MANOEUVRES WISE AND FOOLISH
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,--General Fuller is not quite accurate in stating that after 1874 there were no Army manoeuvres until the Duke of Cam- bridge was succeeded as Commander-in-Chief by Lord Wolse- ley in 1895. Infantry manoeuvres were held on a fairly large scale in 1893 in the neighbourhood of the White Horse Hill, and the following year there were Cavalry manoeuvres at Churn, towards the other end of the Berkshire Downs, in which two brigades took part, one of them being under the command of Colonel J. D. P. French, with Captain D. Haig as his Brigade- Major. Several well-known war correspondents were on the scene, and foreign military attaches were present at the " Pow- Wows."
My home being near, I rode out daily for a fortnight with the troops. The operations seemed to consist largely of—to the lay mind—rather aimless and spectacular cavalry charges not far from the camp, but sometimes attacks were made upon a " skeleton enemy " representing an invading force. On one such occasion I was with one of the two batteries of R.H.A. which formed the nucleus of the skeleton, when suddenly French, Haig and Co. appeared over the crest of the knoll a few hundred yards away and were promptly wiped out ! On these days we went ten miles or more from camp and caustic were the gibes of the Lancers and Hussars at the imagined woes of the " pampered " household cavalry. The Life Guards would be assailed with a broadside of derisive chaff as cuirassed and helmeted they clattered by : " My dear Guardies, what a shame to make them ride such a long way, they don't look 'ar f-tired."
It soon became obvious that the safest thing to do when cavalry were charging about was to attach oneself to the Staff, and one day I found myself, a mere whipper-snapper of a school- boy, riding beside Sir Redvers Buller behind the Duke of Cambridge and Sir Evelyn Wood, then, I think, G.O.C., Aldershot Command. We were near the Ridge Way and a march past was taking place in the valley below. The old Duke grew more and more restive and rubicund, and I heard him tell an A.D.C. : " Go and ask them why they arc going so devilish slow ; I like to see a good gallop " ! When a stout lady of my acquaintance panted diagonally across the line of a cavalry charge with her numerous brood under her wing, the old man rode forward shouting with glee, " You are prisoners of war, ladies, you are prisoners of war " !
Wheatley Vicarage, Oxford. J: E. BOWLES.
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