20 SEPTEMBER 1884, Page 2

We published on Saturday last an account of the pamphlet

in which the German General Von der Goltz maintains that in the next invasion of France cavalry must be employed on a great scale, and that serious battles of cavalry and horse-artillery only may be expected. This is known to be the view favoured by the scientific German Staff ; and on Tuesday the Times de- scribed the great mameuvres going on near Cologne, in which the Rhineland and Westphalian Corps d'Armee are engaged. They were remarkable for the great position assigned to the cavalry, which on the first day had the whole of the work to do, not a rifle being fired, and the whole of the infantry being employed in "mere strategical manceuvring." It is known, moreover, that one great reliance of the Russian Staff against invasions by Germany is on the great numbers of cavalry they habitually keep ready for concentration in Poland. The Germans cannot rival them in this arm. If this view is correct, the revival of cavalry campaigning will greatly increase the expense of armies and the calamities of war. Cavalry can never be cheap, even in a conscript service ; and a mass of cavalry moving in an enemy's territory must desolate it. It cannot keep up the- needful speed and carry stores, and must, therefore, live by requisitions, which, when the numbers of horsemen rise high,. blight a district like a flight of locusts.