Similarly for
pursuit the use of wire and use of the machine gun have abolished the
possibility of a pouring cavalry charge. The swooping aeroplane does
everything that cavalry can do in the way of disorganising the enemy,
and far more than it can do in the way of silencing machine guns. It can
capture guns in retreat much more easily by bombing traction engines
and coming down low and shooting horses and men. An ideal modern
pursuit would be an advance of guns, automobiles full of infantry, motor
cyclists and cyclists, behind a high screen of observation aeroplanes
and a low screen of bombing and fighting aeroplanes. Cavalry _might_
advance across fields and so forth, but only as a very accessory part of
the general advance....
And what else is there for the cavalry to do?
It may be argued that horses can go over country that is impossible for
automobiles. That is to ignore altogether what has been done in this war
by such devices as caterpillar wheels. So far from cavalry being able to
negotiate country where machines would stick and fail, mechanism can now
ride over places where any horse would flounder.
I submit these considerations to the horse-lover. They are not my
original observations; they have been put to me and they have convinced
me. Except perhaps as a parent of transport mules I see no further part
henceforth for the horse to play in war.
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