Our Cavalry

Cavalry in past ages--Drawn from horse-lovers, success followed on fixed principles, these are as applicable to-day--Ballistics from horseback--Always a sign and cause of weaken...

Constant changes--Cut _v._ thrust--Gerard’s experience-- Point more deadly--The case for the lance--The revolver--Confidence in the arm selected is of highest importance--The ri...

Colossal bill for horse-flesh in South Africa largely due to national ignorance of horses--The suitable horse, two classes--Chest measurement test for stamina--Small blood horse...

I. The squadron--Forming to the front or flank--Defensive or offensive flank. II. The regiment, advantage of Echelon attack. III. The Brigade--Training of leaders-- Co-operation...

Not a question to be shirked--Danger of recourse to fire action weakening our leaders’ desire for shock action-- An instance of fire _versus_ shock action--Rifle fire against ch...

First objects in the attack--Concentric shock of fire and horse--Plan to get a good field of fire by alternate advance of two squadrons--Desiderata in artillery position--Broad...

Independent cavalry, danger of their detachment at inopportune times--Cavalry and horse artillery at LOIGNY-POUPRY--Unsatisfactory direction of cavalry in 1870-71 followed by pe...

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 securi...

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--Mu...

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--Snipin...

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, Wh...

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...

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:...

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...

Standard of proficiency--Riding, the old and the new system--Instruction in care of horse--Most difficult to teach or check--Result of a bad system--Napoleon’s cavalry in Russia...

In these bustling days of headline-up-to-date newspapers, one shrinks from reminding one’s readers that Xenophon gave excellent advice to cavalry trainers and leaders--advice wh...

Armament also figures largely amongst conditions of success.... There can certainly never be complete disparity between the armament and the _moral_ of an army, since the latter...

No apology is needed for including in a Treatise on Cavalry a chapter on the subject of the Horse. Were it demanded, it would only be necessary to point to the unfortunate ignor...

Let us picture, then, a squadron led at a trot with absolute cohesion (that is, every man’s knees close against those of the next man,[18] but not so as to prevent the pace bein...

“When you charge make a change of front and attack them in flank. This manœuvre can always be successfully practised against an enemy like the English, who make a vigorous and d...

A very frequent question, also quite a justifiable one and one which cavalry soldiers must not shirk, but must on the other hand thoroughly understand and thresh out in their ow...

1. To give the guns a good field of fire against the enemy’s attacking squadrons for as long as possible. This thought comes first, and the first order is accordingly that which...

Diagram VI.) must not keep too near it, because the enemy’s horse artillery may get the range. Nothing shows more decidedly ignorance of the duties of escort to horse artillery...

v. Often the O.C. the regiment or squadrons A----A may have to decide if he shall show up as bait, but in doing so he must, again, never mask the artillery. He may (in this case...

In the last few years considerable prominence has been given to the action of independent cavalry, and there is reason to believe that this might lead to a large portion of the...

It is related that its owner tried as an experiment to find out what was the smallest amount on which a horse could work. When he had reduced the animal to one straw per diem, t...

“Fundamental principles of action against different arms must be laid down so definitely that complicated orders in each particular case will not be required. This is needed bec...

Of close co-operation by the horse artillery in the charges of cavalry against infantry there is practically little or no trace in the battles of 1870. The training of cavalry a...

Henderson in _Science of War_, written in 1893-1902, asked the question, whether the necessary fire power should be found by the cavalry itself or by a body of mounted riflemen...

“The most arduous, while at the same time the most important, duties that devolve upon soldiers in the field are those of outposts ... all concerned should feel that the safety...

One often hears a party of cavalrymen employed on reconnoitring work blamed because they continue to observe or follow up the enemy, whom they have just discovered, without a th...

It is impossible to do otherwise than admire the boldness of the conception of Stuart’s raid in 1862, when, with 1200 men and two guns, he rode right round the Federal lines, al...

“However much thou art read in theory, if thou hast no practice thou art ignorant. He is neither a sage philosopher nor an acute divine, but a beast of burden with a load of boo...

The attributes which a cavalry officer of the rank of squadron leader and upwards may to advantage possess are so many as to defy enumeration; some of them really possessed in p...

Pages 104 to 142, _Cavalry Training_, are devoted to the training of the troop and squadron, and leave little to be desired as far as they take us. But those who wish to study t...

We have only to consider the contingencies of service in the cavalry to come to a conclusion that the officer or man who begins a campaign on a well-trained horse has many chanc...

There is no doubt that our methods of teaching riding have greatly improved of late years.[99] The recruit is not made afraid of his horse, and of his work in the riding-school,...