“Soignez les détails, ils ne sont pas sans gloire; c’est le premier pas qui mène à la victoire.”—Frederick the Great.

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 the matter more fully, and to learn some of the “whys and wherefores,” should read Instructions for Cavalry, by the Prussian General Von Schmidt, of whom it was said, “No man exercised so great an influence for good on our arm since the Great King.” His theory was that “everything that is dull, cannot be easily understood or is uninteresting must disappear; the cavalry soldier has less need of this than any one. With such instruction he is quite useless, for to him more than to any one else are freshness, life, activity, mental quickness and vivacity necessary.”83 But most valuable are the glimpses which the book affords us of the Great King (Frederick) in his r?le as a trainer of cavalry. How thoroughly he “meant business,” and how sternly any weakening, wavering, or indiscipline178 was dealt with under that resolute autocrat, when not only an army but a nation was “in the making,” may be seen from the following:—

    It was an old and strict order of Frederick the Great that no cavalry officer should allow himself to be attacked at the halt; whoever does it should be cashiered.84

    In the cavalry of Frederick the Great the squadron leader was authorized to sabre any éclaireur met riding at random across the front.85

Elliot mentions a further inspiriting regulation:—

    If it is found that any soldier is not doing his duty, or is wishing to fly, the first officer or sub-officer will pass his sword through his body.

Frederick the Great, familiar with war, readily grasped the fact that the military discipline necessary in order to train men in the highest degree for the act of war must be stern and inexorable. No bank holiday, please-do-as-you-are-told soldiering for him. He knew what he wanted, and that time was limited.

    On Sundays after divine service the men shall mount, as His Majesty considers it of the highest importance for the preservation of the horse that he should be ridden every day. The horses will then always be in wind, will not be stiff in the legs, and not get too fat. This His Majesty has found to be the case with his own horses. He desires to have horses in working condition, and does not care so much that they should be fat as that they should be sound and fit to march and stand fatigue.86

It must not be imagined that every officer who179 rides at its head can train or lead a squadron. Those who can do both in perfection are few and far between. An apprenticeship of several years under various good leaders, added to natural ability, good horsemanship, an eye for country, a thorough sympathy with both his men and horses, are a few of the talents required to make a good squadron leader. But if a regiment is so fortunate as to possess even one good squadron leader, there will soon be found, especially among the junior officers, many to imitate him, and thus one good squadron leader makes many.

“A,” the good squadron leader, is easily recognized in the field; he rides well away from his squadron, confident that they will obey his word or signal; his squadron know his ruses and plans, and move smoothly, ready to act at the indicated speed in any direction signalled by him. They are led covered from view,87 duly avoiding or overcoming obstacles, quietly picking their way; the leader is now far to the front, with his eye on the enemy; his second in command passes any signals which are made. Suddenly pace is increased, and the squadron is galloping along under the crest of the hill, the cover which they know without an order he wishes them to utilize; then the troops wheel into line, “direction the enemy”; a defensive flank is dropped back, or an offensive flank pushed up; whilst the enemy’s leader, taken by surprise, is making up his mind, A’s180 squadron has drawn swords and is upon him with a mighty cheer.

“B,” the indifferent squadron leader, nervously and fretfully jobbing his horse in the mouth, rides near his squadron, at which he constantly looks back to see if the men have not already got out of dressing or committed some fault. Querulously addressing his second in command or sergeant major, he asks some foolish question; already he wants some one to lean on. His squadron moves round from behind some cover, where he has unwisely placed it, at an uneven pace, his ill-bitted horses tossing their heads in pain. Now he executes some movement; but before it is completed, he has given another order to “form squadron,” which formation he forthwith regards with disapprobation from a flank and at some 20 yards from his squadron. He has no eyes for the enemy; two patrols have been sent out who ought to inform him. He gets the information right enough, but riding, as he is, near his squadron, which is walking now, he has barely time to give an order to increase the pace and then “left shoulder” towards the enemy, who are getting to one flank, before he notices his swords are not drawn. To get this done increases the confusion in his squadron.

But enough has been said to show the difference in cavalry leaders. In a cavalry engagement A’s squadron will beat B’s nineteen times out of twenty. B, poor fellow, is a danger to the State, and generally not happy in his position. No man likes work which he performs indifferently. Will this kind of leader181 ever charge unless he receives a direct order to do so, and even then will it be well done?

Take it all round, any officer who is up to the business of efficiently training and leading a squadron must possess qualities which would have rendered his career a successful one in any walk of life. It is impossible to enumerate the hundred and one cares, anxieties, and responsibilities which beset a squadron commander. But it is a good thing to mention what he should regard as his guiding stars. They are:—

1. Efficiency for war in men and horses.

2. Avoidance of mere samples of efficiency.

3. Constant steps taken to make the soldiers confident in their power to use their weapons with deadly effect.

4. To make every trooper self-reliant in danger or unusual circumstances, especially when alone.

5. To cultivate the offensive spirit and a determination to get at the enemy somehow.

1. Efficiency for war in men and horses. Men not worked hard in peace-time are quite useless in war, where they have the added privation of want of food and sleep. Active service is quite unlike peace service; in the latter a man often spends but an hour or two in the open and most of the rest of the day in grooming and cleaning up; these duties are, generally speaking, a pure waste of time, as far as cavalry is concerned, in war. Too much of this barrack-square soldiering is apt to unfit men and make them slack and tired after a long day’s work, of which gillies, herdsmen, and keepers would think182 nothing. Few officers are knowledgeable enough to be able to discern the difference between fit, hard horses and poor horses. Looking at the horse sideways on, the ribs may easily deceive one, but following a horse it is much more easily seen to which category he belongs. The poor horse is split up and hollow in the region of the muscles lying alongside the backbone. Feeling the neck is not a safe criterion—big neck muscles may merely mean that the horse has been fed on the ground; the appearance of the coat is also fallacious. A sharp canter of a mile should, however, furnish a good test, as the blowing and snorting of an untrained squadron and a soapy lather instead of a clear watery sweat at once tell their tale.

2. It is a common but most pernicious practice, instead of making the effort to train all men in the squadron up to a certain standard of knowledge and ability, to take some of the smart men and make them into “show” teams. It is obviously flat-catching to have a prize team of ten marksmen, whilst the rest of the squadron are indifferent rifle shots. A man who wins prizes year after year at tournaments and assaults-at-arms is not of value unless he teaches other men. Often he does not do this for fear they should come on, “until at last the old man was beaten by the boy.” The best, though perhaps not the most showy, squadrons are those in which there is a recognized standard of efficiency in every exercise and attainment, below which no man is allowed to fall. The story is told of an inspector-183general of cavalry of past days, that, after the usual inspection, the commanding officer at luncheon said to him, “I should like you to see my regiment tent-pegging.” “Certainly,” was the reply. Arrived on the maidan, about forty men had paraded. “But,” said the I.G.C., “you asked me to come and see your regiment tent-peg, and I wish to do so.” The regiment was forthwith paraded, and the first squadron’s exhibition was quite sufficient to expose the fallacy of “samples.”

3. See under heading “the personal weapon” in chapter on Training of the Man.

4. Self-reliance may be gained by giving the individual various tasks to carry out by himself and on his own initiative. The return for this form of “casting the bread on the waters” is not immediate, but directly the regiment goes on man?uvres or on service, the result between a squadron trained on this system and one where this is not done is most marked.

The squadron in which every man can read a map and orient himself (and this is now not exceptional) moves with perfect confidence on the line marked out for it, and if “held up” in front at once proceeds to find a way round or through. Squadrons trained to this degree may be confidently expected to give great results when employed with independent cavalry or as contact squadrons.

From this it will be seen that the education of the modern working classes has been e............