I.—Study.
“Trust thyself. Every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

I venture to address my first recommendation to professional soldiers, volunteer soldiers, and civilians alike. Study your own great war. Shut your ears to those who say it is abnormal. Study it with an open mind, forming your own opinion, and remembering that this is your experience.

With the facts and conditions of your own modern war thoroughly in your head, re-study other wars, including the last great war in Manchuria. Note the progress made during the last fifty years in the precision, range, and smokelessness of the firearm, compared with the unimprovable nature of the steel weapon. Ask yourself if the professional Cavalries in these various wars were alive to the lesson of this revolution, and whether their successors, judged by their own writings, are alive now to the lesson. And do not, I beseech, when you hear it said (with truth) that the “principles of war” never change, be misled into imagining that the steel weapon for horsemen is one of the “principles of war.”

Picture past wars, such as the Franco-German War, by the light of the knowledge actually then in existence, but unused, as to the possibilities of the rifle in the hands of mounted men. Reckon the opportunities lost, and ask yourself if the successes gained by the steel might not 355have been gained equally well even in those days by first-class mounted riflemen.

Remember all the while in constructing out of precedents this “case law” that there is a “common law” behind, a physical principle, which is independent in the last resort of all psychological and historical associations. Follow it out, as I have often suggested in terms of vulnerability and mobility, constantly using the foot-riflemen as an analogy. But realize that the bayonet, which is used as the climax of a fire-fight on foot, is not the analogue of the sword or lance, which are used from horse-back only, on a system impossible to associate with fire. Superimpose the moral and psychological factors—in one word, the spirit—bearing in mind that the best weapon will promote the best spirit, and inspire the most fear in the enemy. Lastly, take training, and reflect whether it be possible for a hybrid type to attain perfection in two highly exacting and, under modern conditions, profoundly antagonistic methods of fighting. Weigh the terrible cost of not reaching perfection, the humiliation of being impotent even against inferior Infantry, and doubly impotent against superior mounted riflemen.

In studying the functions of mounted troops with the aid of the Official “Training Books,” constantly distinguish weapons from mobility, the combat phase from the pre-combat phase. Do not be enticed into assuming that men armed with steel weapons can ride, drill, scout or man?uvre better, by virtue of those weapons. On the contrary, observe how steel weapons, not only by their mere weight in metal and leather, but by their manifold corollaries, react harmfully on mobility and intelligence, and in the case of the lance on visibility as well. Remember that in war every ounce and every inch tells, and that there is no other weapon on which to save weight. Nobody as yet suggests dropping the rifle. That is admittedly indispensable.
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II.—Nomenclature.

The grand distinction between the foot-soldier and the horse-soldier is the horse. The link which unites them is the rifle. We need some classification which emphasizes both the distinction and the link. All our terms, as at present used, are misleading. Those ancient and simple names, Cavalry and Infantry, are really all we want, but their significance is blurred by the modern intrusion of Mounted Infantry and its unofficial synonym, Mounted Riflemen, and Yeomanry.

“Mounted Infantry” is a very bad name, because, though accurate in a sense, it suppresses the common element, the rifle, and emphasizes the horse, which is the distinguishing element, by a sort of contradiction in terms, as though one were to say, horse-foot-soldiers. And in the very act of emphasizing the horse it belittles both that noble animal and its rider. It seems to say, “mount by all means, but above all dismount”; “continually get off your horse”—"ignore the horse," to adapt expressions now familiar to the reader.

“Mounted Riflemen,” though far better than “Mounted Infantry,” is also unsatisfactory (1) because it suggests a non-existent distinction between foot riflemen and Infantry, (2) because it suggests a non-existent class of mounted troops who are not riflemen.

Of course, the source of all this confusion is the retention of the steel weapon for our existing regular Cavalry, and the hybrid type which results.

I myself should strongly advocate the total abolition of all the modern jargon, and a return to the primitive simplicity of Cavalry and Infantry. Those names will live; nothing can extirpate them, and if they stood alone their very isolation would force into prominence the really fundamental points of similarity and dissimilarity in the troops they represent. Of course, there will always be 357different qualities of Cavalry, as of Infantry, corresponding to length and continuity of training, and the most difficult and exacting functions will naturally be allotted to the best-trained troops. But do not let us make the sword or lance the criterion of excellence. Let us select any other criterion but that, paying at least so much of a compliment to modern war experience. Do not let us tell the relievers of Mafeking or De Wet that they cannot engage in a strategical raid; the Australians that they cannot pursue; De la Rey, the New Zealanders, and the riflemen of the Rand that they cannot charge. Do not let us impress upon our Mounted Infantry, with their South African traditions, that because they have no sword or lance, they cannot play the big, fast game they played in South Africa. By all means, if it is convenient, give them the limited functions of divisional Cavalry, but do not put it on the ground of defective armament. Give them a chance to realize their own worth, and do not commit the crowning folly—crime it might well be called—of singling them out from all the army for what is in effect a lecture on the “terror of cold steel.”
III.—Armament of Cavalry.

I now come to the central object of my volume. My own belief is that reform here must be radical. If it were possible, as the United States Cavalry find it possible, to place the sword in a thoroughly subordinate position, and keep it there, accepting whole-heartedly all the logical consequences of its subordination, there would be little objection to its retention. Nobody can deny that it can be useful on very rare occasions, though I hope to have proved that the rifle, in expert hands, can do better, even on those rare occasions.

But experience proves that in this country it is utterly impossible to keep the sword or lance subordinate. Their 358fascination seems to be irresistible. They laugh at facts and feed men on seductive fictions. We know what the course of reaction has been. For a brief space after the South African War it was in fact made officially subordinate. Then the sword regained its old domination. Now the lance, from the cold shades of “ceremony,” has become a combative weapon, also dominant, and in the case of Lancer regiments, sharing its supremacy with the sword, so that we have now what I venture to call the preposterous spectacle of horsemen armed with no less than three weapons, one of which, when at rest, adds several feet vertically to visibility. Of the respective value of the lance and sword in combat, where combat takes place, I say nothing, but on every other ground the lance is utterly indefensible. At the combined army man?uvres of 1909, for example, Lancers were operating in hedge-bound country, like that which covers so large a part of England, and where lances constantly make just the difference between concealment and exposure. They are incompatible with effective fire-action.

But that after all is a secondary matter. What makes compromise impossible is the fact that the steel weapon carries with it logically the whole theory of shock. Add the firearm and you are faced with dilemmas from which there is no escape. You cannot even take the elementary step of attaching it to the man, instead of to the saddle, without prejudice to the idea of shock. You cannot, as “Cavalry Training” tacitly admits, carry sufficient ammunition. drop shock, and logic would tear aside the veil, and leave the steel weapon discredited. It could not live on “extended formations,” eight-yard intervals and thin makeshifts of that sort. There plainly it would be trenching on the legitimate sphere of the rifle, and throwing its own inferiority into prominence. The steel involves shock, and shock involves a whole structure of drill, training and equipment, which are not only antithetical 359to fire-action, but prejudicial to general mobility. Splendid troops, with keen commanders and careful training, like our regular Cavalry, manage to attain a fairly high standard in both fire-action and shock-action; no one can doubt that who witnessed the man?uvres of 1909. But reconnaissance was admittedly imperfect, and the conditions were peace conditions. Time spent in training for the steel is time robbed from other training. None know better than General French and other Cavalry officers with war experience how tremendously exacting is the standard of excellence required of the mounted rifleman, and how vital the importance of saving weight. War teaches us that only by exclusive and unremitting attention to the use of the horse and rifle in combination is it possible to make good mounted riflemen.

They can never know enough, never practise enough. And, when the last word is said, there remain those “out-of-door habits and sporting instincts” which are so difficult to imitate artificially, and for whose absence it is so difficult to compensate by drill and discipline.

But surely no better material exists in any European country than in this for the production of good mounted riflemen. We have the men, and we have the experience. We are leagues ahead of Germany, where steps are only now being taken to provide the Cavalry with a carbine equal in power to the Infantry rifle; leagues ahead of Austria and France; leagues ahead of Russia, unless since 1905 she has revolutionized her training. And yet we are blind to our good fortune; not only blind but enviously imitative of the errors of foreigners, who in turn are ignorant of our elements of strength. Colonel Repington, our ablest military publicist, and one of the best friends the Cavalry or the army at large ever had, warns the Cavalry that their shock-action needs improvement, by comparison with Continental standards, while 360Bernhardi and de Negrier passionately exhort their countrymen, to wake up to the efficacy of the rifle. But Bernhardi cannot bring himself to give up the steel, so, as the most reputable exponent of compromise we can find, we copy into our drill-book those of his maxims on fire which can safely be quoted without fatally injuring the case for the steel. It is enough to make angels weep! Observe once more that we are courting failure in neglecting our own aptitudes. Our Cavalry school believes in the inevitable shock duel, and prophesies “negative” results for fire in the encounters of rival Cavalries. Continental schools believe the same, so that both Cavalries in a European war, oblivious, as of old, of their real battle duties, will seek the shock duel if level ground can be found for it. If our single division is beaten in a brute contest of weight we shall be reaping the fruits of compromise. But the more likely contingency is that the same old cruel and pointless censure will be meted out to both Cavalries, for “mutual paralysis” and “idleness” on the battle-field.

All this proves, I submit, that compromise is impossible. Sword and lance should be abolished, and the training book rewritten in the light of that abolition. With nothing but the rifle to depend on, a new, pure, equality magnificent, and far more fruitful spirit would at once permeate the whole force. There can be no such thing as a hybrid spirit, and the Cavalry know it; hence the re-enthronement of the steel spirit. But inculcate unreservedly the true aggressive fire-spirit, or rather the horse-and fire spirit, and you will get it in a form which would astonish the old European Cavalries.

From “Cavalry Training,” even as it now stands, extract and marshal lucidly all the functions which Cavalry are now supposed to perform with the rifle, whether in offence or defence.[85] Realize the tremendous responsibilities 361involved, and remember that in any even of these functions to pit half-trained riflemen against first-class riflemen, whether Infantry or mounted, is to court failure, and possibly humiliating and disastrous failure—for the sake of what? Of obtaining not even perfection, but mediocrity in a class of tactics whose value rests on no proofs from any war since the invention of the smokeless modern rifle.

Dismiss these distracting and meaningless distinctions between the “Cavalry fight” and other fights, between “mounted action” and “dismounted action,” which are now treated as though they had no connection with one another, and as though in the swift and various vicissitudes of war it were possible to sort troops into classes or to foresee from moment to moment which tactics to employ. Realize that under present arrangements there is, and can be, no provision whatever for that rapid transition from one to the other which battle conditions demand if Cavalry are to play the fast, confident game they should play. A man with a horse is a man with a horse. Make him feel it at all times. Do not tell him that a wound inflicted from the saddle counts in some mysterious way more than one inflicted on foot. Explain that mounted action and dismounted action may alternate with lightning rapidity, and merge in one another in a thousand ways. In teaching the charge with the rifle do not make the subaltern refer to two distinct chapters, one dealing with the ride into decisive range, another with his action when he dismounts—perhaps only a few yards from the objective—for the fire-climax. And for very shame avoid such puerilities as the direction that before embarking on dismounted action additional ammunition is to be served out.

Make the mere mention of “Cavalry ground” an offence punishable by fine. Tell Cavalry that all ground which a horse can approach at all is ground for them, and all 362equally honourable and fruitful ground. Tell them to welcome inequalities as the indispensable condition of surprise, not to hanker after open plains, where surprise is impossible. Get rid, too, of the equally demoralizing notion that in order to fulfil their supreme function in action their horses must perpetually be in a condition to gallop fast.

Saddle-fire for mounted troops is optional, according to capacity. But it should certainly be adopted by professional Cavalry, and practised regularly. I need not discuss the difficulty of learning saddle-fire. The mere fact that it is officially enjoined for picked Mounted Infantry in a three months’ training proves its feasibility, to say nothing of its combat-value. Obviously it cannot be regarded as an absolutely essential concomitant of mounted action. A vast amount was accomplished without it in South Africa, and our own men, even in their best work, never used it. Nor was it used by either side in Manchuria, because neither side came near the South African standard of mounted rifle-tactics. But that it may be, if used at the right moment, skilfully, and for certain definite ends, of very great value, we know both from our own experience and from American history. It has genuine moral effect, and may have material effects of an importance out of all proportion to the actual loss of life inflicted, whether in horse or men. A few random bullets may stampede a crowd of led horses, or throw into disorder a regiment massed for shock. In the pursuit of mounted men by mounted men, in the running mêlée, so to speak, experience shows that skilled shots and riders can bring down men with aimed fire. A revolver might be better for this purpose, but the multiplication of weapons is on all accounts to be avoided. The rid............