ARMING OF CAVALRY, REGULAR AND YEOMANRY.
[TO TEE EDITOR or TIM "SPPCTATOR.1 SIR,—It is to be regretted that the question of War Office reform and that of our fiscal policy should both come upon us at once. It is to be hoped that the latter will not be allowed to impede the former, and that not only the reform of the War Office, but the proper organisation and armament of our land forces, both Regular and Auxiliary, will be taken in band without further delay.
In this letter I do not endeavour to deal with the arming, &c., of infantry, whether Regular, Militia, or Volunteers ; I am con- cerned solely with our cavalry, Regular and Yeomanry. A short time ago the lance was abolished, except for reviews and cere- monial parades, although not long before the front ranks of Dragoon regiments had been armed with it.- To what can this volte-face be traced ? Is it not probable that it is to the fact that persons in authority have made up their minds that any future wars in which we may be engaged will be conducted in the same circumstances as the late war in South Africa, in which the cavalry fought considerably more on their feet than on their horses. Whether in a future war against an enemy with well- trained cavalry it would be possible for cavalry to do as much work dismounted is, I believe, open to question. Dismounted cavalry have given hostages to fortune in the shape of their horses, and I contend that it would be impossible to do this, when facing an enemy well provided with cavalry, to anything like the extent to which it was done in South Africa.
Our pattern of sword has been shown by the evidence given before the War Commission to be of a singularly useless kind, and the difficulty of keeping a sword sharp on active service, when continually drawing it from, and returning it to, a metal scabbard is self-evident. It seems settled, as far as anything ever is settled for good by Government Departments, that the rifle, presumably the new short pattern, and the sword are to be the cavalry weapons, as far as this country is concerned, of the future.
I now come to the question of the Yeomany, whose con- tinued existence, not long before the war, seemed somewhat uncertain, various military pundits considering it a useless force, and one that might well be dispensed with. Fortunately for this country, their views did not prevail, and, as time showed, England could have dispensed with many of her military pundits far better than with her Yeomanry regiments, for it was to tho Yeomanry she turned first in the closing days of 1899 and the opening weeks of 1900, at a time when affairs in South Africa looked none too well. The response of the Yeomanry needs no recapitulation, and when they had had time to shake down in South Africa they were first-rate troops. I refer to the first Yeomanry to go out, largely leavened with the regular Yeomanry trooper.
After the value of the Yeomanry was recognised, it appears to have been considered necessary to bring about one or two un- necessary changes. First, the old name of Yeomanry cavalry, existing for about a hundred years, was taken away, and the use- less and meaningless one of Imperial Yeomanry substituted ; useless, for neither officers nor men wished for it, and it made the Yeomanry neither better nor worse; meaningless, because there is nothing Imperial in a force raised solely in these islands. However, the spirit and character of a. force are not determined by its name, but by the work it is trained to do; and though for un- known reasons the name Yeomanry cavalry was removed, the whole Yeomanry training is a pure and simple cavalry one. A Yeomanry regiment is trained to ftht on foot ; so is a Regular cavalry regi-
ment; both. are in scouting, reconnaissance, outposts, gatrols, &c. ; both therefore in time of war would run the same risks of sudden Collision with the enemy's cavalry, a collision which would assuredly take place frequently, and in which the Yeomanry, if left armed as at present, would be helpless ; for a thick stick would be far more useful to a man having to fight mounted than a rifle, than which it would be impossible to find a weapon less adapted for the purpose. The more enclosed and wooded the country the more frequent would' the encounters between hostile patrols, scouts, &c., become; and as England is a very weeded and enclosed country, with roads and cross-roads
running in every direction, and it is for home defence that the Yeomanry are primarily intended, it would not be long before the Yeomanry trooper found himself in a very unenviable position. In ceasing to issue swords to the Yeomanry the excuse was that it was impossible to turn Yeomanry into efficient swordsmen in the time at their disposal. How many troopers in the regular cavalry are efficient swordsmen ?
We are also told that no time is available to train a Yeomanry regiment to attain what may be called homogeneity of riding at the speed of a charge, without which no charge can be effective. Let the question of charges be con- sidered. When and in what circumstances will they take place ? The old days of charging infantry squares have gone for ever. Such charges failed at Waterloo, when fifty or sixty yards was, roughly speaking, the distance at which infantry fired. They were, I believe, never successful in the Franco-German War, when the range of rifles and rapidity of loading had increased. It seems, therefore, that the charges of cavalry against well-trained infantry can only take place when infantry have been thoroughly demoralised by being either badly shaken by shell-fire, and are, perhaps, short of ammunition, or commencing a retreat which in the above cir- cumstances might be by no means an orderly one. Then the cavalry should have a chance, and I maintain that in that kind of charge a Yeomanry regiment properly armed would be as effective as a Regular regiment. In small bodies, a troop, a patrol, I see no reason why the Yeomanry, properly armed, should not give a good account of themselves, in sudden encounters when on detached duties ; when there would be no time to dismount for the new-fangled cavalry work, for these would be cases in which, as a distinguished French officer has said, "la meilleure defense pour la cavalerie c'est souvent l'offensive." I know the Yeomanry realise their half-armed condition, and thoroughly understand its danger. I have never yet met a Yeomanry officer to whom I talked on the subject who did not consider a sword of some sort absolutely necessary for the work Yeomanry are trained to do. I have shown that there is no difference in their training and that of Regular cavalry, except that the latter may practise a charge in close order.
A paragraph in a large and well-known daily paper recently announced authoritatively that the " War Office had decided to rearm the cavalry forces of the country with a light thrusting sword, and that it would be served out to the Yeomanry, whom it had been decided to keep as a cavalry force and not as a mounted infantry body." A stiff straight weapon, long enough to enable the man using it to get at his adversary as soon as his adversary can get at him, and strong enough to parry successfully the out of the ordinary cavalry sword as used by most countries, is what is required. The sword exercise necessary with this type of sword would be of the simplest description, merely guards and points; an exercise of guards and points alone would be easily taught, and easily learnt by men in both Regular cavalry and Yeomanry, and such a sword would be an efficient arm for both ; and the Yeomanry would not feel, as they are bound to do now, that they are expected, as the cavalry of the Auxiliary Forces, to do cavalry work when inefficiently armed for the purpose.
In the quotation from the daily paper mentioned above reference is made to keeping the Yeomanry as a "cavalry force." I believe it to be impossible to keep it as anything else, and the authorities must have felt the same when they wisely called in all bayonets when the Yeomanry returned from South Africa, which I am told by those who served there were useless, except as tent-pegs and choppers ; and the fact that they were served out is on a par with sending Yeomanry out as battalions and companies instead of squadrons and troops, their natural units, to which they reverted soon after their arrival at the front. Had any serious attempt been made to convert the Yeomanry into mounted infantry, I am absolutely convinced that the force would not have continued to exist three years; but armed as cavalry and trained as cavalry, with modifi- cations necessary owing to modern firearms, I see no reason why the Yeomanry should not continue to be a very fine force, and well worth their cost to the country.
P.S.—I would point out that in encounters between small bodies referred to the carrying of the sword makes the differ- ence whether a man is to be able to strike a blow for himself or not. Without it he cannot; and, I ask, are we justified in sending men on active service unless they are armed, as far as human foresight can arm them, to fight in all circumstances in which they may be attacked ? I maintain that we are not.
[The question raised by our correspondent is of great importance, and should not be decided without the closest consideration. On the whole, we incline to the view expressed above,—i.e., that in favour of retaining the sword. It is the view, we may remark, supported by General French in his striking evidence on the point before the War Commission. —ED. Spectator.]
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