The very idea of a cavalry raid is attractive and carries with it a certain romance.
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, alarmed McClellan, and caused him to withdraw troops to cover his line of cavalry and thus weaken his first line. Yet even this raid, brilliant as it was and tactically successful, is said to be strategically a mistake. For, to quote General Alexander’s American Civil War, it “seriously alarmed McClellan for his rear. But for it the probabilities are he would never have given the subject any thought, and he certainly would not have been prepared with a fleet of loaded transports on hand when he was, soon after, forced to change his base to Harrison’s landing on the James River.... On the whole, therefore, the éclat of our brilliant raid lost us much more than its results were worth. Where important strategy is on foot, too great care can scarcely be used to avoid making any such powerful suggestion to the enemy as resulted in this case.”
146 Similarly the raid in 1863, by the same general, had disastrous results for the Confederates. Lee was then preparing for his campaign north of the Potomac. Stuart proposed moving with the cavalry in between the Federal army and Washington, and rejoining the main army when north of the Potomac. Lee, unfortunately, sanctioned it, and Stuart set out on the 24th June, did some minor damage to the Federals, but lost Lee, not rejoining him till late in the afternoon of the 2nd July, the second day of the battle of Gettysburg. Had Lee had his cavalry with him, that campaign might have had a very different ending. Therefore, in this case, the timing of the raid was wrong, and of benefit only to the enemy.
The value of Gourko’s raid across the Balkans in July 1877, when in eight days he carried dismay into the heart of Turkey, destroyed parts of the railroad and telegraph on the principal lines, and gained a great deal of information as to Turkish movements, appears to be undoubted. His force, however, was not entirely a cavalry one.
Coming to a more recent date, in the Manchurian War, the Japanese, only a few days before the battle of Mukden, by means of an undertaking against the rear of the Russians, which was carried out by two Japanese squadrons (280 men), marching as quickly as possible by night and hiding by day, succeeded in reaching an important railway bridge 200 kilometres north of Tieh-ling and in rear of the Russians. The troops covering the bridge were surprised at night, and their attention was thus drawn away from147 the bridge, which a skilfully-led patrol succeeded in blowing up. The railway service was interrupted for several days. A regular panic set in among the Russian Headquarter Staff. The immediate result was that 8000 Russian troops were diverted for the defence of the line and were unable to take part in the decisive battle at Mukden: an instance of most admirable timing of a raid.
It is true that cavalry raids may disorganize the lines of communication “which in the case of large armies,” as Bernhardi says, “have increased in importance.” But, on the other hand, we must remember that well-organized lines of communication are now almost invariably railways. On these there is a most efficient engineer service, with a breakdown train and gang of trained road-layers and menders always ready. These are able to mend a railway in approximately the same time that it takes to break it up. It is only badly organized lines of communication which are really vulnerable,—though we must not forget that the blowing up of a French bridge near the frontier in 1870, during the siege of Paris, very nearly caused the siege to be raised.
The pages of De Brack’s Light Cavalry Outposts are full of instances of successful raids, those of which Curély was the hero being specially attractive and effective.64 In our own knowledge are the raids of De Wet and others on our line of communication in South Africa, which entailed a large number of troops148 being allotted to the defence of the railway; whilst little less effective were the operations of our columns against the Boers when, hiding by day and riding by night, they swooped down upon the Boers and captured their herds of cattle and horses. The Boers suffered little inconvenience from those columns which had not recourse to methods combining speed with avoidance of observation, and with secrecy in their preparation.
All these operations are obviously those which are favoured by “conditions of sparsely-settled terrain and very partially-developed telegraphic communication, and few roads and railways,” and the success of many of the American raids forms no basis for the assumption, so often made, that equal results would attend their employment in Europe outside Russia.65
The other side of the question may be seen in some of the unsuccessful raids entered upon by both sides in the American War, when raids became “the fashion”—raids, which were not only unsuccessful, but which even had the effect of depriving their own side of their cavalry at a most important juncture, quite apart from the number of cavalry horses rendered useless.
A typical instance of this is seen in Wheeler’s raid on the Federal lines of communications. When beaten off at Dalton he made his way into East Tennessee; his subsequent operations in that region had no effect upon the fortune of the two armies battling149 round Atlanta. Hood, deprived of Wheeler’s cavalry—“the eyes of his army”—found himself in the dark as to Sherman’s movements. On the evening of the 27th he jumped hastily to the conclusion that Wheeler’s raid had been successful, and that Sherman............