German Influence on British Cavalry. Erskine Childers

      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 Cavalrymen, 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 seriously hampered. The need for it is beyond dispute.

      Whatever the extent of the revolution brought about by the magazine rifle, a revolution, by 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 superficial articles in the weekly and monthly press, are not enough. What is wanted is some comprehensive 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 in which that firearm has been tested are to be regarded as "abnormal" 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, 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 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 "speculative and theoretical reflection"; (4) who states that the German Cavalry, owing to indifference to the revolution 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, incomprehensible paradox; not so much, indeed, that a German author, born and bred in a German atmosphere, should be so saturated with obsolete German traditions that even in the act of denouncing 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 in the opinion of our greatest living soldier, Lord Roberts—an opinion founded on lifelong experience of war—is as mischievous a superstition as ever fettered a mounted 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 laudatory 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 analyze 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 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, represented 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 especially mobile, rifleman, as distinguished 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 terminology 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.][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 apparently not more than fifty casualties from lance and sword together. [Total casualties in action, over 400,000.]

      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 predecessor.

      "Cavalry