War and the Arme Blanche. Erskine Childers
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in these and similar operations can demonstrably be shown to have been inspired by the rifle, is not the old Cavalry maxim that dash is derived from the sword seriously shaken? It is all very well in printed instructions to inculcate perfection in both, but is it humanly possible to maintain unimpaired in the same body of soldiers, still defined as “Cavalry,” the old standard of shock manœuvre, with all the rigorous training it demands, and all the specialized instincts and habits associated with it, while adding all the equally rigorous, and equally specialized education of body and mind, which is indispensable to the production of a good mounted rifleman? If not, which weapon is likely to go to the wall?
Seeking light on these and kindred matters, the student will find himself straying in a fog of loose definitions corresponding to loose thought. He will find the word “Cavalry” used in several different senses for several different purposes; sometimes merely to mean armed horsemen, sometimes with special emphasis on the steel weapon, sometimes with particular reference to the rifle. He will find Bernhardi calling the Boers Cavalry, and his commentator, Mr. Goldman, gravely rebuking him for not seeing that they were Mounted Infantry. He will find General French hotly combating the heresy that “Cavalry duels” are a thing of the past, and confusing in his own mind duels decided by the arme blanche with those struggles for mastery between the rival mounted forces of two opposing armies which, everyone agrees, must be a preliminary factor of high importance in all campaigns; and we find him becoming eloquent on the great and growing rôle of Cavalry in war, as though anybody had ever doubted that proposition, except in so far as it implied that Cavalry drew their power mainly from the arme blanche.
The South African War, no less than the Manchurian War, throws a flood of light on all these difficulties. It seems strange that it should be necessary to recommend a thorough sifting and weighing of the South African evidence. Yet it is necessary, for it is the fashion now to dismiss that war as abnormal, and throughout this volume I shall have to devote considerable space to arguing why, for the purposes of this controversy, it should not be regarded as abnormal. In the meantime, I appeal for the maintenance of some reasonable sense of proportion in this matter. The war lasted more than two and a half years. It cost upwards of 200,000,000 pounds sterling. It exacted supreme efforts, military and economic. The total number of male belligerents opposed to us from first to last, foreigners and rebels included, scarcely exceeded 87,000. The total number of soldiers put into the field to meet them from first to last exceeded 400,000. For us, as I have already reminded the reader, it was the first great war against a race of European descent since the Crimea. For us, and for everyone else, it was the first test on the grand scale of the smokeless magazine rifle, not only in the hands of Infantry, but in the hands of mounted troops, and in the hands of mounted troops operating against Cavalry of the old type. Artillery apart, our foes one and all were mounted riflemen of the pure type. By degrees all our own mounted troops, of whatever category, became merged in the same type. And the war gradually became a mounted war. Mounted efficiency became the touchstone of success. Unprepared in multitudes of ways for the great struggle, it was in this respect from first to last that our chief deficiency lay. On the other hand, it was by their skill in the use of the horse and rifle combined that the Boers were enabled to defy us for so long.
Merely to state these elementary and indisputable facts is to prove that the war cannot lightly be regarded as abnormal. Common self-respect, to say nothing of historical judgment, should forbid such a manner of thinking. We need to recognize both our faults and our merits as disclosed at that great turning-point in our Imperial history. Pushed, as it is pushed, to extremes, this idea of abnormality becomes a narcotic, lulling us into lethargy and reaction. This was our war, won only by a vast expenditure of our blood and treasure. It has its memories of bitter humiliation as of glorious achievement, and those memories are ours. The experience is mainly valuable to us in that it is ours. In moments of exaltation we congratulate ourselves, probably with sound justification, on having, in spite of many blunders, achieved what a Continental army could not have achieved. And yet, when it comes to reading the plainest technical lesson of the war, we find the leading exponents of Cavalry doctrine brushing aside our own priceless experience, appealing to Germany for light and guidance, and introducing German formulas—meaningless to Germans themselves—into British instructional handbooks.
One of the worst features of this insistence on abnormality is the tendency it breeds in Cavalry writers to read the mounted operations of the war from the Cavalry point of view only. Had things been otherwise, had there been the normal opportunities for shock manœuvre, how much more brilliant would have been the part played by the Cavalry! That is the line of argument, prompted, as no one can fail to observe, not only by an abstract faith in the arme blanche, but by a very natural anxiety to place in the best light the achievements of the Cavalry in South Africa. Confined within proper limits, that motive is unexceptionable, but the moment it begins to have the effect of converting a technical question into a sentimental question it becomes vicious. That is what has happened. No one can doubt the fact who reads Mr. Goldman, General French’s military biographer, and notes the laboured efforts to extract from the most unpromising material conclusions favourable to the arme blanche, and the deplorable loss of perspective which such an effort entails. May I say here, if Mr. Goldman will permit me, that, although controversy will compel me to criticize his work unsparingly, I gladly and sincerely recognize its value as a historical narrative. We differ, not about facts, but about the reading of facts. I think his very natural admiration and affection for the Cavalry have led him into the error of believing that their reputation, as a branch of the service, is bound up with the reputation of the steel weapon. Believing the contrary myself, I cannot help chafing sometimes under what seems a sort of coercion into assuming the rôle of a detractor of the Cavalry, while my sole desire is to attack their armament. I fancy that all critics of the arme blanche have to face the same disagreeable ordeal. I can only do my best throughout to make my attitude clear. The topic ought to present no difficulties. As a nation, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves if we cannot discuss a great theme like this dispassionately on its merits. The Cavalry, like every other body of mounted troops in the King’s dominions, is an Imperial possession. We are all proud of them, and if we criticize their methods, it is with the single object of making sure that the energies of this splendid body of men are directed into the most fruitful channel. In all wars we know we can count on their setting a high example of the great soldierly qualities, but we also want to make sure of their taking their right place at the outset, and maintaining that place throughout, as the leading exponents of progressive thought applied to mounted problems, and in that capacity to serve as models to all their Imperial comrades, and to the world at large.
On its merits, then, and on broad lines, I propose to discuss this question, avoiding so far as possible everything tending to cloud the vision with prejudice or bias. When I illustrate from recent facts it is not with the barren and invidious purpose of apportioning blame or praise, but with the single aim of elucidating the truth.
CHAPTER II
THE THREEFOLD PROBLEM
I.—The Physical Problem.
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