RECONNAISSANCE
I.--WEAPONS.
I COME lastly to the author's chapters on "Reconnaissance, Screening,
and Raids." As I explained before, it is the critic's simplest course
to leave them to the last, because, although they come first, they
almost ignore the subject of weapons and combats, on the assumption,
apparently, that the opposing Cavalries, at any rate in the first two
of the functions in question, will, as a matter of course, fight with
the lance and sword in the pure and proper fashion. But we have now
considered and tested the worth of the author's views on combat and
weapons, and can apply our criticisms to these chapters.
Combat and weapons are not wholly overlooked. At the very outset comes
the maxim which I quoted further back, to the effect that "the essence
of Cavalry lies in the offensive," and that for defence they are to
"abandon their proper rôle and seize the rifle on foot." The reader
can appreciate now the value of this maxim, when we are dealing, as
the author in these chapters is dealing, with two opposing Cavalries
who are assumed to be acting against one another independently of
other Arms. To tell both these Cavalries that their essence lies in
the offensive is, to say the least, a superfluous platitude. To say
that it is only in defence that they are to "seize the rifle" is to
say something wholly meaningless. Unless by seizing it they can force
their antagonists also to relinquish shock as useless and to seize the
rifle, they might as well not seize it at all. If they can force their
antagonists to seize it--and the whole mass of modern experience shows
that they can and do--then their antagonists, whether we call their
rôle proper or improper, are acting in _offence_ with the firearm, and
the maxim is stultified--as, indeed, any maxim which applies medieval
language to modern problems must be stultified. Experience shows that
if you arm men with long-range, smokeless, accurate missile weapons,
whatever their traditions of etiquette and sportsmanship in peace,
they will in war use those weapons to the exclusion of lances, swords,
battle-axes, scimitars, and the various other weapons which were highly
formidable before the days of gunpowder, but which have steadily
declined since the invention and the progressive improvement of arms of
precision.
Besides this general maxim upon the functions of the rifle and the
steel, there are a few incidental allusions which must be noticed.
The reader will remember the rule as to the powerlessness of the
squadron as a unit for fire-action. The rule is anticipated here in
directions for reconnoitring squadrons (p. 44), which, even by night,
are only to fight with the _arme blanche_, "because dismounted action
is generally dangerous, and, on account of the weakness of the force,
usually leads to failure"; and we wonder again how _both_ of two
opposing reconnoitring squadrons can "fail," and how such a situation
is actually to be dealt with on such principles in "real war"--say in
the hedge-bound country which covers two-thirds of England. We are also
told (p. 57) that patrols, "on collision with the enemy's patrols," are
to take action "in as offensive a spirit as possible, but after due
reflection." "Should a charge promise any kind of success, the opponent
must be attacked in the most determined way." Nothing is said about
fire, but we are left with the impression that a fire-attack can be
neither "offensive" nor "determined," and for the rest we have to be
content with guidance like the following: "It does not promise success
to attack the front of an advancing squadron under the apprehension
that it is a single patrol."
One day's personal experience of modern war would teach the author
the perilous futility of all these "speculative" conjectures. Has he
forgotten altogether the power and purpose of the modern rifle--the
rapidity, accuracy, and secrecy of its fire--when he speaks of patrols
indulging in due reflection about their determined offensive charges?
It is to be feared that at the hands of any but utterly incompetent
troops his own contemplative patrols would receive short shrift. And
the lesson of South Africa? It is hard to see why, in the matter of
patrols at any rate, those three years of war should be regarded as
abnormal. Yet it is the fact, as I must repeat, that no Cavalry patrol
or scout from the beginning to the end of the war ever used the lance
or sword; that in reconnaissance no Boer ever came near being hurt by
those weapons; and, furthermore, that the Cavalry were consistently
and thoroughly outmatched in reconnaissance, which was governed
universally by the rifle. It was exactly the same in Manchuria. Instead
of reminding his German _confrère_ of these facts, Sir John French
complains that the difficulty of the Cavalry in South Africa was that
they had nothing to reconnoitre, while he implicitly approves and
applauds the conception of the reflective charging patrol.
To clinch the matter, we need only remind ourselves that our own
divisional mounted troops, whose sole weapon is the rifle, are
entrusted not only with reconnaissance for their own division, but, in
certain events, with exactly the same duties as the Independent and
protective Cavalry. In these duties they will be pitted (in the event
of a Continental war) against steel-armed Cavalry. If steel weapons
were of any use, this would be criminal.
Such are the scanty clues as to combat which we obtain from the
chapters on reconnaissance. It remains to ask, What is von Bernhardi's
view upon the great question of the employment of the Army or
Independent Cavalry (as distinguished from the divisional Cavalry) in
the most important of all its functions in modern war--reconnaissance?
I defy anyone to answer that question. So far as it is possible to
construct any positive view from a series of obscure and contradictory
propositions, it appears to be a view which is in direct conflict with
that of Sir John French and of the Cavalry Manual which presumably he
approves, while approving equally of General von Bernhardi. Anyone
familiar with Cavalry literature will know of the old controversy
between the theories of concentration and dispersion. Is the Army
Cavalry at the opening of a campaign to concentrate and "drive from the
field" the enemy's Army Cavalry, or is it from the outset to begin its
work of exploring the various lines of approach of the various hostile
columns over the whole front--an enormously extensive front--upon which
great modern armies must develop their advance?
II.--THE PRELIMINARY SHOCK-DUEL.
In view of the great size and vast manoeuvring areas of modern armies
and of the small numbers and transcendently important reconnaissance
duties of Cavalry, that question would, I think, be decided in favour
of dispersion, were it not for the fatal influence of the _arme
blanche_. But Cavalrymen must have the gigantic shock-duel which I
described and criticized in Chapter IV., 2. The idea of dispersion for
sporadic bickering and scouting before this imposing tournament has
been arranged is unthinkable to them. Our Manual therefore (pp. 193,
194) sets forth in all its naked crudity the idea of the preliminary
shock-duel between the _concentrated_ masses of the two Independent (or
strategical) Cavalries--a duel that cannot, it is expressly laid down,
be conducted by fire-action, which is negative and inconclusive, but
which, conducted with the steel, is assumed to result in the complete
and final "overthrow" of one party or the other. One side, in the words
of the Manual, is "disposed of," and the surviving party proceeds to
disperse and reconnoitre undisturbed in the vast area of war.[5]
Needless to say, the theory is purely academic. Such things have never
happened in any war, ancient or modern, and assuredly never will
happen. One Cavalry or the other may be depended upon in the future
to act at the last moment with common sense. If it does not at once
set about its work of reconnaissance, it will, at any rate, shiver to
pieces with fire the massed shock-formations of its opponent.
General von Bernhardi seems to be conscious of the weakness of the
theory, though he cannot bring himself to shatter it outright. There
are, of course, two distinct questions involved: (1) Should the
Independent Cavalries concentrate at the outset? (2) If so, should the
resulting collision be a shock-collision? Number 1 is at any rate open
to debate. Number 2 is not, but it always confuses the discussion of
Number 1. The General could dispose of Number 2 merely by references
to other parts of his own work--to the passages, for example, where
he says that not only in the great battles of all Arms, but in the
contests of Independent Cavalries, shock-charges are only to be
"rare" and "exceptional" events. For "squadrons, regiments, and even
brigades, _unassisted by other arms_, the charge may often suffice
for a decision. But where it is an affair of larger masses, it will
never be possible to dispense with the co-operation of firearms" (p.
103). And there is the passage about modern European topography where
he shows the physical difficulty of bringing about these combats. On
the broader question (No. 1) he speaks with two voices. In direct
contradiction of Sir John French's introductory remarks and of our own
Manual, he says (p. 20) that the strategical Cavalry is not necessarily
"to seek a tactical battle"; that it is "by no means its duty under all
circumstances to seek out the enemy's Cavalry in order to defeat it,"
because "by such conduct it would allow the enemy's Cavalry to dictate
its movements." "On the contrary, it must subordinate all else to the
particular objects of reconnaissance," etc.
It is clearly in his mind that, since the various corps or columns
which are the objects of reconnaissance may be "advancing to battle" on
a total front of 50 to 100 miles (this is his own estimate, p. 81), it
will be advisable to explore their zones of approach at once. But there
are other passages which support the opposite principle: for example,
on page 15: "The circumstances of modern war demand that great masses
of mounted men shall be used as Army Cavalry and concentrated in the
decisive direction.... The front of the army, therefore, can never be
covered throughout its entire length by the Army Cavalry," etc. On
page 87 also he is quite decisive in the same sense: "The universal
principle most always good for Cavalry, that when a decisive struggle
is in prospect all possible strength must be concentrated for it"--an
unexceptional truism, applicable as it stands to all struggles, great
or small, by land or sea, but in its context only too suggestive of
the gigantic shock-duel.[6] But on the whole he stands committed to
nothing more definite than the following: "It remains for the leader to
make his preparations in full freedom, and to solve the task confided
to him in his own way." Profoundly true, but not very helpful in an
instructional treatise on war.
III.--DIVISIONAL RECONNAISSANCE.
The chapter on "Divisional Reconnaissance" is still less intelligible.
It would be interesting to know how Sir John French would sum up its
"logical" and "convincing" doctrines. The divisional Cavalry are in
all cases to "cleave to the Infantry" (p. 75) of their respective
divisions, yet they are to take the place of the Army Cavalry "when
a concentration of that force in a decisive direction takes place"
(another hint of the gigantic preliminary shock-duel), and are even
to indulge in "strategical exploration" (pp. 72-75). In fact, these
amazing super-Cavalry are to perform physical feats in reconnaissance
analogous to the feats designed for them in the pre-arranged battle of
all arms (_vide_ p. 149). Yet they cannot "fight independently" even
with the hostile divisional Cavalry, nor clear the way for their own
patrols, nor find their own outposts (pp. 75-76).
And then we come to a passage which, quite parenthetically and as it
were by accident, throws a searching light upon the many dark places of
this volume. The divisional Cavalry, _inter alia_, is to perform the
"close reconnaissance along by far the greater part of the front of
the army." But the close reconnaissance, owing to the range of modern
firearms, is "considerably more difficult." "It thus becomes possible
for the Cavalryman in general to get no closer to the enemy than his
rifle will carry" (p. 80). "_His_ rifle," be it noted. And the hostile
Cavalryman (surely an "enemy") is presumably in the same case. What,
then, of the charging patrols and squadrons?
I suppose I should add that only two pages later (p. 82) the author, in
a fit of remorse, rehabilitates the charging patrol. "Rude force can
alone prevail, and recourse must be had to the sword." Rude force! The
tragi-comic irony of it!
IV.--SCREENS.
As to the chapter on Screens, we can only respectfully appeal to
Sir John French to explain it. The ordinary reader can only give up
the problem of elucidation in despair. What is the connection with
his previous chapters on reconnaissance? Is the "screen" something
different from or supplementary to the normal reconnoitring,
patrolling, and protective duties of the Army and divisional
Cavalry, as described under the headings, "Main Body of the Army
Cavalry," "Reconnoitring Squadrons," "Distant Patrols," "Divisional
Reconnaissance," etc.? One would infer from the opening paragraph that
it is something wholly different. "The idea of the screen," runs the
opening sentence, "is first touched on in the 'Field Service Manual'
of 1908; it is also, however, demanded by the conditions of modern
war"; and from what follows we gather that the screen means an inner
and purely _protective_ cordon of Cavalry, as distinguished from a
distant offensive reconnoitring cordon. The same distinction is drawn
in page 13 of the first chapter of the book. This is the kind of
distinction drawn by our own Manual, which, though it does not speak of
a "screen," divides the Cavalry into three bodies--one "Independent"
or "strategical," the second "protective," while the third is the
divisional Cavalry. Logically, of course, the distinction has but a
limited value, unless, indeed, one regards the protective force as
merely a chain of stationary outposts or sentries. All reconnaissance
must obviously be defensive as well as offensive, because it represents
a conflict between two opposing parties. If the protective Cavalry are
pressed, it is their duty, as the Manual does, in fact, lay down, not
only to resist the scouts and patrols of the hostile force, but to find
out the strength and disposition of that force, and even in certain
cases, explicitly provided for, to take the place of the Independent
Cavalry; just as it is the duty of the Independent Cavalry, not only
to pierce the hostile Independent Cavalry and inform themselves of the
strength and disposition of the hostile Army, but to resist similar
action on the part of their opponents. These principles would be taken
for granted, with a vast improvement in the simplicity of regulations,
if it were not for the influence of the _arme blanche_, impelling
Cavalry writers to call their Arm a peculiarly _offensive_ Arm, and
inspiring the grotesque idea of the great preliminary shock-duel
for the opposing Independent Cavalries, who are both presumed to be
perpetually in offence as regards one another.
Still, within reasonable and well-understood limits, the metaphorical
term "screen," as denoting the protective aspect of a widespread
observing force, is both useful and illuminating. To regard it,
as General von Bernhardi does, as a brand-new idea, the result of
"reflection and experience" on the needs of modern war, is to convict
himself of ignorance of war. Screens of a sort there always have
been and always must be: the only new factor is the vastly increased
efficacy of modern firearms; and if he could bring himself to
concentrate on that new factor, of whose importance he shows himself in
other passages to be perfectly aware, he would be able to convert into
an intelligible, practical scheme his strange medley of inconsequent
generalizations. He is, of course, handicapped by the official
Regulations, which, unlike our own, do not formally provide for a
"protective Cavalry" as distinguished from the divisional Cavalry,
and which seem to be more than usually obscure and confused in their
theories about "offensive" and "defensive" screens, and in their hazy
suggestions as to what troops are to perform the respective functions;
but he cannot or will not see the fundamental fallacy which, like Puck
in the play, is tricking and distracting the minds of those who framed
the Regulations, and so he himself makes confusion worse confounded.
The protective aspect of the screen is no sooner insisted on than it is
forgotten, and we have a disquisition on the offensive screen, which
appears to be only another name for the normal activities of the Army
Cavalry, behind the "veil" formed by whom a second screen is to be
established by the divisional Cavalry (p. 87).
This, however, is disconcerting, because in the previous chapter (p.
74) we have been told with emphasis that the Army Cavalry "in the most
usual case" will not be able to reconnoitre the whole Army front,
but will be "concentrated in a decisive direction," and that the
divisional Cavalry in such cases, in spite of their unfitness for the
task, will have to do the "distant reconnaissance" and "strategical
exploration" at all points not directly covered by the main Cavalry
mass. And, sure enough, the "veil" just alluded to now disappears
in its character as veil, and reappears as a "concentrated" mass.
"The principal task of the offensive screen is to defeat the hostile
Cavalry, and for this object all available force must be concentrated,
for one cannot be strong upon the field of battle" (p. 87). It is
amazing that serious exponents of any _métier_ should write in this
fashion. A concentrated screen is a contradiction in terms.
Once committed, however, the General persists. All cyclist detachments
and patrols are "to be brought up to the fight" from everywhere. Roads
are not to be blocked (in accordance with the screen idea) until the
supreme Cavalry struggle, with its conventional "complete overthrow" of
the hostile Cavalry, is over; and all this in flat contradiction of at
least two-thirds of the earlier chapter on the Army Cavalry, where it
was laid down that reconnoitring squadrons were from the first to be
pushed forward from the "various groups of Army Cavalry," and were to
be allotted reconnaissance zones; that a separation of Cavalry force
was far the most probable line of action; and that reconnaissance was
"an every-day task of the Cavalry," its "daily bread," a "duty which
should never cease to be performed" for a single moment.
And yet on page 89 we come to the staggering, if cryptic, conclusion
that "the Army Cavalry will only undertake an offensive screen when
the Army is advancing and where the country does not afford suitable
localities for the establishment of a defensive screen."
The writer then enlarges on the merits of the defensive screen, and,
now that his mind is occupied with the idea of defence, makes it
perfectly clear that the rifle is absolute master of the situation for
the patrols, troops, squadrons, or any other units of both belligerent
parties. Your defensive screen acts by fire, and obviously, therefore,
whoever tries to pierce your screen must act by fire. These pages
reduce to nullity all the romantic hints elsewhere about the charging
patrol or squadron, with its "rude force" and its "determined" and
"remorseless" attacks.
And what of illustrations and examples from modern war? Not
one. Nothing but "speculative and theoretical reflection." For
anyone who cares to study them, the facts are there--plain, hard,
incontrovertible, convincing facts. Sir John French knows all about
the South African facts. Screens, on a small or great scale, were
matters of daily experience. He himself, with a force of all arms,
sustained a screen for two months--primarily protective, but tactically
offensive, as all screens must be--in the Colesberg operations of
November-January, 1899-1900. He knows perfectly well that lances and
swords, for all the use made of them, might as well have been in store,
and that the Cavalry engaged acted on precisely the same principles as
the Colonial mounted riflemen engaged.
During most of the operations from Bloemfontein to Pretoria, and from
Pretoria to Komati Poort, our great force of all arms was pitted
against what (if we consider relative numbers) was little more than a
mounted screen, and every day's operations exemplified the fighting
principles involved. The rifle was the great ruling factor. If the
rifleman had a horse, so much the better--he was a more mobile
rifleman; but lances and swords were useless dead-weight. Precisely
the same phenomena reappear in Manchuria. On the Japanese side much
excellent screening work was done by Infantry, against whom the Cossack
scouts and reconnoitring squadrons, trained solely to shock, were
impotent. Infantry move slowly, but their rifle is a good rifle, and
it is not the horse which fires it, but the man. No infantry patrol
of any Army--certainly, at any rate, of our own Army--is afraid
of the lances or swords of a Cavalry patrol. It is only--strange
paradox!--Cavalry patrols who are taught to fear the lances and swords
of other Cavalry patrols.
I am reminded here of some remarks made in a letter to the _Times_ of
March 26, 1910, by the military correspondent of that journal, whom I
had respectfully reproached with having abandoned his old hostility to
shock. Cavalry patrols, unless they are to be "trussed chickens," must,
he now said, have lances and swords in order, _inter alia_, to be able,
when meeting other Cavalry patrols "in villages and lanes, or at the
corner of some wood," to "tear the eyes out of" them! These "OEdipean
evulsions" form a picturesque improvement even on von Bernhardi's "rude
force," and strike a decidedly happier note than the patrol "charging
after due reflection." But why, I asked, could not the act be performed
on even one single occasion in three years of war in South Africa? Why
not in one single recorded case in a year's war in Manchuria? Well, one
must admit that the "corner of the wood" was an ingenious touch. It
suggested a close, blind, wooded district of England, so prohibitive
of shock in large bodies and for that reason so unlike South Africa
and Manchuria. Yet there were many similar obstacles in both those
regions: there were hundreds of villages; there were hills, mountains,
ravines, dongas, sharp rocky ridges, river-beds, clumps of bush and
trees, farm buildings; there were the great tracts of bush-veldt in
the Transvaal, the tall millet of Northern Manchuria, and so on--quite
enough, certainly, to lead to the tearing out of the eyes of at least
one careless scout or patrol. Colonel Repington knows these facts as
well as I do, and once more, in view of his great--and deservedly
great--influence on contemporary thought, I beg him to return to his
earlier manner, and speak once more in his old slashing style about
the futility of "classic charges and prehistoric methods." After all,
this is the very language used by von Bernhardi, whom, in the letter I
have been alluding to, Colonel Repington described as a "very eminent
authority."
I have the letter before me, and it is with a somewhat grim
satisfaction that I observe the Nemesis which overtakes publicists who
are rash enough to recant opinions founded on national experience and
confirmed by the most recent facts of war. It was written just before
von Bernhardi's book was published, and a large part of it took the
form of an eulogy on the German Cavalry, whom he defended hotly from
my charge of "sentimental conservatism," whose new regulations about
fire-action he quoted with admiring approval, and whose revivification
he distinctly associated with the name of that "very eminent authority"
General von Bernhardi. The very eminent authority spoke a few weeks
later, and said that his "writings had fallen on barren soil." His
language about the sentimental conservatism of the present German
Cavalry beggared any I had used. He made his own Colonel Repington's
epithet "prehistoric"; his phrase "old-fashioned knightly combats"
is surely an adequate counterpart to "classic charges"; in many a
passage of biting invective he deplores as literal truth at the present
moment what Colonel Repington scouted as a libellous myth invented
by me--namely, that in peace manoeuvres "solid lines of steel-clad
Cavalry are led across open plains"; and, as I have shown, he regards
as utterly unprepared for war a Cavalry which Colonel Repington holds
up as an example to his British readers of "the best modern Cavalries,"
and which, if we do not imitate their methods, would, he thinks, in
the event of a war, tear the eyes out of ours. As to fire-action,
perhaps Colonel Repington had not studied the German Regulations with
a very critical eye before he praised them to the point of asking,
"Could Botha or Delarey or De Wet ask for more?" In the light of von
Bernhardi's strictures and of his still stranger alternatives, the
topic, I am sure, will need different handling if Colonel Repington
returns to it.
Finally, I repeat once more that, for Englishmen, one of the
best practical criteria of the steel theory, in regard both to
reconnaissance and battle functions, lies in the existence of our
Mounted Infantry force. Their revised Manual (1909), reticent and
incomplete as it is sometimes in the interests of the sacred shock
theory, is, in effect, a crushing indictment of that theory. They
are trained to do precisely the same work as the Cavalry. They are
not only to act as purely divisional mounted troops, but, like the
German divisional Cavalry, are intended to co-operate with and, in
circumstances which must constantly happen, act as substitutes for
the Independent Cavalry. This is criminal folly if, from the lack of
a sword or lance, they are "trussed chickens," whose morale, in the
words of Colonel Repington, will be "destroyed" by steel-armed Cavalry.
Thank Heaven, they listen with indifference to this language--language
which would indeed be calculated to destroy the morale of any force
with less self-respect and less splendid war traditions behind it. They
know in their hearts that their methods are in reality not despised but
feared by Continental Cavalry, for the reasons frankly and honestly set
forth by General von Bernhardi. Their leaders now are the sole official
repositories of what is really our great national tradition for mounted
troops in civilized war; for the steel tradition is a legend dating
from Balaclava, a battle which is scarcely more relevant to modern
needs than Crécy--and Crécy, by the way, was one of the greatest of all
the historic triumphs of missile weapons over shock. It was not the
lack of swords and lances, but the possession of swords and lances,
which tended to turn men into "trussed chickens" in South Africa and
Manchuria. It was the rifle in both cases which made Cavalry mobile
and formidable. It is melancholy to think that our true principles and
sound traditions of mounted warfare are embodied in so small a force,
organized on such an illogical system, provided with a training of
altogether inadequate length, and hampered by nominal subservience to
a steel-armed Cavalry whose theories of action have been proved in two
long and bloody wars to be obsolete.
It is perhaps even more melancholy to see so many Yeomanry officers
agitating for an opportunity to ape the worst features of the Cavalry,
while neglecting the best features of the very force whose exact
tactical counterpart they are; dreaming sentimental nonsense about
Bredow's charge at Vionville, while under their eyes lie the pitiless
records of idleness and failure on the part of those whose aim it was
to imitate Bredow, and the still sadder story of the penalties paid in
South Africa for inexperience in the rifle by the Yeomanry themselves.
I sometimes wonder if Houndsditch will open the eyes of the public to
the unrealities of Cavalry manoeuvre. How many Cavalry, _condemned to
remain in their saddles_, would it take to disable or capture a patrol
of determined men using automatic pistols (to say nothing of magazine
rifles) either in a "village or lane or at the corner of some wood," or
on the rolling downs of Salisbury or Lambourne?
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: See "Cavalry Training," p. 194. "It will thus gain freedom
to carry out its ultimate rôle of reconnaissance." See also p. 196,
where the principle is repeated with emphasis, an exception being made
in favour of the case where the enemy's Cavalry is outside the zone of
operations!]
[Footnote 6: Yet on page 190 he contrasts action _en masse_ in the
battle of all Arms with previous action "in detail."]