‘Who Shall Say That the Days of Cavalry Are Over?’ The Revival of the Mounted Arm in Europe, 1853-1914
Journal: War in History
Year: 2011

By the middle decade of the nineteenth century, soldiers of experience across Europe were confidently asserting that, as a consequence of the new ‘arms of precision’ being issued to infantrymen, the ‘days of cavalry were passed’. This view has been echoed uncritically by subsequent generations of historians. Drawing on a range of original materials, it will be argued here that the disappointing performance of cavalry on the battlefields of the Crimea, Italy, and Bohemia owed more to doctrinal fa