Apart from the Welsh Horse, and fourteen (reduced to six in 1917) reserve cavalry regiments formed in the UK solely to provided drafts of men and horses, the British raised no new cavalry regiments during the war, although the Household Cavalry (the Life Guards and the Royal Horse Guards) were expanded to produce three composite mounted regiments. All regular cavalry regiments remained horsed throughout the war, with the Yeomanry being used as a source of reinforcement. As time went on much of the Yeomanry was converted to infantry, and there was a constant drain of regular cavalry officers transferring to other arms. The cavalry were doing their bit, but the constant waiting for a break-through that never came, and dismounted duty in the trenches, did not always appeal to the cavalry spirit. Some cavalry officers transferred to the infantry, many to the Royal Flying Corps, the Tank Corps and the Machine Gun Corps.
The care of the army’s horses and mules was the responsibility of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, which expanded from 508 all ranks in 1914 to 1,668 officers and 41,755 other ranks in 1918. Even this gave but one veterinary surgeon to 354 horses – never mind the mules, dogs and carrier pigeons – which would be perfectly reasonable in private practice but gave the veterinary officer little time for relaxation in war.6
The cavalry’s great moment, when 12,000 horsemen would erupt through the German defence lines and sweep out into open country and beyond, never came. The depth of the successive lines of defence, the all-pervading wire and the slowness of communications prevented that. There were occasions, however, when the cavalry, in its mounted role, was able to achieve results, albeit on a smaller scale than had been hoped. Phase Two of the Somme offensive began on 14 July 1916 with a night attack by the British, which advanced nearly two miles and captured the German-held villages of Longueval and Bazentin. More importantly, it also captured the valley south of the Longueval–Bazentin road, a valley which was in ‘dead ground’ – that is, out of sight – from the next objective held by the Germans, the Bois de Fourcaux, known to the British as High Wood. Up into the valley at the trot came the Secunderabad Cavalry Brigade, part of the 2nd Indian Cavalry Division. By early evening it was apparent that German resistance was slackening, and the cavalry were ordered forward to support the infantry. Emerging from a defile the 20th Deccan Horse and the 7th Dragoon Guards galloped through the open cornfields between High Wood and Delville Wood.7 Speed and surprise worked: those Germans in the open who did not surrender were speared by the troopers’ lances. While the horsemen could not penetrate High Wood itself – the trees were too close together and the edges were heavily wired – they did remove the German outpost line, rendering good service to the infantry. The brigade was withdrawn during the night, having taken remarkably few casualties.
Phase Three of the same offensive was launched on 15 September 1916, the day that also saw the first use of tanks in war. On 26 September a Royal Flying Corps aircraft reported that the Germans in the village of Gueudecourt, which had been attacked several times with no success, seemed to be pulling out. Now was a chance to seize the village before the Germans had time to reorganise themselves further back. Time was of the essence, and a squadron of Fane’s Horse, of the Sialkot Brigade in the 1st Indian Cavalry Division, was sent forward. The track leading to the village was being shelled by German artillery, so the squadron spread out and galloped full tilt for the village. Despite the ground being badly pitted with shell holes no horses came down, and on the outskirts the squadron met a few disorientated Germans who were swiftly despatched. Dismounting, the cavalry soldiers took up all-round defence in the village, and held it against German counter-attacks until relieved by the infantry. It was a classic microcosm of what mounted infantry – which is what the cavalry were, in fact if not in name – could do.
On 20 November 1917 the British launched an attack at Cambrai, using 300 tanks and nineteen divisions of infantry on a six-mile front. The cavalry were standing by to exploit the breakthrough when it came, and they did capture Marcoing on the afternoon of the first day. If the cavalry could get beyond the immediate battle area all would be well; the difficulty was in getting through the wire, negotiating the shell holes and getting over the trenches. Measures had been put in train to create a ‘cavalry track’ clear of obstacles, to allow the cavalry to get forward quickly. The attack was a major success, but petered out after two to three miles when there was no more reserve infantry to exploit the initial penetration. The cavalry were later blamed for not seizing the opportunity to advance when it came, but the real reasons were a lack of communications in an age before battlefield radio, and caution on the part of higher commanders who were reluctant to commit the cavalry until they were absolutely sure that the breakthrough had been achieved. American observers thought that the cavalry had been unfairly criticised. In a report written for American eyes just after the battle, Captain J. P. Hogan, adjutant of the 11th US Engineer Regiment, said:
It seems…that the British had given up the idea of a general advance and that the initial successes exceeded their expectations. The orders to the Cavalry called for them to seize and hold, on the first day, the bridgeheads over the canal at Marcoing and Masnières. They actually did more than this, but there was a universal disposition on the part of British officers to criticise their operations and to claim that they had failed to take advantage of their opportunities.8
By 30 November the cavalry had been withdrawn to billets twenty miles from the front, when the Ambala Cavalry Brigade, of the 8th Hussars (British), 8th Hodson’s Horse and the Tiwana Lancers were ordered forward for dismounted duty in the trenches. They turned their horses out and handed in their swords and lances. On 1 December 1917 the Germans launched a surprise counter-attack, regaining nearly all the ground that had been taken in November, including the villages of Gouzeaucourt and Villers-Guislain, and also Gauche Wood, a copse between the two villages. The Ambala Cavalry Brigade was ordered to concentrate at Épéhy, two miles south of the captured villages. Horses were hastily brought in, rubbed down and saddled up, and as the regiments rode out of billets at the trot, quartermasters handed out lances and swords. The brigade reached Épéhy by 1100 hours, and at 1300 hours was ordered to attack Gauche Wood. Between Gauche Wood and Gouzeaucourt was a railway line, running north–south to the west of the wood, and a sunken track a further 200 yards west. The 8th Hussars led, and as they debouched from the Gouzeaucourt road they came under fire from the wood. One squadron got into the sunken track; the remainder could make no progress. Hodson’s Horse was now ordered forward in support and told to make contact with the Guards Division (which had by now recaptured Gouzeaucourt) and to attack the wood. The regiment found a gap in the wire along the Gouzeaucourt road and trotted through. C Squadron (Punjabi Mussalmans), in the lead, spotted German infantry moving from Gauche Wood towards the sunken track. If the Germans could occupy the sunken track then Gouzeaucourt would be untenable. The squadron broke into a gallop. The squadron commander, one Indian officer and four sowars were killed, but the rest got into the sunken track just before the Germans did, dismounted and began to form a firing line on the lip of the bank.9 The next squadron through the gap, D (Pathans), took severe casualties among its lead troop from German artillery, but the survivors formed diamond formation (known as ‘artillery formation’) and galloped for the sunken track, followed by A and B Squadrons and regimental headquarters. At about 1830 hours the Tiwana Lancers arrived and the sunken track was now held by men of the 8th Hussars, Hodson’s Horse and the Lancers. They now joined with the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards in Gouzeaucourt. A telephone line to brigade headquarters had been laid and orders came for an attack on Gauche Wood at 0700 hours the next morning, 2 December 1917. The Grenadiers would be on the left, the Tiwana Lancers on the right. Hodson’s Horse and the Hussars would provide fire from the sunken track, and the attack would be supported by fourteen tanks from H Battalion, 2nd Tank Brigade, and two batteries of Royal Horse Artillery.
By 0700 hours there was no sign of any tanks.
The Grenadiers wanted to go anyway, the Tiwana Lancers advised caution. The Grenadiers launched their own attack, which was made with great gallantry but had no chance, being driven back in confusion and with the loss of so many officers that the battalion had to borrow some from the Tiwana Lancers.10
At around 0730 hours clouds of smoke, a clanking and a rumbling announced the arrival of the tanks, which promptly opened fire on Hodson’s Horse, killing three so wars and nearly killing the commanding officer when he ran out to remonstrate. It was not the tank crews’ fault – visibility from tanks of 1917 was difficult, and navigation more so. After a hurried conference of commanding officers, the attack was launched. The Tiwana Lancers led, charging from the sunken track, the Grenadiers followed up and the artillery fired them in. The tanks did little, having difficulty in getting over the railway embankment, but their firepower was useful and the wood was taken; the Lancers and Grenadiers captured twelve German machine guns, a howitzer battery and a large number of prisoners. Despite the confusion about the tanks and the initial abortive solo effort by the Guards, it was a fine example of an all-arms battle in which the cavalry had used the speed of their horses to take the sunken track before the Germans could. All-arms cooperation had worked, and the skirmish was a timely reminder that mounted cavalry was not yet an anachronism on the battlefield, provided its capabilities and limitations were clearly understood.
While the mixed force of cavalry, artillery, infantry and tanks was dealing with Gauche Wood, another cavalry action took place against the village of Villers-Guislain to the east of the wood. Here the Germans had occupied the village and the Lucknow Cavalry Brigade was ordered to retake it. Zero hour was 0600 hours and the assault was to be supported by six tanks, which did turn up, but in the wrong place. The attack went ahead anyway, with Jacob’s Horse and the Jodhpur Lancers assaulting dismounted on either side of the road running north to the village. About 460 men of the two regiments pressed forward, but a German machine-gun nest in an abandoned sugar-beet factory opened up and they fell back. The corps commander, who had now arrived, ordered mounted action, in the hope that speed might compensate for lack of firepower to suppress the German machine guns. The 6th Inniskilling Dragoon Guards formed up for mounted action and the horses clattered down the road. They too were quickly stopped. Then, on the right flank, an opportunity appeared. A valley sloped gently down to the first German infantry trenches, which were not a continuous line but a series of outposts, surrounded by wire, that the Germans had taken up in the area of Kildare Trench, an old British trench abandoned when the counter-attack had come in. Four hundred officers and men of Gardner’s Horse swept down the grassy slope, not yet cut up by shelling. One officer said the going was better than in the average point-to-point. The Germans opened fire but the horses were now in full gallop down the hill and few bullets found a mark.
The German infantry must have assumed that their hastily thrown-out barbed wire would protect them, for wire is a terrible obstacle to horses. A horse either cannot see wire at all, and runs straight into it, or sees it at the last minute, tries to cat-leap it and lands on it. Either way injuries can be horrific, and a galloping horse is stopped dead in its tracks. Horses can, of course, see the posts and pickets upon which barbed wire is affixed, but a horse – a fairly stupid animal but not entirely devoid of common sense – will not jump a single post: rather, he will attempt to go round it, once again ending up entangled in the wire. Indian cavalrymen, regular volunteers all, had given some thought to the problem of getting horses over wire obstacles, and had trained one or two horses in each troop to jump a single post. As the horse is a herd animal and one will follow where another leads, enough were able to get over the wire to begin spearing the German infantry, who rapidly abandoned their positions pursued by whooping Sikhs.
Having chased the Germans out of their positions in Kildare Trench, the cavalry dismounted and prepared to hold what they had gained. Horse-holders took the horses into as sheltered a position as they could find. Communication with brigade headquarters was established by sending a volunteer – Lance Daffadar (corporal) Gobind Singh – back up the valley on a fast horse. For most of the day Gobind Singh travelled back and forth, reporting the situation to the brigade commander and returning with instructions to the regiment. Three horses were killed under him and he was himself wounded, but he insisted in continuing as the regiment’s postman. He was later awarded the Victoria Cross. Once again speed, and the ability of British cavalry to act as mounted infantry when required, had achieved results, even if they were minor in the context of the war as a whole.
The initial successes of Cambrai were greeted with jubilation in England: all had appeared to go well and a considerable advance had been made. The German counter-attack came as a rude shock and attracted much criticism in Parliament and in the press. Inevitably, the government wanted answers: why had not more been achieved by the British attack, and why had the Germans been able to counter-attack with such seeming ease? The truth would appear to be that having achieved a decisive victory the British were content to rest on their laurels, and the army commander failed to realise how exposed the newly won salient was to determined counter-attack.
In February 1918 the British Cavalry Corps was reduced to three cavalry divisions by the removal of the two Indian divisions to Palestine. There the war had become more fluid and was now one of movement, in which cavalry could act both as mounted infantry and as shock troops. Yeoman cavalry were moved from the Middle East to be converted into machine-gun units on the Western Front, and replaced by regular Indian cavalry. The British army now had a much smaller proportion of cavalry in the BEF than the French or Germans did in their armies, a recognition that the need for this arm was reducing. The remaining cavalry, however, continued to do good work.
In the spring of 1918 the Germans, alarmed by their losses against the British at Passchendaele the previous year, and aware that a potentially huge American army was being built up in France, decided on a Napoleonic gamble. All their assets and all their energies would be directed into one last throw, an offensive designed to split the French and British armies and finally achieve victory in the west. The blow fell on 21 March. The Allies retreated, but while the elastic band of khaki and horizon blue grew dangerously extended, it did not break. With the war now moving away from fixed lines of entrenchments, albeit in the wrong direction for the Allies, there was once more a role for mounted cavalry.
The Germans captured Noyon, and Compiègne was under threat. On 29 March Montdidier fell and the German advance continued towards Beauvais. The German thrust line then swung right between Montdidier and Breteuil and pressed on towards Amiens. If continued this would take the German army through Abbeville to the coast, thus pushing the British north against the Channel and cutting them off from the French. The British 2nd Cavalry Division had spent most of the winter dismounted in the trenches. It had been a desperately cold winter and a combination of German U-boats and a poor harvest had necessitated the reduction of the cavalry ration to nine pounds of hard feed a day: enough to keep a hack, or even a light hunter, but insufficient to keep a cavalry horse fully fit in cold weather. Nevertheless, the threat to Amiens was such that the division was rushed forward, horses still munching from their nosebags as they marched. On 30 March the Germans occupied the woods to the north of the village of Moreuil, and the French withdrew from the village. This was serious, as Moreuil was only just south of the junction between the British and the French. If the Germans were allowed to concentrate here, then not only might the integrity of the Allied line be at risk, but the north–south railway could not be used by the Allies and Amiens itself would be under threat from a thrust down the main road from Moreuil. Once again immediate action was called for: men had to be moved swiftly to the threatened area in order to act before the Germans could consolidate and while they were still vulnerable. The 3rd British Cavalry Brigade (4th Hussars, 5th Lancers and 16th Lancers) and the Canadian Cavalry Brigade (L
ord Strathcona’s Horse, Royal Canadian Dragoons and Fort Garry Horse) were ordered to clear the Germans out of the woods and to secure the British line as far as Moreuil.
Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain and the Great War (Cassel Military) Page 17