War Horse
Page 36
We penetrated into the first battery, of which but two guns succeeded in firing. The battery commander and all the men were cut down. Conscious of the prime necessity of overthrowing as many of the enemy as possible between the wood and chaussee, the regiment, under a flanking infantry fire from the wood, threw itself upon a second battery and an infantry column. Whatever of this battery did not reach the shelter of its infantry was cut down. . . the regiment cut down and stabbed everything within reach. . . two squadrons of hostile cuirassiers suddenly assailed the regiment in the rear, which now had every avenue of escape cut off except on the right. In selecting this route we retreated pell-mell with the French cuirassiers, who attacked with little energy, and some of whom accompanied us on their runaway horses to the rear of our infantry, where they were cut down.47
The French viewed the countercharge as an equally successful cavalry operation. Von Bredow’s brigade’s casualties were 397 men and 403 horses—about 45 percent of the roughly 900 men committed to the attack. 48
Later that same day, the French threatened the III Corps’ left flank again. Again, Prussian cavalry came forward and prevented French exploitation. This time the opposing forces met near Rezonville. As happened earlier in the day, the French cavalry counterattacked. What ensued was a massive cavalry battle involving three French cavalry divisions, and the 5th and 6th Cavalry Divisions of the German 2nd Army. In total, more than 5,000 cavalry eventually joined in a huge melee. In the dust and confusion, both commands completely lost control of their units, and the fight became individual on individual. The melee included dragoons, hussars, lancers, and chasseurs. Prussian dragoons, mounted on powerful warmbloods, literally bowled over French light cavalry whose horses were hundreds of pounds lighter. The French lancers, dressed in blue, were mistaken for Prussian dragoons and almost destroyed by French dragoons determined to give no quarter, and who thought shouts that the lancers were French were merely a Prussian ruse. Finally, the commands of both sides trumpeted a rally call, and the troopers disengaged. The French remained masters of the field and claimed a victory, but from the perspective of the operational commander, the charge of the Prussian divisions had saved the Prussian left flank and was therefore a success.49
The successful cavalry attacks during the Franco-Prussian War were the exceptions. Typically, cavalry gained time for infantry units to regroup or reposition by charging against well-formed infantry, and without supporting friendly infantry and artillery. Commanders ordered these hasty charges without proper reconnaissance of the ground and usually without sufficient numbers. Under these conditions cavalry was rarely successful. Such a situation resulted in the destruction of the cavalry divisions of the French I Corps at Wörth early in the war.
On August 6, 1870, the French I Corps was desperately trying to hold its defensive positions on the edge of the Vosages Mountains. The German 3rd Army was attempting to turn both of the French flanks. In a last effort to stop the Germans, the French cavalry reserves were committed to the battle. First was the 2nd Cavalry Division of the army reserve under General Bonnemains. It attacked on the corps’ left flank, and within minutes rifle fire decimated all four of its regiments before they ever made contact with the Prussian infantry sheltering in hop fields and woods. Casualties in all the regiments were extensive. The losses of the 2nd Cuirassiers were representative: they lost their colonel, five officers, 129 men, and 170 horses killed in the charge. An equal number were wounded, and 80 horses died of wounds within the next few days.50 With total casualties about 50 percent, the division was combat ineffective.
That same day, at the other end of the I Corps front, the 3rd Brigade of the corps’ cavalry division, under General Michel, attacked the village of Morsbronn to facilitate the withdrawal of infantry and prevent the right flank of the corps from being turned. The 8th Cuirassiers led the charge of three regiments. Two command volleys of infantry rifle fire met the charging cavalry. The fire immediately took down two thirds of the horses and scattered the survivors of the lead regiment. The casualties of the first line formed a wall of dead and wounded horses and dismounted riders that destroyed the cohesion of the formations of the 9th Cuirassiers and the 7th Lancers who were following. Those two regiments went out of control and rode into the village of Morsbronn where obstacles in the streets trapped them and Prussian infantry firing from windows shot them down. The Prussians killed or captured the bulk of the two regiments.51
In a single day most of the I Corps cavalry—seven elite cavalry regiments—were destroyed. It is doubtful that the French troopers caused a single casualty among the defending Prussian infantry. The fate of the I Corps cavalry was not an isolated event. Ten days later on August 16, in the action near Vionville, German infantry and artillery destroyed the elite French Guards Cuirassiers Regiment and a regiment of lancers under similar circumstances. Infantry volleys “reduced each splendid unit in turn to a line of kicking, bloodstained heaps, while survivors galloped wildly over the battlefield until rounded up or hunted back to their own lines by German hussars and dragoons.”52
Possibly the most hopeless cavalry charge of the war was that of the French reserve cavalry 1st Division, under the command of General Jean Auguste Margueritte at Sedan on September 1, 1870. The Prussians invited numerous dignitaries to watch the destruction of the French army from an observation point on a hill overlooking the battlefield and witnessed the charge. Among the observers were King William of Prussia, the Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck, and chief of staff of the Prussian army von Molke. The American general Philip Sheridan was another witness to the destruction of the seven cavalry regiments by German artillery and rifle fire. Sheridan, a cavalry veteran of some of the most intense fighting of the Civil War, said that he had never seen any attack so desperate, useless, and sanguinary. The German newspapers reported on the hopeless bravery of the French cavalry:
Suddenly the French cavalry appeared on the scene; it was their last hope, and their attack was intended to take the batteries that were causing them such loss in flank, and also to charge our infantry, who had to withstand the onslaught of cuirassiers, hussars, and chasseurs d’Afrique, the latter mounted on splendid barbs. At several points they endeavoured to break our line and thus open a road for their infantry, but their efforts were repulsed by a cool and well directed fire, which laid the majority low. Let us give credit to our valiant adversaries, who rushed to death to save, if possible, the rest of their army.53
After the first charge failed, the commander of the 2nd Brigade was asked if his men could try again. General de Gallifet replied cheerfully, “As often as you like, mon general, so long as there’s one of us left.” The French division attacked three times and only succeeded in overrunning the Prussian skirmishers. French cavalry casualties in men and horses averaged 50 percent in the regiments. Three general officers of the division were killed. A legend associated with this charge claims that as the decimated ranks of the division were repulsed for the final time, Prussian officers ordered a cease-fire and saluted the retreating French—allowing them to reach the safety of their lines unmolested.54
Although these types of catastrophic cavalry charges occurred throughout the Franco-Prussian War and were typical of cavalry versus infantry actions, the few successful charges we noted and the fact that the war was of such short duration made it difficult to determine whether the cavalry charge against rapid-firing breechloading weapons was viable or not.
The rifle musket, because it did not have a significantly greater rate of fire than the smooth bore musket, did not fundamentally change the dynamics of the cavalry charge. However, the new generation of breechloading rifles, fielded immediately after the American Civil War, had a major impact on the dynamics of cavalry tactics. breechloading rifles, the American Springfield, the French Chassepot, and the Prussian Dreyse needle-gun all had significantly simpler, and therefore faster, reloading procedures than the musket. The ease and speed of loading gave the infantryman time to aim accurately
; it allowed him to seek cover, fire from behind rocks, and while prone. Most important, it gave the infantryman confidence in the lethality of the individual rifleman. This began to change the fragile psychological dynamics of the cavalry charge. The thundering hoofs of the mass cavalry attack could not as easily intimidate a rifleman who knew that he could fire three or more aimed shots before the cavalry got to his position. This realization was the key to the demise of the cavalry charge as an effective tactic on the battlefield. Infantry no longer relied on the square for protection: rifle fire was protection enough. The destruction of the French cavalry during the Franco-Prussian War plainly made this point for any analyst who cared to see it.
Though large cavalry formations, up to corps size, were organized, and adequate breechloading carbines were developed and issued, most European cavalry ignored the potential combat power of the carbine.55 European cavalry did not operate independently like American cavalry did, nor did it operate dismounted in any great numbers.
European Horses and Horsemanship
Through the nineteenth century, European cavalry officers closely scrutinized the horse and its equipment searching for ways to improve capabilities. European countries refined horse breeding and institutionalized and more carefully regulated their remount services. Equipment design improved to increase its utility and improve the comfort of horse and rider. Armies established centers of equestrian excellence that studied the art and science of riding and passed that knowledge to the regiments to improve their tactical capabilities.
Horses
During the nineteenth century, the horses of Prussia and after 1870, Germany, became the premier cavalry mounts of Europe. By the end of the nineteenth century, Germany had a horse population of over 4 million, of which more than 3 million horses were in Prussia alone. The German cavalry annually took in 9,000 carefully selected remounts from this population. The preferred remount came from Eastern Prussia, the horse breed that today is known as the Trakehner. During the nineteenth century, and until the end of World War II, warmbloods from East Prussia were known as “East Prussians,” and only those that came from the royal stud were known as Trakehners. The breed traces its origins to Fredrick Wilhelm I, the king of Prussia and the father of Frederick the Great, who established the stud at Trakehnen in East Prussia in 1732, specifically to develop a Prussian royal breed and provide remounts for the cavalry. The Prussians chose the Thoroughbred as one of the foundations of the breed because of Fredrick Wilhelm I and Frederick the Great’s admiration for them. Even though the Prussian cavalry at the time were mounted on very fine Holsteiners, Frederick the Great and his entourage were always recognizable because their personal mounts were imported English Thoroughbreds. Initially, they established the breed by using small local mares known as Schwaike matched with English Thoroughbred and Arabian stallions. Once the breed was established, it was strictly controlled and the only authorized outside breeding was to carefully selected Thoroughbred or Arabian stallions, a practice continued to the present day. The Arab and Thoroughbred were specifically selected to ensure that the breed could meet the needs of the cavalry for fast and maneuverable high-performance horses.56 The modern description of the horse according to the American Trakehner Association is not much different from the horse as it would have appeared on the battlefields of 1866–70:
The observer should immediately be aware of a striking, elegant presence. The combination of size, bone, and substance, with a classic breediness, produces this unmistakable Trakehner type, a type clearly distinguishable from all other warmbloods due to its refinement. The charm and nobility are evident in the refined head, often slightly concave in profile, with its broad forehead, smallish muzzle, large, kind, wide set eyes, and solid jawbone. The throatlatch is clean and fine and the long, graceful neck is set into the shoulder at just the right angle to provide maximum balance. The ideal Trakehner has a large, solid body, standing in a rectangular frame—compared to the square frame of, for example, the Thoroughbred—with a deep, sloping shoulder that allows for tremendous freedom of movement. The legs should be straight and the movement true and square. A back of medium length flows into large and powerful hindquarters with broad, solid hocks carried well under the animal as it travels. A deep barrel provides the necessary lung capacity and is closely coupled to a long, sloping croup. It is the combination of the thrust from the quarters, the swinging back and the freedom of the shoulder that produces the Trakehner’s famous floating trot, the trot that eats up the ground, is supremely comfortable, and is so light and springy that it actually looks as if the horse does not quite touch the ground as it strides.57
The Germans distributed cavalry horses among cavalry units by size: heavy cavalry horses were 16 hands or larger; light cavalry horses were between 15.2 to 16 hands. The Germans operated a very efficient remount system as a special department of the War Ministry. A major general, who was the inspector general of remounts, ran the department. An American evaluator, cavalry Lieutenant Jonathan Boniface, considered that it produced “superior cavalry horses, and it may be taken as the best system in existence.” Lieutenant Boniface described the details of how the system was organized and operated:
Horses are, in times of peace, purchased at from three to four years old by com-missions consisting of cavalry officers and veterinarians under the orders of the Remount Department of the War Ministry. This commission begins its work in May of each year and continues until September. The number purchased is always 5 per cent over and above the number required, in order to make allowances for losses and those proving unfit for service. In the Bavarian and Saxony systems, the remounts were sent directly to the regiments after purchase, but in the Prussian system, they were distributed to four remount depots, where they were kept for a year, during which time they have an opportunity to develop. At the end of this time all remounts fit for the cavalry service are sent to their regiments. At the head of each remount depot is a civil official, the administrator, who is selected for his good judgment in regard to horses, his own good horsemanship, and his ability as an agriculturist. Under him is an accountant, with an inspector over each of the farms, from one to four under the administrator’s charge. There are from one to three veterinary surgeons at each depot, and one forage-master for each farm. The grooms are hired civilians, and the remainder of the employees are old soldiers. The stables on these remount farms are mere closed sheds, in which the horses are never tied up, but are allowed free access at all times to the paddocks adjoining their stables. They are neither marked in any way except by a numbered ticket, nor shod and receive only ten minutes’ grooming a day. . . . The training of the remounts at the remount depots receives the greatest attention. The greatest care is taken from the very beginning not to spoil their dispositions and to gradually accustom them to military duties. The first few weeks they are merely ridden around among the old horses to make them feel at home in their new surroundings and to accustom them to having the weight of a rider on their back. They are then gradually taught to allow their teachers to handle them on all parts of their bodies, and the greatest patience is exercised to give them confidence in their riders. Later on much attention is paid to jumping, and the remounts are taught first to go over the obstacle led alongside an old horse, and afterwards by themselves.58
This remount system supplied the cavalry in peacetime. In order to prepare for war, the German government conducted a census of all horses in the country every 10 years. They identified horses for cavalry, artillery, and draft service in the event of war. Upon mobilization, the government levied the German states for a designated number of horses of the various types. The government then purchased them at a set fee. By the end of the nineteenth century, upon mobilization, Germany could mount a cavalry force of over 100,000 trained cavalrymen and horses.
In the nineteenth century, France focused on redeveloping its horse breeds devastated by the Napoleonic wars. By 1870, the system was still not able to provide sufficient quality mounts fo
r the large cavalry force, and France was forced to meet some of its 15,000 annual remount requirement through foreign purchases. The French bought large numbers of horses in the United States but found them to be unsatisfactory. France’s most successful imports were a smaller lighter horse from its North African colonies, and first represented by the mounts of the French Chasseurs d’Afrique—French light cavalry recruited in the French North African colonies of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. Thus, the French cavalry were mounted on smaller horses than many of the other European forces. The French cavalry horse had a strong Barb influence, and the average light cavalry horse was 14.2 hands tall. The horses were purchased at three and half years old and then trained at one of the remount depots, St. Cyr, the Paris War School, or Saumur, for a year before being released to the regiments at four and a half years old.59 The French were not very successful developing a domestic breed to meet the needs of the heavy cavalry.
Horse Equipment
Throughout the nineteenth century, cavalry horse equipment did not change significantly. The double bridle was the standard military bridle. Saddles were refined to better accommodate the changing equipment of the troopers, the comfort of horse and rider, and last, to reduce weight.