British Cavalry.

Map of the Battle of Modern River

The real irony for the British cavalry in South Africa was that it could have provided a real theatre of war for the demonstration of a well-trained mounted force. The great expanses of open terrain were ideally suited to wide sweeping raids in which the Boer could have been fought on his own terms from the very start. Not only this, but also the Boer battlefield tactics of digging themselves in and awaiting a frontal assault could have led to their undoing.  Here was the chance to use the British cavalry to full effect. A mobile mounted force, together with a light and modern horse artillery could not only have turned the Boers out of every position they occupied but also, given enough strength, could have surrounded them completely and cut them off from any retreat to yet another defensive position.

No British cavalry commander in his right mind could have seriously considered a frontal charge against prepared positions, especially when they had witnessed the damage inflicted upon their own infantry. But it does seem that the nostalgic idea of massed cavalry going in full-out with the cold steel was never far from the minds of many generals who still nostalgically reflected back to the Charge of the Light Brigade, and Von Bredow’s Death Ride.

The only real attempt at a “classic” cavalry charge came at Elandslaagte on 21^st October 1899. Here the Boer’s were attempting a drive on Ladysmith and the British managed to force them out of their position by the skilful use, for once, of the dismounted Imperial Light Horse together with three battalions of regular British infantry. However the Boers were heavily outnumbered, and upon retiring the Dragoon Guards and the 10^th Lancers struck them in the flank as darkness was setting in. They made three charges sabreing and skewering at will, but the troopers found that the fight had lost some of its exhilaration. One of them wrote, ‘We went along sticking our lances through men-it is a terrible thing, but we have to do it…’ and a Dragoon corporal reported, ‘We just gave them a good dig as they lay.’[1]

There were cavalry commanders who had taken the trouble to train their men for dismounted action, and these were to prove of real value. The intervention of Lord Airlie with the 12^th Lancers and a small detachment of mounted infantry on the flank at Magersfontein (11^th December 1899) where a powerful turning movement by the Boer’s threatened to turn the disaster which had already overtaken the Highland Brigade, and would also have captured three British field batteries which had been in close support. Here Airlie was able to hold off a much superior enemy force because he had dismounted his men and posted them in excellent positions. When the Coldstream Guards finally arrived to take over, Airlie re-mounted his troopers and moved to another covering position.[2]

Lord Roberts of Kandahar

Lt Col Earl Airlie

With the arrival of the new Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts, “Bobs”, the British cavalry at last began to be used with some effect, and he recognised the need for a complete re-thinking in cavalry tactics, ‘I think we might have done better on more than one occasion if our Cavalry had been judiciously handled…Our Mounted Infantry has much improved of late, and I intend to see whether their employment in large bodies will bring about more satisfactory results’.[3] That Roberts was a voice in the wilderness as far as the general feelings of most cavalry officers were concerned, is shown by the remarks of Major (later Field Marshal) Douglas Haig, who being present on General French’s staff during the Boer War, considered that it was necessary to keep the cavalry in its old form because the “charge” was the ultimate aim of their training.[4] Haig was still mooting these same sentiments even when he became Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in 1915.

 

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