The Intimate Bond (32 page)

Soldiers had ridden into battle for well over three thousand years, long before anyone invented cannons or muskets.
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Cavalrymen served as scouts, pursued fleeing infantry, and protected the flanks of Roman legions. Generals such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar made effective use of lightly armed cavalry units, which were a far cry from heavily armed medieval knights, who engaged, for the most part, in individual combat. These latter may have been symbols of medieval chivalry, but they were lumbering figures, the medieval equivalent of tanks. (The word
chivalry
, derived from eleventh-century Old French for
chevalier
, or “knight,” originally meant horsemanship, and the medieval, and earlier, Latin word
caballarius
, “horseman”.) Heavy armor and rigid saddles locked knights into positions where they could withstand the shock of a lance blow. But armored riders had much less control of their horses. These large stallions weighed up to
about 454 kilograms (1,000 pounds). Considered to be natural fighters and controlled with severe curb bits, they learned to bite, kick, and stamp on their opponents. Mounted knights were dangerous to infantry, but they were no match for lightly armed Mongolian horsemen, who enjoyed a subtle, tactile relationship with their mounts. They paid careful attention to the overall balance of their beasts, and ensured that they had an easy gait and a long stride. They also paid careful attention to a horse's head, its ears, and its alertness and personality—to their relationship with their charge. At the Battle of Mohi in Hungary in 1241, fast-moving Mongol archers played havoc with Hungarian knights, the heavy cavalry unable to respond to the rapidly changing invader's tactics.

Mongol riders learned while infants the use of natural tools for riding—voice, legs, hands, and body. Horses are so sensitive to any touch that they can feel a fly land on their flanks. Thus, they learn to feel the distinctive movements of a rider's body and limbs and can distinguish among subtle changes. They also have excellent memories, which make them readily trainable. Leg squeezes of different intensity move the animal forward; right- or left- leg pressure steers the animal right or left; both legs applied in separate places can cause the beast to turn around. The rider's body when shifted forward or backward tells the horse to speed up or slow down. As the heavily armored knight gave way to cannons, the old horse-handling skills came to the fore once again. By the late eighteenth century, many aristocratic foxhunters and racecourse owners had developed close understandings of their most cherished horseflesh. They assumed that such expertise qualified them to become cavalry officers. In this they were only partially correct. Among other things, a brilliant ability at handling a horse and commanding a charge did not necessarily translate into a concern over the ultimate fate of the steed in the cut and thrust of battle. The story of cavalry during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a tragic commentary on the fine line between being at one with an animal and exposing it to extreme danger without concern for its safety. It's also a story of increasingly impersonal warfare, where horses literally became cannon fodder.

“Grass Before the Mower's Scythe”

By the time of the Napoleonic Wars at the very end of the eighteenth century, cavalry were a well-established weapon on the battlefield, their field movements subject to greater discipline. Generals learned that well-planned cavalry charges could have devastating effects. On January 8, 1807, Napoléon Bonaparte was in the midst of a violent but inconclusive battle with the Russians at Eylau, in East Prussia.
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A Russian attack in the midst of a snowstorm threw his infantry into confusion. Napoléon had but one option: a massive charge by his eleven-thousand-strong cavalry reserve under General Joachim Murat. In one of the great charges of history, Murat's squadrons surged through the Russian infantry around the village of Eylau and divided them in two. The cavalry put hundreds of infantrymen to the sword and rode through the Russian guns. Their large horses trampled down a battalion that attempted to resist. Never had cavalry played such a central role in a major battle, partly because these were mounted on fine-quality horses just requisitioned after the French conquest of Prussia.

Eylau was a textbook example of intelligent cavalry deployment under very severe conditions. But the cost in equine and human lives was enormous. Murat lost a thousand to fourteen hundred well-trained cavalrymen, and numerous horses, but his attack relieved the pressure on the French infantry and allowed them to redeploy. The surgeon general of Napoléon's Grand Army served soup and stew made from the flesh of slain horses to the wounded, apparently with good results, so much so that he promoted the consumption of horsemeat back in France.

By contrast, the Battle of Waterloo, eight years later, provided a dramatic illustration of just how ineffective, even suicidal, such charges could be. Well-disciplined squares of foot guards repelled a French cavalry charge of at least five thousand closely packed trotting horses. The infantry stood their ground and felled horsemen by the dozen with controlled musket volleys. In another engagement in the same battle, a British artillery commander, Cavalié Mercier, faced French cuirassiers. He wrote, “On they came in compact squadrons, one behind the other. . . . Their pace was a slow but steady trot. None of your furious galloping charges was this, but a deliberate advance, at a deliberate pace. . . . They moved in profound silence, and the only sound that could be heard from them amidst the incessant roar of battle was the low thunder-like reverberation of the ground beneath the simultaneous tread of so many horses.” Then the artillery opened up at close range: “Nearly the whole leading rank fell at once. . . . The discharge of every gun was followed by a fall of men and horses like that of grass before the mower's scythe.”
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Figure 16.1
  The fury of the charge. The Royal Scots Greys attack at the Battle of Waterloo, 1815. Pantheon/Superstock.

Regiments of Display

Few cavalry officers digested the lessons of Waterloo. One expert who did was British cavalryman Capt. Louis Edward Nolan (1818–1854). An accomplished horse master and expert on horse-based military tactics, he wrote
Cavalry: Its History and Tactics
, in 1853, on the eve of the Crimean War. This articulate, well-reasoned manual was to become a definitive source on the subject. During his entire career, much of which he spent studying cavalry in other armies, Nolan placed a great emphasis on the relationship between soldiers and their horses, and on proper leadership, by officers who could judge distance and skillfully mask their intentions in the face of the enemy. Everyone,
whether officer or enlisted man, had to keep his eyes and wits about him—judging distances between his mount and neighboring horses; in the case of leaders, riding straight at the enemy; and taking advantage of reconnoitered ground.

A meticulous horse master, Nolan trained individual soldiers to ride well before introducing them to formation riding, which, ultimately, was what cavalry warfare involved. Above all, “a cavalryman should be complete master over [his horse], so as to control and direct him at the slowest or fastest pace with equal ease; he should know how to quiet and subdue the hot-tempered, and put life and action into the sluggish horse.”
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Predictably, this passionate advocate of cavalry warfare adopted the ancient teachings of Xenophon: “Horses are taught not by harshness but by gentleness.”

Decisiveness was the mantra of cavalry command, said Nolan, but beware the danger of approaching the enemy at full speed. The shock of contact would probably dismount the rider and break most of his bones. He added: “Men and officers should . . . understand that to gallop forward because the enemy are in that direction is by no means a proof of valour.”
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In other words, mass cavalry charges were an inappropriate use of cavalry in an era of increasingly effective firearms. Nolan wrote of the importance of careful planning, of maintaining reserves, of the strategic advantages of attacking infantry on their flanks, and of the need to reconnoiter and make use of the natural topography. His view of mounted soldiery was forthright: “Cavalry ought to be at once the eye, the feeler, and the feeder of an army. . . . It reaps the fruits of victory, covers a retreat, and retrieves a disaster.”
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Unfortunately, few senior officers took any notice of Nolan's teachings. Almost to a man, they were wealthy aristocrats, many of them with experience dating back to the Napoleonic Wars of now-outmoded realities of warfare. In an era of sharp class distinctions and inherited wealth, officers purchased high ranks for large sums, even when they had virtually no military experience. It was hardly surprising, then, that cavalry regiments were preoccupied by display. They dazzled an admiring public with beautifully choreographed and executed drills. They wore brilliant
uniforms, often subsidized by their wealthy commanders from their own pockets. Lord Cardigan's Eleventh Hussars were a notorious example of arrogant extravagance. Officers and troopers wore cherry-colored overalls (trousers), royal blue jackets edged with gold, and furred pelisses (short, richly adorned cloaks). Their high fur hats defied logic with their bright feathers. Everyone's trousers were absurdly tight, the overall effect utterly gorgeous—and totally impractical. Cavalry officers had a reputation for dashing horsemanship and a passion for horses, but knew nothing about the realities of war. The London
Times
cynically described the Eleventh Hussars' uniforms “as utterly unfit for war service as the garb of the female hussars in the ballet.”
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When the Crimean War broke out in October 1853, allying the British and French against the Russians on the shores of the Black Sea, Queen Victoria's cavalry was ready for glory, her regiments commanded by aristocratic officers, most of whom had never been under fire. They embarked for the Black Sea as if starting a foxhunt. Wisely, the French sent out almost no cavalry.

Crimean Disaster

The British army's performance in the Crimean War was a disaster, despite the bravery of the troops. Quite apart from battlefield casualties, grossly inadequate logistics and water shortages led to the deaths of hundreds of cavalrymen and their suffering, emaciated mounts. The cavalry hovered on the margins until the Battle of Balaclava, in October 1854, where two major charges marked what was ultimately an inconclusive battle on the margins of the Sebastopol fortress. But the charges of the Heavy and Light Brigades brought immortality to Balaclava. (Heavy cavalry were armored riders on heavier horses, used as shock troops. The French called them cuirassiers. A mounted cuirassier wearing his customary breastplate armor, and his horse, could weigh a ton. Light cavalry were generally faster units, using light arms, employed for scouting and patrolling, often protecting vulnerable flanks and pursuing fleeing infantry.)
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Between three thousand and four thousand Russian cavalry bore down on the Heavy Brigade under Brigadier General James Scarlett from higher ground. Without hesitation, Scarlett deployed his five hundred
horsemen as the Russians trotted downhill toward them. Inexplicably, the enemy halted to redeploy. Three squadrons of the British charged, and crashed headlong into the Russians. Furious hand-to-hand combat ensued. Two other squadrons now charged to the left and right. The great mass of horsemen heaved back and forth, the bodies of the dead and wounded falling across their saddles. The outnumbered Heavy Brigade routed its foes, but that is where it ended. No one pursued the fleeing Russians, who escaped annihilation.

Then came a fateful pause, followed by the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade. Inexplicably, a resplendently attired Lord Cardigan led the brigade in a headlong charge up a narrow valley against batteries of Russian guns both ahead and on the flanks. The cavalry overran the guns, but was forced to retreat in disorder. The entire engagement lasted but twenty minutes. A French general, Pierre Bosquet, famously remarked, “It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness.”
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And military insanity it was (see sidebar “Cavalry Folly: Into the Valley of Death”).