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In preparation for the historical evidence, I propose to state what I consider to be the constituent elements of a threefold problem. There is the purely physical problem, which in the marshalling of rival sets of precedents, and in the formulation of rival definitions of the Cavalry spirit, has almost always been overlooked. There is the psychological problem, and there is the problem of training.

The physical conditions are simple, so simple as scarcely to need comment, were not habit and usage apt to obscure the origin of long-accepted maxims. I am almost afraid to submit my first proposition, so naked a truism must it appear. The primary distinction between the horse-soldier and the foot-soldier lies in the horse, not in the weapon carried by the man. No permanent, fundamental distinction, either before or after the invention of gunpowder, has ever existed between the weapons carried by foot-soldiers and horse-soldiers respectively. At this day both classes alike carry both a steel weapon and a firearm. A vast amount may depend (and otherwise I should not be writing) on the way the weapon may be permitted to govern mounted tactics, but from time immemorial it has been the superior mobility derived from the horse that has given to Cavalry, using the word in its widest sense, all the special functions which distinguish it from Infantry. Let us beware, then, if we find a writer coupling together the horse and the steel weapon as though, by some immutable law, they were inseparable factors of efficiency. Surely, they are not. The common denominator is the horse. To ignore the lance or sword is not, with all respect to Sir John French, to ignore the horse.^[11] The sole issue is, by the agency of what weapon can the horse, in conjunction with the will and the manual skill and strength of the man, be used to the best advantage?

If the horse has his merits, he has his drawbacks. Let us consider both, strictly in relation to the question of weapons. Let us remember at the outset what is too often forgotten, that the weapon is only used in actual combats. In all those phases of war which precede combat, for the rapid transportation from one point to another of any body of troops great or small, ease of movement and secrecy of movement are the paramount considerations. In a strategic raid or a tactical turning movement, in any operation, offensive or defensive, from the action of a patrol to the action of a division, the carriage of troops into the zone of combat is a problem of mobility and secrecy pure and simple. Any weapon which unduly burdens the horse or rider, or renders them unduly conspicuous, is an obstacle to those ends only to be justified by showing that it is indispensable for combats. Similarly, any system of training which is designed to facilitate combat with any particular weapon, but which reacts unfavourably upon mobility or secrecy prior to the phase of combat, is, to that extent, to be deprecated. The scout exemplifies the principle in its extreme form. Acting as a scout, he is not meant to fight, but to move quickly, and to see without being seen. It is quite possible that a few unarmed scouts might decide the fate of armies; certainly scouts have, in fact, done so without recourse to weapons.

Hitherto, so far as the merits and drawbacks of the horse are involved, we are concerned only with his speed and endurance on the one hand, and his visibility on the other. But as soon as we regard the horse as entering the zone of combat, we are confronted with a new and serious qualification to his value—namely, his vulnerability. This, in one degree or another, is an invariable source of weakness. The danger to be incurred may be reduced to a minimum, as in the case of the pursuit of utterly demoralized troops. Surprise and stratagem may modify the risk to an indefinite extent, but the risk always exists, and can be overcome in the last resort only by a mobility so high as to transcend it. We arrive thus at the two opposing factors, mobility and vulnerability, the one tending to counteract the other; and from the physical point of view it is upon the correct estimate of the relative strength of these two factors that the solution of every tactical mounted problem depends. It goes without saying that the invention and improvement of the firearm, by immensely extending the zone of vulnerability and immensely increasing the degree of vulnerability within that zone, has profoundly affected the conditions of this ever-present problem. The reader, no doubt, will add that the same general principle applies to Infantry. True; but there is especially good reason to insist on its application to mounted troops.

Arrived at this point, we must, for the sake of clearness, disregard the hybrid type of horseman, and picture, for the time being, as separate personalities, the horseman armed with a steel weapon and the horseman armed with a firearm. Later on we will fuse the two personalities in one, when we come to consider training. But for the present I want to concentrate attention on the relative value in combat of fire and steel.

Let us take first the horseman armed with the steel weapon.

Two characteristics must be noted at once: (1) His steel weapon is used from horseback only; (2) as against riflemen, whether mounted or dismounted, it is only used in offence. In both these respects it differs from the bayonet.

In encounters on horseback with other steel horsemen (assumed, as before, to be pure steel horsemen) it may in a sense be said to be used both in defence and offence, but these encounters do not immediately concern us. If two bodies of horse agree to settle accounts in that way, that is their own affair. The best swordsmen and riders will win. We are contrasting fire and steel, and the steel as against riflemen is only used in offence—why will soon appear. We must picture, then, our steel horseman as acting offensively.

Now, in the physical sphere, while the improvements in the firearm have greatly increased both the zone and degree of the horseman’s vulnerability, there is nothing to redress the balance in favour of the horse or the steel weapon. Both the speed of the former and the efficacy of the latter remain practically constant quantities from age to age. By comparison with firearms, steel weapons may be said to be incapable of improvement. As missiles they have been obsolete for centuries. As manual implements their range is the range of a man’s arm, plus their own length. They cannot be used at any point short of actual contact with the enemy, a point which must be reached with the rider in the saddle, while the growth in the destructive efficacy of the firearm, directed against so large a target as that presented by rider and animal combined, has steadily reduced the horseman’s power of reaching that point without mishap. Even after he reaches it, he still presents the same large area of vulnerable surface as compared with a man on foot.

On the other hand, if and when he obtains contact, he gains in two ways. His weapon gains in efficacy relatively to the firearm, since for the moment the factor of range has been equalized, or almost equalized. Secondly, his horse has a new merit, its weight; but this is not an individual, but a collective merit, only developed by the combined weight of many horses.

That brings me to a consideration of the steel weapon’s sole function in war—the shock charge. We are to regard the man now as a member of a mass. He and his comrades, by the impact due to the united momentum of their horses, aim at producing “shock,” with its stunning physical effect on the defence. Aided by shock, they use their steel weapons.

Now, what are the necessary conditions for the production of genuine shock? First, the horsemen must attack in dense formation, precisely the formation which offers the best target for rifle-fire. Second, in order to make shock effective, the riflemen who are the object of attack must also be in tolerably dense formation, otherwise there is nothing substantial on which to exert shock. This, of course, is one of the greatest of the modern limitations to shock, for the whole tendency in war is towards loose and away from dense formations, the cause being the increased efficacy of firearms.

Thirdly, since the ground must be covered at high speed and with absolute cohesion in order to obtain momentum and to minimize vulnerability, the ground must in every case be such as to permit of high speed, fairly smooth, fairly level, fairly open, and, above all, continuously practicable up to the supreme moment of contact. Any concealed obstruction or entanglement met with in traversing the danger zone may irretrievably compromise the charge. For true shock a ragged, disjointed impact is useless. Clean, sharp, and shattering impact is the only end worth attainment. The ground may fulfil all these requirements up to the last few yards, but in the last few yards a sunk ditch, a wire fence, not to speak of more visible obstacles, such as hedges, walls, earthworks, or any of the common features of an ordinary defensive position, may render the whole enterprise nugatory. If the reader will bear in mind the average character of ground in European countries, he will recognize another serious limitation to the employment of shock.

Fourthly, supposing that all the conditions hitherto enumerated are satisfied, speed is still dependent on the freshness of the horses. Whatever their exertions in the performance of the innumerable and highly responsible duties of Cavalry not necessarily involving combat, the horses must be capable, whenever and wherever the opportunity occurs, of a vigorous gallop, ending with the super-gallop known as the “charge,” at this supreme moment—the one and only moment in which the steel horseman fulfils his rôle. Modern war proves this standard of freshness to be chimerical. In peace-training you may compromise on speed as much as you please, and in point of fact the rigorous directions of “Cavalry Training” (p. 125) are often diluted to a canter ending in a short gallop. Futile compromise! The less speed, the greater and longer the vulnerability of the mass, and the less shock.

Here are four conditions for the effective exercise of shock, each stringent, and, since they must all be satisfied, of a fourfold cumulative stringency. Note again the absence of analogy with the bayonet, which is fixed to the rifle, and comes into use only at the climax of a fire-fight on foot. The four conditions may be mitigated genuinely by one circumstance, which I shall refer to later. At the moment I wish to refer to an alleged mitigation which embraces a profound fallacy, and I beg for the reader’s particular attention to this point, for it is largely on that fallacy, at any rate in our own country, that the arme blanche continues to thrive.

Recall the first two conditions, which may be regarded as counterparts of one another—density of formation, both in the attacking and defending force. The reader will easily understand why the latter condition is so necessary. To propel a massed body of horsemen against an extended line of riflemen is a wasteful expenditure of effort. There will be no shock worth the name, while the mass in motion is almost as vulnerable a target to rifles as though the defence too were massed; fire is convergent instead of direct, that is all. But supposing the horsemen follow suit, and charge in loose, extended order? So they may, but in that case also they will not produce shock, which is the indispensable condition for the successful use of the steel weapon. Here is the heart of the whole matter. Though there is, of course, no fixed moment when shock may be said to disappear, it is plain that with every additional yard of extension, either in the attacking or defending line, or both, shock, which means the violent physical impact of a united body, must diminish. It is equally plain that in proportion to this diminution of shock the chances of the steel weapon rapidly dwindle and the retaliatory power of the rifleman rapidly increases. He is now an individual pitted against a rival individual who has lost the collective power due to mass, while he retains the vulnerability due to large surface presented by his horse. On these terms the rifleman has an immense advantage. He has room to move in, a longer range for his far more deadly weapon, and breathing-time. Let the student beware, then, when he finds it laid down in the textbook that Cavalry, when attacking Infantry, are to charge in “extended order” with the steel weapon.^[12] No thoroughly logical upholder of shock—no German, for example—would be guilty of such a solecism. Bernhardi recommends, at the utmost, a “loosening of the files” from the jammed, knee-to-knee rigidity of the charge, as it is to be employed against horsemen. “Only closed lines on a broad front can be relied upon for success.”^[13] Our idea of extension could only come from confusion of thought in a period of transition. The reader must watch this point most carefully when we come to illustrations from the South African War. Is there, then, no opportunity for horsemen to charge in extended order? Of course there is; but not for horsemen using the steel. I shall come to the other type in a moment.

I have dealt with the fallacious source of mitigation. Now for the true source—surprise. This factor of course favours the attack, not only of steel horsemen, but of all horsemen, and, indeed, of all troops in any phase of military effort. But it is the soul of mounted effort, because surprise is derived from mobility, and the horse is the instrument of mobility. Surprise, therefore, can mitigate any of the rigorous conditions imposed on shock. For example, the extended riflemen may be caught in flank so suddenly that they can neither develop fire before contact nor deploy frontally to meet it. Or massed infantry may be caught in column of route. But in all cases the degree of surprise requisite can only be measured by the rigour of the conditions, and experience proves, admittedly, that under modern conditions an enormous degree of surprise is necessary for the success of shock against riflemen. On the whole we shall not be far wrong if we lay it down, as Bernhardi plainly indicates, that the best, if not the only, opportunity for the steel against riflemen is in the pursuit of utterly demoralized troops. Here the least degree of shock is necessary, with a corresponding slackening in the rigour of the conditions of shock, but, be it noted, with a corresponding diminution in the efficacy of the steel, which, as I pointed out, is closely dependent on shock. If we reach a point when no shock is possible, the steel becomes no more useful than the rifle.

So much for the steel, and the reader long before this will have seen why the steel is only used in offence. It requires shock, shock requires momentum, and momentum implies offence.

Now let us turn to the mounted rifleman, assumed to be of the pure type. But observe at the outset that we have already been dealing with his defensive rôle. Dismounted, he has the defensive power of Infantry, and the physical factors involved are precisely the same. Continue to regard him in defence, crediting him now with the additional mobility conferred by the horse. If it is only under the rarest circumstances that Infantry can be forced into combat on terms favourable to steel, still more rarely can mounted riflemen be so forced. They can extend more quickly, change front, or retire to better positions more easily—in a word, they have a tactical suppleness and elasticity unknown to Infantry. Of course, I am assuming that they are good mounted riflemen, skilled in the instantaneous transition from the mounted to the dismounted state, and able to manage their led horses adroitly and safely. It has always been the belief of the arme blanche school that steel horsemen if they cannot charge dismounted riflemen, can at any rate charge their led horses. All the facts, as I shall show, prove this idea to be illusory.

And now, on behalf of the rifle, let us carry the war into the enemy’s camp, regarding the rifle, not as a defensive, but as an aggressive weapon in the hands of mounted men. Save for the elimination of weight, the physical merits and demerits of the horse remain precisely the same: speed on the one hand, vulnerability on the other. To exploit the first and minimize the second must be the effort here as always. But that is the only point of similarity in the two widely different problems presented by shock-tactics and fire-tactics. The sword can only be used in a hand-to-hand encounter; the modern firearm has deadly effect at long distances. From this fundamental difference in the two weapons everything else follows. Shock, with its crushing limitations and disabilities, is totally eliminated. The very idea of shock is utterly foreign to the fire-tactics of mounted men, because there is no necessity for it. There is no necessity, therefore, to comply with all the conditions which are required to produce shock, and which in their turn so dangerously enhance the vulnerability of horse and rider. Let us try to contrast the two systems of attack, with the steel and the firearm respectively, remembering that mounted riflemen, besides the defensive, have the offensive power of Infantry plus the mobility conferred by the horse.

As in defence so in offence, the firearm begins to be deadly when the steel weapon is only an encumbrance, and when the firer is still invisible. By the intelligent use of ground for the concealment of horses, and the development of fire at successive points, the attack may go through all the phases of Infantry attack with a vast increase of mobility, and with the vulnerability of the horse reduced by skill to a minimum.

But I need not dwell on the preliminary and intermediate phases of combat. It is only in the last phase—that of the final assault—that any parallel with shock-tactics begins. Up to this point the steel weapon has been idle, nor even now can it be brought into play unless all those four inexorable conditions are satisfied. The first two—close formation both in the attacking and defending force—do not apply at all to mounted riflemen, since there is no question of shock. The third and fourth have but a remote application.

Far from being a unique moment, this is merely a culmination. The enemy probably is already shaken, not by the fear of something which can only materialize after contact, but by positive casualties wrought by a long-range weapon. It remains to drive home the victory.

Contact may be desirable if feasible, but there is no imperative need for it. Under many conditions rifle-fire is more effective at 5, 50, even 100 yards’ distance than in a mêlée. A victory may be crushingly conclusive without recourse to anything in the nature of a hand-to-hand encounter; but if nothing save a hand-to-hand encounter will secure a victory, the rifle provides scores of opportunities of obtaining that encounter where the arme blanche provides but one, if only the mounted riflemen are versed in that elementary part of their trade, which consists in knowing what and how to use, and when and how to discard, the horse. As compared with the steel horsemen, they are almost independent of ground. Instead of perpetually pining for level swards and open “Cavalry ground,” they welcome inequalities and obstacles, for these are the true conditions of surprise. Indeed, they make use of these obstacles, instead of allowing them to baulk their efforts. Steep ascents often aid them, entrenchments and other defences, natural or artificial, at the point of contact—hopeless barriers, however flimsy in their character, to shock—can be surmounted by them. But supposing the ground is open, level, and smooth, and a mêlée with the enemy obtainable by quadrupeds, suppose, in fact, the only topographical conditions which can render an arme blanche charge possible, is there no rôle open to them analogous to that of the steel horsemen? Can they not charge home? I shall prove by a quantity of facts drawn from experience that they can, and under conditions which would be fatal to an arme blanche charge. Not aiming at physical shock, not therefore presenting the vulnerable target produced by close formation, they do not need the same degree of speed, nor, consequently, that perpetual freshness in their mounts which is the chimera of theorists and the despair of practical men. Nor is the size of their horses—an important element in genuine shock—of any account to mounted riflemen. Within rational limits, the smaller they are the better. Finally, in the process of covering on horseback this last intervening space of open, level ground, when the arme blanche, remember, even at the eleventh hour is still idle, need the rifle, too, be idle? Again, I shall bring ample modern testimony, which is fortified by much evidence from the American Civil War, to show that fire from the saddle, even if unaimed, may be used with signal effect, and in the case of the modern rifle, not merely moral effect, but physical effect. It may take the shape of aimed fire, as against horsemen at close quarters in pursuit, or against a Cavalry “mass,” or groups of led horses; while a few casualties, even from unaimed fire, in the defence, however constituted, produce great effect in daunting aim and nerves alike. Here, mark, is the crowning element of superiority in the rifle. Unlike the steel, which is used only from horseback, it can be used both from horseback and on foot. The first-class mounted rifleman—the ideal type we can construct from direct war experience—will be at home in both. He will use saddle-fire mainly in its unaimed or roughly-aimed form, and will dismount for effective killing.

The “charge,” which is the sole function of the arme blanche, is no longer the monopoly of the arme blanche. It is one of the functions—the culminating function among many—of mounted riflemen. The word, of course, is an unsatisfactory one, because in its ordinary sense (derived originally from shock-tactics) it implies a mêlée or hand-to-hand encounter, while for mounted riflemen, as for Infantry, it has a far wider meaning. A charge ending within a few yards of the enemy—for example, just below the crest of an elevation on which the defending troops are stationed—is just as much a charge as if it were pushed beyond that intervening space into the sphere of physical contact, and it may be just as decisive. But examples, of which an infinity may be cited, will lead me too far afield at the present moment. I am regarding in isolation, so far as that is possible, the physical side of the problem, and I suggest that the physical factors give an immense superiority to the rifle over the steel as an offensive weapon for mounted men. Obviously it is possible to conceive cases when, from the physical point of view, the steel weapon may have an advantage. The point is, how often in modern conditions can such cases arise? I think that from the preceding analysis it will be clear that these cases can be narrowed down to the small class I have already mentioned—pursuits of thoroughly demoralized troops. Even then the advantage is exceedingly problematical, and is, in point of fact, not supported by any modern evidence. Under such extreme circumstances as Bernhardi describes on page 15 of “Cavalry in Future Wars,”Wars,” attack with any weapon whatsoever—battle-axe, revolver, club—will have approximately equal chances, if, indeed, any weapon at all is needed to secure surrender. What the rifle can effect in the way of sheer rapid killing I shall prove by facts.

Remember, too, another important point. Momentum is a continuing condition of the shock charge. Impetus must be sustained, the defence burst through, and a rally made on the farther side—a matter of time and difficulty—for another stroke which inevitably must be less effective than the first; and the first, owing to dense formation, has struck a comparatively small area. The rifleman has nothing to do with continuing momentum, and the stereotyped “rally.” His business is to use his rifle when, where, and how he can, mounted or dismounted, and with as large a radius as he can. He is always busy, and always formidable.

One more word on this contingency of the use of steel in utterly demoralized retreat. It has always been the favourite dream of Cavalrymen, but it is a dream which in modern war never comes true. Panic is never universal. There are sections or groups always who have nerve and spirit enough to fire, and show a decent front, and directly any element of fire-defence enters in, the power of the steel wanes to nothing, and the need for mounted riflemen begins. It was so even in 1866 at Königgrätz. It was so in South Africa and Manchuria.

I hope he is bearing in mind that it is only for the sake of clearness that I have been taking pure types of steel horsemen and rifle horsemen respectively, and crediting both with high excellence in their several métiers. The hybrid horseman will, of course, have his share in the advantages, defensive and offensive, of the pure mounted rifleman; what share is another matter. I am now contrasting fire and steel in the physical sphere, and I ask, have I exhausted the cases of opposition between fire and steel? In reality I have, but I am too familiar with the arme blanche sentiment not to be aware that I shall be held to have ignored one important case. Again it is an imaginary case. Two solid masses of horsemen are pictured, the one with swords, the other swordless, confronting one another at close quarters on an open plain—"in the open" runs the vague phrase—both blocks on horseback. Palpably, so the argument runs, the steel must triumph. Possibly, but the contingency never happens, never can happen unless by one of those stunning surprises which have no special relevance to mounted tactics, and which argue scandalous neglect in the defence. For the steel especially such stunning surprises are unattainable, because “open” ground, one of the conditions of shock, is the worst ground for stunning surprise. But the illusion does not stop here. It is elevated into that complete conception of the inevitable shock duel which is the very corner-stone of Cavalry theory. The idea is this, that in the last resort shock alone can decide the combats of mounted troops. It is true that this unqualified generalization is so contrary to common sense that it is rarely set forth in so many words, but it comes to that, or there is no meaning in the theory. The inter-Cavalry fight, says “Cavalry Training,” whether in the phase of strategical reconnaissance, or on the battle-field of all arms, must be decided by shock. Fire-action at the best will have but a “negative result.”^[14] I shall dispose of this fallacy, which has itself paralyzed and sterilized Cavalries believing in it, by illustration. Meanwhile the reader has probably detected its inherent improbabilities. If there happens to be no available ground for shock—and how much of England, for example, is available?—there must be negative effect on both sides—a double stalemate, a deadlock—unless both parties resort by agreement to a favourable place, as in peace manœuvres they do in fact often resort. But that is a secondary fallacy: the fundamental fallacy is the supposition that the steel can impose tactics on the rifle. It cannot. There is not a tittle of evidence to prove that it can. All modern evidence proves that the rifle imposes tactics on the steel, and the evidence only confirms the plain physical principles.