German Influence on British Cavalry by Erskine Childers & Ryan Desmond

Author:Erskine Childers & Ryan Desmond [Childers, Erskine & Desmond, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference, General, Nonfiction, Strategy, History, Military, Modern
ISBN: 9781528789011
Google: Jc_SDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 52000619
Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
Published: 2020-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

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 mêlée 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 offensive 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 about fire which at least force the reader to construct 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 "negative," but only to employ shock. If the reader will turn to pages 196-212, which deal with the Independent or strategical Cavalry, he will observe 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 layman 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 horseback of the two opposing Cavalry "masses." 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 confusion" 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" in order to discover the strength and intentions of the enemy, especially in

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