The hunt across the English
countryside, the preservation of the fox as a sacred animal, the race
meeting, the stimulation of betting in all classes of the public; all
these things depend ultimately upon the proposition that the "breed
of horses" is of vital importance to the military strength of Great
Britain. But if the arguments of these able French soldiers are sound,
the cult of the horse ceases to be of any more value to England than the
elegant activities of the Toxophilite Society. Moreover, there has
been a colossal buying of horses for the British army, a tremendous
organisation for the purchase and supply of fodder, then employment
of tens of thousands of men as grooms, minders and the like, who would
otherwise have been in the munition factories or the trenches.
To what possible use can cavalry be put? Can it be used in attack?
Not against trenches; that is better done by infantrymen following up
gunfire. Can it be used against broken infantry in the open? Not if the
enemy has one or two machine guns covering their retreat. Against expose
infantry the swooping aeroplane with a machine gun is far more deadly
and more difficult to hit. Behind it your infantry can follow to receive
surrenders; in most circumstances they can come up on cycles if it is
a case of getting up quickly across a wide space.
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