“however much thou art read in theory, if thou hast no practice thou art ignorant. he is neither a sage philosopher nor an acute divine, but a beast of burden with a load of books. how can that brainless head know or comprehend whether he carries on his back a library or bundle of faggots?”—sadi, gulistan, p. 273.
as each year passes it appears to be more difficult to get officers for the cavalry, consequently any attempt to state what is the best way to train them is always subject to the proviso of the old-time cookery-book, “first catch your hare.” we all know the type of officer required, but we are also aware how hard it is to get him. he has been described over and over again, and can be seen in any cavalry regiment; a man who combines an addiction to, and some knowledge of, field sports, involving horses, with sufficient intelligence to pass into sandhurst. in order to catch this hare, mess expenses in cavalry have been reduced to a minimum. he is given chargers by government; they are hired by him if used for other than military purposes, but otherwise they are not paid for. uniform has been made less expensive. finally, examinations have been relaxed, though certainly an increase of pay has not yet been tried. and still155 parents and guardians hesitate to send their sons into a service which affords a better training and discipline of mind, body, and manners for the first few years, than is available in any other profession.
extravagances in the old days have frightened candidates for cavalry commissions away. the more irresponsible press write against the cavalry.67 fewer country gentlemen can afford the requisite allowance to their sons.68 expenditure all round has increased, whilst incomes, at any rate those derived from land, have shrunk. more youngsters go abroad to the colonies. “how hardly shall the rich man enter” the barrack gate now, when so much more work is to be done!69 all honour to him when he does so, and sticks to his profession. hard work, danger, adversity are the making of a man, and those who fear or shirk such are not likely to make good cavalry officers, or, for the matter of that, good citizens of the empire. a short comparison of the life of the cavalry officer thirty to forty years156 ago and nowadays may elucidate this to some extent.
then, as a rule, throughout the winter one parade per week, a horse parade on saturday, took place. the officer who could afford to do so could hunt every day in the week as long as he went round his stables once during the day. only the orderly officer (and often his belt was taken by the adjutant, or riding master, or a sergeant-major in the winter) remained in barracks. sometimes there appeared in orders for saturday: “riding school for officers not hunting.” in the summer there were no man?uvres, and only in very exceptional cases was there brigade training. a regimental parade under the c.o. once a week. an adjutant’s drill (only officers junior to the adjutant being present) once a week. all training of men, and they were of longer service then, was done by the adjutant and regimental drill instructors; men and horses were handed over, theoretically ready for the ranks, to the troop officer. to sum up, then, the pay was nominal, and the enforced work was ditto.
nowadays young officers begin work at daybreak and go on till midday, 1 o’clock, or perhaps till 3 p.m. the squadron officer is now training a succession of men for the reserve. there is winter training, then squadron training, regimental, brigade, and possibly divisional training. the men are trained to a much higher standard, and they are trained now by the squadron officers and not by the adjutant and his staff.
the nation, supremely ignorant in regard to the detail of military matters, hardly appreciates the fact157 (i.) that nowadays a cavalry officer does at least twice as much work as he did formerly, and (ii.) that the cavalry officer not only devotes his life to a patriotic idea, but must also devote a large portion of his income, at least ￡200 to ￡300 a year, to the same purpose.70 (iii.) the emoluments which he derives from the public purse are, if anything, less nowadays than a hundred years ago.
the old type of cavalry officer, who joined the service for the amusement to be derived from it, is scarcer; but still he is to be found, and he faces hard work cheerfully and well. against the discouraging influences, and the worst of these is “worry” substituted for “work,” he has his esprit de corps and a fondness for the life, which is an open-air one, and in many respects an interesting one.
for the first few years or so of his service an excess of book knowledge is not required, but it is desirable that the young cavalry officer should be able to express himself clearly in words or on paper, and this he must gain by thinking clearly. let us consider his duties in those first years, and then we shall see what to teach him. the principle has always been maintained that it is right to work158 him hard when he first joins, and later he can drop into the pace of the remainder. you must teach him to ride and to train a horse. a few officers can do this when they join, and think they are fit to pass out of the riding school at once. but this is not the case; they have next to learn to teach others. again, he must learn to shoot. he must learn to groom and shoe a horse, and to apply simple remedies. he must learn the few main rules of tactics, reconnaissance, and scouting. he must learn cavalry pioneering. he must learn to use his personal weapon on foot and horseback. all these he must learn, not merely so that he is able to do them himself, but so that he may be able to instruct and be an example to others. he will be taught the care of his men’s health in barracks and on service. he may even be taught book-keeping, and he will certainly learn something of house economy on the mess committee.
but the high-spirited youngster whom we want, and who can leave the service when he wants to, must in some respects be treated like a blood horse, whom we feel we can guide, but cannot stop at a single stride’s notice, as we could a temperate old horse. we must preserve his verve and desire to take the initiative, even if it occasionally leads him to do wrong, when we should remember the great legal maxim, “if the heart is right,” and also our own youthful days.
the addiction to manly, and especially to rough and dangerous, field sports must be regarded as an immense asset towards efficiency for war. time spent159 in the chase, “the image of war,” must not be regarded as so many hours less given to his employer by the cavalry officer. we particularly want the hunting breed of man, because he goes into danger for the love of it.71 he must also be able to perform any of the diverse duties which he may be called on to carry out on service, such as to fortify a village, construct a pontoon, court-martial a prisoner, and so on.
it is very desirable that he should have as much as possible practically taught to him. a knowledge of the tactics of the other arms should be gained thus, and we are responsible for giving the opportunities, since this will not and cannot be learnt theoretically; verb. sap. officers, faute de mieux, should be sent to infantry camps and artillery practice camps, not to gun and company drill. this attachment to other arms is carried out by some nations, and especially france, to a far greater extent than in our service. it is invaluable in breaking down the watertight compartment system of training, and in establishing a closer union of arms.
the elements of strategy should also be taught. a few good lectures by an officer who has a taste for this will teach more than a six months’ poring over160 books, for which during his first three years a young officer has little time to spare. at the same time the genuine soldier cannot but be interested in questions of strategy. a knowledge of it gives an entirely new aspect to what might otherwise appear rather dull history.
then you may say that after three years of this “our young officer is complete and a valuable asset”?
“far from it.”
“but what more can be asked of him? this covers the complete syllabus, appendices, etc., etc.”
“there is one thing without which all this is as ‘that which profiteth not.’”
“and that is?”
“he must have a strong sense of duty, without which he is ‘as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.’”
now man is not born with a sense of duty (though the most riotous young hound often becomes the best in the pack); it has to be taught; it has to be learnt practically as well as theoretically; it has to be borne in on him by precept and example as an excellent, a noble and a desirable thing, a thing in which to glory. what is it? the abnegation of self, the working for the good of all, in foro conscientiae, and, above all, without making difficulties.
the french manuel du gradé de cavalerie, p. 12, gives the following definition: “le dévouement, le sentiment généreux qui pousse l’homme à faire le sacrifice de sa vie pour le salut de la patrie et de ses semblables.”
161 he must learn that the “superiority which disciplined soldiers show over undisciplined masses is primarily the consequence of the confidence which each has in his comrades” (von der goltz, nation in arms, p. 162).
the young officer begins by having a pride in his troop, squadron, and regiment, by trying by his own individual exertions first to make himself fit to lead and instruct, and next to make his own unit better than others. if he does not set the example of being better than others, he will not render much help to the men serving under him. they will look to him, admiring what is good in him and despising what is bad, summing him up, weighing him in mind, if not in words, as they see him.72 and the eyes of a regiment see everything. he must be a very acute dissembler who can escape the five hundred pairs of eyes which watch him at every turn. this alone is a good training for any man. very much indeed naturally depends on the influences under which an officer falls on joining a regiment.
a strict but just commanding officer, who works, but does not worry, the men under him, makes not only a good regiment, but a regiment which will fight well in war, whilst a slack and indulgent commanding officer, even if just, will soon lessen a regiment’s discipline to an extent which will render it162 of little value in war. in peace, to be sure, no one takes much notice of this fact, but in war the slack commanding officer becomes an object of detestation to all concerned, and he invariably “lets in” every one. he is most despised by the very men whom he tries to save from dangers. it is a curious fact in human nature that usually they think he is doing this because he himself is afraid.
if, however, there are altogether some four or five really good officers of various ranks in a regiment, their influence and peace-activity will save the regiment from much that even a slack commanding officer can do to its detriment. all young officers fall under their influence, and there remains a substratum of rock under the shifting sands.
von der goltz says (nation in arms, p. 144): “every regiment brings into the field a certain character of its own.” that character depends on its officers—often on one officer long since dead and gone. in one regiment the shoeing was remarkably good; it transpired that a former colonel, a martinet dead thirty years before, used to “break” the farrier if a horse lost a shoe in the field.
with his duties and his sports, for the first two or three years in a good regiment, the subaltern has no time to think, and if he is the right man in the right place, enjoys himself thoroughly.
let us now hark forrard to the full-fledged cavalry officer of three to seven years’ service who is learning to command a squadron, and may find himself doing so often enough. he has now time to look round,163 and much depends again on the tone of the regiment and the man himself whether he takes to his profession seriously or “soldiers” on to pass the time pleasantly. he may aspire to be a staff officer, or a good regimental officer, or may have no aspirations.
with the staff officer we are not concerned; what we are now considering is, what process will render the regimental cavalry officer of most value to the service? constant drills and parades will not do so; they belong to the past. to put first spit and polish and show parades is a thing of the past in nearly all minds. but this must not be taken to mean that drill is not necessary. those who have led in war drilled and undrilled men aver, with reason, that smooth, easy working and confident leading only exist where the men have been carefully drilled. a good deal can be done at a slow, go-as-you-please pace with semi-drilled intelligent men, but they have no chance, especially in cases of emergency, against men of lower intelligence, well trained by the officer who leads them. drill in the evolutions necessary in the field is consequently essential to a high standard of fighting ability. to drill well largely resolves itself into the power to observe and correct faults in such a way that the impression remains. the experienced drill and the coach of a racing eight know by experience that, owing to the imperfections of man’s nature, they are bound to meet with certain faults which will have an unsteadying and deterrent effect on the squadron’s or boat’s progress. they address themselves to the correction of these characteristic faults, explaining164 their reasons, often affecting decorative, if forceful epithets, similes, and expressions, just as a preacher or orator does, in order to give point and pungency to his discourse and to make it remembered. von schmidt in his cavalry instructions usually details at the end of each paragraph bearing on an evolution or practice their characteristic faults, and the cause, effect, and cure of these. primed with a knowledge of these, and possessed of some small power of explanation, the squadron or troop officer will soon make an astonishing difference in his command’s power of evolution. without them, he too often gropes in the dark.
what we would suggest, then, is to encourage this officer (i.) constantly to practise the situations in which he and his men may find themselves in war, and (ii.) to train and exercise his command so that it is difficult for circumstances to arise of which they have not had some previous experience;73 (iii.) to practise giving short verbal orders in the saddle in proper form (vide f.s.r., part i.) till it becomes a second nature, both in himself to give orders thus, and his command to place those orders in their mind and act upon them in a logical sequence; (iv.) to become by practice a person of resource, and to train his men so that they become “handy men,” e.g. able to get a waggon up and down a steep slope, or improvise rafts, etc., or to place a farm in a state of defence, and to do so quietly and in an orderly165 manner; (v.) to be himself a capable master of his weapons, and able to instruct intelligently; (vi.) to know the situations in which a battle on a large scale may place him, and to be able to foresee what are the probable opportunities of which he may have to take advantage, and so to train his men that they will act with intelligence in such cases.74
here we must pause whilst we make it plain that the really stupid man, who has no imagination, makes a very bad officer for training purposes, because in peace-time he is quite unable to picture to himself what does happen in an action. the same unfortunate trait makes him a bad leader in war, because he is unable to picture what the enemy will most probably do in certain cases. in the cavalry this type of officer has no place, even in the lower ranks, because the cavalry officer so frequently has to act by himself, and then the fate of an army may be dependent on what he sees, or on the information which he sifts and sends into the chief. as an infantry officer of the same rank he is more under the eyes of a commanding officer.
what, then, are the conclusions at which we arrive?
1. that we draw on a class who have not been used to much brain work.
2. that the young officer should be for choice country bred, fond of sport, a “trier,” and must have some private income.
3. that now he works much harder than he used166 to do, at first especially; but the work is, or ought to be, congenial work. his pay is the same as when he did little or no work in peace-time. so he is a practical patriot.
4. that his work consists largely of teaching others.
5. that many of the attributes which are most desirable, can be tested by no written examination.
6. that to recognize and do his duty is one of these. as regards this, much depends on his surroundings in the regiment which he joins.
7. that a cavalry officer as he gets up to three to seven years’ service, though he requires little book learning, requires fairly wide practical knowledge, also considerable powers of imagination; without these, his abilities for training his men and for leading them in war are likely to be defective.
8. also that the main point which he must regard in all his training is not only, “is this a situation in which my command may find itself in war?” but also, “is there any situation in war in which my command is not practised?”