page_title: Lance
section_title: World War I and after
hierarchical_section_title: Lance / History of use / World War I and after
caption_attribution_description: English: Cossack's Herculean Strength and Epic Courage. Drawing from The War Illustrated. The caption reads: One of the greatest feats of the war, a Cossack exploit in which eleven Germans were killed, is now the talk of Petrograd. A trooper of the 6th Don Cossack Regiment was engaged in an attack on a German transport column. Observing six Germans in a trench about to enfilade the Russian main body, he charged the position and spitted two with his lance, while the other four fled. These he chased and killed individually. Later five German riflemen attacked the Russians, and again Kirjanoff charged, disposing of three with his lance. The others fled to the wood, where the amazing Cossack dispatched them with his sword.
context_page_description: A lance is a pole weapon designed to be used by a mounted warrior or cavalry soldier. During the periods of classical and medieval warfare, it evolved into being the leading weapon in cavalry charges, and was unsuited for throwing or for repeated thrusting, unlike similar weapons of the javelin/pike family typically used by infantry. Lances were often equipped with a vamplate – a small circular plate to prevent the hand sliding up the shaft upon impact. Though best known as a military and sporting weapon carried by European knights, the use of lances was widespread throughout Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa wherever suitable mounts were available. As a secondary weapon, lancers of the medieval period also bore swords, axes, hammers, or maces for hand-to-hand combat, since the lance was often a one-use-per-engagement weapon; assuming the lance survived the initial impact intact, it was usually too long, heavy, and slow to be effective against opponents in a melee.
context_section_description: Lances were still in use by the British, Turkish, Italian, Spanish, French, Belgian, Indian, German and Russian armies at the outbreak of World War I. In initial cavalry skirmishes in France this antique weapon proved ineffective, German uhlans being "hampered by their long lances and a good many threw them away". A major action involving repeated charges by four regiments of German cavalry, all armed with lances, at Halen on 12 August 1914 was unsuccessful. Amongst the Belgian defenders was one regiment of lancers who fought dismounted.
  With the advent of trench warfare, lances and the cavalry that carried them ceased to play a significant role. A Russian cavalry officer whose regiment carried lances throughout the war recorded only one instance where an opponent was killed by this weapon.
  The Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22 saw an unexpected revival of lances amongst the cavalry of the Turkish National Army. During the successful Turkish offensives of the final stages of the war across the open plains of Asia Minor, Turkish mounted troops armed with bamboo lances from Ottoman stocks inflicted heavy losses on the retreating Greek forces. 
  Those armies which still retained lances as a service weapon at the end of World War I generally discarded them for all but ceremonial occasions during the 1920s and 1930s. An exception was the Polish cavalry, which retained the lance for combat use until either 1934 or 1937, but contrary to popular legend did not make use of it in World War II. The German cavalry retained the lance as a service weapon until October 3rd, 1927. The Argentine cavalry was photographed carrying lances as late as the 1940s but this appears to have been as part of recruit riding school training rather than serious preparation for active service.
caption: Drawing from The War Illustrated representing a Russian Don Cossack lancing a German infantryman..
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