TACTICS AGAINST THE VARIOUS ARMS
I.--THE PURELY CAVALRY FIGHT.
("_Das rein reiterliche Gefecht._")
THESE two sections which I have been criticizing will give the reader
a general idea of the way in which von Bernhardi regards the action of
Cavalry in modern war, and of the perplexities which beset him through
mingling of the old philosophy and the new. Let us follow him through
subsequent sections of head B ("Action of Cavalry"). The third section
deals with "Cavalry in combat against the various Arms, mounted and
dismounted," and he first deals with what he calls the "purely Cavalry
fight," which he now assumes to be a fight with the steel against other
Cavalry. We must remember that if either side elects to use the rifle;
or if the ground is unsuitable (and on page 201 he argues at length
that "possible European theatres of war are but little suitable for
charges," and that suitable areas are only found in peace by deliberate
selection); or if either side, from numerical weakness or choice, is
acting on the "defensive" (defence with the steel being _ex hypothesi_
impossible), this steel combat will not take place.
Under the circumstances it seems scarcely worth while to talk about it,
but let us waive that objection. We at once become impressed with a
very remarkable fact--namely, that after all the centuries, extending
far back into the mists of time, during which the mounted steel-combat
has been used, its most learned and enthusiastic advocates cannot at
this day agree upon the elementary rules for its conduct. Observe that
I am excluding the modifications caused by missile weapons. Following
the author, I am assuming a combat between two bodies of Cavalry who
decline to use their firearms, and mutually agree to collide with
steel weapons on horseback, outside the zone of fire, on a piece of
level ground without physical obstruction. For this type of combat the
conditions are the same as in the year one. The three factors--horse,
man, and steel weapon--have undergone no appreciable change, and by
this time the rules ought to be fixed. Yet we find the General at once
falling into tirades against erroneous systems, and bitterly denouncing
the Regulations of his own Army.
"The lance," we learn on page 267, "is the Cavalryman's most important
weapon," yet the drill laid down for the lance the author declares to
be worthless. "No one would fight in this manner in war; how this is
to be done our men are not really taught." What a confession after all
these ages, from the Crusades onwards! And if the lance is really the
most important weapon, and if Sir John French really believes, as he
says he believes, in the infallibility of General von Bernhardi, why
has he not seen to it that all British Cavalry regiments are armed
with lances? It would seem to be mad folly to permit our Hussars to
go into battle destitute of their "most important weapon." But let us
look a little closer into the characteristics of this terrible weapon.
On page 175 we learn that "in the close turmoil of the fight it is
very difficult to handle with success, besides which it easily becomes
unserviceable on striking an object too heavily. Should it pierce a
body at the full speed of a horse's gallop, it will generally bend on
being drawn out (if, indeed, the rider in his haste extricates it at
all), and then becomes unserviceable." So there must be a sword also,
which is to be drawn, apparently, on the instant after the impalement
of the first hostile horseman. Our own authorities take a brighter
view. In their Manual the trooper is bidden to impale the foe through
and through with his lance, but he is to "withdraw it with ease from
the object into which it has been driven." On the other hand, the
object in question is to be represented in peace by a sack filled with
chopped hay or a clay dummy, neither of them objects of a texture quite
adequate to the purpose (see "Cavalry Training," pp. 309-310).
It is almost cruel to lift the veil from these domestic mysteries and
differences, and, indeed, I am almost afraid my readers will suspect me
of quoting, not from eulogies, but from skits on the _arme blanche_.
But the words are there for anyone who cares to look them up, and
I ask, is not it almost inconceivable that serious soldiers in the
year of grace 1911, when war is a really serious matter of scientific
weapons, should solemnly call a weapon with such characteristics the
most important weapon of the Cavalryman? Needless to say, the author
himself refutes his own proposition in a hundred passages of this
very work. But Sir John French ignores those passages, and in his
own Introduction pens a warm defence of the lance; though whether he
believes in the "pin-prick policy" which the German authority seems
to advocate, or in the plan of "striking the object heavily" at all
costs, he does not inform us. After all, it matters little. The
taxpayer need not quail at the expense of providing fresh lances to
every regiment after every charge. The rest of the world looks on with
languid interest while the Cavalry authorities carry on their solemn
controversies as to the relative merits of steel weapons used from
horseback. Even in the Franco-German War the killing effect of lances
and swords was negligible. Six Germans were killed by the sabre, and
perhaps as many by the lance. Of the total of 218 German casualties
from the sabre and clubbed musket, 138 were in the Cavalry, whose total
losses by fire and steel combined were 2,236. In the great civilized
wars since the invention of the smokeless magazine rifle the casualties
from lance and sword have reached vanishing-point.
But if lances and swords are harmless to the enemy, they are
emphatically harmful to those who carry them. They not only inspire the
wrong spirit, but they mean extra weight and additional visibility. Sir
John French (p. xvi) cheerfully defies physical laws. He scouts the
idea that "a thin bamboo pole will reveal the position of a mounted
man to the enemy." That is one of the fond illusions of peace. And
in peace even a short-sighted layman could prove the contrary by
ocular demonstration, and digest the moral, too, by watching Lancers
operating among the lanes and hedges of England. In war there are
field-glasses--and bullets.
It is the same with tactics as with weapons. The German author is for
the knee-to-knee riding of Frederick the Great, as opposed to the
looser stirrup-to-stirrup riding which has been introduced because
"the modern firearm obliges us to take refuge in broken country, where
the closest touch cannot always be kept." A pretty sound reason, we
should imagine, but the General will have none of it, and I think
this passage is the only one in the book where he disagrees with
the Regulations in the matter of a concession to the modern rifle.
Generally it is the other way, and, indeed, it is a most bizarre
paradox to hear him calling upon the shades of "Frederick the Great,
Seydlitz, and the prominent Napoleonic leaders," after saying at the
beginning of the book that the wars of these heroes "presented a total
absence of analogy" to modern Cavalry students. Reverting suddenly to
common sense, he goes on to denounce the rally from the mêlée, which
all Cavalry, including our own, assiduously practise in peace. The
motive for this wonderful manoeuvre is "that troops may quickly be got
in hand ready to be led against a fresh foe." "It is astounding," he
complains, "that we should give way to such self-deception." Rallies
are "delightfully easy in peace," but an "absolute impossibility in
war."
The troops who have charged are apparently to be useless for any
purpose whatever for an indefinite period, and strong supporting
squadrons immediately behind them must carry on the fight. But the
new Regulations do not allow for these supports. What do they enjoin?
We are not told here, and have to look in another part of the book
under "Depth and Echelon" (p. 221 _et seq._), when, calling once
more upon Frederick the Great and Napoleon, he attacks in unmeasured
terms, as the offspring of mere "peace requirements," the German
system of echelon formation, which leads to "tactical orgies" at
manoeuvres. Echelon apparently is designed to permit of easy changes of
front, but in war the opportunity for such changes "never--literally
never--occurs." And yet somehow we sympathize with the framers of the
Regulations. Read their inimitable disquisition on echelon, quoted as
a footnote on page 224. "In the collisions of Cavalry" there is going
to be "uncertainty as to the strength and intentions of the enemy."
But Cavalry acting against Cavalry (supposing, we wonder, they turn
out _not_ to be Cavalry?) never demean themselves by dismounting to
reconnoitre. They reconnoitre for one another in mass, and gain
the necessary "flexibility" by echelon--if need be, by a double
echelon. When they find the enemy, they can at the last moment, if
necessary, change front completely, and have at them. "If this did
occur," says the General, "it would presuppose the entire failure of
reconnaissance, and the corresponding incapacity of the leader." He
proceeds to a pitiless exposure of the puerilities and unrealities of
the system; but, to tell the truth, the exposure excites only a feeble
interest. Insensibly he trenches on the realms of fire, and immediately
stultifies his own appeals to Frederick the Great and Napoleon.
After pages of obscure lucubration about Cavalry combat, he suddenly
envisages (p. 230) what is, of course, the invariable case, when "total
uncertainty prevails as to whether the combat will be carried out
mounted or dismounted," and says that in such cases there can be no
"stereotyped tactical formations either of units or of smaller bodies
within them." "Cadit quæstio," we exclaim, with relief. Why appeal to
Frederick the Great?
In "Formations for Movement" (pp. 232-238) he continues his unconscious
_reductio ad absurdum_ of shock. "Movements in such close formation
right up to the moment of deployment" (and he describes those enjoined
by the Regulations) "cannot go unpunished upon a modern battle-field."
The Regulations "cannot be regarded as practical," and are "pretexts
for hidebound drill enthusiasts." It is all very well, but these
hidebound gentlemen are perfectly right in their own way. They are
following his own models, Frederick the Great and Napoleon, in whose
days such movements were perfectly possible. They _believe_ in shock
and minimize fire, and their Regulations, if unpractical, are at least
logical.
II.--THE CHARGE UPON INFANTRY.
So much for the "purely Cavalry fight." We come on page 128 to the
mounted charge upon dismounted riflemen, whom, in the manner usual
with Cavalry writers, he assumes to be Infantry, though it is obvious,
of course, that they may be unconventional Cavalry, who, from a sense
of fun or a sane instinct for fighting, have determined to play a
practical joke on devotees of the pure faith. Here both he and the
Regulations are up to a certain point in harmony with one another. As
a concession to modern conditions, the charge is to be in _extended
order_. Here the General has changed his views since writing "Cavalry
in Future Wars." There the principles of Frederick the Great were
supreme in all charges, with just a faint concession towards a
"loosening of the files" in a charge against Infantry. Now "wide
intervals" are to be employed. Sir John French ignores the change of
view on an absolutely vital point of tactics, but allows us to infer
that he, one of the very men who saw the imperative necessity for the
new view, favours the old view; for he described von Bernhardi's first
book as absolutely complete and faultless. To return, however, to the
German author. It is amazing that, having reached this point, he should
not trouble to investigate the phenomena of modern war with a view
to finding out what actually happens in an extended change of this
sort. He writes in the clouds, just as though there were not a mass of
experience bearing on the point.
The experience, which a child can understand, amounts to this: If you
extend, and, _a fortiori_, if your enemy is extended also, you lose all
hope of "shock," that is, of physical impact; and with the loss of this
impact you lose the fundamental condition precedent to the successful
use of steel weapons on horseback--the condition which Frederick the
Great's leaders had, but which ours have not. You also lose momentum,
speed, because the modern rifle, by immensely widening the bullet-swept
zone, necessitates a far longer gallop for the charging force. The
German Regulations realize this, for they enjoin a slower pace,
expressly on the ground that "impact" is not to be aimed at. Very
well: no shock; comparatively low speed. What is going to happen? Your
steel charge is useless. Individual troopers, bound by their code of
honour to remain in the saddle, and pitted against individual riflemen
on foot, are helpless, an object of derision to gods and men. Our own
Infantry Manual openly treats them as helpless and negligible, and in
a few curt lines gives directions, proved in war to be sound, for the
event of such a charge, should it take place.
But, in fact, it does not take place. Our Cavalry in South Africa had
literally thousands of chances of making such charges, supposing that
they were feasible. But they were not; instinctively the leaders felt
that they were not, and ceased to think of making them. At the time
when, if ever, any given leader should have made up his mind to charge,
he was, unfortunately, as a general rule, in that condition of painful
"uncertainty as to the strength and intentions of the enemy," to which
the German Regulations allude. He could not, in the German fashion,
ride about in mass to reconnoitre, because the Boers, perversely
refusing to believe in the tactics of Frederick the Great, did not
co-operate in the game. He had, therefore, the choice between idleness
and fire-action. He chose fire-action, and once engaged in fire-action,
he found that he had to stick to it. It was physically impossible to
"combine" fire-action and steel-action, even if there had been an
opening for steel-action, which there was not. That is the whole story,
and Sir John French, if he chose, could tell General von Bernhardi all
about it.
I believe Sir John French himself never saw a Boer or British mounted
riflemen's charge, but he ought to know the evidence on the point;
it is extensive and precise.[3] It goes to show that it is sometimes
possible, even against the modern rifle, to charge in widely extended
order, even at a canter, and even into close quarters, on horseback;
but it can be done only by fighting up to the charge in the normal
way of fire-action, and by casting to the winds the ancient notion
that it is beneath a trooper to dismount. Sooner or later he has _got_
to dismount, so as to use effective aimed fire against the riflemen
opposed to him. They will not mind his sword, whose range is a couple
of yards, while their weapon is of any range you please, and squirts
bullets like a hose.
Frederick the Great's Infantry firearm was another matter. Even in
1861-1865, as von Bernhardi would discover if he cared to look close
enough into his own chosen war, steel-charges by Cavalry against
Infantry eventually became extinct. The Confederate Infantry used to
jeer at the futile efforts of the Federal Cavalry.
Needless to say, the German Regulations only touch the fringe of what
is practicable. It is only the leading line, they lay down, and not
necessarily the whole even of that, which is to adopt wide intervals.
Von Bernhardi easily shows the folly of these half-measures, and of the
"arbitrary assumption that a line of Cavalry 1,500 or 2,000 yards wide
can cross a mile of country stirrup to stirrup at the regulation pace
of the charge" (p. 128).
III.--THE DISMOUNTED ATTACK BY CAVALRY.
We pass to the dismounted attack by Cavalry, and the reader will
realize now, if he has not before, that it is due to unfamiliarity
with the technique and true possibilities of fire-action that the
General clings to the discredited tactics of Frederick the Great in
defiance of his professed enthusiasm for the rifle. For the dismounted
attack by Cavalry, "the principles," he says, "are the same as for an
attack by Infantry" (p. 133). But the led horses render the business
"considerably more difficult." "There is also a certain difference
according as the opponent is Cavalry or Infantry"; for in the former
case he may charge your led horses. It is here and in the pages which
follow that the reader can get the clearest insight into the mental
attitude of Cavalrymen towards that arbiter of modern war, the rifle.
All turns on the magical word "Cavalry," which derives its significance
from the _arme blanche_. Those weapons give Cavalry their "proper
rôle." If under stress of fire they "abandon" this rôle, they become
Infantry; but they are worse off than Infantry, because they are
embarrassed by their led horses, which present difficulties from which
Infantry are free. The horse becomes a danger and an encumbrance,
just as Sir John French tacitly assumes it to become, when he says
that mounted riflemen always flee defenceless before good Cavalry,
while Infantry show "tenacity and stiffness." No wonder, then, that
Cavalrymen grow indignant at the criticism of their steel weapons. It
is bad enough to be converted into a hybrid between good Cavalry and
bad Infantry, but it is worse still to undergo a metamorphosis into a
pure type of bad Infantry, that is, into mounted riflemen.
If we once grasp this point of view, we bring light into this tangled
controversy, and we can bring into sharp contrast the rational point
of view, as the facts of war demonstrate it. We perceive instantly
the falsity of the antithesis between the weapon and the horse. The
mounted rifleman is a foot rifleman plus a horse, and the horse is not
an embarrassing encumbrance, but a source of enhanced power. It is
the intrusion of the steel weapons, not the intrusion of the horses,
which introduces "difficulties." Witness von Bernhardi's own scathing
exposure of the German Regulations for combat with the steel.
Space forbids me to follow him far into his remarks upon his bugbear,
the led horses. There are probably about 150,000 persons now living
who, by war experience, know more than he does about this purely
technical question; yet he spins feverish dreams about it out of his
own brain, without a glance at the rich and varied material provided
by three years of war in South Africa; without a glance at Manchuria,
where the Japanese Cavalry converted themselves into excellent
mounted riflemen; without a glance even at the American methods of
1861-1865, where the problems that worry him were successfully solved.
As usual, he has no difficulty in exposing the absurdities of the
Regulations, but his own comments and suggestions are sometimes even
less admissible. Behind the incubus of the horse we perceive that
additional incubus, the lance. He pictures the unhappy horse-holders
wrestling ("a practical impossibility") with armfuls of lances, as the
Regulations bid them (p. 137), and concludes that if you are to make
these men guardians, not only of the horses, but of these precious
but exacting impedimenta, it will not do to detail only one man out
of four to act as horseholder. On the other hand, if you detach more,
you weaken the firing line so much that the whole business becomes
scarcely worth while. And yet, if you don't weaken the firing line,
how are you to guard the led horses against attack from some other
quarter? They, it appears, must have a complete firing line of their
own. But, disregarding this necessity, the Regulations contemplate
reinforcing the main firing-line from the horse-holders (p. 139), so
making the armfuls of lances still bigger. And then what is to happen
if, in a "real fight," the brigade wants to advance and the Brigadier
is told it can't, because some of the horse-holders are fighting,
and the lance-encumbered remnant cannot move? And so on. He seems,
so far as I understand him, eventually to throw up in despair the
problem of keeping the led horses "mobile," and to fall back on the
plan of "immobility," a plan which he himself in several passages
admits can be used only when there is no likelihood whatever of any
sudden call upon the led horses either for advance or retreat. If the
Regulations, as he says, are "not suitable for real war," neither is
his counsel of despair. The chapter is quite enough to cure the most
liberal-minded Cavalryman of his last lingering inclination towards
fire-action, even though he is told that fire-action _must_ be used
in all but "exceptional cases." "Abandon my proper rôle for this?" he
might answer. "No. My proper rôle is good enough for me, as it was good
enough for Frederick the Great."
There is worse to come; but let me comment here upon the astounding
fact that Sir John French should regard chapters like this as sound
instruction for war. Our Cavalry profess, at any rate, to have now
solved the lance-problem during fire-action by their latest method of
carrying the lance. But that is a minor point. It is the ignorance of,
and pessimism towards, fire-action, as disclosed in this and subsequent
chapters, which ought chiefly to strike English readers. And all Sir
John French has to say is that "we expose our ignorance and conceit" in
accepting the teaching of our own war experience, and that our duty is
to assimilate the best foreign customs.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: See "War and the _Arme Blanche_," Chapter XI.]