("Die Feuerwaffe beherrscht die Taktik")

I.—General von Bernhardi on South Africa.

"The rifle (or literally, the firearm) rules tactics." The phrase was originally my own, but the General has done me the honour of adopting and sanctioning it, and I may fitly bring this criticism of his writings to a conclusion by briefly noting the occasion and origin of this remarkable admission. My book, "War and the Arme Blanche," was published in March, 1910, a month before the publication in England of his own second work, "Cavalry in War and Peace," whose consideration we have just concluded. In the course of the summer of 1910 the General published a series of articles in the Milit?r Wochenblatt criticizing my book, and those articles were translated and printed in the Cavalry Journal of October, 1910.

The critic covers limited ground. He makes no rejoinder or allusion of any sort to my own[Pg 187] chapter of detailed criticism upon his own earlier work, "Cavalry in Future Wars." He scarcely notices my discussion of the Manchurian War. He confines himself almost wholly to the South African War, and makes it plain (1) that his knowledge of that war is exceedingly deficient; (2) that his principal explanation for the comparative failure of our Regular Cavalry in that war was that they were timidly led; (3) that he had misunderstood the nature of the case which I had endeavoured to construct against the arme blanche, and that, so far as he did understand it, he agreed with my conclusions.

1. Internal evidence shows—what one would naturally infer from the extraordinary conceptions of the technique of fire-action for mounted troops developed in his book—that the General[7] has never studied closely the combats of our war, except, perhaps, in such publications as the German Official History, which leaves off at March, 1900, practically ignores the mounted question, regards the Boers throughout as Infantry (presumably because, though mounted,[Pg 188] they did not carry lances and swords), and, as a result of this method of exposition, is of no value towards the present controversy. Unfamiliar with the phenomena of our war, the General nevertheless taunts me, who argued solely from the facts of war and went not an inch beyond the facts, with being a "speculative theorist"—a taunt which comes strangely from an author who declares in his current volume (p. 7) that "the groundwork of training" for modern Cavalry can only be created from "speculative and theoretical reflection." He proceeds further to obliterate my humble personality by remarking that I am "naturally devoid of all war experience," and that he would never have taken the trouble to discuss the subject at all if Lord Roberts had not declared his agreement with what I had written. The personal point, of course, is wholly immaterial, and I welcome his perfectly correct choice of an opponent. But his spontaneous allusion to war experience raises a somewhat important point. Until reading the words, I had never dreamed that my own war experience was a serious factor in the discussion. I have never alluded to it or argued from it; but since the point is raised, let me say to General von Bernhardi that, in common with some hundreds of thousands of my countrymen here or in the Colonies, I have had,[Pg 189] in a very humble capacity, a certain kind of war experience, of which he, as a reflective theorist, stands in bitter need. We have seen the modern rifle at work in what he calls "real war." We have seen what he has only reflected about and imagined—the revolution wrought by it on the battle-field since the days of 1870. He has not; and if he had, he would have avoided many of the painful solecisms and blunders which disfigure his work, enlightened as that work is by comparison with the retrograde school he attacks.

2. Timid Leading.—The Boers, says the General, were a "peasant militia," who were "tied to their ox-waggons," "incapable of assuming the offensive on a large scale," in "disappearing smaller numbers against greatly superior numbers," "not often strong enough either to charge the English Cavalry or to attack the English Infantry," "directed by halting leadership," and so on—altogether, according to the General\'s standards, a most contemptible foe, hardly worthy of the steel of a respectable professional Cavalry, and certainly not the kind of foe to force such a Cavalry to abandon its traditional form of combat. But there was the rub. Our Cavalry, it seems, was even more contemptible. They "made no relentless pursuits, despite the lack of operative mobility in the[Pg 190] enemy"; "they did not attack even when they had the opportunity"; and "one could scarcely find a European Cavalry which was tied down to such an extent during the big operations as the Boers, or one which, against such little resistance, did not try to overcome it as the English." He cites the action of Dronfield,[8] where Sir John French was in command, as a specific instance, and in as plain language as it is possible to use without penning the word "cowardice," accuses the Cavalry present of that unpardonable crime. "Mr. Childers," he remarks with perfect truth, "relates the story without any spite to show the little value of English Cavalry equipment and training. I think it shows much beside."[9] (The italics are mine.)

I do not know if this kind of thing will finally compel Sir John French to examine more[Pg 191] thoroughly the foundations of his own belief in the lance and sword, and to apply more searching criticism to the works of the "acknowledged authority" whom he lauds to the skies as a model and Mentor for British Cavalrymen. I should hope that, on their behalf, he now resents as hotly as I resent the contemptuous patronage of an officer holding and expressing the view that "any European Cavalry"—and he afterwards expressly names the German Cavalry—would have shown more aggressive spirit in South Africa than our own—more aggressive spirit, be it understood, with the lance and sword; for if that be not the meaning, the General\'s lengthy appreciation of the worth and exploits of the rival forces in South Africa is, in its context, as part of a hostile criticism of my work, either destructive of his own argument or meaningless. Sir John French refuses to read through British eyes the plain moral of the war for Cavalry. This is his reward, and it is of no use to pretend that he does not deserve it. Anyone who throws the dearly-bought experience of his own countrymen to the winds, and runs to foreigners who have no relevant experience for corroboration of an outworn creed, gratuitously courts the same humiliation.

Perhaps I make too much of a point of pride. Let Sir John French at any rate see the amusing[Pg 192] side of the situation. He has set forth[10] his own four reasons for the failure of the lance and sword in South Africa: (1) The lightning speed of the Boers in running away from combat—a habit which left our Cavalry nothing even to reconnoitre; (2) the fact that our military object was nothing less than the complete conquest and annexation of the enemy\'s country; (3) that, owing to the release of prisoners who fought again against us, we had to contend with double the number of men nominally allowed for; (4) the condition of the horses.

The last factor the German author does not pretend to take seriously as an explanation of the failure of the Cavalry; and with regard to the first three his view, as far as it receives clear expression, is diametrically the reverse of that of Sir John French. So far from alleging that the Boers "dispersed for hundreds of miles when pressed," he dwells repeatedly on the immobility imposed by their ox-waggons, says that they were "tied down" to an unparalleled extent, and censures the Cavalry for what he regards as their unparalleled slackness in attack against such a vulnerable and unenterprising enemy. So far from agreeing that there was "nothing to reconnoitre," he points out that the Cavalry "did not[Pg 193] understand reconnaissance by Cavalry patrols," a statement true enough in itself, but valueless without the reason—namely, the mistaken armament and training of the Cavalry—a reason which would, of course, have applied with infinitely greater force to "any other European Cavalry," because no Cavalry but our own would have had the invaluable assistance of Colonial mounted riflemen, armed and trained correctly. So far from finding an excuse for the failure of the lance and sword in the fact that our aim was conquest and annexation, he appears in the last page of his article to argue that, had these weapons been used more "relentlessly," the British nation would not now be in what he evidently regards as the degrading situation of having Boers on a footing of political equality with British citizens! Finally, so far from pleading the abnormal accretions to the Boer Army through the release of captured prisoners, he makes a particular point of our vast numerical superiority and of the "disappearing smaller numbers" of the enemy.

But the climax comes when he coolly tells Sir John French that the German Cavalry, whose backwardness and "indolence" he condemns in the very book which Sir John French sponsors, whom he regards as absolutely "un[Pg 194]prepared for war," whose "prehistoric" tactics, "old-fashioned knightly combats," "antiquated Regulations," and "tactical orgies," he is at this moment satirizing, would, twelve years ago, with still more antiquated Regulations, with still less education, and with a far worse armament, have taught the Boer peasants lessons with the steel which our faint-spirited Cavalry could not teach them! All patriotic feelings apart, and merely as a military experiment, one would like to have seen the German Uhlans of 1899, with their popgun carbine and Frederician traditions, and without a vestige of aid, inspiration or example from Colonial or Mounted Infantry sources, tackling the Boers at Talana or Zand River, at Colenso, Diamond Hill, or Magersfontein, at Ladysmith or Sannah\'s Post, at Roodewal or Bakenlaagte. At the last two episodes the General is quite certain that they would have done far more marvellous feats with the steel by means of an old-fashioned knightly combat than the Boers did with the rifle.

Serious students of land-war, anxious only to elucidate the purely technical question as to whether horsemen in modern days can fight effectively on horseback with steel weapons, look on in amazed bewilderment, while high authorities on the affirmative side conspire to render them[Pg 195]selves and one another ridiculous by dragging in political, psychological, strategical, and even lyrical factors which have nothing whatever to do with the simple issue of combat. There, as I have often said, is the reader\'s clue through the labyrinth of contradictions. Neither Sir John French nor General von Bernhardi ever really discusses at all the real point at issue. That is why they succeed in agreeing upon it, while differing radically in their logical processes. As the reader probably realizes now, nearly everything the latter General writes is either susceptible of two constructions or is subject to subsequent qualification. This critical essay on the opinions of Lord Roberts and on my book, "War and the Arme Blanche," is only another illustration of the same mental habit. Though he is explicit enough on what he regards as the feeble initiative of the British Army in general and the British Cavalry in particular, he never attempts to trace any direct causal connection between this topic and the topic of the lance or sword. He dare not. Remote insinuation is his only weapon. Yet, for the purposes of his article, that specific link is the only thing worth talking about. So far as he does touch the question of physical combat—as, for example, where he says that the Boers "fought entirely with the rifle, and this the[Pg 196] mounted troops of England had to learn," "that the Boers were far superior in the fire-fight," that the absence of "Cavalry duels" in South Africa was caused (mark this deliciously na?ve admission) by the fact of the armament and the numerical weakness of the Boers—he is on my side. And I need scarcely add that the reader will find it easy to demolish the General\'s whole dream of the lost opportunities of the lance and sword in South Africa or Manchuria, or of its golden chances in any future war, by passages from the General\'s own work, criticized in this volume, as when he implores his own Cavalry to remember that they may have to meet mounted riflemen, or even heterodox Cavalry, who, using their horses only as a means of mobility in the Boer fashion, will, in defiance of the German text-books, advance dismounted, and force the German troopers to do the same; or when he lays down that the attack or defence of any "locality," entrenched or unentrenched, and by whomsoever defended or attacked, must be accomplished through fire-action. It is true that the theoretical limitations he sets to fire-action, from sheer ignorance of what fire-action by mounted troops is, reduce that form of combat also to a nullity; but on that point anyone can test his views by facts. Although it is quite possible to[Pg 197] prove from his premisses, if their truth be postulated, that the South African War never took place at all, without going to the trouble of proving that it was "abnormal" in the matter of the futility of the lance and sword, we know that it did take place, why lances and swords were futile, and why fire was supreme.

3. So in reality does General von Bernhardi himself, and in the title of this chapter is crystallized his explicit statement of the truth. Faithful to his habitual system of alternate adhesion to two incompatible theories, the General, after clearly enough condemning the British Cavalry for their timidity with the steel, makes the following remarkable volte face:

    "In one particular, however, I will own he [i.e., Mr. Childers] is correct: the firearm rules tactics. That is indisputable. Nobody can with the arme blanche compel an opponent on his side tactically to use the arme blanche." (This last is a very dark saying, for the Boers had no arme blanche; but it does not affect the general sense.) "To the laws of the fire-fight everything must be subordinated in war."

Well, that is precisely what Lord Roberts, the greatest soldier living, and many humbler persons, including myself, have contended for. Cadit qu?stio. Why not have begun "Cavalry in[Pg 198] War and Peace" with these illuminating axioms? Why not have them placed in the forefront of our own Cavalry Manual, in the approaching revision of that important work? Why give the dominating operative weapon only 10 or 15 per cent. of the time of the Cavalry soldier, and make it officially subordinate to steel weapons which can only be used by its indulgence? But I am going a little too fast. The General, as usual, has a qualification. What is it? "But as a necessary corollary from this, to say that there can be no fight with the arme blanche is a mischievous sophism." Again we agree—in the sense, that is, in which the author now elects to use the phrase "arme blanche." For he means the bayonet. "Every Infantryman carries a bayonet, because he requires it for the assault. Even Lord Roberts will not take this away," etc. No; and no one in the world, so far as I know, wants to take away the bayonet from the Infantryman. But, as I asked at page 121, what has the bayonet got to do with the lance and sword? The bayonet is fixed to the rifle, and used on foot as an element in fire-tactics. The lance and sword are used from horseback in tactics which are diametrically opposite to and absolutely incompatible with fire-tactics, and every word Lord Roberts or I have written has[Pg 199] been directly aimed against this antiquated system of fighting on horseback with the lance and sword. If the Cavalryman, because, by universal consent, he has constantly to do work similar to that of Infantry, requires a bayonet, by all means give it to him. I discussed the question in my previous book, and ventured to regard it as an open one, for reasons which I need not repeat now. But I over and over again took pains to point out the fundamental distinction between the bayonet and the lance and sword.

On another point the General misrepresents me. Because I showed by illustration from war the marked physical and moral effects of rifle-fire from the saddle, he treats me as advancing the specific plan of substituting rifle-fire on horseback for the use of the lance and sword on horseback in what his translator calls the "collision of the mounted fight" (Handgemenge zu Pferde). This is a perversion of my meaning. The collisions he is thinking of are obsolete. Though I think that for all conceivable purposes a pistol would be better than a lance or sword, I adhered to the facts, and pointed out that saddle-fire in South Africa was used before contact, and that in order to consummate their destructive rifle-charges, the Boers dismounted, either at close quarters or within point-blank range.

[Pg 200]

II.—Views of the General Staff.