Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1919-12-24
LACK OF CAVALRY
COST MANY LIVES
ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF HORSES
WOULD HAVE GROUND HUNS
ANT0 DusE
ENEMY ALLOWED TO ESCAPE
Work Of Renlount Board Must Receive
Thoughtful Encouragement OF All
Americana If We Arc to Occupy
Place Of World Leadership.

No phase of the vital subject Of ma.
tional defense Is of higher significance
than the proposition Of military horse
supply The military side of American
life means more now that the United
States has, perforce, assumed domi
nant role In world politics, than 1t has
In the past. 1t Is agreed by farseeing
statesmen that economic and political
eventualltles will In a decade or so
force the United States Into position
Of military leadership In the world
whether that sort Of leadership may
seem desirable to the great majority
Of the people or not.
It Is hardly necessary to say that
the great war proved that, more than
ever Is the horse, and the right sort
Of horse, indispensable to the success.
full prosecution Of military operations.
It Is only repetition to say that the
strategy Of the American expedition
airy force In France last year and the
year before was repeatedly and seri-
ously embarra ssed by the woeful In
sufflciency of its horse equipment and
Of the discoura ging inefiiciency of the
horses that were sent overseas by the
hardworked rImount division of the
army on this side, albeit these animals
were the very best the country had to
send. They We're the combings Of the
entire country.
Supply OF Allies Depleted.
The embarrassment of the armies of
the powers associated with the Uni
ted States In the struggle against Ger
man world domination was not so
great as was that experienced by the
forces of Pershing, but 1t was serious
nevertheless. The horse supply of
Great Britain and France, although
reinforced by tremendous importa-
lions from the United States, South
America, South Africa, Canada and
Australia, had been terribly depleted
by the casualties of three years of
fighting by the time our armies be-
came formidable. No requirements
were available
Thousands CT fine young lives were
sacrificed In the titanic struggle that
ragged from the English channel to the
frontier Of Switzerland from the be-
ginning of 1913 to the middle Of No
vember because the underhorsing of
allied artillery limited the protection
that artillery should have rendered to
the attacking infantry. Ludendorf re-
peatedly refers in his story Of the Ger
man defeat to merclful pauses (mercl-
full to the hard pressed German army
in the French, British and American
attack that enabled his commanders
to extricate hard fighting divisions
from perilous positions that were ne
cessitated by the inability of the at
lacking artillery and transport serv-
ices to keep race with the advancing
infantry.
Unnecessary hardship had to be en-
dured by the combat troops Of the adj
vancing forces of civilization because
poor horsing in the transport services
rendered impossible the bringing up of
supplies in punctual military fashion.
The fruits CT victory were lost time
and again because Of the impossibillty
of promptly exploiting the achieve
ments Of Infantry by the employment
of large bodies of cavalry. The lack
of cavalry at st. Mihiel, at Chateau
Thierry, in the Argonne and at Sedan
made American officers stepped in the
traditions Of Forrest and Stuart, Of
Pleasanton and Sheridan fairly cry.
There were some so called cavalry reg
iments in the A. u. f., but they were
not cavalry. At no time was single
American cavalry regiment mounted.
Victory Would Have Been Great.
Even the cavalry of the British and
French armies, which had been fairly
well horsed at the beginning of the
war and more carefully conserved than
had been the cavalry Of the other men,
bers Of the anti-German alliance, was
found wholly insufficient to push home
victory and convert mere defeats of
thC pCihhuu ui hiiSo iutO ioutc III CULT
parison with which the French disas-
tiers Of Sedan and Metz In 1870 would
have been considered by the military
writers Of the future as orderly mill
tary operations.
The entente allies and the United
States had about three and a half mill
lion soldiers in the field on the west
ern front in October, 1918, when they
began to press the previously success
full Germans back toward the Rhine in
deadly earnest. II 100000 to 100000
of these fighting men had been cavalry
mounted on half bred horses, the best
opinion in this country and IL
France and Great Britain holds, the
German defeat would have been the
most complete and most humillating
defeat in military history. There
would have been no fairly orderly
of the soldiers of the Ger
man Grown Prince, Of Rupprecht, the
Brute. of Van Galwitz, of Won Arnim
and of Won Boehn across the Rhine to
be received at home as unbeaten he
roes. The bulk Of the German forces
that began their march thrust for
Paris and victory In pride ard inso-
lenca 1znder he ,eye pc The Violet pick
NJ. r =. y. "