WITH THE BRITISH ARMY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144851, 1 December 1915, Page 4

WITH THE BRITISH ARMY.

THE IDLE CAVALRY. AN INDIFFERENT OUTLOOK. (From 11. S. Oullelt. Official Australian Correspondent at British Headquarters in Franco.)

As a great leader of cavalry, Sir John French must sometimes sigh for a return to old-fashioned warfare. For nearly a year the mounted forces have been vainly chafing lor an opportunity for action. Officers and men, not excepting the Life Guards, have at times been unlmr.sed and put into the trenches, and uie horses have been eating their heads nfi and fretting and perishing behind the- trenches. Nothing con id he more dispiriting to the cavalryman than to sci- the long hues ot animals, many of them our ".vn good Walers, standing idly in their camps. For them the war is an affair of heel-ropes. Perhaps the winter is cheir easiest season, lor then most of them are found stacks of sorts, hut in the so-called summer of Flanders and Northern France they sutler severely from wet and cold.

It must be confessed that the outlook is not bright for cavalry. The successive lines of trendies, each one sufficient to hold up a cavalry force for hoars even if the enemy wore out of tho way, and the mar,os of barbed wire seem to oiler decisive obstacles to the rapidity of movement which is the value of cavalry: while the employment of devilish maiming devices, such as small triangles of iron spikes, which can be quickly scalieic-d broadcast over threatened areas, and which have already been used by tho Germans, adds to the horseman’s discomfiture.

But if the cavalry did nothing more during the war, it would have amply justified its champions in recent years. In the retreat from Mons the British Army was in a large measure saved from annihilation by the gallant rearguard of men who day after day rode and fought as cr./airy never fought before. until their horses often dropped from sheer exhaustion. It was alter those terrible days that a competent armv authority placed tho average life of the horse in this war at less than three weeks, although the cavalry charger seems to-day to ho threatened with nothing worse than death at a good old age upon a foreign Roil. Happilv our men discovered in iho first wild hoitt with tho enemy that, although many times outnumbered, they had the Lillians' measure. Tho German demonstrated in those days that he is no horseman. On nearly every occasion ho refused man to man combat, and galloped away in the hope of drawing our riders tinder the guns of Von KlucVs vast enrolling army. Even when cornered ho refused to come at it knee with sword or lance in the old English .way; but would spring from the saddle and seek to fight on. foot. He used his horse merely as a means of fast transport, and not as an agent of shock. With his great superiority in numbers and his excellent horses, it is quite possible that had he charged in tho mass he might have pierced and demolished our valiant screen, and so altered the whole, story of the war. THE. OLD SHOCK TACTICS, Gorman and British views about tho employment of cavalry difler entirely. Our military teachers hold to the old theory that cavalry should be trained and reserved for application to a fight at tho opportune moment or not at all, except, of course, in case of retreat, and in tho ordinary way of scouting. Tho genius of a cavalry leader is choosing the right time to hurl on his force, and in a few glorious seconds to decide perhaps the flow of battle. So our men were trained for shock tactics; they were incomparable fighters in tho saddle ; they exulted in fierce offensive. Up to tho time of the South African war tho soundness of this teaching had never seriously been challenged. But the utter failure of cavalry as cawairv against the elusive Boor, and its

conversion to useful mounted infantry, threatened to make a clean sweep of all our ideas upon this branch of the service. There was at once a strong movement to change the cavalry permanently to mounted infantry, and had it riot been for force of sentiment, strongly backed by social influence, which, operated to keep the old cavalry the elect of the British Army, the reforming campaign might have succeeded. But it failed, and England kept her cavalry, and Londoners continued to look with pride upon her petted Guards, and to dream of new triumphs for the honoured Lancers. When tiio Expeditionary Force came to Franco, men’s thoughts ran eagerly on thrilling battle charges, speh_ as, one fears, we shall never see again beyond the walls of the picture galleries.' The cavalry came into'this war armed noth the efficient short rifle in place of the discredited .old carbine, and the men proved themselves excellent shots both from the saddle and on foot, while later, in the trenches, especially at the first fierce battle of Ypros, their shooting and fighting generally could scarcely'have been excelled by any infantry. But on the way down from Moris it was at tho old hand-to-hand combat that they scored most heavily. The wfly Uhlan sniffing danger never gave fight in large bodies, bin; there wore hundreds of scrimmages bet worn small parties. A few worn hungry British riders on jaded horses in hiding off a village street; or in a farmyard by the road; the approach of Uhlans; a shout.as the spur went homo and high-bred horses responded gamely; a a break, and a gallop with the fighting all on one side along tho white roads of France. And "all the time our army, battered hut still safe and full of an offensrro spirit, hurried south towards tho Marne 'and victory.

THE GERMAN WAY. Tho.Gcrmans ixrthis war followed : the gam© tactics with their cavalry as in 1870, and with similar out leas successr ful results; Immediately war was declared, and possibly before, they began to throw ont innumerable Uhlan patrols, which , spread rapidly over Belgium and Northern Eranco. These mounted forces were never strong, but they penetrated into every accessible corner. So long as they met with no j*nnt. r°^stancß-tJiCT-p>usbfflhom.Oojckb^

destroying enemy communications and feeding on the country as they travelled. Behind them came large Uhlan forces, increasing in strength as they extended back to the main army of infantry and artillery. The advanced scouts never willingly accepted a challenge to fight, but galloped hack to their supports. If cornered they smiled and surrendered, the principle being that their army would draw useful conclusions from their failure to return. (Germany has grown more careful about her losses in every way as the war has advanced.) In this way the Uhlan acted at once as a scout, and, of much more importance, as a screen to the main armies. Hundreds of thousands of these patrols were upon French and Belgian soil a fow days after war was begun. > In the campaign of 1870 the success of the scheme, was complete because the Uhlan was able to cut off telegraphic communication and to shroud in mystery the movements of their great and swiftly-ad-vancing armies. In the present war their success was hampered by the use of wireless and aeroplanes, and by the heroic fighting of the Belgians. But still Sir John' French has told us in his famous dispatch dealing with the retreat from Mens that both ho and General Jorfro were- taken by surprise by the enormous strength of the army of Von Kluck when the British Expeditionary Force was first engaged. The swarming Uhlan had managed to screen the advancing host, and made possible a position which nearly cost England her army. Happily for us the German horseman was irorelv a cunning rover, and not a hold fighter. He found us out and prevented us from measuring the forces behind him. burthen he was content to trail along in our dust as we headed down to Paris. IDEAL CAVALRY COUNTRY. The trenches have put an end to all mobile fighting on inis iront. Horses and bicycles and motor-cycles are compulsorily out ol action. About the future it is difficult to speak, but oven if fighting opens out again at times, as it must if we are to reach Germany, we shall see less horse work than we could desire. Certainly these wide cultivated plains of France oiler excellent opportunity lor cavalry operations. A Continental visitor was invited a year or two ago to see some cavalry work upon Salisbury Plains. ‘T take this cavalry force to mean.** ho remarked, “that you intend one dav to make war upon the Continent. ’ V hen it was protested that our army was almost entirely defensive, ho declared: •AVcil. unless von get the invader to he sn good as to come and fight upon this plain 1 can’t see what use you will make of your cavalry.” But here in France, whore tlic hedges and ditches are fow, and where you go for miles without meeting a fence, the conditions for mounted operations are ideal. Without the trenches all would bo well. As I write the cavalrymen arc watching impatiently the last stages of the French harvest, for when the gleaners are finished they will be able for a few weeks to cnloy some open work in the fields. During several months they have been restricted to the metal roads, whore they take their exorcise in competition with flying motor cars and dispatch riders and trains of innumerable great lorries, and all the rest of the paraphernalia of modern war.

The o avail V camps are only gloomy spots along the front. *‘lf we could hut get back to the conditions of two hundred years ago,” Inmcntod an officer from India to mo this week. “Over at wo have horses tied to the same rings which were used by .Marlborough’s men. The horse was essential to victory in those days. Iho army smelt of horses; now it stinks of petrol. And we take off our spurs in these infernal days and wade into the trenches.”