THE TRAINING OF THE CAVALRY OFFICER (_continued_)
... “ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
SHAKESPEARE.
“War is a business and must be learned like any other
profession.”--NAPOLEON.
The attributes which a cavalry officer of the rank of squadron
leader and upwards may to advantage possess are so many as to defy
enumeration; some of them really possessed in perfection are so rare
and valuable that _in war_ they may even counterbalance the fact that
their owner is barely able to read or write.
It was not without reason that Napoleon said of Ney: “When a man is as
brave as he is, he is worth his weight in diamonds.”
To cavalry officers of all others are the reflections of Von der Goltz
applicable, when he says: “_Restless activity_ on the part of the
general is the first condition of connected and rapid action in war”;
and then he details the weakening of troops exposed to hardships,
“exertion, and privations of all kinds, fatiguing marches, and wet
nights in bivouac, cheerfully endured for a short time, but not
for months together. They damp martial ardour considerably. A few
privileged natures escape the effect of such conditions, but not so the
mass of men.”
To the officer it is well that it should be known that, as war goes
on, he may expect to find himself weakening, but, as with any other
disease, forewarned is forearmed.
It is a duty to his country for a cavalry officer in peace-time to
take such exercise in the available sports of hunting, pig-sticking,
polo, big-game shooting, and other exercises as will keep muscles
and lungs in condition and training, and his nerves in order. The
cavalry officer, and for that matter the general and staff officer,
who seldom gets on a horse in peace-time, will not suddenly change
his nature in war; on the contrary, the enforced exercise will knock
him up. Long days in the saddle, and nights spent on the outpost line
with an insufficiency of food, the constant strain of vigilance will
tell on most men, in fact in some degree on all men. But the officer
who knows beforehand that he may expect his initiative, firmness,
zeal, and love for action to evaporate somewhat after some months or
even weeks of campaigning will be on the look-out. He will school his
mind and countenance in cheerfulness and lightheartedness before his
subordinates:
Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
_Winter’s Tale_, iv. 3.
He will practise himself in firmly repressing all grumbling and
cynicism, in assiduously performing all details of duty, and in
constantly caring for the welfare of his men and horses. “Such
independent persons,” says Emil Reich, “have long since learnt to stand
adversity, to be, as the saying is, ‘good losers.’ This has given
England her peculiar tone, her stamina, her power in adversity.”[75]
With such all will go well, for war is the region of reality in which
there is no place for shams; but woe betide the regiment where the
senior officers set an example of cynicism, grumbling, neglect of duty,
want of zeal; these faults become exaggerated in their subordinates
till they result in the worst military crimes and in the disgrace of
the regiment, by a state of indiscipline and neglect of duty which only
the strongest measures can put right.[76]
Whatever the value of a senior officer of cavalry from the point of
view of courage, horsemanship, resolution, and bodily fitness for a
campaign, there are other points to which he should devote attention.
Von Bernhardi (p. 288 of _Cavalry in Future Wars_) says:
A comprehensive military education, and at least a general grasp
of the principles of higher strategy, are essentials for every
reconnoitring officer.
Now a field officer of cavalry may find himself at any time thrown
on his own resources, perhaps cut off from his base, many miles from
superior authority and with several squadrons at his disposal. His
action, its direction and scope, and the information gained or missed
may have the most marked effect on the course of the operations.
Again, at any period in an engagement the moment for action may arise;
will then an officer, who is not trained in peace-time to know his
duty, and to act on his own initiative, have the nerve “to go in,”
without waiting for the order which nearly always comes too late?
Settled convictions as to his duty,[77] acquired by previous practice
and study of similar situations in peace, will nerve him to a correct
interpretation of his duty, which may or may not be to charge. He will
remember what was said of so-and-so who did or did not “go in.” He must
be able to await a favourable opportunity in cold-blooded calm; and the
time for deliberation once over, he must possess the cool daring to
throw relentlessly all his available forces into battle.[78]
About the end of the Boer War an officer was heard to say: “I only
learnt one thing at a garrison class which I attended. In a rearguard
action my instructor told me to go lightly out of two positions and
then let the enemy have it hot at the third one, when they came on with
confidence and without discretion. That tip has been more useful to me
than anything else I ever learnt, and has pulled me through again and
again.”
But besides this a great deal is now to be learnt, and many ideas
gained from the many excellent military works which are translated into
English from other languages. Thirty years ago, beyond Von Schmidt
and De Brack (certainly the best of their kind), few foreign works on
tactics and the more recent wars had been translated. Nowadays four
are translated where one was formerly. These give a better idea of the
varied rôle of cavalry on a battlefield; we get a little farther than
the drill of a squadron or regiment; we can see laid bare the faults
of our cavalry and of their direction in South Africa, or what was
noticed by various military attachés as regards the shortcomings of
cavalry in the Manchurian or other campaigns. These, read and noted in
an intelligent fashion, and more especially if later discussed amongst
the officers of a regiment in their application to the work of training
a regiment, are of great value. Perhaps their principal value is that
they enable officers to lay out plans of action for emergencies, to
get what Langlois calls a doctrine.[79] “Without a doctrine,” he says,
“text-books are of little avail. Better a doctrine without text-books
than text-books without a doctrine, for the former was the case in
Napoleon’s time.”
And what was Napoleon’s doctrine? Did not Napoleon beyond all others
study _moral_ in its application to the training of officers and men,
and to the winning of battles? We see it in his selection of his
generals. Ney began as a leader of partisan forces. Massena was the
head of a band of smugglers. Again, we may note it in the selection of
his staff officers and A.D.C.’s of whom he asked (1st): Is he lucky?
and (2nd): Is he enterprising? It is evident in his wise distribution
of rewards; “I want blood, not ink,” he remarked to a commanding
officer who had put forward his quartermaster for a decoration. To
another, of whom he had asked the character of a man who was claiming
a reward for well-known acts of bravery, when the reply was that the
man was a “drunkard and a thief,” he said, “Bah, blood washes all that
away.” We see, then, that his _doctrine_ was that the man who will shed
his blood is the rarest and most valuable asset in war; and so he,
the great leader and organizer of armies, put it before all others,
and thus he made it the “fashion.” No doubt Napoleon could have made
“ink” the fashion, had he thought it desirable to do so. Further,
he decorated men on the field of battle, bearing in mind the maxim:
“Bis dat qui cito dat.” Any senior officer may imitate this excellent
practice, by putting in his orders, regimental, brigade or otherwise,
a notice of an “Act of Courage,” etc. If this is done the same evening
it has a great effect.
That the Japanese thought of this is evidenced by the fact that
repeatedly in the orders of the day, and in the proclamations of the
army commanders and of the commander-in-chief, there were references
to the excellent information and reports which reached them from
reconnoitring detachments and patrols, and on one occasion Marshal
Oyama categorically stated that without the help which had been
afforded him by the cavalry, he would have been groping in the dark in
the measures he was undertaking.[80]
Those who neglect to think about these matters soon wear out the
patience of the bravest men.[81] De Brack writes:--
Reward, then, above all things the courage of him who is first in
the mêlée, who delivers his blows with coolness and certainty,
who is last in a retreat, who rescues his officers, his comrades,
who captures a standard, who recaptures artillery, who is never
dismayed by bad luck, and is always ready and willing.... There
are several kinds of courage, but it is courage of the daring and
impetuous kind which wins battles.
Our text-books have had little to say about _moral_, and we were apt
to take it for granted that all is for the best in the best of all
possible armies, so long has the question been overlooked. But is that
wise? Should we not know why one regiment will take a loss of 50 per
cent and “go in” next day again cheerfully, while another loses 10 per
cent, and does not want any more fighting?
Is it not part of the training of the senior officers of cavalry that
they should know the nature of the infantry combat, that they should
grasp the consumption of reserves and the gradual moral degradation
of the enemy’s infantry, that they should have studied works such as
Colonel Ardant du Picq’s _Études du Combat_, which furnish the most
thorough and complete dissection of _moral_ in war?
In a note to one of his chapters on the value of discipline, Ardant
du Picq relates how in the eighteenth century four British captains
“stood off” when signalled to for help in an attack about to be made
by their admiral. The latter won his fight, but was mortally wounded.
He, however, sent for the four captains, court-martialled them and
had three hanged at the yard-arm, and the fourth cashiered before he
himself died.
Every leader should know how narrow is the path which he will tread
when in command of troops in a fight. How essential it is, then, in
cricket parlance to “give no chances.” And it is a great mistake for
young officers to be left in ignorance of the fact that a good fighting
regiment, battery or battalion, yes, and brigade or division, can only
exist where there is a high standard of _moral_ and a thorough mutual
understanding that every one will, and must, play the game, be the
risk, difficulty, or odium what it may.
Polo players will tell you that one selfish player will ruin a team.
This is ten times more true in war, where they will see the selfish
polo player skulk, run away, or let in his commanding officer and the
army in the very first fight he gets into. And cavalry officers of all
ranks must learn in peace that it is only by practising at all times
broad-minded comradeship not only in their own corps and arm, but with
the other arms, that victory in the field can be ensured. Let them read
and ponder on what a French general says of our army in South Africa:--
Each arm acted on its own.... This comradeship can only be
fostered by daily intercourse in peace.... In England it exists
neither between the different arms nor between one battalion and
another.... Good fellowship in the fight can only be produced by
good fellowship in time of peace, and the latter results from a
_life in common_.[82]
This ideal is apparently realized in the Japanese army, where, it is
said, “there are no regiments that have a reputation or a history which
is not that of the whole army. Just as there are no crack corps, so
there is no crack arm. The pay and standard of education and living
of cavalry officers are the same as those of other branches of the
service.”
Our conclusions then must be:--
1. That courage and activity are the most valuable attributes in the
field.
2. That these may wane when the body is exposed to unaccustomed wear
and tear, unless this is foreseen and guarded against.
3. That habits of decision in tactical situations must be acquired by
practice in peace-time.
4. That a doctrine permeating all ranks is essential to success in war.
5. The doctrine is “THE UNISON OF ARMS AND THE RESOLUTE OFFENSIVE.”