Impartial1 observers of the recent controversy2 upon the merits of the lance and sword as weapons for Cavalry3 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 Cavalryman4, accepted by Cavalrymen, and embodying5 and illustrating6 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 seriously hampered7. The need for it is beyond dispute.
Whatever the extent of the revolution brought about by the magazine rifle, a revolution, by[Pg 2] universal admission, there is. Since 1901 a serious firearm has been substituted for the old carbine formerly8 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, desultory9 and superficial articles in the weekly and monthly press, are not enough. What is wanted is some comprehensive and authoritative10 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 in which that firearm has been tested are to be regarded as "abnormal" and uninstructive.
For illumination and confirmation11 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 civilized12 war as revolutionized by the modern magazine rifle. We are referred, above all, to Germany,[Pg 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 Lieutenant13, and who has not seen the modern rifle used in 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 Cavalryman must base his practice on "speculative14 and theoretical reflection"; (4) who states that the German Cavalry, owing to indifference15 to the revolution wrought16 by the modern firearm, and excessive adherence17 to "old-fashioned knightly18 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 ridicule19; (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 paradox20. And a pretty paradox it is, a bewildering, incompre[Pg 4]hensible paradox; not so much, indeed, that a German author, born and bred in a German atmosphere, should be so saturated21 with obsolete22 German traditions that even in the act of denouncing them he can subscribe23 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, acquiesced24 in changes in Cavalry armament and training directly based on that experience—that these men should acclaim25 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 doctrine26 to grapple with and controvert27. 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 in the opinion of our greatest living soldier, Lord Roberts—an opinion founded on lifelong experience of war—is as mischievous28 a superstition29 as ever fettered30 a mounted[Pg 5] military force. The whole of the material is here—and it is unexceptionable material for controversy—for Sir John French himself contributes his own views on the subject in the form of laudatory31 Introductions to both of General von Bernhardi's works.
I propose in the following pages (1) to criticize General Sir John French's views, so expressed; (2) to analyze32 and criticize General von Bernhardi's recently published work, "Cavalry in 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 irony33, far more reactionary34 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, briefly35, is that the modern Cavalry soldier is, for practical purposes, represented by three factors—man, horse, and rifle—and that it is only by regarding him strictly36 and constantly as a mounted, that is to say, an[Pg 6] especially mobile, rifleman, as distinguished37 from the less mobile foot-rifleman, that we can establish 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 terminology39 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 musket40 counted together. No separate figures for the lance. [Total German casualties from all weapons, 65,160.][1]
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 apparently41 not more than fifty casualties from lance and sword together. [Total casualties in action, over 400,000.]
[Pg 7]
II. "Cavalry in Future Wars."
Two works by General von Bernhardi have been translated into English, and widely circulated 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 in detail in my own book, "War and the Arme Blanche." It is the second work, "Cavalry in War and Peace," published only in 1910, that I wish to make the basis of discussion in this volume; but in order to explain the history of German influence on British Cavalry, it is necessary to recall briefly certain features of its predecessor42.
"Cavalry in Future Wars" was first published in German in 1899, before the Boer War broke out. There was a second edition in 1902, when the Boer War was drawing to a close, and this second edition, headed by General French's Introduction, was translated and published in England in 1906. It was a strange work, strangely sponsored. The keynote was fire-action for Cavalry, the moral drawn43 by the English sponsor shock-action for Cavalry. The chapters on fire-action, urging the adoption44 of a firearm even better than the Infantry45 rifle in substitution for a mere46 pop-gun, formed in themselves a complete refutation[Pg 8] of shock; while the chapters on shock, so illogical and self-contradictory was the method of exposition, 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 lethargic47 brother-officers, but the message was so strangely expounded48 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 properly, they would immensely enhance the value of Cavalry for all the purposes of war, he opened his argument with a melancholy49 dirge50 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[Pg 9]arm, were gone past recall—a circumstance scarcely worth an elegy51, 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 lament52 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 hypothesis 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—disappeared, and the opposite principle—that the steel imposes tactics upon the rifle—took its place. I say "principle," but in 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.
[Pg 10]
Needless to say, it was impossible to sustain this daring paradox with any semblance53 of logic38 and consistency54 throughout a book dealing55 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 invective56 in Germany) he conclusively57 demolished58 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 prosaic59 firearm seemed sacrilegious. Merely to implant60 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 firearms 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[Pg 11]arm was exceedingly imperfect. But even then, as he frankly61 and forcibly stated, it was in consequence of their neglect of this firearm, imperfect as it was, that the European Cavalry, the German 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 ineffective against Infantry. That forty years of scientific progress might have produced a weapon which would have banished63 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 collate64 and examine the phenomena65 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[Pg 12] complete elimination66 of the steel weapons, but to their complete subordination to the rifle. It is true that the omens67 were not very favourable68.
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 suitable for furnishing numberless instructive examples of the paramount69 influence of fire and the futility70 of the lance and sword. But the General made no use of these examples. He confined himself to a general allusion71 to the "very important 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 commendatory 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" vaguely72 alluded73 to; otherwise he would have saved himself from many of the solecisms which abound74 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[Pg 13] wars would ultimately tend to clarify and harmonize 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 fully62 collated75 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 pointing out how inevitable76 they were under the circumstances of its composition, General French hailed the work as a complete, final, and unanswerable statement of Cavalry doctrine. Von Bernhardi, he said, "had dealt with remarkable77 perspicuity78 and telling conviction and in an exhaustive manner with every subject demanding a Cavalry soldier's study and thought." How Sir John French's readers reconciled this effusive79 eulogy80 with the contents of the book remains81 a mystery. As I have said, the only really important feature of the book was the insistent82 advocacy of fire-tactics—and not merely defensive83, but offensive fire-tactics—for Cavalry. This feature was minimized in the Introduction. In its place was a vehement84 attack on the advocates of fire-tactics in England, the truth of whose[Pg 14] principles had just been signally demonstrated in our own war.
There was not a word about the "important data" to be derived85 from the war; not a word about the Boer charges, of whose terribly destructive 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 irrelevant86 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 firearm immensely improved—facts which would naturally suggest that the war had been instructive.
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 compilers borrowed and quoted considerably87 from "Cavalry in Future Wars." And yet every sound principle in that work had years before been anticipated and expounded far more lucidly88 and thoroughly89 in the fascinating pages of our own military writer, Colonel Henderson, whose teaching had been ignored by the Cavalry of his own country.
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1
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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cavalryman
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| 骑兵 | |
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embodying
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| v.表现( embody的现在分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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illustrating
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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formerly
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desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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adherence
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| n.信奉，依附，坚持，固着 | |
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knightly
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| adj. 骑士般的 adv. 骑士般地 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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subscribe
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| vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助 | |
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acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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acclaim
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| v.向…欢呼，公认；n.欢呼，喝彩，称赞 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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controvert
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| v.否定；否认 | |
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mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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fettered
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| v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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laudatory
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| adj.赞扬的 | |
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analyze
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| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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reactionary
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| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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distinguished
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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terminology
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| n.术语；专有名词 | |
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musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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lethargic
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| adj.昏睡的，懒洋洋的 | |
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expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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dirge
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| n.哀乐，挽歌，庄重悲哀的乐曲 | |
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elegy
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| n.哀歌，挽歌 | |
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lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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semblance
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consistency
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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invective
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| n.痛骂，恶意抨击 | |
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conclusively
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| adv.令人信服地，确凿地 | |
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demolished
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| v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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implant
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| vt.注入，植入，灌输 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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collate
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| vt.(仔细)核对，对照；(书籍装订前)整理 | |
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phenomena
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elimination
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omens
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| n.前兆，预兆( omen的名词复数 ) | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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collated
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| v.校对( collate的过去式和过去分词 )；整理；核对；整理（文件或书等） | |
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76
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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77
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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78
perspicuity
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| n.（文体的）明晰 | |
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79
effusive
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| adj.热情洋溢的；感情(过多)流露的 | |
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80
eulogy
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| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
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81
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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82
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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83
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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84
vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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85
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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86
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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87
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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88
lucidly
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| adv.清透地，透明地 | |
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89
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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