The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1898-06-08
. OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
CAVALRY IN MODERN WAR
! OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES

A good man on a good horse Is the SUI
perior, as an attacking force, of three good
men on the ground. This is a matter OF
common knowledge in the European capt.
tails, wherein mobs are dispersed by cav
airy, using the fiat of the sabre only, more
quickly than they are scattered by the
bullets of militia in America. There is
some thing in the speed. weight and size
of charging man and horse that shakes
the nerve of the most stout-hearted pedes-
trian The uncomfortable instinct of the
footman is to get out of the way, and he
gets out of the way. cavalry man learns
to love his horse with a love surprising
that of woman. He learns to depend upon
him. He absorbs confidence from every
swell of the giant muscles between his
knees. The man and beast conjoined fur
nish mutual support that is admirable.
and in battle of incalculable value. Dis
mounted cavalry are the most difficult of
troops to dislodge, for the reason that the
riders, deprived of their horses, do not
know when nor how to run.
Military experts believe that the inva-
sion of Cuba by the American army will
furnish exceptional opportunities for the
use of cavalry 1t is, for the most part, a
good horse country, of wide fields and
level spaces. 1t Is believed, too, that this
picturesque arm of the service will demon
strate that Its usefulness Is not ended BY
modern arms and projectiles. though many
theorists incline to the opinion that the
days of cavalry as cavalry were ended ir
the times of Gravelotte and Sedan. Tho
celebrated and fruitless charge of the
French cuirassiers. where men and steeds
went down In heaps and the watching Will
helm said: ut is magnificent but 1t is not
war; sticks in their memories. That
charge was Balaklava over again. Some
body Numbered. The general efficiency Of
cavalry under proper conditions is not dis
credited by IT., nor Is the centuries old rec
ord of a remarkably valuable arm to be
stained by an individual failure. Men who
remember what the cavalry was and what
the cavalry did in the war between the
states demand something more than the
crumplng of one column before they sur
render the beliefs of years.
O O o
The Napoleonic maxim that cavalry can
not charge mistaken infantry was due to
Napoleon's experiences with rundown
forces. His mounted men were badly drilled
and his horseflesh was poor. The great
Frederick understood the high value of this
branch and his campaigns give many in
stances of the value of mounted troops in
almost all kinds of warfare. The records
of all great wars bristle with the achieve
ments of the troopers. Even in the Franco
Prussan struggle the actual ! damage
wrought by the Uhlans was far out of pro-
portion with their numbers, and the value
Of the fear they produced was immeasura-
BILE. AT Salamanca LIE Marchand's British
"heavies" were sent over bad ground
against the steadiest of French infantry.
Men and horses fell in swaths twenty yards
from the line. The rear ranks did steeple-
chase jumping over piled corpses to get to
the front. LIE Marchand was instantly
killed and many of his officers, but the in
fantry was broken and their position car
ried. The Peninsula campaigns furnish
repeated proofs of the fact that infantry
will not stand against well-handled cav
airy. Prince Frederick Charles, one Of the
greatest of modern warriors. was a steady
believer in the efficacy of cavalry, and so,
too, was Won Wrangel.
o O O
prophets of its utter effacement are used to
instancing the failure of the brilliant Aus
trian cavalry at Sadowa when sent against
breechloaders. These were troopers sea-
soned by long service and so drilled that
thirty squadrons of them were Unanswered
in mass with the ease and certainty of one.
They were, however, led over ground that
kloped up three degrees. 1t was sodden with
rain. The horses were so wearied that many
of them fell from exhaustion when the
charge began. The infantrymen who re-
ceived them had been selected by five hours
of savage and continuous fighting. All faint
hearts had gone to the rear. 1t is safe to
say that there was not Prussian on the
west ridge of Chlum that day who did not
wish to be there. Even under these con-
ditions the charge came very close to sue
cess, though all Europe was shouting that
cavalry was useless against breechloadng
fire.
The French got their chassepots in 1868
and 1869. No German officer belived that his
troop would be of any good against them.
Yet at Vionvile the first line Of the German
cavalry halted under heavy fire on the pla-
the plateau at a walk and wheeled up I'd
front again as steadily as II on dress parade.
This. too, was magnificent and it was war.
1t was done 10 encourage the young troops,
cost only seventy men and horses, though
the chasepots were barking in thousands,
and it was worth what it cost Again at
Vionville Bredow's six squadrors went over
two lines of "unshaker" infantry as if they
were paper. In another charge the troopers
went over the French cannon, losing only
fifty men. They came so fast that the ar
tillerymen men found 1t impossible TO de-
press their pieces with sufficient rapidty
and accuracy. In this battle thirty-six
squadrons of German horse proved that the
French line of foot lacked the strength of
cobwebs, yet this same French infantry
was SO good that two days later 1t took an
entire division of the German footmen three
hours to go through them, at a cost of 1000
lives, or 30 per cent of the attacking force.