The Cavalry Lance by Alan Larsen & Henry Yallop

Author:Alan Larsen & Henry Yallop
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781472816207
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-08-03T04:00:00+00:00

Prussian Uhlans attack French infantry during the Franco-Prussian War, by Christian Sell (1831–83). During and after the war the Prussian Uhlan was seen as the defining cavalryman of the conflict: able to range far and strike with deadly force. (Photo by Fine Art Photographic Library/Corbis via Getty Images)

The necessity to handle cavalry carefully, but use them boldly when the need arose lest they become completely redundant, was demonstrated by the Prussians in the charge of the 12th Cavalry Brigade, known as ‘Von Bredow’s Death Ride’, involving the 16th Uhlans. Being tasked with attacking a force four times his brigade’s size and silencing the French batteries, Generalmajor Adalbert von Bredow grimly remarked ‘it will cost what it will’ (quoted in Wawro 2003: 156). Making use of the landscape to lead his brigade unobserved to within a few hundred yards of its objective, Bredow was able to take the batteries so swiftly that the French were only able to discharge two guns, their gunners quickly being put to lance and sword. A counter-charge of French Cuirassiers was successfully repulsed by the Prussian Uhlans, Cuirassiers and Dragoons. A rolling mêlée followed, in which any French infantry not panicked by the charge poured fire indiscriminately onto the cavalry of both sides. Yet even this tactically successful use of charging cavalry, which succeeded in overrunning artillery, cavalry and infantry, achieving its objective and returning in good order, did so at a heavy cost, with the three regiments of the Prussian brigade suffering 50 per cent casualties. Success with lance and sword against bullets and shell could still be achieved – but on the few occasions they occurred, such large-scale victories were becoming increasing Pyrrhic.

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