FOOTNOTES:[2]Seeinfra, pp. 122-123.
FOOTNOTES:
[2]Seeinfra, pp. 122-123.
[2]Seeinfra, pp. 122-123.
CHAPTER V
TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS
I.—The Purely Cavalry Fight.
("Das rein reiterliche Gefecht.")
Thesetwo 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 beset 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);or if either side, from numerical weakness or choice, is acting on the "defensive" (defence with the steel beingex hypothesiimpossible), 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.
"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, in 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 their "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 extricates 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 theirManual 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 adequate 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 thearme blanche. But the words are there for anyone 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? Needless to say, the author himself refutes his own proposition in a hundred passages of this very work. But Sir John French ignores those passages, 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 doesnot inform us. After all, it matters little. The taxpayer need not quail at the expense of providing 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 horseback. 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 illusions of peace. And in peace even a short-sighted layman could prove the contrary by ocular demonstration, and digest the moral, too, bywatching 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 introduced 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 mêlée, which all Cavalry, including our own, assiduously practise in peace. The motive for this wonderful manœuvre 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 suchself-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 indefinite 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. 221et seq.), when, calling once more upon Frederick the Great and Napoleon, he attacks in unmeasured terms, as the offspring of mere "peace requirements," the German system of echelon formation, which leads to "tactical orgies" at manœuvres. 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 sympathize 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 outnotto be Cavalry?) never demean themselves by dismounting to reconnoitre. They reconnoitre for one another inmass, 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 reconnaissance, 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 invariable case, when "total uncertainty 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." "Cadit quæstio," we exclaim, with relief. Why appeal to Frederick the Great?
In "Formations for Movement" (pp. 232-238) he continues his unconsciousreductio ad absurdumof shock. "Movements in such close formation right up to the moment of deployment" (and he describes those enjoined by the Regulations)"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. Theybelievein shock and minimize fire, and their Regulations, 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 Regulations are up to a certain point in harmony with one another. As a concession to modern conditions, the charge is to be inextended order. Here the General has changed his views since writing "Cavalry in Future Wars." There the principles of Frederick the Great were supreme in allcharges, with just a faint concession towards a "loosening of the files" in a charge against Infantry. Now "wide intervals" are to be employed. 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 actually 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 fundamental 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. TheGerman 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 time when, if ever, any given leader should have made up his mind to charge, he was, unfortunately, 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-operatein 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.[3]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 horseback; but it can be done only by fighting up to the charge in 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 hasgotto 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 like a hose.
Frederick the Great's Infantry firearm was another matter. Even in 1861-1865, as von Bernhardi 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 "considerably more difficult." "There is also a certaindifference 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 thearme blanche. Those weapons give Cavalry their "proper rôle." If under stress of fire they "abandon" this rôle, they become Infantry; 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 ofview, 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 successfully 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,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 in 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 isno 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-actionmustbe used in all but "exceptional cases." "Abandon my proper rôle for this?" he might answer. "No. My proper rôle 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 ignorance 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 teaching of our own war experience, and that our duty is to assimilate the best foreign customs.
FOOTNOTES:[3]See "War and theArme Blanche," Chapter XI.
FOOTNOTES:
[3]See "War and theArme Blanche," Chapter XI.
[3]See "War and theArme Blanche," Chapter XI.
CHAPTER VI
THE FIGHT OF THE INDEPENDENT CAVALRY
I.—German Views.
Fromhis 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, inscreening, 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 functions. 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-operation 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 development 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 forCavalry 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 considering. 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, thereareno such principles.
We may cut the matter short by merely advising 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 otherweapons, as distinguished from lances andswords, 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 proceeds 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 encounter," 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 consideration, 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 divorcesurprise, 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 comprehensive 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 distinction 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 consideration. On page 142 it seems to denote the case "where the enemy is also pressing forward," 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 counterpart 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 betweenthe 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,[4]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, in a battle of encounter, when both sides are "pressing forward," one side or the other halts temporarily (without preparingor 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 combat." 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, lethim read on. There is hope yet. For immediately 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 operation 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 incompatible 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 preponderance" (p. 166). In other words, after hisreductio ad absurdumof the steel, the writer in the next breath proceeds to an equally conclusivereductio ad absurdumof 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 in 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 in 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 in modern war.
I am not making an unfair use of isolated passages. 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 emphatically as he inveighs against impracticable shock-action. Under "VIII.—The Various Units in theFight" (p. 239), we learn that a "squadron is generally too weak to carry out an offensive fight on foot." By the time 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." Observe 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 maintain 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. "Theregimentwill 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, however, 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 intervention 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 professes 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. "Ifits 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 prospect of success." "The resistance of a body of equal strength" (a body of what? how composed?) "when circumstances demand a dismounted 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 consequences."
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 explanation, 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 inSouth 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, in general terms, that it is all true, and implies that the greatest of his compatriot soldiers, Lord Roberts, makes "appeals from vanity to ignorance." 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 remarkable 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 inclose 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 qualifications somewhere else, and perpetually befogged either by the vague word "enemy" or the implied distinction between "Cavalry" and "other arms"—a distinction which is generally irrelevant, since all Arms are linked together by that great common denominator, the firearm. I have already noted how the presence of artillery dissipates "purely Cavalry tactical principles." Modern artillery fire, he says, necessitates deployment 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 composition? 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 indifferent to these questions, and accordingly come in for fresh condemnation. Cavalry are supposed to know at four miles what the composition, strength, and intentions of the enemy are, andif 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 manœuvres," 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 necessary." "Only by a protracted action can the enemy be forced to disclose his strength and intentions," 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," "energetic" 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 begreatly 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 regulation 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 in 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 theGeneral, "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 isessential 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 offensive action" (he means shock, though he does not like to say so). "We must act 'regardless of consequences,' 'wrest victory,'" etc., according tothe 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 discussion 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 between 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 possiblesubstitutefor the sword, and rejects it on that ground. But what has the sword to do with the bayonet?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 onhorseback, and whether the rifle should not be the weaponpar excellenceof mounted troops. Whether you reinforce it with the bayonet or not is a distinct question, which has no relation whatever 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 delusion 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 comprehensive breadth of the exceptions—when it is a case of "holding a crossing over some obstacle, defending an isolated locality, or gainingtime." In these cases a retirement may be involved "which is difficult to carry out on account of the led horses, andshould only be attempted in very favourable country. It demands that the fight shall be broken off—always a difficult matter, and, to Cavalryencumberedby these led horses, one of considerable danger." "Remounting 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 gain me time." "Very sorry, sir, but the ground is unfavourable, 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 ruin, while the Cavalry engaged, equally brave men, but ignorant of their true rôle 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.
And then (on p. 184) we come, as usual, to the correspondingreductio 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-truthsabout 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, Cavalryacting 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 view of the possibility that the enemy may, with unsportsmanlike perversity, choose ground which is "unfavourable to our brigades." Our Cavalry Commander (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 situation 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, nevertheless, is not to be "broken up," but is to be by the "simultaneous action of all brigades." The artless enemy co-operates, allows himself to be surprised 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 developing firewithout 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 vonBernhardi 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 exhaust 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 vagueness 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 protracted"; and the same equally vicious suggestion that von Bernhardi, in his steel-mood, acquiesces in—namely, that defence in any shape is a somewhat 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 themselves 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 superiority. Yet these warnings are regarded, according 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 Infantry Manual of 1909; for, although in this connection the Cavalry Manual never breathes a word about its sister Arm, it is, as I have before mentioned, one of the regular duties of the Mounted Infantry to co-operate with the Cavalry, not only in reconnaissance, but in battle. Under the heading "Co-operation with Cavalry when Acting Offensively against Hostile Cavalry," the Mounted Infantry are to "seize points of tactical importance 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."We picture an amphitheatre, like Olympia, both rims of the horseshoe lined with hidden riflemen, and two solid blocks of Cavalry galloping towards 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 manœuvre, 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 rôle 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 apprehension 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"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 in 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 in peace manœuvres as a "spectacular battle-piece." Mounted Infantry to him represent a force which, by "seizing the rifle," will "compel" the opposingCavalry 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. Supposing 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.