【英文文学】Our Cavalry.docx
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1、【英文文学】Our CavalryCHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY “We study the past to foresee the future.”In these bustling days of headline-up-to-date newspapers, one shrinks from reminding ones readers that Xenophon gave excellent advice to cavalry trainers and leadersadvice which a cavalryman will recognize is quite as
2、applicable to-day as it was in those distant ages; since details with regard to grooming horses on hard stones, exercising cavalry in rough ground, and so on are by no means out of date. There is every reason to believe that Alexander, and later Rome and Carthage at their zenith as military nations,
3、 had proportionately as highly-trained cavalry as is possessed by any nation of to-day. Those who have fought in rearguards and running fights realize that the Parthian method of fighting must have required the highest training and moral. The cavalry of the predominant nations were drawn from those
4、who kept horses for their own sport and amusement, and for the gratification of their pride, and who felt they were better fighting men on a horse. The descendants of the horse-lovers2 of those ages are with us to-day; they are those who love danger, excitement, and pace, and who find in the blood-h
5、orse an animal which shares their love for these, and will generously sacrifice its life or limbs in the co-partnership.Those who have never felt the sensation of a really good horse bounding and stretching away under them, and the consequent elation, the wonder as to “what could stop us?” cannot gr
6、asp what a cavalry soldiers feelings are in the “Charge.”Following the centuries which saw the final success of the ordered phalanx of Rome, time after time the more savage races of horsemenAttila with his Hunnish squadrons or Abdur-Rahman with Moslem hordesdrive all before them, anticipating the fl
7、ight of peace-loving, easy-going farmers and traders, living on the country and carrying off what pleases them.Then held swayThe good old rule . the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.Ages roll by, the picture changes. The days of Norman chivalry anim
8、ate and fire the imagination. The hunter warriors, knights, and squires lead their troops in battle array, throwing them into the combat at the decisive moment.Broken bones incurred whilst unhorsing a friend, or a shrewd spear-thrust when cleaving to the chine a foe, in single combat, were adventure
9、s by no means to be declined or avoided.Chivalry or enthusiastic religious zeal qualify the3 rougher side of their devotion to arms and horsemanship.In all ages the horse-lovers, the best-mounted nations, have carried all before them. Ceteris paribus this is true to-day. Then came the days of “villa
10、inous saltpetre,” and many began to doubt and to number the days of cavalry; and always after a time there rises the cavalry leader who, emerging from the dangers of a youth spent in war and sport, sees that pace, weight, moral, and the “propos” make up for all the odds, if only leaders, men, and ho
11、rses are trained, and their weight and pace rightly applied.Next in order come Gustavus Adolphus; Cromwell, our great cavalry leader, and his Ironsides riding knee to knee, and rallying immediately after the shock; Frederick the Great, and his captains, Ziethen and Seydlitz, and their ordered applic
12、ation of masses of cavalry. Then grand old Blücher,1 and his antagonists of the Napoleonic era, Murat, Lasalle, Curly.Certain fixed principles keep cropping up which appear to have guided these heroes in their movements and dispositions. They are:4 A. Cohesion in the ranks, or knee-to-knee ridi
13、ng. B. The moral effect of advancing horsemen. C. The flank march. D. The “propos” charge ridden well home. E. Surprise. F. The immediate rally. G. The necessity of a reserve. H. Training of the individual man and horse. I. Care of the horses condition.The more we are able to read and learn of their
14、 views of training, leading, and applying the shock of cavalry, the more we see how little which is new can be written on the subject.The same view may be taken of the fire action of cavalry. The best cavalry leaders have always recognized its great value, where not put forward as an alternative to
15、the “propos” charge, and when not substituted by the “weakening” leader for the dangerous but more decisive shock actionthat action in which we must have “no half measures, no irresolution.”2 But the very fact that they may themselves have at some time weakened to the extent of shooting at the enemy
16、 from afar, instead of resolutely going in at the unknown, must have made these leaders recognize that the “charge” must be kept in the front as our ideal.Those who cannot understand the predilection of the most advanced and thoughtful cavalry soldiers for larme blanche should ponder on the success
17、of the Zulu dynasty. Its founder insisted that his men should be armed only with the stabbing assegai and would not allow them to throw their assegais. He knew what shock tactics meant and the moral inspired by their successful adoption.5 A study of history shows the advocacy of ballistics from the
18、horse at a charging enemy to have been periodic during the last 2000 years in peace time, and also that failure has invariably followed its adoption in war. It is not now seriously considered by any nation.Whatever the cost, whatever the method, he who tries first to “handle” his enemy is the one wi
19、th whom “moral,” that incalculable factor, will rest. Hear what a great trainer of cavalry, writing probably over fifty years ago, said:3 It cannot be too often repeated that the main thing is to carry out the mission at any price. If possible this should be done mounted and with the arme blanche, b
20、ut should that not be feasible, then we must dismount and force a road with the carbine. I am convinced that cavalry would not be up to the requirements of to-day if they were not able under certain circumstances to fight on foot, nor would it be worth the sacrifice that it costs the state.But if th
21、e croakers were alarmed at a sputtering rifle fire, what will the faint-hearted of our time say to the new and alarming factor which has now been introduced. Batteries of horse artillery, firing up to sixty or more low trajectory shells per minute, must now be reckoned with. These shells contain 236
22、 bullets, weighing 41 to the pound.If the de Blochs and other theorists paused and wondered what would happen to cavalry when magazine rifles were invented, what will be their attitude now? Let them be reassured. But the6 words of those who reassure them must ring true and be purified from the dross
23、 of the first thought, “How can we do this and save our own skins?” Let them be born of the stern resolve, “At all costs we will kill, capture, or put to flight our enemies.” We must evolve tactics which will enable us to use every new factor and to deny them to the foe.4Leave them to judge whether
24、the plan of those tactics will be dashed off by the pen of the ready-writer as a result of experiences gained during a Whitsun-week holiday on some suburban training ground, or whether the soldier who has felt the sharp stress of an enemys victory, the heavy hand of adversity and the rough lessons o
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