debate arises. It is an interesting
debate, on which anyone must frankly admit
there may be legitimate difference of opinion.
Even for Infantry the bayonet is somewhat under
a cloud, as the General himself contends ; and
Mounted Infantry, or Cavalry acting as such,
have powers of surprise and envelopment derived
from the horse which may perhaps be held to
compensate them for the doubtful advantage
of a bayonet. Instead of reasoning thus, the
General treats the bayonet only as a possible sub-
stitute for the sword, and rejects it on that ground.
But what has the sword to do with the bayonet ?

122 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

The sword is meant for use on horseback ; the
bayonet is fixed to the rifle, and is used on foot
as a factor in fire-tactics. The essence of the
whole controversy we are engaged upon is whether
it is any longer possible in modern war to fight on
horseback, and whether the rifle should not be
the weapon par excellence of mounted troops.
Whether you reinf orce it with the bayonet or not
is a distinct question, which has no relation what-
ever to the value of the sword and lance. It
seems absolutely hopeless to get this distinction
grasped. Over and over again in the letters and
articles on this controversy the same old fallacy
recurs, and, as I shall show later, it influences
the German General more deeply than he realizes.
The section on " Defence " (p. 176) is short, and
mainly consists of the elaborated truism that
all defence should have an offensive character.
The General seems to think that this maxim
applies especially to Cavalry. It is the old delu-
sion that Cavalry is a more offensive Arm than
Infantry, and it leads him inexorably to the fatal
conclusion that Cavalry cannot be trusted to
undertake a " completely passive defence." They
will only attempt to do so — but observe the com-
prehensive breadth of the exceptions — when it
is a case of "holding a crossing over some ob-
stacle, defending an isolated locality, or gaining

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 123

time." In these cases a retirement may be
involved "which is difficult to carry out on
account of the led horses, and should only be
attempted in very favourable country. It demands
that the fight shall be broken off — always a diffi-
cult matter, and, to Cavalry encumbered by these
led horses, one of considerable danger." " Re-
mounting when pressed by the enemy is always
a critical matter." It makes one hot to hear this
sort of thing commended to British soldiers by
Sir John French. It spells disgrace in war.
Troops who cannot break off a fight cannot fight
at all. " Colonel X., be good enough to cover
my retreat with your regiment. Defend that
crossing, please, or that locality, and gam me
time." " Very sorry, sir, but the ground is un-
favourable, and my led horses encumber me."
Supposing our gallant Colonials had said that
at Sannah's Post ? They found, indeed, how
" critical a matter " it is to remount when pressed
by the enemy, for the Boers charged right into
them again and again ; but they did not flinch,
and they saved their column from rum, while the
Cavalry engaged, equally brave men, but ignorant
of their true role in war, failed in the task set them.
But all this is " abnormal," Sir John French would
say. A respectable hostile Cavalry would have
summoned us to knightly combats with the steel.

124 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

And then (on p. 184) we come, as usual, to
the corresponding reductio ad absurdum. " In
mounted combat [i.e., with the steel] the breaking
off of the fight is quite impossible. Troops once
engaged must carry the fight through. Even
when retreating from the melee fighting Cavalry
has no means of extricating itself. It is then
entirely dependent on the enemy, and can only
retire at the most rapid speed," etc. " Whoever
expects to rally a beaten Cavalry division after
a mounted fight by blowing the divisional call
lays himself open to bitter disappointment."

No wonder so much stress is laid on the offen-
sive character of Cavalry !

II. — THE BRITISH VIEW.

We have now completed our review of the
author's theories on the action of the Independent
Cavalry, and I must ask the reader for a moment
to compare with his views the instruction on the
same topics contained in our own Manual.
" Cavalry Training." The same fundamental
error vitiates the whole of this instruction, but
in an infinitely more mischievous form. The
German author makes both shock and fire equally
absurd, but his respect for shock never deters him
from telling in his own strange way home-truths

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 125

about fire which at least force the reader to con-
struct for himself cosmos out of chaos. Our
authorities, conscious that the intermingling of
shock and fire will create difficulties only too
apparent to Englishmen with any knowledge or
memory of South Africa, divorce them completely
from one another. In their Manual, Cavalry
acting against Cavalry, whatever the terrain or
other circumstances, are assumed never to employ
fire-action, whose results are described as " nega-
tive," but only to employ shock. If the reader
will turn to pages 196-212, which deal with the
Independent or strategical Cavalry, he will ob-
serve with what really remarkable ingenuity the
compilers manage to avoid even the remotest
recognition of the fact that Cavalrymen carry
rifles. The word " fire " is not breathed, though
to the intelligence even of the most ignorant lay-
man it must be plain that fire must dominate
and condition the functions described, especially
those beginning with the " approach march when
within striking distance of the hostile Cavalry "
(p. 202).

The various problems bravely but confusedly
tackled by General von Bernhardi are here quietly
ignored. Everything is so arranged as to lead up
without hitch to the physical collision on horse-
back of the two opposing Cavalry " masses."

126 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

There is no echo of von Bernhardi's rule about
early deployment in view of Artillery fire. Our
own Artillery, it is true, is to "throw into con-
fusion " the enemy's Cavalry — a compliment
which no doubt the enemy may return (p. 208).
But, confusion or no confusion, the climax is to
be the purest of pure Cavalry fights. Scouts
and patrols are to observe the enemy and to
prevent our own commander from " engaging his
brigades on unfavourable ground " (note that
pregnant warning) ; but there is no suspicion or
suggestion of von Bernhardi's " protracted fire-
fight " hi order to discover the strength and in-
tentions of the enemy, especially in view of the
possibility that the enemy may, with unsports-
manlike perversity, choose ground which is " un-
favourable to our brigades." Our Cavalry Com-
mander (p. 205), it is to be inferred, is to perform
the physical impossibility enjoined by the German
Regulations, and criticized by von Bernhardi
(pp. 160-162), of personally overlooking the whole
of the attack and the ground which it is to cover.
Needless to say, there is not a whisper about
those sinister prophecies of the German author
that " one brigade will often fight on foot, the
other mounted "; that it will be impossible " to
put a division into the fight (i.e., shock-fight) in
proper cohesion "; that, in view of fire, " the situa-

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 127

tion during the rapidly changing phases of the
Cavalry fight will often be quite different from
what was expected when the tasks were allotted ";
and that, fire apart, European topography is
such that opportunities for the " collisions " of
Cavalry masses will be very rare.

With our authorities all goes by clockwork
on Frederician and Napoleonic lines. " The
enemy should be surprised," so that the charge
may follow immediately after the deployment.
The attack is to be on the echelon system ridiculed
by von Bernhardi, but the encounter, neverthe-
less, is not to be " broken up," but is to be by the
" simultaneous action of all brigades." The art-
less enemy co-operates, allows himself to be sur-
prised upon the right piece of "favourable " ground,
and courteously presents an objective which may
be struck simultaneously. The Artillery of both
sides ceases fire, fascinated by the sublime
spectacle of the " collision " ; the machine-guns,
which have been " affording a means of develop-
ing fire without dismounting" also retire from
business, and the knightly combat rages on its
appointed level arena. Then comes the pursuit
(p. 211). Troops are either to "pursue at top
speed in disorder," or to " rally at once at the
halt "; and on page 128 elaborate directions will be
found for the practice of this " rally," which von

128 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Bernhardi says is an " absolute impossibility in
war," and that it is " indeed astounding that we
should give way to such self-deception." Is the
rally, we wonder, one of the " best foreign
customs " which Sir John French urges us to
assimilate, or one of the worst, which he has
accidentally overlooked ?

It is only when our authorities have finished
with the pursuit, which is to " completely ex-
haust and disorganize the beaten enemy," and
when, the hostile Cavalrymen vanquished, our
own Cavalry has been safely launched on its
reconnoitring duties (p. 212), that they consider,
under quite a distinct heading, and without a
hint that it may have anything to do with what
precedes, the dismounted action of Cavalry
against what is described with judicious vague-
ness as an " enemy " (pp. 213-216). Then we
have the same demoralizing injunction that von
Bernhardi, in his fire-mood, so strongly combats
— namely, that a " fire-fight is not to be pro-
tracted "; and the same equally vicious suggestion
that von Bernhardi, in his steel-mood, acquiesces
in — namely, that defence in any shape is a some-
what abnormal function of Cavalry ; that they
are not supposed to conduct stubborn defences
("tenacious " is Sir John French's own term) ;
and that they should never demean them-

FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 129

selves by constructing anything serious in the
way of entrenchment (p. 215). But it is scarcely
necessary to add that the led horses are not the
nightmare to our authorities that they are to
von Bernhardi, and that we do not yet stultify our
own directions for fire-action by warnings about
the minimum size of units, and the imperative
need for moral, numerical, and tactical superi-
ority. Yet these warnings are regarded, accord-
ing to his own account, as inspired wisdom by
Sir John French, whose own introductory remarks
are conceived in an even more reactionary spirit
than those of the " acknowledged authority "
whom he recommends to British readers.

The finishing touches to the comedy of the
shock-duel are given in the revised Mounted In-
fantry Manual of 1909 ; for, although in this con-
nection the Cavalry Manual never breathes a word
about its sister Arm, it is, as I have before men-
tioned, one of the regular duties of the Mounted
Infantry to co-operate with the Cavalry, not only
in reconnaissance, but in battle. Under the head-
ing " Co-operation with Cavalry when Acting
Offensively against Hostile Cavalry," the Mounted
Infantry are to " seize points of tactical impor-
tance from which effective rifle and machine-gun
fire can be brought to bear on the flanks of the
opposing Cavalry before the moment of contact."

9

130 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

We picture an amphitheatre, like Olympia, both
rims of the horseshoe lined with hidden riflemen,
and two solid blocks of Cavalry galloping to-
wards one another in the arena below, and we are
alarmed for the fate of the horsemen, exposed
in such a formation to a sleet of bullets. But
we come to a fortunate reservation. " Fire will
rarely be opened upon the hostile Cavalry or
Artillery until contact is imminent. The object
aimed at is the defeat of the hostile Cavalry, and
a premature opening of fire is liable to cause it
to draw off and manoeuvre, in order to bring off
the Cavalry encounter outside effective rifle-
range." Surely some humorist of the Mounted
Infantry, coerced by the General Staff into
finding a role for his Arm which should not trench
upon the sacred preserves of the Cavalry, penned
these exquisite lines by way of stealthy revenge !
What delicate consideration for the " knightly "
weapons ! What an eye for theatrical effect !
What precautions against the disturbance of the
collision by the premature discharge of vulgar
firearms ! And what a tactful show of appre-
hension lest these reminders of the degenerate
twentieth century should scare away the old-
world pageant to regions beyond " effective
rifle-range "! It will be noticed that even the
Artillery of the enemy is to be immune until

FIGHT OP THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY 131

" contact is imminent " — a somewhat doubtful
risk to take without a written guarantee from
the enemy that his Artillery will reciprocate the
courtesy. (For the Gunners' view, see below,
p. 204.)

Finally, with what unerring neatness, under
his veil of genial irony, does our humorist manage
to expose and satirize the futility of the lance and
sword and the deadly pre-eminence of the rifle !
He recognizes that it is only by the indulgence
and self-restraint of riflemen that swords and
lances can be used, and he knows, as we all
know, that it is physically impossible for modern
Cavalry, in war or peace, to find any spot on
the globe which is " outside effective rifle-range "
— unless they take the unsoldierly course of
throwing away their own rifles. In peace, of
course, as von Bernhardi constantly reminds us,
rifles may be, and frequently are, ignored, even
if they are not left hi barracks ; but in " real
war " there is no use for troops who can only
fight outside effective rifle-range. I need only
add that the ideal Cavalry combat, as envisaged
by our authorities, is precisely the combat which
von Bernhardi stigmatizes hi peace manoeuvres
as a " spectacular battle-piece." Mounted In-
fantry to him represent a force which, by
" seizing the rifle," will " compel " the opposing

132 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Cavalry to " advance dismounted." The case
imagined is what he regards as the normal case
of " co-operation with other arms," and it will
be remembered that " he can conceive no case
in which Cavalry [i.e., using the steel] can break
through a hostile detachment of all arms."

One stands in awe before the almost miraculous
tenacity of a belief which can give birth to such
puerilities as I have quoted from our Manuals
without perishing instantly under the ridicule
of persons conversant with war. If the thing
described had ever once happened, it would be
different, but it never has happened, and never
can or will happen. In war no Commander-in-
Chief would tolerate even a tendency towards
such child's-play. Otherwise, in pessimistic
moments, one might tremble for the Navy. Sup-
posing our Dreadnoughts were trained to withhold
their fire so as to decoy hostile wooden three-
deckers into collisions with our wooden three-
deckers, and encounters settled by cutlasses on
the lines of Salamis and Syracuse ?

The parallel is not discourteous to the Cavalry.
When they will it, they can be Dreadnoughts.
But their shock-charge is as obsolete as sails and
wood in naval war.

CHAPTER VII
THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS

I. — GERMAN VIEWS.

WE have now come to the exposition of the
part Cavalry will play in the great battle of
all Arms, which, says von Bernhardi, is always
" pre-arranged." But it will occur to the reader
at once that, so far as our inquiry about fire
and the steel in combat is concerned, there can
be nothing new to be said. There are firearms
in all warfare, and the tactical principles they
enforce will be approximately constant. Every
great battle takes the form of a series of " attacks
on localities," or " battles of encounter," how-
ever we interpret those phrases. If an enemy,
to whatever Arm belonging, who takes up a
" defensive attitude " can only be attacked by
fire in a fight of the Independent Cavalry, he can
only be attacked by fire in a pre-arranged battle ;
and if the led horses are a paralyzing encum-
brance in the one case, they are equally so in the
other. The great battle, it is true, presents a
133

134 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

more positive and obvious example of the co-
operation of the various Arms ; but, as we have
seen, the co-operation " of other arms " has been
regarded by the author as a normal incident of the
combats he has already described, and the " purely
Cavalry fight " as an altogether exceptional
incident. And since even the purest Cavalry
carry the rifle, they can at any moment sully the
purity of the said fight by resort to that sordid
but formidable weapon.

The author, as we might expect, only dimly
appreciates the universality of his own principles
— if the mutually destructive propositions which
he alternately lays down can be properly termed
principles. He constantly confuses tactics with
combat. Different rules, of course, must always
govern the action of mounted troops and horse-
less troops, because the one class is more mobile
than the other ; but it is impossible to lay down
any lucid and intelligible principles for modern
war until we realize the ubiquity and the suprem-
acy of the missile weapon, rifle or gun.

The Army Cavalry, he tells us, as distinct from
the divisional Cavalry, " must be engaged en
masse, and not in detail." " It must simul-
taneously engage its whole fighting strength,"
as an undivided entity (p. 190 et seq.), and its
proper position is forward of one of the flanks.

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 135

We have no sooner grasped this principle than
we find a separate chapter devoted to the action
of " those portions of the Cavalry which find
themselves behind the fighting-line, not on the
exposed flank." This sub-division, we are
vaguely told, " may be the result of circum-
stances," but there is no indication of what those
circumstances are. But this is only one infrac-
tion of the principle of unity. In spite of the
distractingly vague use of terms such as " front "
and " flank," " enemy," " hostile forces," " troops
within hostile reach," we are able to distinguish
the following functions for the Cavalry mass
during the battle : It must conduct (1) a " far-
reaching exploration " on the enemy's extreme
rear and "probable lines of approach and com-
munication," so as to give warning of the
approach of fresh reserves ; (2) an " immediate
tactical reconnaissance," evidently of the whole
battle - front — though the vague expression
" against such hostile troops as may be within
tactical reach " might mean almost anything. But
we are told explicitly later that during the whole
course of the battle the Cavalry mass " must in all
cases prevent the enemy's patrols from making
observations as to the disposition of our own
Army, while, on the other hand, its own reconnais-
sance should never cease " (p. 199). We receive a

136 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

sort of mental dislocation, therefore, when the
author resumes : " Screened by these various
measures, the Cavalry mass now advances fully
deployed for the fight." Were " these measures,"
then, only to screen the Cavalry mass ? But how
can detachments, perhaps twenty miles away on
the other flank, be said to screen the Cavalry
mass ? (3) The mass is to provide for the occupa-
tion of " defiles and other important places to the
flank and front of the main body " (i.e., of the
main Army).

Let us pause and think. Supposing the initial
battle-front is thirty or forty miles in extent.
Even in the Boer War it was frequently thirty
miles, while in Manchuria the fronts were some-
times enormously more extensive — at Mukden
nearly 100 miles. How in the world is the entire
Cavalry mass, posted outside one flank, to provide
for the continuous reconnaissance, close and dis-
tant, of such a front, the occupation of advanced
points, and for the maintenance of a reserve
behind the front, while remaining a practically
undivided force for united action ? What is the
enemy's Cavalry supposed to be doing ? In
theory, we are told, they will do the right thing,
that is, post themselves by instinct outside one
flank exactly opposite our own mass. But sup-
posing they do not. Whatever they do, they

THE BATTLE OP ALL ARMS 137

have got (4) to be " driven from the field " (the
reader will recollect the well-known formula),
which will involve dispersion, if they disperse.
But the author is not nearly so strong on the
formula as Sir John French. It is a very small
matter (p. 191), this driving of the hostile Cavalry
from the field. " It has a certain value, but is
comparatively useless for the main issue of the
battle, unless, further, the possibility is gained of
intervening in the decisive battle of all arms."

Is not the reader conscious of an extraordinary
artificiality and unreality in the terms employed ?
Why speak of Cavalry driving the hostile Cavalry
off the field, with more emphasis than of Infantry
doing the same to Infantry ? Presumably, because
Cavalry, as we have already learnt, cannot break
off the fight either in their pure or debased
capacity. But on page 198 the beaten Cavalry is
to " seek shelter behind occupied points of sup-
port," where it is to be attacked by the greatest
possible fire-power, words which seem to imply
that hitherto the attack has been by shock. Yet
we have had it laid down as an axiom that neither
party to a shock-combat can be used as a manage-
able unit for an indefinite time.

(5) The indi visible mass is now subject to fresh
disintegration. " All portions of it not required
for the pursuit " just described are to " regain their

138 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

tactical cohesion " (an admission that the whole
has lost its tactical cohesion), and, leaving their
comrades to carry on the fire-fight, which may,
of course, last for a week or more, are " to prepare
for fresh effort." They are to occupy " localities "
near the ground won, and " garrison " them with
dismounted men — a direction we can scarcely
take seriously when we recollect the crushing dis-
abilities under which Cavalry acting in passive
defence have been supposed by the author to
labour (see supra, pp. 122-123).

(6) What is left of the mass now "takes up a
position of readiness " secure from the view and
fire of the enemy, and disposed in what the
author calls " groups of units." The expression
seems to lack precision, but " this is the most
suitable formation." Subsequent action is to
be according to the " circumstances of the various
cases," and it is here that the reminder is casually
interpolated that a protective and offensive recon-
naissance along the whole battle-line is to be a
continuous duty of the mass. But this action
is " not to be regarded as sufficient." " The mass
is to insure its own advance to that portion of
the field where the decisive battle will probably
take place, so that the charge will not meet
with unexpected resistance and obstacles when
the moment comes to ride it home. When this

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 139

crisis of the battle approaches, the Cavalry must
be ready to intervene. ... As the crisis ap-
proaches, endeavours must be made to get as
close to the enemy as possible, in order to shorten
the distance that will have to be covered in the
charge." Observe how naturally, how mechan-
ically, the author associates the " crisis " with a
gigantic Cavalry charge, and with what simple
trustfulness he believes that unexpected re-
sistance and obstacles will melt away, if only
the mass can insure its advance to the right spot
in time.

As I shall show, he ruthlessly shatters his own
hypothesis in the next breath ; but consider, in
the light of " real war," the utter futility of all
this so-called instruction for the " pre-arranged
battle," with its pre-arranged crisis. Note the
complete neglect of all the really important
factors, the tremendous power of modern rifles and
guns, and the vast extent and duration of modern
battles, as contrasted with the limited physical
powers of the horse and the small proportion
which Cavalry in all armies bears to other Arms.
Take Liao-yang, the Sha-Ho, Mukden, battles
which lasted ten days, two weeks, and three weeks,
and try and find from the author's remarks any
practical, tangible guidance for such situations.
Fancy one indivisible mass maintaining a con-

140 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

tinuous reconnaissance over such distances, occu-
pying defiles and " localities " to the front, leaving
a reserve behind the battle-front, driving the
entire hostile Cavalry from the field, and utterly
destroying its power of further action ; garrisoning
points in the ground won, and at the same time
advancing towards the " probable " point of
crisis. But this point may be two days' march
from the flank, where the mass — or what remains
of it — was posted, and when it gets there it will
certainly find that the crisis is centring round
some strong, defensible position where lances and
swords will be less useful than bows and arrows.
No such picture as the author draws occurred
in the Franco-German, Austro-Prussian, or Russo-
Turkish Wars. It did not occur at Vion-
ville, the only battle in which a situation
came about even approximately resembling the
circumstances he outlines. So far as there was
a crisis there, and so far as it was dealt with
by a Cavalry charge, the circumstances have
radically altered, and there is a " total absence of
analogy," as the author himself expressly states.
Bredow's steel-charge was made against unbroken
Infantry and Artillery, flushed with the hope of
victory. Such charges, he has told us with
truth, are utterly impossible in modern war. " I
cannot conceive any real case in which Cavalry

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 141

can break through detachments of all arms "
(p. 160). " Nowadays, when Infantry can cover
the ground to a distance of 1,500 or even 2,000
yards with a hot and rapid fire, and offer in their
wide extension no sort of objective for shock-
action, an attack on unshaken, steadily-firing
Infantry, which has any sort of adequate field
of fire, is quite out of the question" (p. 127).

It seems odd to have to recall these matters,
for the author, as I said before, shatters his own
hypothesis in the paragraphs immediately follow-
ing his pages on the crisis and the charge. " How-
ever important and desirable it may be to con-
tribute to the great decision by a glorious Cavalry
charge, it should be borne in mind that the
possibility of this will occur in very rare cases."
He goes on to insist emphatically on this point,
saying nothing here about the vastly enhanced
effect of the modern rifle, but basing his argu-
ment on terrain. Great charges, he says, were
almost impracticable in the Franco-Prussian,
Russo - Turkish, and Manchurian Wars, and
" possible European theatres of war are but
little suitable for charges, owing to the extent
to which they have been cultivated." Peace
operations are of no practical significance, because
uncultivated country is expressly chosen. And
so on.

142 GEEMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Then, why, we ask, all this reasoned instruction
about Cavalry making its way to the crisis and
delivering its charge ? Why not have said at
the outset that their normal action must be
something quite different ? Instruction for re-
mote improbabilities is practically useless. What
the commander wants to know is what to do
as a general rule, especially when a wrong decision
may, owing to the extent of the battle-field,
involve him in ignominious impotence. Such is
Cavalry literature. Serious men in any other
walk of life would not tolerate exposition of
this sort.

We discover now that the Cavalry are not,
after all, to make their way to the crisis and
charge. That was conventional rhetoric. In
reality they are to act on the rear of the hostile
army, "upon the reserves, the column of supply,
the heavy Artillery, etc." " It is here that oppor-
tunities for decisive action must be sought."
Well, obviously that is a different proposition
altogether. Why not have begun with it ?
Habit — just the irresistible habit of associating
Cavalry with shock, and of calling shock
their " proper role," although it is only their
" exceptional " role. For, of course, such action
as the author now indicates is purely a matter
of fire. That is why no such decisive attack upon

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 143

the rear of a great Army has ever in recent times
been accomplished by European Cavalry. The
Cavalries of the sixties and seventies in the last
century were absolutely incapable of such action,
owing to their lack of fire-power. He is no doubt
thinking of his model war, the American struggle
of 1861-1865, and if he were truly candid, he would
tell his countrymen that the brilliant exploits of
the Civil War leaders in raiding communications
and " hostile reserves " were performed solely
through the rifle.

The author is perfectly aware that the modern
rifle has five times the power of the rifle of 1865,
but he has not the courage of his own opinions,
and descends to misty compromise. " Such
action must, of course, be conducted with a due
co-operation between mounted and dismounted
action." What is the use of a rule like that ?
" Against intact hostile reserves the fire-arm
will be principally used." Why "principally"?
Will not these intact reserves, to say the
least, " take up a defensive attitude," and
therefore render a fire-attack, according to his
own repeatedly formulated rule, absolutely in-
dispensable ? " Against columns of waggons it
will be well to commence by fire-action." Why
" commence " only ? Is there no lesson from
South Africa here ? On what single occasion

144 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

were lances and swords of the smallest value in
attacks on transport ? Not on one. And on
how many occasions did mounted riflemen, desti-
tute of these weapons, capture transport and guns
and rout reserves ? We all know — Sir John
French knows — what our troops suffered in this
way. Why does he not warn his countrymen,
instead of telling them that these German specu-
lations are brilliant, logical, conclusive, com-
plete ?

Look once more at the great Manchurian battles.
Observe, for example, the great battle of Mukden,
(with its awful record of massacre by fire-arms),
when a Japanese Cavalry brigade, acting with
Nogi's turning force, endeavoured to operate on
the Russian rear. It was miserably weak nu-
merically, and it failed to accomplish anything
" decisive " ; but it did wonders, as it was, purely
through fire. Has any critic, however enamoured
of the arme blanche, ever suggested that, however
strong, it could have accomplished anything with
the lance and sword ? The very suggestion is pre-
posterous . Fire ruled that terrific struggle from first
to last. Look at Mishchenko's pitiful Cavalry raid
on the Japanese communications in January,
1905 ; and observe the shame which overtakes
Cavalry who cannot fight on foot : whole brigades
paralyzed by squads of isolated riflemen, remind-

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 145

ing us only too painfully of Dronfield and Poplar
Grove ; Cossacks pathetically charging stone
walls with drawn swords ; disaster and humilia-
tion clouding the whole sordid drama. Sir John
French's contribution to our enlightenment on
the Manchurian War, in his Introduction to
Bernhardi's first book, " Cavalry in Future
Wars," was that the Cossacks failed through
excess of training as riflemen. He has not re-
peated that statement in his Introduction to the
second book. He scarcely could.

All the world knows the truth now — namely,
that the Cossacks, as one who rode with them said,
" once dismounted, were lost." They did not
know how to handle rifles, and all their humilia-
tions may be traced to that fact. Nor did the
Japanese Cavalry at first, and they were equally
impotent. But they learnt, and learnt to ad-
mirable purpose, as the records show. If he
cannot repeat and confirm what he said in his
first Introduction, why is Sir John French alto-
gether silent on the point in his second Introduc-
tion ? Well, it was an awkward dilemma for
him ; for Bernhardi himself (p. 97), in his chapter
on Raids, alludes to Mishchenko's raid in highly
significant, though characteristically obscure,
language. And if he follows up the clue, the
reader may understand why it is that only on this

10

146 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

one solitary question of raids, out of all the multi-
tude of topics dealt with in the two books, Sir
John French " ventures to differ " from the
German author, pronouncing, for his own part,
against them. Von Bernhardi expressly founds
his advocacy of the raid on the American Civil
War. " The idea," he says naively, " is taken "
from that war. As though the Boers who made
the raids of 1901, of which he never seems to have
heard, took their ideas from that war or any other !
Their ideas were the fruit of their own common
sense. Now, the Civil War is particularly dan-
gerous ground in England for advocates of the
arme blanche, although it is safe enough ground in
Germany, where nobody studies it, and where
there has been no Henderson to immortalize
the exploits of the great Cavalry leaders. Fire,
and fire alone, rendered the American raids
possible.

I need scarcely say that there is no incongruity
in discussing together the raid proper and the
attack on the reserves and communications of a
great Army from which my digression originated.
The weapon factor is precisely the same in both.
Rifles are rifles and lances are lances, whatever
the strategical or tactical scheme which bring
them into play.

We turn lastly to the role of that portion of

t

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 147

theoretically indivisible Cavalry mass which is
maintained as a " reserve behind the front "
(p. 204). The author's method is the same : first,
to expound at length the duties and powers of this
body as though they were its normal duties and
powers, and then to state that these normal
duties and powers — in other words, the " proper
role " — of the force concerned are, hi nine cases
out of ten, impracticable and visionary. He
first represents the great mounted charge as the
primary object, the great mounted charge, more-
over, against Infantry ; for in this case there will be
little chance, he says, of having " to deal with the
hostile Cavalry." He proceeds to lay down the
truly delightful maxim that the force is to mass
behind " that part of the fighting line where the
ground is adapted for a charge of large masses,"
though he has taken great trouble to show in
the previous chapter, quite correctly, that this
is precisely the kind of ground upon which im-
portant struggles will not centre. Then, in flat
defiance of all he has said about charges against
Infantry, he advocates what in effect is our old
discredited friend the " death ride " against un-
shaken and victorious Infantry (p. 208), " in
order to relieve our own exhausted Infantry," etc.
The Cavalry are to " ride through the hostile
Infantry, and fall upon the Artillery," although

148 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

we know already that the author " can conceive
no case in which Cavalry can break through
detachments of all arms," and that an enemy
who takes up even a defensive attitude can only
be attacked by dismounted action. But in a
flash of recollection of a prior maxim, he enjoins
that not only the preliminary deployment, but
the formation for attack in widely extended
order, must take place " beyond the effective
range of the enemy's fire "; for " once outside this
zone . . . nothing eke can be done but to gallop
straight for the front." Beyond the effective
range of the enemy's fire ! What is that range ?
He has told us before that it must, for average
purposes, be reckoned 6,500 yards, or nearly
four miles. Conceive a charge of four miles,
begun out of sight of the enemy, and in the blissful
confidence that at the end of it the " ground will
be suitable " for fighting on horseback with steel
weapons ! He proceeds in this strain for four
pages, elaborating his topic with detailed tactical
instructions, and then comes the usual nullifying
paragraph :

" It must be clearly understood that in this
case, as in the other where the Cavalry is on the
flank of the army, there will seldom be an oppor-
tunity for a charge." What, then, it not a charge ?
Half a page of fervid generalization. " The first

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 149

essential is that victory shall be won. . . . The
Cavalry must not shrink from employing its whole
force on the fire-fight." We are bidden, rightly
enough, to study the ancient lesson of Fredericks-
burg. But it is now 1911. And we know what the
author's views of the fire-fight for Cavalry are —
that, owing to the burden of led horses, it is never
on any account to be attempted, unless there is
an assurance of complete moral, tactical, and
numerical superiority. Cadit qucestio once more.
Our reserve becomes a dummy.

There remain two topics in connection with the
great prearranged battle of all arms — "Pursuit
and Retreat " and the " Role of the Divisional
Cavalry." I shall take the latter first, and, with
little comment, merely appeal to the reader's
sense of humour. " In the battle of all arms,"
says the General, " as soon as fighting contact
has been established with the enemy, and the close
and combat reconnaissance is then probably at
an end, the divisional Cavalry must endeavour
to gain touch with the Army Cavalry in order to
strengthen the latter for the battle. In so doing
it must not, of course, lose all connection with its
own Infantry division . ' ' Remember that the Army
Cavalry is, by hypothesis, well outside our flank
of a battle area which may be of any extent
from ten to seventy miles. Picture the various

150 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

divisional Cavalries along this front endeavouring
to " gain touch " with the Army Cavalry, while
not losing connection with their own respective
divisions.

It may be that this particular injunction has
aroused merriment in Germany. That is not our
business. But that Sir John French, with un-
disturbed gravity, should solemnly pass it on to
Englishmen as the last word of military wisdom —
that is extraordinary. Observe that, as usual, the
arme blanche is responsible for the aberrations
of the German writer. In the succeeding sentence
this becomes clear. " When this cannot be done,
and when no other chance of mounted action offers,
the divisional Cavalry must seize the rifle, and
act as an immediate support for the Infantry."
The words I have italicized show that the physical
feats contemplated in the original injunction
are to be performed in the interests of shock,
and that, if in the cold prosaic light of day
they daunt the imagination of the leaders on
the field, there is nothing left but to "seize the
rifle."

" Pursuit and Retreat " is a chapter which
almost defies any brief analysis. Only those who
are thoroughly acquainted with the curiously
ambiguous vocabulary which hampers Cavalry
writers at every turn can fully appreciate the

THE BATTLE OP ALL ARMS 151

bankruptcy of the steel weapons as disclosed in
these pages, and, at the same time, the disastrous
effect of these useless bits of steel upon the
reasoning faculties of those who still believe in
them. The first few pages leave us only the im-
pression that both pursuit and retreat are very
dubious topics for Cavalry. We approach the
kernel of the matter at p. 215, where the writer
deprecates " direct frontal pursuits," which " will
generally yield but meagre results against the
masses of the modern Army and the firearm of the
present day." The enemy will occupy " localities,
woods, and the like," and " bring the Cavalry
pursuit to a standstill." " Only when completely
demoralized troops are retreating in the open,
and cannot be reached by fire " (what this last
clause means I cannot conceive), " will a charge
be feasible." Very good ; but why not have fol-
lowed the same principle hi earlier chapters,
instead of talking of Cavalry charging Infantry
under cover, etc. ? " Frontal pursuit is essen-
tially a matter for the Infantry, who must press
the retreating enemy to the utmost." This seems
a fairly definite rule, but we have no sooner
grasped it than it is cancelled.

" On the other hand, it is, of course, the duty
of the Cavalry to maintain touch with the enemy
under all circumstances. With this object in

152 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

view, it must continue the frontal pursuit, some-
times even without seeking to draw on a fight,
by day and night." How one can continue a
frontal pursuit by day and night without seeking
to draw on a fight I leave the reader to guess.
We turn to "Retreat," which is, of course, the
counterpart of pursuit, only to be involved in a
fresh tangle. Whether the enemy's Cavalry is
assumed to be conducting a frontal pursuit by
day and night hi spite of its " meagre results," or
whether our own Infantry are bearing the brunt
of the retreat in the face of the frontal pursuit of
the enemy's Infantry — a pursuit which is " essen-
tially " their business — we are left in uncertainty.
All we have are vague heroics about the " main-
tenance of morale " (the writer seems to be very
nervous about the morale of Cavalry), about never
renouncing a " relentless offensive," and about
attacking the "enemy," wherever possible, with
the cold steel. We find ourselves wondering how
it is that " completely demoralized troops re-
treating in the open " (by hypothesis the only
proper subjects for a steel-charge) can be, never-
theless, conducting a victorious pursuit, and our
only escape from the entanglement is that in the
case now considered by the author " enemy "
means "Cavalry," who are, apparently, so far
inferior to Infantry (though they carry the very

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 153

weapon which makes Infantry formidable) that
they can be " relentlessly attacked," even when
they are not completely demoralized.

One soon ceases to be surprised at anything in
this species of literature, or one would gasp with
amazement at the levity with which Cavalrymen
throw ridicule on their own Arm. Suddenly and
very tardily we come upon an indication of the
alternative to that frontal pursuit which gives such
meagre results and yet must be continued day
and night. " Thus, when it becomes no longer
possible to show a front to the pursuing Cavalry
in the open, measures must be taken to block the
routes upon which his parallel pursuit is oper-
ating," etc. Does not the reader feel his brain
going when he reads a sentence like this ? What
antithesis can there be between Cavalry " pur-
suing in the open " and Cavalry conducting a
" parallel pursuit " ? There is no more or less
probability of open ground in a parallel than in
a frontal pursuit. It is the old story. One half
of the writer's brain is back in the days of
Frederick the Great ; the other half is in working
in the medium of the present.

That is the key to this chapter, from which
a Cavalry leader could not gain one concrete,
definite rule for his guidance in real war. On
pursuit, as on many other topics, the author was

154 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

more clear and instructive in his earlier work,
" Cavalry in Future Wars " (Chapter IV.), where
he was not hampered by having to consider
Regulations with any pretence to modernity,
and where he accordingly spoke with freedom on
the absolute necessity of fire-action in pursuit ;
though he could not even then wholly grasp
the corollary, the absolute necessity of fire-action
in retreat.

II. — THE BRITISH VIEW.

Let us now, as in the case of the fight of the
Independent Cavalry, contrast the directions
given by our own authorities for the great battle
of all Arms ("Cavalry Training," pp. 225-229).
One point of difference we may dispose of at once.
The divisional Cavalry (who are Mounted In-
fantry) and the " protective " Cavalry (to which
there is no German counterpart) behave rationally.
They remain with, or drop back to, their respec-
tive main bodies, and there make themselves
generally useful. The rules for the Independent or
Army Cavalry, on the other hand, present a curious
study. On the German model, this main mass
is, generally speaking, to be posted forward of
one of the flanks. (There is no suggestion of a
"reserve behind the front.") But we notice at

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 155

once, with some surprise, that nothing is said
about the corresponding hostile Cavalry mass,
which, according to von Bernhardi, should be
the primary objective, and whose " absolute and
complete overthrow " is, according to Sir John
French (p. xiv), a " primary necessity."

The explanation is that one of the opposing
Cavalry masses is assumed to have been already
absolutely and completely overthrown — that
is, during the pre-battle reconnaissance phase,
whose central incident, as described in pp. 192-
194 and 200-212 of the Manual, and criticized by
me in the last chapter, is the great shock-duel of
the two Independent Cavalries — a duel which
is to result in the annihilation of one side or
the other, and to which I shall have to return
once more in the next chapter. The thread is
resumed on p. 224 with the words, " Once the
Independent Cavalry has defeated its opponent,"
etc., and from that point onwards nothing is
heard of the hostile Independent Cavalry. The
explanation of Sir John French's expression is
the same. On p. xv he, too, assumes that before
the battle the hostile Cavalry has been disposed
of, and says, somewhat vaguely, that the " true
role of Cavalry on the battlefield is to reconnoitre,
to deceive, and finally to support " — functions
which he distinctly suggests should be carried

156 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

out mainly through fire-action by troops " accus-
tomed to act in large bodies dismounted." And
we seem to recognize this view in the functions
outlined in the Manual on p. 225. " Recon-
noitre," it is true, disappears. We find no echo
of von Bernhardi's chimerical conception of a
double reconnaissance, distant and close, along
the whole battle-front ; nor, we may add, of his
injunction to " occupy defiles and other important
places to the flanks and front " of the Army.

The roles suggested for the flank Cavalry mass
are :

1. To " act against the enemy's flanks."

2. To combine fire concentrically with the main
attack.

3. To pursue on parallel lines — a function
which it is laid down on p. 229 is to be performed
mainly with the rifle.

4. To force the enemy away from his direct
line of retreat; which is merely a corollary of
No. 3.

So far, good ; but the arme blanche, as we might
expect, is not going to be suppressed in this
summary fashion, and when we pass from pious
generalization to the actual " crisis," which " offers
the greatest opportunities for Cavalry action,"
we breathe once more the intoxicating atmosphere
of the great shock-charge, not against Cavalry

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 157

now (for they are ex hypothesi extinct), but
against Infantry and Artillery. There is a mild
caution about the " modern bullet," but it is
evidently not intended to be taken very seriously.
The relation between the " flank " phase and
functions and the " crisis " phase and functions
is passed over in silence. Von Bernhardi's diffi-
culty about deployment and advance under
modern fire is surmounted by the simple direc-
tion that for what is called the " approach "
surprise is essential ; yet in the next breath " fire*-
swept zones " are envisaged which are to be
passed over in a " series of rushes from shelter
to shelter in the least vulnerable formation " — &
process exclusive of surprise ; and on the abso-
lutely vital point of the formation for the actual
attack one can positively watch the compilers
struggling to reconcile Cromwellian principles
with modern facts, and embodying the result
in studiously vague and misleading language.
The front of the Cavalry is not to be " too
narrow," but the imperative necessity insisted
on by von Bernhardi of wide, extension in the
whole attacking force is implicitly denied by the
direction that " squadrons in extended order may
be used to divert the enemy's attention from the
real attack." Then, there is to be the stereo-
typed rally, which is to be in "mass," and the

158 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

resulting mass is apparently to escape from
further fire by using " another route."

When will our soldiers base their rules on war
facts ? As I have said, the facts show that it is
still possible, in certain conditions, for men on
horses, big target as they are, to penetrate a
modern fire-zone, and attack and defeat riflemen
and Artillery ; but it is impossible to do so if
they insist on conforming their methods to the
assumption that they are to do their killing work
by remaining in the saddle and wielding steel
weapons. That idea is fatal. It is that idea
which promotes these rules about not too narrow
fronts, these grotesque mounted rallies in mass,
and this pregnant silence about the real point
of interest — what actually happens when a line
of horsemen, stirrup to stirrup, or in extended
order, wielding lances and swords, impinges on
an extended line of dismounted riflemen. We
know from war experience that such a charge,
stirrup to stirrup, is as extinct as the dodo, and
is advocated in set terms by no rational being.
It has not even been tried or contemplated since
1870. We know that the widely extended type
has shared the fate of the other, because, with the
loss of physical " shock," the steel weapons have
lost their whole historical raison d'etre. The only
practicable mounted charge known to modern

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 159

war is that of the mounted riflemen, who fight up
to the charge, and use the only weapon which is
effective against riflemen — namely, the rifle, forti-
fied, if need be, by the bayonet. This charge is
not an essential to victory. Heaven knows we
lost guns and men and transport enough in South
Africa without any mounted charging. The very
object of a missile weapon is to overcome dis-
tance in a way that the lance and sword cannot
overcome it. For all we know, even the mounted
rifle charge may wholly disappear as science
improves the firearm. But that improved fire-
arm will itself rule combat, and banish into still
remoter realms of memory the reign of the lance
and sword.

I have excepted the case of the " utterly de-
moralized " enemy — utterly demoralized, of
course, by fire. He is, naturally, fair game for
any weapon, and experience proves that the fire-
arm once more is incomparably the best weapon.
Lances and swords are, relatively, slow, cumbrous,
and ineffective. A magazine pistol used even
from horseback is a better weapon than either.

Nothing is said by our authorities as to attack
during the battle upon the enemy's reserves and
transport, enterprises in which von Bernhardi,
after dismissing as a rare exception the great
shock-charge, concludes that Cavalry are to seek

160 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

their decisive opportunities. We may assume
that, like raids on communications, they are
ruled out. But no alternative to the shock-
charge at the crisis is suggested, for the parallel
pursuit is, of course, a subsequent phase. There
ig only the ominous reservation that, if the
ground is not favourable to the shock-charge,
the " Cavalry commander must look for his
chance elsewhere, or wait for a more favourable
opportunity " (p. 227).

That is just what we have to fear. That was
the old, narrow, ignorant outlook of the con-
tinental Cavalries, who were always waiting for
favourable opportunities, and accounts for the
idleness and lack of enterprise which von Moltke
stigmatized in 1866, and for the paltry character of
their performances as a whole, which von Bern-
hardi recognizes and condemns. It accounts for
the miserable failure of the Cossacks in Manchuria,
and explains the success of the Japanese Cavalry,
once they realized the worthlessness of their
German instruction and textbooks, and dis-
covered for themselves the worth of the rifle as
a stimulus to activity and mobility. Von Bern-
hardi says (p. 202): "The greatest imaginable
error ... is to adopt a waiting attitude . . .
in order that the possibility of a great charge
might not slip by unutilized." That error is

THE BATTLE OF ALL ARMS 161

precisely what we have to fear. Teach Cavalry
that their lances and swords are their principal
weapons, and that the rifle is a defensive weapon ;
tell them that the " climax of training " is the steel
charge, "since upon it depends the final result
of the battle "; found then* " spirit " on the steel ;
make it in theory their " proper role "; give it a
vocabulary of stirring epithets, like " glorious,"
" relentless," " remorseless," and all the rest,
and they are only too likely, eager for battle as
they are, to "wait for favourable opportunities "
which will never occur, when they ought to be
busy and active with their horses and rifles.

The sections on pursuit and retreat are modelled
on similar sections in von Bernhardi's earlier
book, " Cavalry in Future Wars," and escape
therefore some of the contradictions of the later
work. Since they lay predominant stress on fire,
we can only hope that their obvious blindness to
the true reasons for fire does little harm. Pur-
suits, whether by Infantry or Cavalry, be they
frontal, parallel, or intercepting, will always be
governed by fire. The thing that really distin-
guishes Cavalry from Infantry is that they have
horses, which give them a vast scope for a class
of intercepting tactics which Infantry cannot
undertake so easily. But even Infantry will be
better at any form of pursuit than a purely shock-

11

162 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

trained Cavalry. Sir John French would have
intercepted the Boers, not only at Paardeberg,
but at Poplar Grove, Karee Siding, Dewetsdorp,
and Zand River, if his Cavalry had understood
the rifle as well as they understood the horse.
Retreat is the counterpart of pursuit, and the
same principles apply. Cavalry ought to be able
to fight a rearguard action better than Infantry,
because, thanks to their mobility, they can choose
defensive points more freely, hold them longer,
and fall back to others quicker. But if they are
taught that it is beneath them to entrench and
to defend a fire-position with stubborn tenacity,
and that their proper role is to be performing
Frederician fantasias with the lance and sword,
then they are likely, " hi real war," to be relegated
to a sphere "outside effective rifle-range," and to
find their place usurped by Infantry and mounted
riflemen. There is very little to be known about
rearguard actions which the Boers have not
taught us, and yet they were, in Cavalry parlance,
" defenceless " — in other words, steelless riflemen.

CHAPTER VIII

RECONNAISSANCE

I. — WEAPONS.

I COME lastly to the author's chapters on " Recon-
naissance, Screening, and Raids." As I explained
before, it is the critic's simplest course to leave
them to the last, because, although they come
first, they almost ignore the subject of weapons
and combats, on the assumption, apparently,
that the opposing Cavalries, at any rate in the
first two of the functions in question, will, as a
matter of course, fight with the lance and sword
in the pure and proper fashion. But we have now
considered and tested the worth of the author's
views on combat and weapons, and can apply
our criticisms to these chapters.

Combat and weapons are not wholly over-
looked. At the very outset comes the maxim
which I quoted further back, to the effect that
" the essence of Cavalry lies in the offensive,"
and that for defence they are to " abandon their
proper role and seize the rifle on foot." The

163

164 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

reader can appreciate now the value of this
maxim, when we are dealing, as the author in
these chapters is dealing, with two opposing
Cavalries who are assumed to be acting against
one another independently of other Arms. To
tell both these Cavalries that their essence lies
in the offensive is, to say the least, a superfluous
platitude. To say that it is only hi defence that
they are to " seize the rifle " is to say something
wholly meaningless. Unless by seizing it they
can force their antagonists also to relinquish
shock as useless and to seize the rifle, they
might as well not seize it at all. If they can
force their antagonists to seize it — and the whole
mass of modern experience shows that they can
and do — then their antagonists, whether we call
their role proper or improper, are acting in
offence with the firearm, and the maxim is stulti-
fied— as, indeed, any maxim which applies
medieval language to modern problems must be
stultified. Experience shows that if you arm
men with long-range, smokeless, accurate missile
weapons, whatever then* traditions of etiquette
and sportsmanship in peace, they will in war use
those weapons to the exclusion of lances, swords,
battle-axes, scimitars, and the various other
weapons which were highly formidable before the
days of gunpowder, but which have steadily

RECONNAISSANCE 165

declined since the invention and the progressive
improvement of arms of precision.

Besides this general maxim upon the functions
of the rifle and the steel, there are a few incidental
allusions which must be noticed. The reader will
remember the rule as to the powerlessness of the
squadron as a unit for fire-action. The rule is
anticipated here in directions for reconnoitring
squadrons (p. 44), which, even by night, are only
to fight with the arme blanche, " because dis-
mounted action is generally dangerous, and, on
account of the weakness of the force, usually
leads to failure "; and we wonder again how
both of two opposing reconnoitring squadrons can
" fail," and how such a situation is actually to
be dealt with on such principles in "real war " —
say in the hedge-bound country which covers
two-thirds of England. We are also told (p. 57)
that patrols, " on collision with the enemy's
patrols," are to take action "in as offensive a
spirit as possible, but after due reflection."
" Should a charge promise any kind of success,
the opponent must be attacked in the most
determined way." Nothing is said about fire,
but we are left with the impression that a fire-
attack can be neither " offensive " nor " deter-
mined," and for the rest we have to be content
with guidance like the following : " It does not

166 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

promise success to attack the front of an ad-
vancing squadron under the apprehension that
it is a single patrol."

One day's personal experience of modern war
would teach the author the perilous futility of all
these " speculative " conjectures. Has he for-
gotten altogether the power and purpose of the
modern rifle — the rapidity, accuracy, and secrecy
of its fire — when he speaks of patrols indulging
in due reflection about their determined offensive
charges ? It is to be feared that at the hands
of any but utterly incompetent troops his own
contemplative patrols would receive short shrift.
And the lesson of South Africa ? It is hard to
see why, hi the matter of patrols at any rate,
those three years of war should be regarded
as abnormal. Yet it is the fact, as I must
repeat, that no Cavalry patrol or scout from
the beginning to the end of the war ever used
the lance or sword ; that hi reconnaissance no
Boer ever came near being hurt by those weapons ;
and, furthermore, that the Cavalry were con-
sistently and thoroughly outmatched in recon-
naissance, which was governed universally by
the rifle. It was exactly the same hi Manchuria.
Instead of reminding his German confrere of these
facts, Sir John French complains that the difficulty
of the Cavalry in South Africa was that they had

RECONNAISSANCE 167

nothing to reconnoitre, while he implicitly ap-
proves and applauds the conception of the reflec-
tive charging patrol

To clinch the matter, we need only remind
ourselves that our own divisional mounted troops,
whose sole weapon is the rifle, are entrusted not
only with reconnaissance for their own division,
but, in certain events, with exactly the same
duties as the Independent and protective Cavalry.
In these duties they will be pitted (in the event
of a Continental war) against steel-armed Cavalry.
If steel weapons were of any use, this would be
criminal.

Such are the scanty clues as to combat which
we obtain from the chapters on reconnaissance.
It remains to ask, What is von Bernhardi's
view upon the great question of the employment
of the Army or Independent Cavalry (as distin-
guished from the divisional Cavalry) in the most
important of all its functions in modern war —
reconnaissance ? I defy anyone to answer that
question. So far as it is possible to construct
any positive view from a series of obscure and
contradictory propositions, it appears to be a
view which is in direct conflict with that of Sir
John French and of the Cavalry Manual which
presumably he approves, while approving equally
of General von Bernhardi. Anyone familiar with

168 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

Cavalry literature will know of the old con-
troversy between the theories of concentra-
tion and dispersion. Is the Army Cavalry at
the opening of a campaign to concentrate and
" drive from the field " the enemy's Army
Cavalry, or is it from the outset to begin its work
of exploring the various lines of approach of the
various hostile columns over the whole front —
an enormously extensive front — upon which great
modern armies must develop their advance ?

II. — THE PRELIMINARY SHOCK-DUEL.
In view of the great size and vast manoeuvring
areas of modern armies and of the small numbers
and transcendently important reconnaissance
duties of Cavalry, that question would, I think,
be decided in favour of dispersion, were it not
for the fatal influence of the arme blanche. But
Cavalrymen must have the gigantic shock-duel
which I described and criticized in Chapter IV., 2.
The idea of dispersion for sporadic bickering and
scouting before this imposing tournament has been
arranged is unthinkable to them. Our Manual
therefore (pp. 193, 194) sets forth in all its naked
crudity the idea of the preliminary shock-duel
between the concentrated masses of the two Inde-
pendent (or strategical) Cavalries — a duel that
cannot, it is expressly laid down, be conducted by

RECONNAISSANCE 169

fire-action, which is negative and inconclusive, but
which, conducted with the steel, is assumed to
result hi the complete and final "overthrow" of
one party or the other. One side, in the words
of the Manual, is " disposed of," and the surviving
party proceeds to disperse and reconnoitre undis-
turbed in the vast area of war.*

Needless to say, the theory is purely academic.
Such things have never happened in any war,
ancient or modern, and assuredly never will
happen. One Cavalry or the other may be
depended upon in the future to act at the last
moment with common sense. If it does not at
once set about its work of reconnaissance, it will,
at any rate, shiver to pieces with fire the massed
shock-formations of its opponent.

General von Bernhardi seems to be conscious
of the weakness of the theory, though he cannot
bring himself to shatter it outright. There are, of
course, two distinct questions involved : (1) Should
the Independent Cavalries concentrate at the out-
set ? (2) If so, should the resulting collision be a
shock-collision ? Number 1 is at any rate open
to debate. Number 2 is not, but it always

* See "Cavalry Training," p. 194. "It will thus gain
freedom to carry out its ultimate role of reconnaissance."
See also p. 196, where the principle is repeated with
emphasis, an exception being made in favour of the case
where the enemy's Cavalry is outside the zone of operations !

170 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

confuses the discussion of Number 1. The
General could dispose of Number 2 merely by
references to other parts of his own work — to the
passages, for example, where he says that not
only in the great battles of all Arms, but in the
contests of Independent Cavalries, shock-charges
are only to be " rare " and " exceptional " events.
For " squadrons, regiments, and even brigades,
unassisted by other arms, the charge may often
suffice for a decision. But where it is an affair
of larger masses, it will never be possible to
dispense with the co-operation of firearms "
(p. 103). And there is the passage about modern
European topography where he shows the physical
difficulty of bringing about these combats. On
the broader question (No. 1) he speaks with
two voices. In direct contradiction of Sir John
French's introductory remarks and of our own
Manual, he says (p. 20) that the strategical
Cavalry is not necessarily " to seek a tactical
battle " ; that it is " by no means its duty under
all circumstances to seek out the enemy's Cavalry
in order to defeat it," because " by such conduct
it would allow the enemy's Cavalry to dictate its
movements." " On the contrary, it must sub-
ordinate all else to the particular objects of recon-
naissance," etc.

It is clearly in his mind that, since the various

RECONNAISSANCE 171

corps or columns which are the objects of re-
connaissance may be " advancing to battle " on
a total front of 50 to 100 miles (this is his
own estimate, p. 81), it will be advisable to ex-
plore their zones of approach at once. But there
are other passages which support the opposite
principle : for example, on page 15 :" The circum-
stances of modern war demand that great masses
of mounted men shall be used as Army Cavalry
and concentrated hi the decisive direction. . . .
The front of the army, therefore, can never be
covered throughout its entire length by the Army
Cavalry," etc. On page 87 also he is quite decisive
in the same sense : " The universal principle
most always good for Cavalry, that when a
decisive struggle is in prospect all possible strength
must be concentrated for it " — an unexceptional
truism, applicable as it stands to all struggles,
great or small, by land or sea, but in its context
only too suggestive of the gigantic shock-duel.*
But on the whole he stands committed to nothing
more definite than the following : "It remains
for the leader to make his preparations in full
freedom, and to solve the task confided to him
in his own way." Profoundly true, but not very
helpful in an instructional treatise on war.

* Yet on page 190 he contrasts action en masse in the battle
of all Arms with previous action " in detail."

172 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

III. — DIVISIONAL RECONNAISSANCE.

The chapter on " Divisional Reconnaissance "
is still less intelligible. It would be interesting
to know how Sir John French would sum up
its " logical " and " convincing " doctrines. The
divisional Cavalry are in all cases to " cleave to
the Infantry " (p. 75) of their respective divisions,
yet they are to take the place of the Army
Cavalry " when a concentration of that force in
a decisive direction takes place " (another hint of
the gigantic preliminary shock-duel), and are even
to indulge in " strategical exploration " (pp. 72-
75). In fact, these amazing super-Cavalry are to
perform physical feats in reconnaissance analogous
to the feats designed for them in the pre-arranged
battle of all arms (vide p. 149). Yet they cannot
" fight independently " even with the hostile
divisional Cavalry, nor clear the way for their own
patrols, nor find their own outposts (pp. 75-76).

And then we come to a passage which, quite
parenthetically and as it were by accident, throws
a searching light upon the many dark places of
this volume. The divisional Cavalry, inter alia,
is to perform the " close reconnaissance along
by far the greater part of the front of the army."
But the close reconnaissance, owing to the range
of modern firearms, is " considerably more diffi-

RECONNAISSANCE 173

cult." " It thus becomes possible for the
Cavalryman in general to get no closer to the
enemy than his rifle will carry " (p. 80). " His
rifle," be it noted. And the hostile Cavalryman
(surely an " enemy ") is presumably hi the same
case. What, then, of the charging patrols and
squadrons ?

I suppose I should add that only two pages
later (p. 82) the author, hi a fit of remorse,
rehabilitates the charging patrol. " Rude force
can alone prevail, and recourse must be had to
the sword." Rude force ! The tragi-comic irony
of it !

IV. — SCREENS.

As to the chapter on Screens, we can only
respectfully appeal to Sir John French to explain
it. The ordinary reader can only give up the
problem of elucidation in despair. What is the
connection with his previous chapters on recon-
naissance ? Is the " screen " something different
from or supplementary to the normal reconnoitring,
patrolling, and protective duties of the Army and
divisional Cavalry, as described under the head-
ings, " Main Body of the Army Cavalry," " Re-
connoitring Squadrons," " Distant Patrols,"
"Divisional Reconnaissance," etc.? One would
infer from the opening paragraph that it is

174 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

something wholly different. "The idea of the
screen," runs the opening sentence, "is first
touched on in the ' Field Service Manual ' of 1908 ;
it is also, however, demanded by the conditions
of modern war " ; and from what follows we
gather that the screen means an inner and purely
'protective cordon of Cavalry, as distinguished from
a distant offensive reconnoitring cordon. The
same distinction is drawn in page 13 of the first
chapter of the book. This is the kind of distinc-
tion drawn by our own Manual, which, though
it does not speak of a " screen," divides the
Cavalry into three bodies — one "Independent"
or " strategical," the second " protective," while
the third is the divisional Cavalry. Logically,
of course, the distinction has but a limited value,
unless, indeed, one regards the protective force
as merely a chain of stationary outposts or
sentries. All reconnaissance must obviously be
defensive as well as offensive, because it repre-
sents a conflict between two opposing parties.
If the protective Cavalry are pressed, it is their
duty, as the Manual does, in fact, lay down, not
only to resist the scouts and patrols of the hostile
force, but to find out the strength and disposition
of that force, and even in certain cases, explicitly
provided for, to take the place of the Independent
Cavalry ; just as it is the duty of the Independent

RECONNAISSANCE 175

Cavalry, not only to pierce the hostile Indepen-
dent Cavalry and inform themselves of the
strength and disposition of the hostile Army, but
to resist similar action on the part of their
opponents. These principles would be taken for
granted, with a vast improvement in the sim-
plicity of regulations, if it were not for the
influence of the arme blanche, impelling Cavalry
writers to call their Arm a peculiarly offensive
Arm, and inspiring the grotesque idea of the
great preliminary shock-duel for the opposing
Independent Cavalries, who are both presumed
to be perpetually in offence as regards one
another.

Still, within reasonable and well-understood
limits, the metaphorical term " screen," as
denoting the protective aspect of a widespread
observing force, is both useful and illuminating.
To regard it, as General von Bernhardi does, as
a brand-new idea, the result of " reflection and
experience " on the needs of modern war, is to
convict himself of ignorance of war. Screens of
a sort there always have been and always must
be : the only new factor is the vastly increased
efficacy of modern firearms ; and if he could
bring himself to concentrate on that new factor,
of whose importance he shows himself in other
passages to be perfectly aware, he would be able

176 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

to convert into an intelligible, practical scheme
his strange medley of inconsequent generaliza-
tions. He is, of course, handicapped by the official
Regulations, which, unlike our own, do not
formally provide for a " protective Cavalry " as
distinguished from the divisional Cavalry, and
which seem to be more than usually obscure and
confused in their theories about "offensive" and
" defensive " screens, and in their hazy sugges-
tions as to what troops are to perform the re-
spective functions ; but he cannot or will not
see the fundamental fallacy which, like Puck in
the play, is tricking and distracting the minds of
those who framed the Regulations, and so he
himself makes confusion worse confounded. The
protective aspect of the screen is no sooner
insisted on than it is forgotten, and we have a
disquisition on the offensive screen, which appears
to be only another name for the normal activities
of the Army Cavalry, behind the " veil " formed
by whom a second screen is to be established by
the divisional Cavalry (p. 87).

This, however, is disconcerting, because m the
previous chapter (p. 74) we have been told with
emphasis that the Army Cavalry " hi the most
usual case " will not be able to reconnoitre the
whole Army front, but will be " concentrated in
a decisive direction," and that the divisional

RECONNAISSANCE 177

Cavalry in such cases, in spite of their unfitness
for the task, will have to do the " distant recon-
naissance " and " strategical exploration " at
all points not directly covered by the main
Cavalry mass. And, sure enough, the " veil "
just alluded to now disappears in its character
as veil, and reappears as a " concentrated " mass.
" The principal task of the offensive screen is to
defeat the hostile Cavalry, and for this object
all available force must be concentrated, for one
cannot be strong upon the field of battle " (p. 87).
It is amazing that serious exponents of any metier
should write in this fashion. A concentrated
screen is a contradiction in terms.

Once committed, however, the General persists.
All cyclist detachments and patrols are " to
be brought up to the fight " from everywhere.
Roads are not to be blocked (in accordance with
the screen idea) until the supreme Cavalry
struggle, with its conventional " complete over-
throw " of the hostile Cavalry, is over ; and all
this in flat contradiction of at least two-thirds
of the earlier chapter on the Army Cavalry, where
it was laid down that reconnoitring squadrons
were from the first to be pushed forward from
the "various groups of Army Cavalry," and
were to be allotted reconnaissance zones;
that a separation of Cavalry force was far

12

178 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

the most probable line of action; and that re-
connaissance was " an every-day task of the
Cavalry," its " daily bread," a " duty which
should never cease to be performed " for a single
moment.

And yet on page 89 we come to the staggering,
if cryptic, conclusion that " the Army Cavalry
will only undertake an offensive screen when the
Army is advancing and where the country does
not afford suitable localities for the establishment
of a defensive screen."

The writer then enlarges on the merits of the
defensive screen, and, now that his mind is
occupied with the idea of defence, makes it
perfectly clear that the rifle is absolute master
of the situation for the patrols, troops, squadrons,
or any other units of both belligerent parties.
Your defensive screen acts by fire, and obviously,
therefore, whoever tries to pierce your screen
must act by fire. These pages reduce to nullity
all the romantic hints elsewhere about the charg-
ing patrol or squadron, with its " rude force "
and its " determined " and " remorseless " attacks.

And what of illustrations and examples from
modern war ? Not one. Nothing but " specu-
lative and theoretical reflection." For anyone
who cares to study them, the facts are there —
plain, hard, incontrovertible, convincing facts.

RECONNAISSANCE 179

Sir John French knows all about the South
African facts. Screens, on a small or great scale,
were matters of daily experience. He himself,
with a force of all arms, sustained a screen for
two months — primarily protective, but tactically
offensive, as all screens must be — in the Colesberg
operations of November- January, 1899-1900. He
knows perfectly well that lances and swords, for
all the use made of them, might as well have been
in store, and that the Cavalry engaged acted
on precisely the same principles as the Colonial
mounted riflemen engaged.

During most of the operations from Bloem-
fontein to Pretoria, and from Pretoria to Komati
Poort, our great force of all arms was pitted
against what (if we consider relative numbers)
was little more than a mounted screen, and every
day's operations exemplified the fighting prin-
ciples involved. The rifle was the great ruling
factor. If the rifleman had a horse, so much the
better — he was a more mobile rifleman ; but
lances and swords were useless dead-weight.
Precisely the same phenomena reappear in
Manchuria. On the Japanese side much excellent
screening work was done by Infantry, against
whom the Cossack scouts and reconnoitring
squadrons, trained solely to shock, were impotent.
Infantry move slowly, but their rifle is a good

180 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

rifle, and it is not the horse which fires it, but the
man. No infantry patrol of any Army — certainly,
at any rate, of our own Army — is afraid of the
lances or swords of a Cavalry patrol. It is only
— strange paradox ! — Cavalry patrols who are
taught to fear the lances and swords of other
Cavalry patrols.

I am reminded here of some remarks made in
a letter to the Times of March 26, 1910, by the
military correspondent of that journal, whom I
had respectfully reproached with having aban-
doned his old hostility to shock. Cavalry patrols,
unless they are to be " trussed chickens," must,
he now said, have lances and swords in order,
inter alia, to be able, when meeting other Cavalry
patrols " in villages and lanes, or at the corner of
some wood," to "tear the eyes out of" them !
These " OEdipean evulsions " form a picturesque
improvement even on von Bernhardi's " rude
force," and strike a decidedly happier note than
the patrol " charging after due reflection." But
why, I asked, could not the act be performed on
even one single occasion in three years of war
in South Africa ? Why not in one single recorded
case in a year's war in Manchuria ? Well, one
must admit that the " corner of the wood " was
an ingenious touch. It suggested a close, blind,
wooded district of England, so prohibitive of

RECONNAISSANCE 181

shock in large bodies and for that reason so un-
like South Africa and Manchuria. Yet there were
many similar obstacles in both those regions :
there were hundreds of villages ; there were
hills, mountains, ravines, dongas, sharp rocky
ridges, river-beds, clumps of bush and trees,
farm buildings ; there were the great tracts of
bush-veldt in the Transvaal, the tall millet of
Northern Manchuria, and so on — quite enough,
certainly, to lead to the tearing out of the eyes
of at least one careless scout or patrol. Colonel
Repington knows these facts as well as I do, and
once more, in view of his great — and deservedly
great — influence on contemporary thought, I beg
him to return to his earlier manner, and speak
once more in his old slashing style about the
futility of " classic charges and prehistoric
methods." After all, this is the very language
used by von Bernhardi, whom, in the letter I
have been alluding to, Colonel Repington de-
scribed as a " very eminent authority."

I have the letter before me, and it is with a
somewhat grim satisfaction that I observe the
Nemesis which overtakes publicists who are rash
enough to recant opinions founded on national
experience and confirmed by the most recent facts
of war. It was written just before von Bern-
hardi's book was published, and a large part of it

182 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

took the form of an eulogy on the German
Cavalry, whom he defended hotly from my
charge of " sentimental conservatism," whose
new regulations about fire-action he quoted with
admiring approval, and whose revivification he
distinctly associated with the name of that
" very eminent authority " General von Bern-
hardi. The very eminent authority spoke a few
weeks later, and said that his " writings had
fallen on barren soil." His language about the
sentimental conservatism of the present German
Cavalry beggared any I had used. He made his
own Colonel Repington's epithet " prehistoric " ;
his phrase " old-fashioned knightly combats "
is surely an adequate counterpart to " classic
charges "; in many a passage of biting invective
he deplores as literal truth at the present moment
what Colonel Repington scouted as a libellous
myth invented by me — namely, that in peace
manoeuvres " solid lines of steel-clad Cavalry are
led across open plains " ; and, as I have shown,
he regards as utterly unprepared for war a
Cavalry which Colonel Repington holds up as
an example to his British readers of " the best
modern Cavalries," and which, if we do not
imitate their methods, would, he thinks, in the
event of a war, tear the eyes out of ours. As to
fire-action, perhaps Colonel Repington had not

RECONNAISSANCE 183

studied the German Regulations with a very
critical eye before he praised them to the point
of asking, "Could Botha or Delarey or DeWet
ask for more ?" In the light of von Bernhardi's
strictures and of his still stranger alternatives,
the topic, I am sure, will need different handling
if Colonel Repington returns to it.

Finally, I repeat once more that, for English-
men, one of the best practical criteria of the steel
theory, in regard both to reconnaissance and
battle functions, lies in the existence of our
Mounted Infantry force. Their revised Manual
(1909), reticent and incomplete as it is sometimes
in the interests of the sacred shock theory, is,
in effect, a crushing indictment of that theory.
They are trained to do precisely the same work
as the Cavalry. They are not only to act as
purely divisional mounted troops, but, like the
German divisional Cavalry, are intended to co-
operate with and, in circumstances which must
constantly happen, act as substitutes for the
Independent Cavalry. This is criminal folly if,
from the lack of a sword or lance, they are
"trussed chickens," whose morale, in the words
of Colonel Repington, will be " destroyed " by
steel-armed Cavalry. Thank Heaven, they listen
with indifference to this language — language which
would indeed be calculated to destroy the morale

184 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

of any force with less self-respect and less splendid
war traditions behind it. They know in their
hearts that their methods are in reality not
despised but feared by Continental Cavalry, for
the reasons frankly and honestly set forth by
General von Bernhardi. Their leaders now are
the sole official repositories of what is really our
great national tradition for mounted troops in
civilized war ; for the steel tradition is a legend
dating from Balaclava, a battle which is scarcely
more relevant to modern needs than Crecy — and
Crecy, by the way, was one of the greatest of all
the historic triumphs of missile weapons over
shock. It was not the lack of swords and lances,
but the possession of swords and lances, which
tended to turn men into " trussed chickens " in
South Africa and Manchuria. It was the rifle
in both cases which made Cavalry mobile and
formidable. It is melancholy to think that our
true principles and sound traditions of mounted
warfare are embodied in so small a force, organized
on such an illogical system, provided with a
training of altogether inadequate length, and
hampered by nominal subservience to a steel-
armed Cavalry whose theories of action have
been proved hi two long and bloody wars to be
obsolete. .

It is perhaps even more melancholy to see so

RECONNAISSANCE 185

many Yeomanry officers agitating for an oppor-
tunity to ape the worst features of the Cavalry,
while neglecting the best features of the very
force whose exact tactical counterpart they are ;
dreaming sentimental nonsense about Bredow's
charge at Vionville, while under their eyes lie
the pitiless records of idleness and failure on
the part of those whose aim it was to imitate
Bredow, and the still sadder story of the penalties
paid in South Africa for inexperience in the rifle
by the Yeomanry themselves.

I sometimes wonder if Houndsditch will open
the eyes of the public to the unrealities of Cavalry
manoeuvre. How many Cavalry, condemned to
remain in their saddles, would it take to disable
or capture a patrol of determined men using
automatic pistols (to say nothing of magazine
rifles) either in a " village or lane or at the
corner of some wood," or on the rolling downs
of Salisbury or Lambourne ?

CHAPTER IX

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS
("Die Feuenvaffe beherrscht die Taktik")

I. — GENERAL VON BERNHARDI ON SOUTH AFRICA.

" THE rifle (or literally, the firearm) rules tactics."
The phrase was originally my own, but the
General has done me the honour of adopting and
sanctioning it, and I may fitly bring this criticism
of his writings to a conclusion by briefly noting
the occasion and origin of this remarkable admis-
sion. My book, " War and the Arme Blanche,"
was published in March, 1910, a month before
the publication in England of his own second
work, " Cavalry in War and Peace," whose con-
sideration we have just concluded. In the course
of the summer of 1910 the General published a
series of articles in the Militar Wocheriblatt criti-
cizing my book, and those articles were trans-
lated and printed in the Cavalry Journal of
October, 1910.

The critic covers limited ground. He makes
no rejoinder or allusion of any sort to my own

186

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 187

chapter of detailed criticism upon his own earlier
work, " Cavalry in Future Wars." He scarcely
notices my discussion of the Manchurian War.
He confines himself almost wholly to the South
African War, and makes it plain (1) that his
knowledge of that war is exceedingly deficient ;
(2) that his principal explanation for the com-
parative failure of our Regular Cavalry hi that
war was that they were timidly led ; (3) that he
had misunderstood the nature of the case which
I had endeavoured to construct against the arme
blanche, and that, so far as he did understand it,
he agreed with my conclusions.

1. Internal evidence shows — what one would
naturally infer from the extraordinary concep-
tions of the technique of fire-action for mounted
troops developed in his book — that the General *
has never studied closely the combats of our war,
except, perhaps, in such publications as the
German Official History, which leaves off at
March, 1900, practically ignores the mounted
question, regards the Boers throughout as In-
fantry (presumably because, though mounted,

* Note, for example, his reiteration of the phrase, whose
falsity anyone can demonstrate, that the Boers showed " no
offensive power," with the implied inference, never explicitly
worked out, but left in the realm of vague insinuation, that
this failure was in some way connected with their lack of
lances and swords, weapons which they would not have taken
at a gift, and could not have used if they had had them.

188 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

they did not carry lances and swords), and, as a
result of this method of exposition, is of no value
towards the present controversy. Unfamiliar with
the phenomena of our war, the General neverthe-
less taunts me, who argued solely from the facts
of war and went not an inch beyond the facts,
with being a " speculative theorist " — -a, taunt
which comes strangely from an author who
declares in his current volume (p. 7) that " the
groundwork of training " for modern Cavalry can
only be created from " speculative and theoretical
reflection." He proceeds further to obliterate my
humble personality by remarking that I am
" naturally devoid of all war experience," and
that he would never have taken the trouble to
discuss the subject at all if Lord Roberts had
not declared his agreement with what I had
written. The personal point, of course, is wholly
immaterial, and I welcome his perfectly correct
choice of an opponent. But his spontaneous allu-
sion to war experience raises a somewhat impor-
tant point. Until reading the words, I had never
dreamed that my own war experience was a serious
factor in the discussion. I have never alluded to
it or argued from it ; but since the point is raised,
let me say to General von Bernhardi that, in
common with some hundreds of thousands of my
countrymen here or in the Colonies, I have had,

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 189

in a very humble capacity, a certain kind of war
experience, of which he, as a reflective theorist,
stands in bitter need. We have seen the modern
rifle at work in what he calls "real war." We
have seen what he has only reflected about and
imagined — the revolution wrought by it on the
battle-field since the days of 1870. He has not ;
and if he had, he would have avoided many of the
painful solecisms and blunders which disfigure his
work, enlightened as that work is by comparison
with the retrograde school he attacks.

2. TIMID LEADING. — The Boers, says the
General, were a " peasant militia," who were
" tied to their ox-waggons," " incapable of
assuming the offensive on a large scale," in " dis-
appearing smaller numbers against greatly superior
numbers," " not often strong enough either to
charge the English Cavalry or to attack the
English Infantry," " directed by halting leader-
ship," and so on — altogether, according to the
General's standards, a most contemptible foe,
hardly worthy of the steel of a respectable pro-
fessional Cavalry, and certainly not the kind of
foe to force such a Cavalry to abandon its tradi-
tional form of combat. But there was the rub.
Our Cavalry, it seems, was even more con-
temptible. They " made no relentless pursuits,
despite the lack of operative mobility in the

190 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

enemy "; " they did not attack even when they
had the opportunity "; and " one could scarcely
find a European Cavalry which was tied down to
such an extent during the big operations as the
Boers, or one which, against such little resistance,
did not try to overcome it as the English." He
cites the action of Dronfield,* where Sir John
French was in command, as a specific instance,
and in as plain language as it is possible to use
without penning the word " cowardice," accuses
the Cavalry present of that unpardonable crime.
" Mr. Childers," he remarks with perfect truth,
" relates the story without any spite to show the
little value of English Cavalry equipment and
training. / think it shows much beside.' "f (The
italics are mine.)

I do not know if this kind of thing will finally
compel Sir John French to examine more

* See " War and the Arme Blanche," pp. 113-115.

f Conscious, apparently, of the gross personal discour-
tesy to Sir John French, he adds that " since General French
was there, lack of energy cannot be imputed to the attack."
This not only stultifies what precedes, but is untrue. The
attack was painfully unenergetic ; nobody has denied it.
The point is that the lack of energy was due to the fact that
the Cavalry were not armed and trained for such an occasion.
Of their three weapons, two, the lance and the sword, were
useless, and the third was a trumpery little carbine, which
in peace theory had been regarded as an almost negligible
part of their equipment. What they needed was the fire-
spirit, a serious firearm, and training in mobile fire-tactics.

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 191

thoroughly the foundations of his own belief in
the lance and sword, and to apply more searching
criticism to the works of the " acknowledged
authority " whom he lauds to the skies as a model
and Mentor for British Cavalrymen. I should hope
that, on their behalf, he now resents as hotly as
I resent the contemptuous patronage of an officer
holding and expressing the view that " any
European Cavalry " — and he afterwards expressly
names the German Cavalry — would have shown
more aggressive spirit in South Africa than our
own — more aggressive spirit, be it understood,
with the lance and sward ; for if that be not the
meaning, the General's lengthy appreciation of
the worth and exploits of the rival forces in South
Africa is, hi its context, as part of a hostile
criticism of my work, either destructive of his
own argument or meaningless. Sir John French
refuses to read through British eyes the plain
moral of the war for Cavalry. This is his reward,
and it is of no use to pretend that he does not
deserve it. Anyone who throws the dearly-
bought experience of his own countrymen to the
winds, and runs to foreigners who have no rele-
vant experience for corroboration of an outworn
creed, gratuitously courts the same humiliation.

Perhaps I make too much of a point of pride.
Let Sir John French at any rate see the amusing

192 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

side of the situation. He has set forth* his own
four reasons for the failure of the lance and sword
in South Africa: (1) The lightning speed of the
Boers in running away from combat — a habit
which left our Cavalry nothing even to recon-
noitre ; (2) the fact that our military object was
nothing less than the complete conquest and
annexation of the enemy's country ; (3) that,
owing to the release of prisoners who fought
again against us, we had to contend with double
the number of men nominally allowed for ;
(4) the condition of the horses.

The last factor the German author does not
pretend to take seriously as an explanation of
the failure of the Cavalry ; and with regard to the
first three his view, as far as it receives clear
expression, is diametrically the reverse of that of
Sir John French. So far from alleging that the
Boers " dispersed for hundreds of miles when
pressed," he dwells repeatedly on the immobility
imposed by their ox-waggons, says that they were
" tied down " to an unparalleled extent, and cen-
sures the Cavalry for what he regards as their
unparalleled slackness in attack against such a
vulnerable and unenterprising enemy. So far
from agreeing that there was " nothing to recon-
noitre," he points out that the Cavalry " did not
* See supra, pp. 17-27.

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 193

understand reconnaissance by Cavalry patrols,"
a statement true enough in itself, but value-
less without the reason — namely, the mistaken
armament and training of the Cavalry — a reason
which would, of course, have applied with in-
finitely greater force to " any other European
Cavalry," because no Cavalry but our own would
have had the invaluable assistance of Colonial
mounted riflemen, armed and trained correctly.
So far from finding an excuse for the failure of
the lance and sword in the fact that our aim was
conquest and annexation, he appears in the last
page of his article to argue that, had these
weapons been used more " relentlessly," the
British nation would not now be in what he
evidently regards as the degrading situation of
having Boers on a footing of political equality
with British citizens ! Finally, so far from
pleading the abnormal accretions to the Boer
Army through he trelease of captured prisoners,
he makes a particular point of our vast numerical
superiority and of the " disappearing smaller
numbers " of the enemy.

But the climax comes when he coolly tells
Sir John French that the German Cavalry,
whose backwardness and " indolence " he con-
demns in the very book which Sir John French
sponsors, whom he regards as absolutely " un-

13

194 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

prepared for war," whose " prehistoric " tactics,
" old-fashioned knightly combats," " antiquated
Regulations," and " tactical orgies," he is at this
moment satirizing, would, twelve years ago, with
still more antiquated Regulations, with still less
education, and with a far worse armament,
have taught the Boer peasants lessons with the
steel which our faint-spirited Cavalry could not
teach them ! All patriotic feelings apart, and
merely as a military experiment, one would like
to have seen the German Uhlans of 1899, with
their popgun carbine and Frederician traditions,
and without a vestige of aid, inspiration or
example from Colonial or Mounted Infantry
sources, tackling the Boers at Talana or Zand
River, at Colenso, Diamond Hill, or Magers-
fontein, at Ladysmith or Sannah's Post, at
Roodewal or Bakenlaagte. At the last two
episodes the General is quite certain that they
would have done far more marvellous feats with
the steel by means of an old-fashioned knightly
combat than the Boers did with the rifle.

Serious students of land-war, anxious only to
elucidate the purely technical question as to
whether horsemen in modern days can fight
effectively on horseback with steel weapons, look
on in amazed bewilderment, while high authorities
on the affirmative side conspire to render them-

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 195

selves and one another ridiculous by dragging in
political, psychological, strategical, and even lyrical
factors which have nothing whatever to do with
the simple issue of combat. There, as I have
often said, is the reader's clue through the laby-
rinth of contradictions. Neither Sir John French
nor General von Bernhardi ever really discusses at
all the real point at issue. That is why they
succeed in agreeing upon it, while differing radi-
cally in their logical processes. As the reader
probably realizes now, nearly everything the
latter General writes is either susceptible of two
constructions or is subject to subsequent qualifi-
cation. This critical essay on the opinions of
Lord Roberts and on my book, " War and the
Arme Blanche," is only another illustration of the
same mental habit. Though he is explicit enough
on what he regards as the feeble initiative of the
British Army in general and the British Cavalry
in particular, he never attempts to trace any
direct causal connection between this topic and
the topic of the lance or sword. He dare not.
Remote insinuation is his only weapon. Yet, for
the purposes of his article, that specific link is the
only thing worth talking about. So far as he
does touch the question of physical combat — as,
for example, where he says that the Boers
" fought entirely with the rifle, and this the

196 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

mounted, troops of England had to learn," " that
the Boers were far superior in the fire-fight," that
the absence of " Cavalry duels " in South Africa
was caused (mark this delioiously naive admis-
sion) by the fact of the armament and the numeri-
cal weakness of the Boers " — he is on my side.
And I need scarcely add that the reader will find
it easy to demolish the General's whole dream of
the lost opportunities of the lance and sword in
South Africa or Manchuria, or of its golden
chances in any future war, by passages from the
General's own work, criticized in this volume, as
when he implores his own Cavalry to remember
that they may have to meet mounted riflemen,
or even heterodox Cavalry, who, using their
horses only as a means of mobility in the Boer
fashion, will, in defiance of the German text-
books, advance dismounted, and force the
German troopers to do the same ; or when he
lays down that the attack or defence of any
" locality," entrenched or unen trenched, and by
whomsoever defended or attacked, must be accom-
plished through fire-action. It is true that the
theoretical limitations he sets to fire-action, from
sheer ignorance of what fire-action by mounted
troops is, reduce that form of combat also to a
nullity ; but on that point anyone can test his
views by facts. Although it is quite possible to

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 197

prove from his premisses, if their truth be postu-
lated, that the South African War never took
place at all, without going to the trouble of
proving that it was " abnormal " in the matter
of the futility of the lance and sword, we know
that it did take place, why lances and swords
were futile, and why fire was supreme.

3. So in reality does General von Bernhardi
himself, and in the title of this chapter is crystal-
lized his explicit statement of the truth. Faithful
to his habitual system of alternate adhesion to
two incompatible theories, the General, after
clearly enough condemning the British Cavalry
for their timidity with the steel, makes the
following remarkable volte face :

" In one particular, however, I will own he [i.e.,
Mr. Childers] is correct : the firearm rules tactics.
That is indisputable. Nobody can with the arme
blanche compel an opponent on his side tactically
to use the arme blanche." (This last is a very
dark saying, for the Boers had no arme blanche ;
but it does not affect the general sense.) " To
the laws of the fire-fight everything must be sub-
ordinated hi war."

Well, that is precisely what Lord Roberts, the
greatest soldier living, and many humbler per-
sons, including myself, have contended for.
Cadit qucestio. Why not have begun " Cavalry in

198 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

War and Peace " with these illuminating axioms ?
Why not have them placed in the forefront of our
own Cavalry Manual, in the approaching revision
of that important work ? Why give the dominat-
ing operative weapon only 10 or 15 per cent, of
the time of the Cavalry soldier, and make it
officially subordinate to steel weapons which
can only be used by its indulgence ? But I am
going a little too fast. The General, as usual,
has a qualification. What is it ? " But as a
necessary corollary from this, to say that there
can be no fight with the arme blanche is a mis-
chievous sophism." Again we agree — hi the
sense, that is, in which the author now elects to
use the phrase " arme blanche." For he means
the bayonet. " Every Infantryman carries a
bayonet, because he requires it for the assault.
Even Lord Roberts will not take this away,"
etc. No ; and no one in the world, so far as I
know, wants to take away the bayonet from the
Infantryman. But, as I asked at page 121,
what has the bayonet got to do with the lance
and sword ? The bayonet is fixed to the rifle,
and used on foot as an element hi fire-tactics.
The lance and sword are used from horseback in
tactics which are diametrically opposite to and
absolutely incompatible with fire-tactics, and
everv word Lord Roberts or I have written has

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 199

been directly aimed against this antiquated
system of fighting on horseback with the lance
and sword. If the Cavalryman, because, by
universal consent, he has constantly to do work
similar to that of Infantry, requires a bayonet,
by all means give it to him. I discussed the
question in my previous book, and ventured to
regard it as an open one, for reasons which I
need not repeat now. But I over and over again
took pains to point out the fundamental distinc-
tion between the bayonet and the lance and sword.
On another point the General misrepresents me.
Because I showed by illustration from war the
marked physical and moral effects of rifle-fire
from the saddle, he treats me as advancing the
specific plan of substituting rifle-fire on horseback
for the use of the lance and sword on horseback in
what his translator calls the " collision of the
mounted fight " (Handgemenge zu Pferde). This
is a perversion of my meaning. The collisions he
is thinking of are obsolete. Though I think that
for all conceivable purposes a pistol would be
better than a lance or sword, I adhered to the
facts, and pointed out that saddle-fire in South
Africa was used before contact, and that in order
to consummate their destructive rifle-charges, the
Boers dismounted, either at close quarters or
within point-blank range.

200 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

II. — VIEWS OF THE GENERAL STAFF.

I wish to lay special stress on these two mis-
representations, because both have been also
made by our own General Staff. In a review of
my previous book, whose general fairness and
courtesy I gladly recognize, the Monthly Notes of
July, 1910, took exactly the same erroneous points,
and, for the rest, adopted the strange course of
ruling out all the remarkable South African charges
with the rifle by quietly assuming that they would
have been done better with the sword or lance.

He takes as an example the action of Baken-
laagte, and convinces himself that Cavalry " as
ably led " would, by sticking persistently to their
saddles, have done better with the steel than the
Boers who inflicted such terrible punishment
with their rifles upon Benson's brave and seasoned
troops. This is an unintentional slur not only
upon Benson's men but upon our Cavalry, who,
on the reviewer's assumption, ought certainly to
have inflicted similar punishment upon the Boers
on scores of occasions where the tactical conditions
were approximately the same as those at Baken-
laagte. The reviewer arbitrarily begins his im-
aginary parallel at the moment at which Botha's
final charge started, and pictures the steel-trained
troops already in full career like the fire-trained

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 201

troops who actually made the charge. War is not
so easy as all that. He ignores the characteristi-
cally clever fire-tactics which for hours before had
been leading up to the requisite situation, and
forgets that steel-trained troops would never have
had the skill or insight to produce and utilize that
situation. Moreover, their training Manual not
only does not contemplate, but renders prohibitive
any such instantaneous transition from fire to
shock as would have been required. But the
reviewer surpasses himself when, having trium-
phantly brought his steel-trained troops through
the preparatory phase and the charging phase
(with the incidental riding down and capture of
several detached bodies of men), he pictures them
confronted with the objective ultimately charged
— namely, Benson's rearguard of guns and rifle-
men on Gun Hill. These men had had just time
to rally, and were lined out on a long ridge in open
order and in splendid fighting fettle. Their fire
hitherto had been masked by the rearmost sections
of their own men, who were galloping in with the
Boers at their heels. What the Boers now did
was to fling themselves from their ponies, by
instinct, in the dead ground below the ridge, and
to charge up it on foot, where after a brief and
desperate encounter they exterminated Benson's
heroic rearguard and captured the guns. This

actionihe reviewer regards as clumsy and dilatory.
His Lancers, disdaining to dismount, would hare
ridden up the hill — painfully vulnerable targets
for the rifles on the ridge — and, arrived on the top,
would either have gone riding about among the
scattered defenders trying to impale with lances
or reach with swords riflemen who would have
laughed in their faces at this ineffectual method
of fighting, or (and the reviewer favours this
alternative) would have been content to impale a
chance few en passant, and, without drawing rein,
would have galloped on towards the main body
and convoy, leaving " supporting squadrons,"
whom he coolly invents for the occasion (for the
Boers had none), to "deal with" the rearguard
in the knightly fashion aforesaid. Sweeping on,
and again disdaining to dismount on reaching the
next objective, our Lancers would have " spread
havoc and consternation " among the convoy.
Would they ? You cannot stampede or disable
inspanned oxen and mules or their drivers by
brandishing swords and lances. And surely one
does not "charge" ox-waggons with those weapons.
What you want for these occasions is the bullet,
whether for beasts, drivers, or escort. By bitter
experience of our own on only too many occasions
we know all about the right way of spreading
havoc and consternation among convoys. Lances

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 203

and swords never produced these effects in a
single case in three years. And the escort and
main body ? Why, a few dozen steady men with
rifles would turn the tables on, and, in their turn,
spread havoc among a whole brigade of Lancers
who insisted on remaining in their saddles.

One falls, I must frankly admit, into profound
discouragement when one meets arguments of
this sort coming from a quarter where arguments
lead to rules and regulations. It is quite true
that this important review, in its moderate tone
and in its tacit avowal that there was need of
some reform hi the present regulations, bore no
resemblance to the criticisms which proceeded from
some individual Cavalry officers. There were in-
dications— reliable, I hope — that the old knee-
to-knee knightly shock-charge, now regarded
officially as the " climax of Cavalry training," was
doomed, and that the open-order charge with the
steel, presumed to be analogous to the open-order
charge with the rifle, was the utmost now con-
templated. But in truth, as I pointed out in
Chapters IV. and VI., there exists no such analogy,
or the war would have demonstrated it. If such
steel-charges were possible, our Cavalry had in-
numerable chances of carrying them out under
far more favourable conditions, owing to our per-
manent numerical superiority, than the Boers

204 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

ever obtained for their attacks, by the charge or
otherwise.

The steel-charge, close or open, was the tradi-
tional function of our Cavalry ; it was the only
form of combat that they really understood when
they landed in South Africa, and they were
supremely efficient in it. The point is that in
practice they could not charge with the steel,
except in the rare and well-nigh negligible cases
which are on record. They ceased altogether to
try so to charge, because to fight with the steel
on horseback was physically impossible. Their
steel weapons were eventually returned to store
on that account. And they profited by the
resulting change of spirit, and by the acquisition,
late as it came, of a respectable firearm. To say
that the fire-charge invented and practised by the
Boers as early as March, 1900, when lances and
swords were still in the field, and imitated to
some extent by our own Colonials and Mounted
Infantry, could, after all, have been done as well
and better with the lance and sword, is conjecture
run mad. Sir John French has never used the
argument. He could not, with any shadow of
plausibility, combine it with his complaint about
the lightning flights of the Boers and the absence
of anything to reconnoitre. It is, I grant, the
most impressive official testimonial ever given to

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 205

the arme blanche, but it is not business. One
might as well argue that the work done by
Togo's torpedo-boats would have been done
better by the beaks of triremes. We know and
have seen what actually happened. We had
nearly three years in which to arrive by experi-
ment at tactical truths. In the name of common
sense let us accept the results, especially when
they are corroborated by the results of the other
great modern war, that hi Manchuria.

III. — OTHER CAVALRY VIEWS.

Directly or indirectly, I think that in the
course of this volume I have replied to most of
the criticisms which my previous book, " War
and the Arme Blanche," drew forth. But I
should like to make a brief reference to an in-
teresting discussion of the subject conducted
mainly by Cavalry officers on October 19, 1910, at
the Royal United Service Institution. A reader
of the report in the Journal of November, 1910,
must feel that the proceedings would have gamed
in clarity and harmony had von Bernhardi's
belated maxim that the " firearm rules tactics "
been made the basis of the debate. Strange things
were said on the side of the arme blanche. One
officer urged that Cavalry should not have a rifle —

206 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

that arbiter of tactics — at all, should use shock
alone, and should not be " frittered away as
scouts." Another complained that, hi arguing
mainly from the South African and Manchurian
Wars, I " could not have selected two worse
examples." I am not to blame. It is not a case
of selection. These are the only great civilized
wars since the " revolution " (to use von Bern-
hardi's phrase) wrought by modern firearms.

The close-order shock-charge has never even
been tried or contemplated hi civilized war since
1870, and even then it was moribund. Yet the
lecturer argued from Waterloo, and, unconscious
of the slight upon his Arm, was at great pains to
claim that even now Cavalry kept in reserve for
the occasion could attack two-year conscripts
who had already been reduced to " pulp " by
several days of fire and fatigue. " //," he said,
" they could stick their lances into quite a large
proportion," the rest " would have the most
marked reluctance to remain upon the ground."
Perhaps. Von Bernhardi also claims that Infantry,
who under stress of fire have reached the point of
throwing away their arms, may be attacked suc-
cessfully with the steel. Let us allow the claim,
only remarking that experience shows a rifle to be
a far more destructive weapon for such circum-
stances than a lance or sword. But, instead of

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 207

idly awaiting these not very glorious oppor-
tunities for the steel, would it not be better for the
Cavalry to be mobile and busy from the first in
using the same formidable weapon which origin-
ally reduced the Infantry to pulp, using it hi that
limitless sphere of envelopment, interception, and
surprise to which the possession of horses gives
them access ?

Another extraordinary feature of the dis-
cussion was the dissociation of moral effect from
killing effect by some of the Cavalry officers
present, who really seemed to think that riflemen
hi war are afraid of horses, irrespective of weapons,
whereas in fact they welcome so substantial a
target for their rifles, and fear only the rider's
weapon in direct proportion to its deadliness.
These officers were convinced that their Arm,
trained to charge as it now is, exercises great
moral effect, yet they agreed that the importance
of killing the enemy with the steel is at present
neglected, and that the art of so killing is not
even taught. The lecturer argued that our
Cavalry would be a " more terrifying weapon than
it is at present " if every trooper could be brought
to " understand that he has to stick his sword or
lance into the body of his opponent." Another
officer urged that " each horseman in a charge
should be taught that he must kill at least one

208 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

adversary " ; and the Chairman strongly empha-
sized " the necessity of training the men to kill."
" The reason," he said, " that a man had a sword
or spear was to kill." The truth is that some arts
perish from disuse. This art cannot be exercised
in war, so wars come and go, and the very tra-
dition of its exercise disappears, and in peace
is replaced, as the Chairman said, by " piercing
yells " and the " waving of swords."

A Horse Artillery officer threw a bombshell
into the debate by complaining that his Arm was
often forbidden at manoeuvres to open fire on the
hostile Cavalry masses (vide supra, pp. 127 and 131),
in order to allow the collision to take place on
"favourable ground," and asked for guidance.
The Chairman replied that the Artillery could be
trusted to be " loyal." But can they, in this
particular matter ? Let us hope not.

A small minority ably upheld the case against the
arme blanche, and the discussion, as a whole, was
of considerable value. General Sir R. S. Baden-
Powell went to the root of the matter when he con-
fessed that a " policy had never properly been laid
down " for the Cavalry, and that they " wanted
a policy to begin with before they commenced
training." That is the literal truth, and I hope
to have proved that no rational, clear, consistent
policy ever will be laid down until the rifle is

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 209

made in peace-theory what it already is in war-
practice — the dominant, all-important weapon of
Cavalry — and until the axiom that the rifle rules
tactics is accepted and systematically acted upon.
I claim that von Bernhardi's writings, and the
manner of their acceptance in this country, prove
conclusively that that is the condition precedent
to a sound policy. He has no policy ; we have
no policy. We have not even a terminology
suitable to modern conditions.

I believe it correct also to say that the principal
cause of the persistence of the arme blanche theory
in this country is its retention by foreign Cavalries
who are without war experience, and who, on
account of its retention, are backward in every
department of their science.

In Sir John French's words, we try to assimi-
late the best foreign customs, and we choose
for assimilation the very customs which we our-
selves have proved in war to be not only valueless,
but vicious.

I have not thought it worth while to deal with
other Continental Cavalries. In the matter of
the lance and sword, the Austrian and French
Cavalries may be regarded as more backward
than the German. Both would regard von Bern-
hardi as a fanatical heretic. Count Wrangel, for
the Austrians, states that it is impossible to

14

210 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

train Cavalry to the use of two weapons so dif-
ferent as the sword and the rifle, and, in deciding
for the former, frankly admits that, after the
experience of Manchuria, Cavalry have no busi-
ness within the zone of fire. The views and
practice of the French Cavalry may be learnt
from the scathing exposure to which they have
been submitted by General de Negrier. Our
Cavalry, excessive as its reliance on the steel is,
stands, of course, in the matter of fire-action,
ahead of all Continental rivals.

Relying too much on foreign practice in peace,
we also exaggerate foreign exploits in bygone wars
where conditions were radically different . I scarcely
think it too much to say, after a close study of
the criticisms of my book, that, if one could only
succeed in proving to present-day Cavalrymen
that von Bredow's charge at Vionville was not a
valid precedent for modern war, more than half
the battle for rational armament and tactics
would be won. Quite half my critics threw that
famous charge in my teeth, and some accused
me of not even knowing about it, since I had not
mentioned it. Why should I have mentioned it ?
I was not aware at the time I wrote that it was
seriously accepted as relevant to present con-
ditions. Von Bernhardi, whom I was taking as
a representative of the most enlightened Cavalry

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 211

views on the subject of the steel-charge, does not
mention it in either of his works, and in his first
work went to some trouble to show how the
German and French Cavalry at Mars-la-Tour
frittered away tune and opportunity by hanging
about in masses which " mutually paralyzed "
one another, instead of using golden chances for
fire-action. He expressly says that the war of
1870 " presents a total absence of analogy," and,
as I showed above (p. 140), his own limitations
for the steel-charge in modern war absolutely
preclude the possibility of any such charge being
repeated. Those limitations have for long been
accepted by Cavalry in this country also — hi
theory. But the immortal fascination of that
charge ! Next door to von Bernhardi's article
on my book hi the Cavalry Journal of October,
1910, is an interesting descriptive account of it,
with maps. And the author ends thus : " The
days of Cavalry are not over. For they ' can
ride rapidly into the danger that Infantry can
only walk into.' ' These two little sentences
typify perfectly, I believe, the state of mind of
those who cling to the arme blanche out of senti-
ment and without scientific justification. No-
body supposes that the days of Cavalry are over.
Far from being weakened, Cavalry, if properly
equipped and trained, have potentialities im-

212 GERMAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH CAVALRY

mensely greater than the Cavalry of 1870, be-
cause they now possess — in our country at any
rate — the weapon which, united with the horse,
qualifies them to tackle any other Arm on their
own terms. And as the writer of this article
truly says, they can ride into the danger that
Infantry can only walk into. South Africa
proves that, to a certain point. But, alas ! that is
not the moral that the writer means to draw. He
forgets that the rifle of 1870 is, as I remarked
before, a museum curiosity, and that, feeble as
it was, it nearly cut to pieces Bredow's regiments
on their return from the charge. He draws
the wrong moral — that Cavalry can still make
charges by remaining indefinitely in their saddles
and wielding steel weapons from their saddles.
In that sense the days of Cavalry are indeed over.
Nobody should regret it. What is there to
regret ?

But let me repeat one last caution. It is a
harmful result of this otherwise healthy con-
troversy that we tend to argue too much in
terms of the " charge," meaning the mounted
charge, culminating in a fight at close quarters,
or even in a melee. For all we know, future
science, by making it a sheer impossibility to get
so large an object as a horse through a fire-zone,
may eventually render such an attack by horse-

THE RIFLE RULES TACTICS 213

men, in whatever formation and with whatever
weapon, altogether impracticable. What will
there be to regret in that ? Sailors do not mourn
over the decay of the cutlass and the ram. So
long as we win, it does not matter whether or not
we charge on horseback, or how near we can ride
to the objective before we begin the fire-fight.
And, come what will, the horse, by the correct use
of ground and surprise, will always be a priceless
engine of strategical and tactical mobility.

THE MORAL

THE moral is simple and inspiring — self-reliance,
trust in our own experience, as confirmed by the
subsequent experience of others. By all means
let us borrow what is good from foreigners, and
I should be the last to deny that, on topics un-
connected with combat and weapons, there are
many valuable hints to be obtained from General
von Bernhardi's writings, and those of other
foreign Cavalrymen. But let us not borrow what
is bad, nor lose ourselves in the fog which
smothers his Cavalry principles, when our own
road to reform is plain.

Some measure of reform, if report is true, is to
take shape in the next revision of the Cavalry
Manual. I end, as I began, with expressing the
hope that reform may be drastic. But reform
cannot end with the Cavalry Manual. It is abso-
lutely necessary to introduce clearness, con-
sistency and harmony into the four Manuals :
" Cavalry Training " (with its absurd postscript
214

THE MORAL 215

for Yeomanry), "Mounted Infantry Training,"
" Infantry Training," and " Combined Training."
At present the contradictions between these official
Manuals is a public scandal. But I suggest that
the task of reconstruction is absolutely impossible
unless the basis taken be that fire, by whomsoever
employed, is absolute arbiter of tactics, and that
the Cavalryman is for practical purposes a com-
pound of three factors — man, horse, and rifle.

The lance should go altogether. Whether the
sword is retained, as the American Cavalry re-
tain it, rather as a symbol than as a factor in
tactics, or is dispensed with altogether, as our
divisional mounted troops and our Colonial
mounted riflemen dispense with it, is a matter
of very small moment, provided that the correct
principle be established and worked out in
practice. It was because I doubted the possi-
bility of establishing the correct principle in this
country without abolition that in my previous
book I advocated abolition, on the precedent
of the South African War. The adoption of a
bayonet or a sword-bayonet is, in my own humble
opinion, an interesting open question.

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MB. EDWAED ARNOLD'S NEW AND RECENT BOOKS. 7

FICTION

MB. E. M. FORSTER'S GREAT NOVEL.

HOWARDS END.

By E. M. FOBSTER. 6s.

1 ' Howards End ' is packed full of good things. It stands out head and shoulders above
the great mass of fiction now claiming a hearing. The autumn season has brought us some
good novels, but this is, so far, the best of them."— Daily Mail (from a special article headed
" The Season's Great Novel ").

" There is no doubt about it whatever. Mr. E. M. Porster is one of the great'novelists. All
will agree as to the value of the book, as to its absorbing interest, the art and power with
which it is put together, and they will feel with us that it is a book quite out of the common
by a writer who is one of our assets, and is likely to be one of our glories." — Daily Telegraph.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
A ROOM WITH A VIEW. 6s.

THE RETURN.

By WALTER DE LA MARE. 6s.

" One of the most curiously interesting and original books that it has been our fortune to
come across for a longtime." — Morning Post.

ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK'S LATEST NOVEL. §

FRANKLIN KANE.

By ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK,

AUTHOR OF "VALERIE UPTON," "AMABKL CHANNICE," ETC. 68.

" A figure never to be forgotten." — Standard.

" There are no stereotyped patterns here."— Daily Chronicle.

" A very graceful and charming comedy." — Manchester Guardian.

A STEPSON OF THE SOIL.

By MARY J. H. SKRINE. 6s.

" Mrs. Skrine's admirable novel is one of those unfortunately rare books which, without
extenuating the hard facts of life, maintain and raise one's belief in human nature. The
story is simple, but the manner of its telling is admirably uncommon. Her portraits are
quite extraordinarily vivid." — Spectator.

8 MB. EDWARD ARNOLD'S NEW AND RECENT BOOKS.

THE DUDLEY BOOK OF COOKERY AND

HOUSEHOLD RECIPES. By GBORGIANA, COUNTESS OF
DUDLEY. Handsomely printed and bound. Fourth Impression.
7s. 6d. net.

COMMON-SENSE COOKERY. Based on Modern
English and Continental Principles worked out in Detail. By Colonel
A. KENNEY-HERBERT. Over 500 pages. Illustrated. 6s. net.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
FIFTY BREAKFASTS. 2s. 6d.
FIFTY LUNCHEONS. 2s. 6d.
FIFTY DINNERS. 2s. 6d.

THE BOOK OF WINTER SPORTS. With an

Introduction by the Et. Hon. the EAEL OF LYTTON, and contributions
from experts in various branches of sport. Edited by EDGAR SYERS.
Fully Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 15s. net.

THE COTTAGE HOMES OF ENGLAND.

Charmingly Illustrated in Colour by Mrs. ALLINGHAM. With 64
Coloured Plates. 8vo. (9| in. by 7 in.), 21s. net. Also a limited
Edition de Luxe, 42s. net.

RUTHLESS RHYMES FOR HEARTLESS

HOMES. By Colonel D. STREAMER (Captain Harry Graham).
With Illustrations by G. GATHORNE HARDY. Paper boards, 2s. 6d. net.

" Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and got burnt to ashes ;
Now, although the room is growing chilly,
I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy."

LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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