THE TRAINING OF A SQUADRON
“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 rôle as a trainer of cavalry. How thoroughly
he “meant business,” and how sternly any weakening, wavering, or
indiscipline 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 who 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’s 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 leader 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 think
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-general 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 manœuvres 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 exploited and improved upon to a very high degree
in the cavalry squadron and regimental school. Cavalry work, which
would have been a severe test of map-reading[88] and troop-leading to
a subaltern officer of cavalry thirty-five years ago, is now within
the powers of every sergeant and corporal, and most of the men. To
attain this has meant hard work for the regimental officer, and it is
doubtful, if the work had not been largely delegated to the section
leader, and thereby a proper chain of responsibility established,
whether such progress would have been made.
Competitions between sections and troops, the former for choice,
work great things in a squadron. If the minds of sixteen section
leaders are all at work to find out the best way to train a recruit
in various exercises, to feed a horse to the best advantage with the
forage available, to get the best shooting average, and so on, it is
obvious that the squadron leader has a good chance of disseminating his
knowledge, when found out, through his squadron, whilst an interest is
given to the work which is perfectly invaluable. Certainly men, who
have to go through four or five months’ hot weather in the plains of
India with the thermometer occasionally at 115° in the verandah, want
these mental exercises and interests just as they want games of hockey,
cricket, and football in the evening to keep them sound in wind, limb,
and mind.
In every respect competition is a healthy lever in training; only quite
recently a squadron which, _mirabile dictu_, stopped all smoking for
some weeks before shooting, were successful in winning an army rifle
competition. Above all things, it acts in putting a stop to the waste
of time which is so frequent an occurrence, where there is no spur to
prevent it. It is distressing to see a troop of men and horses standing
in line, whilst one individual goes through some exercise, or jumps
some fences; a clever squadron leader will never permit this, he will
point out to the troop or section leader that the remainder would be
much better occupied in “suppling” their horses, or making cuts and
points, till their turn arrived:[89] and that there is no reason why
they should not light a pipe meanwhile. These amenities make things go
easier.
Again, when on the march, or going to or returning from a field day,
by means of judging distance on prominent objects (to be checked
afterwards from the map), or by noticing the features of the country
and subsequently answering questions on them, or by guessing what is on
the other side of a hill, habits of observation which are invaluable
in a cavalryman may be inculcated. This last is a capital exercise,
and one which the Duke of Wellington practised. It is related that he
was posting with a friend, and they passed the time in guessing what
was behind the next hill. His friend remarked how often he was right
in his guesses. Wellington replied, “Well, it is what I have been
practising all my life.” This instruction is best delegated to section
leaders, since a squadron, or even troop, is too unwieldy for this
kind of education, which is specially one which should aim at bringing
the slower and more stupid men up to a good level. The Germans rightly
lay the greatest stress on the fact that collective perfection is only
attainable by individual excellence, and this can only be obtained by
individual instruction.
It is not in the brigade nor even in the regiment that dismounted work
can be taught, but it is there that the effects can be seen. It is
in the troop and the squadron that men should be taught to be quick,
not hurried, in getting on and off their horses, and it must be done
without the old-fashioned caution in the navy, “Five-and-twenty for the
last man up the rigging.”
A brigade is manœuvring against an enemy; a house, a garden, a clump
of trees is seen, which, if seized and held by rifle fire, will prove
a most valuable pivot of manœuvre. A squadron is ordered to seize it.
Now is the time to see whether men have been taught their work in the
squadron. Are they awkward in getting off their horses? Is there delay
in handing over the horses to the Nos. 3? Is there uncertainty what
to do with the lances? Are proper precautions taken? If the men have
been well taught, they will be ready to meet with fire the opposing
squadrons sent to seize it. And further, when the meeting between
the brigades takes place, a well-trained squadron will have had time
to mount again, and will be on the spot to throw in a flank attack,
which may decide the fight. The cavalryman must learn that never is the
difference between cavalry and infantry to be observed more than when
cavalry are acting dismounted.
A whole brigade may have to act dismounted. One not trained in the
work will leave its horses behind and become inferior infantry. If
the squadron training has been well done, they will act like a swarm
of bees, trying here, trying there, everywhere _moral_ and movement,
till the weak spot is discovered; and then the rush will be made with
an irresistible force in the firing line, and no slow pushing up of
supports and reserves.
We do not wish to see cavalry always getting off their horses and
trying everywhere to shoot their enemy out of each bit of difficult
ground, but neither do we wish to see a regiment or brigade sitting
helplessly in mass with an infantry or cavalry patrol holding a defile
in front of them, unable to turn them out because the ground prevents
them galloping at it. Von Bernhardi says:[90]
Moreover, in the power of holding the balance correctly between
fire and shock, and in the training of the former never to allow
the troops to lose confidence in the latter, lies the real essence
of the cavalry spirit. This, whether it be in the working out of
some great strategical design, or in joining hands with the other
arms to obtain by united fire action some common purpose, implies
a balance of judgment and absence of prejudice of the rarest
occurrence in normal natures.
The practical problems, which invariably follow upon contact with the
enemy, placed before his subalterns, unexpectedly for choice, by means
of flags or real troops, and their proposed solutions, actually carried
out, and then followed by a discussion, constitute the best and most
useful work done by a squadron leader. If his imagination fails him,
he must read up instances. Nor should he forget to give them problems
which are what would be called unfair in a test examination, because
the odds are too great, or the situation too difficult. He can and
should explain this later, _coram populo_, but meantime it is just such
problems which come to try the cavalry officer most highly. For if he
is doing his duty he must constantly find himself in scrapes, and what
our ancestors called “outfalls,” in which the life and liberty of his
men, and more, victory and honour, depend on his action. Often enough
a rapid dispersal with a prearranged rendezvous is the only rational
course and alternative to defeat or heavy and useless loss. Again, a
bold front shown or a feint at attack may give time to warn others or
to get to cover.
These problems come as too much of a surprise in war for the ordinary
individual, unless he has acquired character and a large degree of
confidence by frequent exercises in peace-time such as those indicated
above. But, thus equipped, and steeled, as it were, by a doctrine of
resolution, the officer or non-commissioned officer will perhaps call
to his mind some saying such as “a mounted man and a shower of rain can
get through anywhere.” In an instant he has drawn swords, indicated,
first, the line of attack, and second, the rendezvous after dispersal,
then with a cheer or view-holloa he goes at them. His bold and rapid
course of action pulls him through with little or no loss.[91] The
Japanese _Cavalry Training_, p. 57, says:--
From commander to privates all cavalry soldiers must be accustomed
to act on their own initiative throughout the various trainings and
instruction, and in all cases should observe the following rule:
Attack--but do not be attacked.
Problems can be found in the support of mounted attacks by fire,
dismounted attacks, rearguard actions, the defence or attack of
positions taken up in farms or kopjes by flankguards or rearguards,
feints made to draw the enemy or distract his attention, the
precautions necessary at a halt to water or when in bivouac, the
scouting of an enemy’s outpost line or in getting into a position
before dawn, the passage of obstacles and defiles, and so on. Always
remember to vary the ground, conceal the enemy’s numbers, and insist
on decisive action. In practice, in cavalry matters, the wrong action
taken in a resolute fashion is sometimes preferable to right action
arrived at after vast consideration.
The reflection on our British cavalry made, we believe, by a cavalry
officer, that it was well drilled but badly instructed for war in
1899, appears to be a genuine and well-founded one. How to escape it
in future must be our squadron leaders’ chief concern. Napoleon said:
“It is not my genius that suddenly reveals to me, in secret, what I
should say or do in an unforeseen circumstance. It is reflection, it is
meditation. I always work at dinner, at the theatre; at night I wake up
to work.”
Above all, let us study in our instruction how best to make _moral_ go
hand-in-hand with method; without this what army can do great things?
Have not civilization, education (conducted on our own lines), the
insidious lessening of animus all conspired against our soldier’s
_moral_ in war? How much simpler and more effective was the _modus
operandi_ of the Zulu Impis clearly enunciated in their war chant, “If
we go forward we conquer, if we go back we die”; their ruler invariably
putting to death all who returned from an unsuccessful expedition.
CONCLUSIONS
1. That interest must be sustained.
2. That with cavalry above all arms, there is a need for a very stern
discipline.
3. That only a really good man can lead a cavalry squadron.
4. That flat-catching must be sternly discountenanced.
5. That a wise delegation of certain points of instruction and
horse-management to section leaders will have valuable results.