French cavalry

“ The French cavalry we thought badly horsed; but their uniforms, though showy, were, like those of the infantry, comfortably large and roomy.
I have frequently remarked that firearms are of little use to the mounted soldier, and often an incumbrance to man and horse. Cavalry want only one arm—the sabre. Let the men be well mounted and at home in the saddle. It requires great knowledge in a Commander-in-chief to know when and how to use his cavalry. ”

“ Behind them rode the cavalry, the flower of the French nobility, with their gilded helmets and neck bands, their velvet and silk surcoats, their swords each of which had its own name, their shields each telling of territorial estates, and their colours each telling of a lady-love. Besides defensive arms, each man bore a lance in his hand, like an Italian gendarme, with a solid grooved end, and on his saddle bow a quantity of weapons, some for cutting and same for thrusting. ”

“ He asked me what I thought of what I had seen in the morning and told me that the German cavalry was the most perfect in the world; but he added: "It is not only the Cavalry; the Artillery, the Infantry, all the arms of the Service are equally efficient. The sword of Germany is sharp; and if you oppose Germany you will find how sharp it is." ”

“ The French cavalry are almost universally fine men, much superior to the infantry in appearance. The horses of the chasseurs à cheval, and hussars, are small, but active and hardy; and even those of the cuirassiers have not the weight or beauty of the English heavy dragoons, though we have understood that they bear the fatigues and privations, incident to long campaigns, much better. ”

“ The horses of French cavalry, as a whole, are not so well cared for as those of the English cavalry regiment; methods used in connection with the care of horses are not so complete and perfect, and the stock itself is not such well-bred stuff, as a whole, as the horseflesh that goes to the British Army from Irish and other breeding establishments. ”

“ In many cavalry training-grounds can now be seen an acre of ground in which are a score or more of self-adjusting dummies of varying heights, and representing horse and foot; there is no better practice than to send half-a-dozen horsemen into this tilting ground at a sharp gallop, and let them practise for the mêlée for a minute or so.
The French cavalry lay great stress on these pointing exercises; they do not expect to turn out many real swordsmen in a squadron, but they want every man to be able to ride his horse at an enemy, and run him through. ”

“ Many pretend that good infantry in square can resist the onset of cavalry, however skilful, bold and determined: my opinion is the reverse; much depends on circumstances.
The menacing approach of the French cavalry, who rode amongst and round our squares, was not quietly witnessed by our own horsemen: we made many spirited charges between the allied squares, as well as on every side of them. All the British, German, and Tripp’s Dutch-Belgian cavalry, that were between the two high-roads, were more or less engaged during these attacks. ”

“ The French confidence in the charge makes good fighting cavalry, and the Frenchman is better fitted than any other for this role. Our cavalry charge better than any other. That is the whole thing, on the battle field it is understood. As they move faster than infantry, their dash, which has its limits, is better preserved when they get up to the enemy.
The English have always fled before our cavalry. This proves that, strong enough to hold before the moral impulse of our infantry, they were not strong enough to hold before the stronger impulse of cavalry. ”

“ My personal observations have led me to believe that aside from their uses in reconnoissance, the principal value of cavalry is as mounted infantry held in reserve. When fighting, cavalry must dismount. Early in the war there were occasions when cavalry fought while mounted, [Pg 337] and whether against artillery, infantry, or other cavalry, the chief result was the killing of nearly all the horses.
In the Austrian, Hungarian, and French armies many cavalry regiments have been converted into infantry. ”

“ Regardless alike of a charge of cavalry and of the murderous fire which the enemy’s batteries opened, on went these fearless warriors, horse and foot, without check or pause, until they won the ridge, and then the infantry giving their volley, and the cavalry falling on, sword in hand, the French were pierced, broken, and discomfited. ”

“ Cavalry has never forgotten its aristocratic and romantic ancestry, and is inclined to look down somewhat on the Infantry without whom battles cannot be fought, and still less won. Cavalry is to this day the premier Arm in the British and in many other Armies. In Germany the logical insight of the Hohenzollerns has long since made Infantry the senior Arm of the Service.
The word Cavalry—French Cavallerie, Italian Cavaleria—is, like Chivalry, derived from the Late193 Latin word caballus, in common use for horse when equus had become highflown. ”

“ The Frenchman has more qualities of the cavalryman than of the infantryman. Yet French infantry appears to be of greater value. Why? Because the use of cavalry on the battlefield requires rare decision and the seizing of the crucial opportunity. ”

“ Chasseurs Britanniques, 58; 7th Portuguese, 8 men; 19th, 2 men—of these 92 only 19 were prisoners, so that it is clear that the French cavalry never got in among them, or cut them up in the style described by Pelet, Fournier, Fririon, or Masséna himself. When a body of 4,000 infantry attacked by cavalry has only 90 casualties, we know that no part of it can have been ridden over or seriously broken. ”

“ While the British and French horsemen were warmly engaged, the twenty-seventh and fortieth regiments, supported by a Portuguese brigade, came rushing down the hill and broke the French infantry with an impetuous bayonet charge; the Fourteenth and German hussars had, in the meantime, driven back the French cavalry, and the two regiments charged the broken infantry, and sabred some, and made others prisoners. The regiment had eighteen men and twenty horses killed; Captain Brotherton, Lieutenants John Gwynne, Francis Fowke, thirty-four rank and file, and eighteen horses wounded. ”

“ With respect to the horses, it would be more difficult to render it as perfect as our Life Guards, and as to their bridles and equipments in general (except their regimentals) there is often an inequality and want of care and attention as to uniformity of appearance, but throughout all the French cavalry, the men have an excellent command over their horses. I have been at many grand reviews both in France and in England, and in the former I never saw a man thrown, whereas in the latter it has frequently occurred, either from the horse falling or other circumstances. ”

“ At this time I received some interesting reports as to the work of the French cavalry in Belgium. Their morale was high and they were very efficient. They were opposed by two divisions of German cavalry whose patrols, they said, showed great want of dash and initiative, and were not well supported. They formed the opinion that the German horse did not care about trying conclusions mounted, (p. 045) but endeavoured to draw the French under the fire of artillery and jäger battalions, the last-named always accompanying a German Cavalry Division. ”

“ The war has been full of surprising results as regards cavalry. It was popularly supposed that in facing such terrible modern weapons as the repeating rifle of long range, the machine gun and the automatic field pieces which have become so well known as the French "75s," any body of cavalry which attempted to charge the enemy would be annihilated. ”

“ Further, small bodies of cavalry are employed in reconnaissance and detached duties of various kinds; the modern army in movement always throws out well to the front a screen of cavalry, whose object is to find and report on the presence of the enemy, to maintain contact with him, but not to engage in decisive action, which is as a rule, and practically always when the opposing forces are of equal strength, left mainly to the artillery and infantry following on behind the cavalry screen. ”

“ Highland hearts are true as steel.”
[373]
And now the Cavalry appears on the scene—the so-called “Heavies” more lightly, however, mounted than the French, Prussian, or Austrian Cuirassiers; counterbalanced, perhaps, by the extreme heaviness of the Light Dragoons when compared to continental Hussars. The Heavy Cavalry is composed of three regiments of Guards, nine Heavy Dragoon regiments, one Carabineer regiment; altogether thirteen regiments, comprising a strength of about 6,000 men, with the same number of horses. ”

“ The French infantry, assisted by a powerful and well-served artillery, and a numerous and highly equipped cavalry, displayed a considerable degree of personal bravery, fancying no doubt that a few charges of the different arms united, would either force their opponents to retire, or place them in their hands as prisoners of war. ”

“ If the cavalryman has not been able to show his worth, it is the fault of his leaders. French infantry has always been defeated by English infantry. In cavalry combat the English cavalry has always fled before the French in those terrible cavalry battles that are always flights. ”

“ Then, when the decisive moment of the day, about 5 p.m., came, the cavalry, some 8000 strong, were led by the duke himself against the French position. There was still personal leadership of men rather than the direction of them that the general showed. “The infantry were in support, with intervals between the battalions, so that the squadrons, if repulsed, might pass through.” The admixture of the dissimilar arms of infantry and cavalry in the same fighting line is still curious. ”

“ At the same time, the cavalry trooper is taught how to care for his mount in his own way, and, trained in a harder school, French horses of the cavalry are tougher than those of English regiments. If a unit from each army were placed side by side in a position in which there was no chance of feeding horses on full rations of forage, but all had to live on the country and make the best of it for a time, the French animals would probably come out better of the two from the ordeal, since they are more used to hardships in time of peace. ”

“ The work of the cavalry is considerably more varied than that of the infantry. Charges, which form the culminating point of cavalry training at drill, are infrequently indulged in on manœuvres, for even in actual warfare, apart from the fact that the quick fire of modern rifles has rendered the charge a rare thing, the conditions imposed by the selection of infantry and artillery posts do not often admit of a definite cavalry charge, owing to the nature of the ground to be covered. During manœuvres the chief value of cavalry lies in their ability to act as mounted infantry ”

“ As in all armies, the French cavalryman considers himself as good as two infantrymen; the origin of this may probably be traced back through time to feudal days, when only the better classes of vassals were able to provide horses with which to come to the standard of the feudal chief. Certain it is that even in these present days of scientific warfare, when the guns and rifles count equally with the swords of an Army Corps, the cavalryman still looks on himself as a superior person, more efficient and more to be admired than a mere gunner or a mere man in a line regiment of infantry. ”

“ French takes an attitude somewhat midway between these two extremes. He, of all men, has developed cavalry most successfully on what might be called mounted infantry lines. That is to say, he has taught his men to fight on foot, to take cover at every opportunity, and to master the whole art of reconnaissance. ”

“ The Britons thus united the movableness of cavalry with the steadiness of infantry; daily exercise had made them{172} so dexterous that they maintained their horses at full speed on steep slopes, drew them in or turned them at will, ran upon the shaft, held under the yoke, and thence threw themselves rapidly into their chariots. [348] In war they used their dogs as auxiliaries, which the Gauls procured from Britain for the same purpose. ”

“ The real business of cavalry is so to manœuvre your enemy as to bring him within effective range of the corps artillery of your own side for which a position suitable for battle would previously have been selected. ”

“ But Cavalry operating [Pg 50] against Cavalry, according to Sir John French, are not so to choose. We can only speculate upon what may happen if one side is so unsportsmanlike as to break the rules and masquerade as another Arm. The stratagem is simple, because the rifle kills at a mile, and the orthodox Cavalry may be unaware until it is too late that the unorthodox Cavalry is playing them a trick. Meanwhile the best riflemen, whether they have horses or not, will win, and horsemen who have spent 80 or 90 per cent. of their time in steel-training will have cause to regret their error. ”

“ I cannot speak with any certainty as to what has happened in European Armies, but as regards the British Cavalry, I am absolutely convinced that the Cavalry Spirit is, and may be encouraged to the utmost, without in the least degree prejudicing either training in dismounted duties or the acquirement of such tactical knowledge on the part of leaders as will enable them to discern when and where to resort to dismounted methods. ”

“ Many of the modern armies, he holds, are suffering from cavalry without confidence. And there is abundant evidence to justify the charge. Bernhardi has pointed out that the phenomenal successes of the German cavalry in the war of 1870-1 were due not to its own extraordinary valour, but to the absence of opposition on the part of the French. ”