ARMAMENT
“Quot homines tot sententiae.”
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 includes
intelligence which takes care to provide good weapons. The want
of good armament immediately reacts upon the confidence of the
soldier. Defeat would thus appear excusable, and success cannot
have a worse enemy than this feeling.--VON DER GOLTZ, _Nation in
Arms_, p. 147.
The many changes through which regiments of cavalry go in this respect
are hardly credible, although in our case allowance must be made for
the many different enemies which a British cavalry regiment meets. The
lance will be adopted instead of or in addition to the sword, and six
or seven years later the sword alone, or perhaps even rifle alone, will
be carried.[8] It may be regarded as a certainty now that for some
years to come, as in the past, the Germans will arm both ranks with the
lance. One has hardly written this before one reads that the bayonet
may be substituted for the sword in the armament of German cavalry
regiments, for use in night attacks and in the attack of unturnable
small positions, or when occasion may arise.
The bayonet on trial is straight, 14 inches long, with one cutting
edge, the back being flat. All under-officers and one-tenth of the
troops will carry a bayonet furnished with a saw edge.
History repeats itself. In 1805, Napoleon organized dragoons who
carried a bayonet as well as a sword. There may have been a reason for
this, as their usual fate was to be dismounted and their horses given
to remount more highly-trained cavalry.
Von Bernhardi[9] sums up the question of this new armament of the
German cavalry as follows: “The hand-to-hand fight on foot must be
exceptional. To injure the efficiency of the troops for their daily
rôle for the sake of such isolated occurrences I hold to be a great
mistake,” etc.
When we come to the pattern of swords, the purely cutting sword has its
strenuous advocates, whilst as many more will beseech one to trust to
no personal weapon except the pointing sword. Authoritative quotations
will be given from well-known leaders advocating one or other form of
sword.
It seems to be allowed that a scimitar or tulwar pattern, with its
curved blade, is unsuitable for pointing,[10] and also that the best
patterns of rapier-pointing sword are difficult to cut with. One may
read in Sir Montague Gerard’s book how he killed several Afghans. He
says:--
“One had but to make a feint of employing the obsolete cut No. 7,
and up would fly their guard over the face, when dropping your
point you went clean through your man.... The fourth man I tackled
fired at me just as I closed, and I felt a blow on my side, but
next moment my sword went through something hard, and the weapon
was twisted out of my hand and hung by the sword-knot. The blade,
which was a straight rapier, one by Wilkinson, got a slight but
permanent wave in it, and I can only account for receiving such
a wrench by having taken my opponent through the headpiece as he
crouched and tried to stab the horse from below.”
Pages 255-256: “We counted sixty odd bodies, whilst our casualties
amounted to six men and seven horses.” And on page 257 he adds:
“The lance giving our Sowars a preponderating advantage.”[11]
Perhaps of all those who have given their opinion on this subject,
that one to whom we would give most credence is a swordsman of the
11th Hussars of Marlborough’s time, who fought many duels and lived by
his prowess with the sword. His final dictum is: “One point with the
smallsword is as deadly as forty cuts with the broadsword.”
Verdy du Vernois[12] says: “Experience has proved that a sword-cut
seldom, but a point with the sword always, throws a man off his horse.
The latter should therefore be chiefly practised at sword drill.”
From the bolas of the South American to the tomahawk of the Red Indian
or the revolver of the cowboy every weapon has had its advocates.
Royal Artillery Mounted Rifles were seen charging on horseback with
fixed bayonets[13] a few days after joining a South African column;
thus imitating the Australian contingent in the column, who invariably
did so--and very formidable they looked.
A conclusion which experience forces upon us, as regards both the
armament and tactics of horsemen, is that when they attain a high
standard of horsemanship or when they are good horsemen from youth,
such as many Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Canadians
undoubtedly are, a short training will bring them almost level with
the regular cavalry and enable them to employ shock tactics. Then they
should be armed in addition to their rifle with sword or lance, as the
rifle and bayonet are not the best weapons for this purpose. As trained
cavalry thus armed they are equal in value to twice if not three times
their number of mounted rifles on the battlefield, if they have trained
troop, squadron, and regimental leaders in command of them.
The oft-advanced theory that it is not the nature of such and such a
race to use the point is quite unfounded. It has been conclusively
proved that a recruit who has been allowed only to point with a sword,
can hardly be induced to cut, even if a good opportunity offers.
The lance is undoubtedly the “queen of weapons,” but it has its
drawbacks. But first its great advantage is that it is formidable, and
so much so that lancers claim that regiments armed with the sword will
not face those armed with the lance. It is undoubtedly easier to use
against crouching men on foot. The Inniskilling Dragoons after a charge
at Zulus, who crouched down under their shields, sent for all available
tent-pegging spears.
On the other hand, the lance’s shaft is difficult to withdraw from the
body of a man, and a lancer may have to leave it there. Then he will
draw his sword. But that entails another weapon. In a close mêlée the
lance is a clumsy weapon.[14] In the mêlées which occur after a charge,
men and horses are so intermingled that even the use of the sword is
difficult. But obviously the cure for this is to teach the men to rally
instantaneously and not to indulge in mêlées. The officers of the 9th
Lancers in the Afghan War had a short spike put into the hilt of their
swords, so that a blow from the hilt in the face was decisive.
The weapon which (1) entails least weight and is easiest to carry, and
(2) is deadly, and (3) is most likely to be useful on all occasions, is
the straight sword or rapier.
But this obviously must be made of the best steel, whereas a quite
serviceable cutting sword can be made of inferior iron. That the
cutting sword has been so much used is most probably because good steel
was difficult to obtain. Napier says to arm cavalry sepoys with heavy
English swords of one weight, one length, one shape is a mistake. The
cutting sword is not a deadly weapon, often it does not penetrate
clothes or accoutrements. The mamelukes, formidable antagonists to
Napoleon’s regular cavalry in Egypt, 1798-1801, carried a cutting sword
very considerably curved back, with which weapon they are said to have
inflicted terrible wounds; in addition they carried a poniard and two
pistols in their sash and another pair of pistols in their holsters. A
syce carrying a lance for them followed on foot.
In the Peninsular War, whereas the English cavalry used the sword
almost exclusively as a cutting weapon, the French dragoons on the
contrary used only the point, which, with their straight sword, nearly
always caused a mortal wound. This made the English cavalry say that
the French fighting “was not fair.”
Some amateurs talk of the revolver as a weapon with which to arm the
ranks in place of a sword or lance. They appear to ignore the fact
that a bullet once fired off in a mêlée may hit friend or foe. Very
fine horsemen, such as Arizona cowboys, who break the insulators of
the telegraph wire as they gallop along with a weapon, which they have
been accustomed to handle from their youth up, would probably do well
in a pursuit with such a weapon, but it is not, we believe, seriously
contemplated by any nation as a weapon for use in the ranks. For
officers, scouts, farriers, trumpeters, and possibly others it is most
useful, as it takes the place of a rifle and is light.
If any particular personal weapon is carried habitually, that
weapon should be adopted; but failing that, there must be a long
apprenticeship to lance or sword. Perhaps the point to which most
attention should be given is that the man must be taught to have
implicit confidence in his weapon; this can be attained best with the
lance or with the pointing sword. A man appreciates the fact that with
either of these weapons the point goes through easily; whilst with the
cutting sword only the most expert can make any impression on, say, a
leg of mutton covered with a sack and a leather strap or two.
In the German cavalry, stress is laid on teaching the trooper that the
sight of the lance is sure to make the enemy turn and fly. In our own
cavalry greater attention is now paid to practising the man in riding
at a gallop at a rebounding dummy, offering resistance equal to the
weight of a man. Without such practice the men sprain their wrists and
lose their grip of the sword, and do not understand how simple it is to
run a man through.
THE RIFLE
Both French and German cavalry have, during the last few years, been
repeatedly urged by eminent writers on cavalry to bring themselves to
a better knowledge of the use of the rifle and fire tactics. The new
weapon issued to the German cavalry has been the signal for some of
this literature. Calling to mind that it is but a few short years since
German cavalry were armed with an out-of-date carbine, and carried
only some twenty rounds of ammunition, and further reading between
the lines of the latest addition to cavalry literature by General von
Bernhardi, these exhortations cannot be considered as uncalled for.
But to make them a text on which to lecture our regular cavalry only
exposes ignorance of their present training, and makes one wonder if
one is awaking from far back in the middle of the last century, when a
gallant lancer regiment, on being first armed with carbines, gravely
piled them on the stable-barrows and wheeled them to the manure-heap.
Our British regular cavalry are at least ten, if not fifteen, years
ahead of any continental cavalry in rifle shooting, fire discipline,
and the knowledge of when and how to resort to fire tactics.
There are probably few of the more senior who have not come to a
conclusion formed from experience that the following quotation[15] is
as suitable in many respects to cavalry as it is to infantry:--
Volley firing, and limiting the range against infantry to 500 yards
at most, are the surest means of providing against the want of
ammunition at the supreme moment. And the sooner it is recognized
that long range fire is a special weapon to be used only on special
occasions, the better for the efficiency of our infantry in general.