Chapter IX: The Disposition of Cavalry in a Campaign

FIRST PART

Dependence on forage--Principles on which cavalry is
placed in the front--Want of direction in 1870--
Galliffet’s influence--Service of information separated
from that of security--The Napoleonic traditions
revived--And generally adopted--French view--The
cavalry of exploration--The cavalry of army corps--
The divisional cavalry--Generalissimo’s use of his
independent cavalry--Movement _en bondes_--The
effect of modern rifle--Difficulties in the attack of
protective cavalry and mixed detachments. Page 86

SECOND PART

The modern disposition is theoretical--Tendency to
increase independent cavalry at the expense of
protective, for sake of initial advantages--Difficulty
of weaker cavalry rôle--Von Bernhardi on German
cavalry strength--Improvisation of cavalry--Dilemma--
Cyclists--Difficulty of training for non-professional
cavalry--Danger of amateur cavalry officers--The
ULM Campaign--Effect of first success--Boer tactics
unsuitable to European war Page 93

CHAPTER X

HORSE ARTILLERY AND CAVALRY IN THE GENERAL ENGAGEMENT

Deficiency in peace training--The energy of the attack--
An instance--Plan of the attack--In the defence--Value
of artillery in the retreat Page 101

CHAPTER XI

CO-OPERATION OF HORSE ARTILLERY AND CAVALRY

German tendency in 1870 to deprive cavalry of horse
artillery--Reversed by 1907 regulations--Effect of
modern horse artillery--Probable necessity to allocate
horse artillery--Mukden--Arrangement of artillery
support in attack on infantry--Sir Douglas Haig on the
counter-attack--Principles--Conclusions Page 108

CHAPTER XII

HORSE ARTILLERY FIRE EFFECT COMPARED WITH RIFLE FIRE

Comparative efficacy in bullets--Reasons of Henderson’s
advocacy of mounted infantry--Demand for exceptional
arrangements--An instance of masked fire--Von
Bernhardi’s plan--A suggested alternative Page 117

CHAPTER XIII

IN CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY

Duties of the Commander--A day in the outposts--At
night--The men--The horses--Care of men’s health--
Wet weather--Hints for scouts--_Moral_--Sending
out scouts at night--Sniping by nervous sentries--
Fireflies--Ruses and duplicity--Value of a knowledge of
strategy and tactics--To picket an enemy--Security and
information--Instances of picketing the enemy--Practice
in peace--Difficulty of instruction--Practice preferred
to theory--Honest outpost work--Night work--Regiment’s
practice of outposts Page 122

CHAPTER XIV

SOME DETACHED DUTIES OF CAVALRY

Despatch-riding, value in instruction--An instance of a
scheme--Napoleon’s despatches--Tracking, etc.--Value
of maintaining interest--Boy scouts--Influence of
regimental _moral_ in detached work--Prisoners--Convoy
duty Page 139

CHAPTER XV

RAIDS

Diverse views of the value of Stuart’s raid--Japanese raid
on railway line--Vulnerability of railways--Boer and
British Raids--Country which favours raids--Inopportune
raids, Wheeler’s--Futile raids by De Wet and Botha--
An exception to them--Mischenko’s raid--Rennenkampf’s
reconnaissance--Von Pelet Narbonne--Japanese methods--
Conclusions Page 145

CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAINING OF THE CAVALRY OFFICER

The cavalry candidate--Causes of scarcity--Work now
and thirty years ago--Pay--Duties on joining--
Hunting--The sense of duty--Pretence impossible in a
regiment--The effect of a slack commanding officer--
Counteracted by four or five good officers--Value of
drill--Characteristic faults--The practice of possible
situations in war--Officer without imagination is a bad
trainer--Conclusions Page 154

CHAPTER XVII

TRAINING OF OFFICER (_continued_)

Restless activity--The effect of hardship--Training--
Preparation--Cynicism--Desirability of education
for senior officers--A rearguard device--Study and
discussion--A doctrine--Napoleon’s doctrine--He
honoured bravery--_Bis dot qui cito dat_--The selfish
officer--Comradeship--Conclusions Page 167

CHAPTER XVIII

TRAINING OF A SQUADRON

Frederick the Great’s stern methods--How a good leader
is trained--Description of his squadron at work--
Compared with an indifferent leader--Five points in
training a squadron: (i.) Efficiency for war of man and
horse; (ii.) Avoid samples; (iii.) Use of weapons; (iv.)
Self-reliance; (v.) The offensive spirit--The section
system--Value of individual instruction--Dismounted
work--Holding the balance--Problems as a means of
training in resolution--Napoleon’s genius--The Zulu
system--Conclusions Page 177

CHAPTER XIX

TRAINING OF THE HORSE

Value of a well-trained horse on service--Ill-tempered
horses--The ideal of training--Seydlitz’s leap--
The mameluke--The aids, how arrived at from nature--
Their adaptation to our needs--Progress towards
the campaigning horse--A Boer method--Officers
training horses--The wrong leg leading in a race--
The free-jumping lane--Remount competition--Noisy
instructors--Method of teaching horses to walk quickly--
Duty of squadron leader--His value if he has ability Page 191