One hundred years ago
We published on Saturday last an account of the pamphlet in which the German General Von der Goltz main- tains that in the next invasion of France cavalry must be employed on a great scale, and that serious battles of caval- ary 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 described the great manoeuvres going on near Col- ogne, in which the Rhineland and West- phalian Corps d'Arrnee 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 em- ployed in 'mere strategical manoeuvr- ing'. 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 in- crease 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 requistions, which, when the numbers of horsemen rise high, blight a district like a flight of locusts.
Spectator, 20 September 1884
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