Cavalry Studies: Strategical and Tactical

[Skipman]

Cavalry Studies: Strategical and Tactical (1907) by Maj-Gen Douglas Haig CVO CB

Not quite Great War but still relevant, I think?

Mike

[Robert Dunlop]

Yes it is, Mike. A very interesting collection of studies that casts light on cavalry tactics.

Robert

[PhilB]

Would it be fair to say that, in WW1, cavalry tactics only appeared in the Middle Eastern theatre?

[Steven Broomfield]

No

[truthergw]

Would it be fair to say that, in WW1, cavalry tactics only appeared in the Middle Eastern theatre?

Cavalry were used widely on the Western Front and figured largely in the strategic planning. They were a major force on the Eastern front and again figured prominently in the strategy there.

[PhilB]

I`m aware of a number of uses of mounted cavalry (as opposed to use in strategic planning)but not aware of any shrewd tactical manoeuvres there. Which Western Front action best displays cavalry tactics as described in Cavalry Studies?

[truthergw]

The French cavalry on the extreme left flank in 1914 would be one example along with the contribution of the British cavalry.

[Steven Broomfield]

To save everyone re-typing everything, this thread might answer Phil's questions:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=152215&st=0&p=1464629&hl=cavalry&fromsearch=1entry1464629

[Piorun]

A great discussiom we've enjoyed before until Phil's mechanical pig got us back involved! Antonyt

[PhilB]

Thank you gents. Maybe I`m looking for something that`s not there. I suspected that the application of sophisticated cavalry tactics might produce something other than a straightforward charge. Rather like the difference between the cultured football of a Blackpool compared to the kick and rush of - well, you know who .

So, which are the outstanding examples of cavalry tactics on the Western Front? Or is a well supported charge a good example?

And maybe this is the wrong thread for such questions!

[George Armstrong Custer]

So, which are the outstanding examples of cavalry tactics on the Western Front? Or is a well supported charge a good example?

Phil, why don't you get a copy of, for example, Stephen Badsey's Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry 1880-1918 which, inter alia, was referenced and reviewed in your recent thread on Haig's horse, and look it up for yourself? It is, I grant you, easier to post weighted and disingenuous 'questions' and sit back and let others run around providing sourced answers - which you can then attempt to cast doubt on, not with any research based evidence of your own, but with another easily composed leading 'question.' I do not make these comments on the basis of this thread alone, but on observations of your technique on this forum over many years - and it seems this New Year is set to continue in the same repetetive vein. If you want to land a punch on your recurrent idee fixes of Haig and the performance and utility of the British cavalry in the Great War, why not put some effort into doing some solid research or reading of your own, and giving us your own conclusions based upon it? This could then open up a potentially interesting debate which would have the merit of equal effort being put in by all sides in support of the points they are trying to make. Constantly manipulating threads through one line 'questions' which are obviously crudely leading in their nature may be easier, but some might think it comes parlously close to being a form of trolling - though I couldn't possibly comment on that.

George

[PhilB]

and it seems this New Year is set to continue in the same repetetive vein.

Yes, indeed. It`s my policy to vacate a thread in which replies have become unpleasant rather than engage in personal attacks.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Yes, indeed. It`s my policy to vacate a thread in which replies have become unpleasant.

It was predictably going to be either that or moving swiftly on with another specious 'question' - it's not the first time you've ignored suggestions that you yourself put in a bit of the effort you expect others to expend on your slanted 'questions'.

George

[steenie]

It was predictably going to be either that or moving swiftly on with another specious 'question' - it's not the first time you've ignored suggestions that you yourself put in a bit of the effort you expect others to expend on your slanted 'questions'.

George

As both French and Haig had cut their teeth together as cavalry officers in the South African War, they took this with them to the Great War. The Cavalry under French in the Great Retreat of 1914, show both tactical and strat use of Cavalry. Both the elements of reccon, the plugging of holes, the protection of the army and the vaunted, but by 1914 usless Charge against Infantry, were more than demonstrated indepth, indeed by both sides. Ofcourse, throughout the war we see Cavalry being kept in reserve (when not plugging holes in the trenches), being held back, waiting for the 'G'. Even as late as after Cambrai, we see Haig putting great effort into 'roads' laid across torn ground just to get his Cavalry to the front, just incase.

The fact that Childers,before the war, had pointed out that cavalry could no longer be used as shock troops against automatic weapons just using the arme blanc, and one of the last war games of the Prussian Army before the war, proved that they couldn't face modern weapnary, didnt stop all sides, continually wanting to get back to the open field of opposing army's cavalry using the sword on each other in the charge.

There, that my view on it lol.

[steenie]

I missed this book on ebay by a smidge and for not a lot. When I have just looked on Amazon, the cheapest hardback I can get is £90!!!!. So, in a contrite way, I have just ordered it in paperback for nearly £20. . I will really enjoy sitting down with this work.

By the way, if anyone is interested in mounted cavalry for real as against reading about it, I am the President of the International Cavalry Association, which has active units worldwide trying to keep the skill of the manuals alive.

[Steven Broomfield]

I'm currently reading Badsey's book (inter-library loan), and finding it exceptionally interesting. If it's available in paper back for £20, I might well risk the wrath of the Exchequer (Mrs B ) and go for it.

[Pete1052]

In his memoirs War As I Knew It Patton said that in 1944 horse cavalry would have been useful for passing through an area of broken terrain in France near the Lorraine region. The ground was wooded with many trails but few good roads. Of course by then maintaining mounted units within the force structure for use in those relatively rare situations would not have been worth the effort.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Your cavalry drill manuals re-enactment groups sound fascinating, Steenie, and I wouldn’t argue with your right to your opinion on the evolution, doctrine and utility of the British cavalry up until and during the Great War, even though I would disagree with most of what you say.

French certainly ‘cut his teeth,’ as you put it, in the South African war, but Haig had already seen mounted active service in the Sudan in 1898. The idea that cavalry doctrine in the Great War was something ‘taken’ there unchanged from South Africa by French and Haig is simply not true, and ignores the practical doctrine for cavalry which was developed and modified as a response to modern firepower over several decades, and by many cavalry officers, prior to and beyond 1914. A knowledge of this process makes your assertion that the cavalry of the Great War wanted to get back to “using the sword on each other” completely unsustainable. You seem fixated on the idea of the cavalry of the Great War being synonymous with the sword, yet this ignores the realities of how the cavalry had evolved for integration into all arms warfare during the Great War. As I’ve already alluded to, this process began decades earlier. For example, in January 1898 Haig spent part of his leave before going to Egypt as part of Kitchener’s Sudan campaign at the Royal Ordnance Factory at Enfield learning the mechanism of the Maxim machine gun. Three months later, following the ambush of a Cavalry Brigade reconnaissance by Dervishes, Haig included the following in his report: "The Horse Artillery against enemy of this sort is no use. We felt the want of machine guns when working alongside of scrub for searching some of the tracks." Nine year later, in 1907, Haig would state that “The true conclusion seems to be that even as a battle is only an incident in many months of campaigning, so a charge, though a very prominent part, is only one part of the function of the Cavalry, and efficiency in the use of the rifle is absolutely essential, as it will be in more frequent use.” In his Review of the Work done during the Training Season 1912, Haig requested that more senior cavalry officers attend the musketry training course at Hythe, to learn “the practical application of rifle fire to suit various tactical conditions.” He also exhorted that the cavalry should learn how to use machineguns more effectively: “More attention should be paid to the handling of cavalry machineguns when brigaded. Their drill and manoeuvre should, before departure to practice camp, attain a high standard of efficiency.” As a result of such advocacy over the preceding decades, by 1918 the Cavalry Corps had a firepower capability commensurate with the rest of the BEF. From late August of that year, it included a cyclist battalion, the two Household battalions of motorised machine-gunners, an attached infantry brigade in buses, and a mixed artillery brigade including four 18-pounders and two lorry-towed 4.5-inch howitzers.” All of which makes ludicrous the idea that the British cavalry of the Great War were somehow fixated with getting to grips sword to sword with the enemy.

As to your comment regarding Haig putting great effort into facilitating the movement of cavalry 'even' after Cambrai, this was something which paid off during both the German March offensive, and the Allied advance to victory during the Hundred Days in 1918. Because of government reductions in the cavalry throughout the war, the want of cavalry during the last year of the war was a real handicap at a time when all means of enhancing the mobility of the British armies were being seized by its commanders. Despite this, on 24 March, the third day of the great German offensive, a composite squadron of the 6th Cavalry Brigade demonstrated the continued utility of cavalry by carrying out a successful charge against enemy machine guns near Villeselve. Lt J. B. Bickersteth, MC, noted that the Squadron took 107 prisoners, with between 70 -100 Germans being sabred. The Squadron sustained some 73 casualties out of a contingent of 150, but “comparatively few” of these were killed. Writing in 1919, Bickersteth summed up the engagement as follows:

“The whole operation though small in itself is a brilliant proof of what cavalry can do when they have the chance of being used in their proper capacity. Probably no better example of the value of shock action could be found in the history of the whole war. The manoeuvre gave the infantry renewed confidence, and they were able to push forward their line well beyond the limits of the charge, thus enabling the remnants of two battalions who had been fighting near Cugny to retire on Villeselve and reform.”

And at Amiens the British cavalry proved that, in offensive as well as defensive battles of movement, and in the absence of all-terrain APC vehicles, it was still the fastest way of moving armed men about a battlefield as an integrated part of the new technological all-arms warfare. In 1918, a Whippet tank still had a cross-country speed of only about half that of cavalry horses. In criticising Haig’s retention of a cavalry capability it is too often forgotten just how much in its infancy the motorized armour which would eventually supersede it was during the Great War, both in terms of performance and reliability. John Terraine has pointed out that at the start of the Battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918, the British deployed 342 Mark V tanks and 72 Whippets. Their contribution cannot be gainsaid. But on 9 August only 145 were still fit for action; on 10 August, 85; on 11 August, 38, with just 6 being able to fight on 13 August. By contrast, Stephen Badsey notes that, at Amiens, “Rawlinson [at Haig’s behest] employed the cavalry to follow up the first infantry attacks and to gallop forward to hold positions while the reserve infantry caught up, extending the day’s advance from about 5,000 to 10,000 yards, clean through the depth of the German defences into open country. On the way the cavalry delivered several successful charges of regimental size, overrunning both guns and machine guns.” The infantryman Rawlinson’s judgment was that the cavalry had “done splendid work.” The cavalry, reduced in size through cutbacks though it was, kept harrying the retreating German army to the end, restricted only by the inability of the rebuilt railway supply lines to keep pace with them. On 9 November, Haig noted that “All Corps commanders are asking for more cavalry.”

The nature of trench warfare without flanks to turn naturally restricted the opportunities for the use of cavalry in 1915, 16 and 17 – though, as at High Wood on 14 July 1916, the cavalry demonstrated that it could successfully – albeit temporarily – capture a piece of critical ground. But they performed invaluable work in the retreat of 1914, and due to the insistence by Haig upon the retention of the arm, were on hand to play their part in the re-establishment of semi mobile warfare in 1918, a period in military affairs when advances in firepower still easily outstripped developments in other nascent battlefield technologies such as the tank.

I'm currently reading Badsey's book (inter-library loan), and finding it exceptionally interesting. If it's available in paper back for £20, I might well risk the wrath of the Exchequer (Mrs B ) and go for it.

Steve, I suspect that Steenie is referring to the paperback Naval & Military reprint of Haig's 'Cavalry Studies', rather than Badsey's 'Doctrine & Reform' which, as far as I'm aware, hasn't yet been issued in paperback.

George

[steenie]

Custer,

You are offensive and your writing pompous. I am not in a reenactment group for one. As for your other comments, I don't think any of my comments disagree with you, but for you saying that I have some simplistic view of the arme blanc.

As for what work I purchased, I think I know what I purchased more than you. The work is Cavalry tactics strategical and tactical 1907, which I believe was the original work discussed and it was with Amazon

[JimSmithson]

Thought everyone would be interested in this little snippet from the 'A' minutes (near verbatim notes, not the final formal minutes) of the The War Cabinet, 7th January 1918.

'Sir Douglas Haig stated that he considered the value and importance of the Cavalry to be very great not only in offensive but also in defensive operations . This was due to their superior mobility and the ease with which Cavalry could moved from one sector to another and then used dismounted. He pointed out that the British Cavalry resembled highly trained mobile Infantry rather than the old Cavalry arm.' (CAB 23/44b)

There is another part of the same meeting where Haig discusses the state of the British troops on the Western Front but that is for another thread - interesting though.

Jim

[George Armstrong Custer]

A good reference, Jim, which underscores the idea of a well-armed cavalry arm capable of deploying as mounted infantry being the nearest thing in 1918 to troops carried around the battlefield by fast all terrain vehicles. Stephen Badsey coined the descriptive of 'very short range paratroops' for the idea of cavalry seizing a position and then holding it until relieved by the infantry in the manner of WWII paratroopers. Haig and other cavalry doctrine reformers had long seen the utility, under the right conditions, of a mounted infantry capability, armed with a high degree of firepower, on the pre reliably mechanised battlefield. What he'd seen of the Boers in South Africa in 1899 had made him recognise that the way to go about this was to train skilled cavalrymen - ie horsemen - as efficient infantry, rather than putting infantry who were less than fully skilled in horsemanship onto horses for mobility.

George

[PMHart]

Custer,

You are offensive and your writing pompous. I am not in a reenactment group for one. As for your other comments, I don't think any of my comments disagree with you, but for you saying that I have some simplistic view of the arme blanc.

As for what work I purchased, I think I know what I purchased more than you. The work is Cavalry tactics strategical and tactical 1907, which I believe was the original work discussed and it was with Amazon

Hi Steenie,

Err that's what George said chum! He was talking to young Steve Broomfield about the rather wonderful Badsey book which Steve Broomfield mentioned. I found the clues to this in what was written in the above posts! And so here we go again, rambling assertions countered by reasoned detailed arguments and the 'loser' then bleats "You are offensive and your writing pompous' whilst failing to answer any point made. Steenie's insults directed to George - 'offensive' and 'pompous' are of course in no way aggressive or unpleasant because he has had his precious feelings hurt!

Why do you waste your time on half-wits George? And there you go Steenie your excuse to press the 'I am jolly insulted/inadequate' button!!!! Press away sunshine!!!

Pete

P.S. I recently purchased a copy of Haig's Cavalry Stdies on E-Bay as I believe did George the week before - both in decent nick and very cheap too!!!! Excellent! <strokes imaginary cat and smirks>

[Pete1052]

"Sir Douglas Haig stated that he considered the value and importance of the Cavalry to be very great not only in offensive but also in defensive operations . This was due to their superior mobility and the ease with which Cavalry could moved from one sector to another and then used dismounted. He pointed out that the British Cavalry resembled highly trained mobile Infantry rather than the old Cavalry arm."

During the Civil War after a slow start of around 18 months the U.S. Cavalry mainly functioned as mounted infantry -- their horses were for getting them to the scene of action, and once they got there they dismounted and fought with their carbines. Sabers and romantic Hollywood-style charges were relatively useless.

The slow start of the U.S. Cavalry during the Civil War had to do with the fact that the U.S. Army didn't require guys enlisting in the cavalry to know how to ride, whereas in the Confederate Army a man had to bring his own horse with him in order to be in the cavalry; thus JEB Stuart had trained horsemen early in the war who could ride circles around the U.S. Army while Union cavalrymen were still falling off their mounts.

Beginning in the autumn of 1863 the Spencer Carbine, a seven-shot magazine-fed repeater, began being issued to the U.S. Cavalry. This gave Union horsemen a major advantage over their foes when all other things were equal. Ammunition resupply to the U.S. Cavalry became such a problem that in 1865 U.S. Army Ordnance insisted that future Spencer production have the first-ever magazine cut-off, a feature the British later copied and included on the SMLE. When the men of U.S. and British Army Ordnance saw what repeating arms would do to ammunition consumption they paniced and blinked -- it was, ammo-wise, as though in one fell swoop in 1863 armies had gone from the Brown Bess musket to the U.S. M1 rifle.

[Capt_Starlight]

Beginning in the autumn of 1863 the Spencer Carbine, a seven-shot magazine-fed repeater, began being issued to the U.S. Cavalry. This gave Union horsemen a major advantage over their foes when all other things were equal. Ammunition resupply to the U.S. Cavalry became such a problem that in 1865 U.S. Army Ordnance insisted that future Spencer production have the first-ever magazine cut-off, a feature the British later copied and included on the SMLE. When the men of U.S. and British Army Ordnance saw what repeating arms would do to ammunition consumption they paniced and blinked -- it was, ammo-wise, as though in one fell swoop in 1863 armies had gone from the Brown Bess musket to the U.S. M1 rifle.

The “Stabler Cut Off” was first added to the 11,000 re-manufactured carbines done by Springfield Armoury after the conclusion of the "War between the States" when they were relined to take the 56-60 rimfire cartridge rather than the 56-56 rimfire cartridge. This process was contemporary to the Model 1865 (new manufacture) carbines to take the same cartridge (of which approximately half were made with the “Stabler Cut Off”). Some 23,000 were made by Spencer and 34,000 by the Burnside (though they had a six grove barrel rather than a three grove barrel of the Spencer made carbines). The 1867 model had the “Spencer Patent Magazine Cut Off”.

[Steven Broomfield]

Thanks George. Full price for the Badsey, then. Hope Mrs B never finds out.