METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER, KEPT AT THE OBSERVATORY OF CAPT. W. H. SMYTH, AT BEDford. Winds at 3 P.M. N.W. light breeze, overcast. S.S.W. light breeze, cloudy. TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. SOME additional documents connected with the Naval operations of the Burmese War, shall be given in our next. We shall see to the subject of " D. E.'s" communications. Our several Correspondents on the Trisection of an Angle generally, and upon Major Mitchell's solution in particular, shall receive due attention, as our space admits. "G. B." under consideration-deferred to our next. "Miles" ditto. Many thanks to "Nauticus." We shall avail ourselves of "Sephai's" obliging communication, and would thank him for any others of a similar character. We regret that we cannot give Mr. T— any specific information on the subject of "The Flying Proa." We are sincerely obliged to "A Subscriber" for his hint, which corresponds with our own views. Such an arrangement, as he suggests, is already in train, and, though attended with difficulty, shall be carried into effect. "Sigma," always acceptable, too late for our present Number, destined for our next. We shall notice the Memoir of Sebastian Cabot in an early Number. Many notices of Books, Letters, &c. unavoidably postponed. We cannot undertake to return letters or short papers, if not found suitable, Copies should be kept, if desirable, by the writers. TACTICS. NO. II. COMBAT OF CAVALRY AGAINST INFANTRY. "Der sehr langsame Eingang, welchen Newton's Lehre in den Köpfen seiner Zeit faud, kann uns zum Maastabe dienen, wie viel Zeit eforderlish sey, dem Meuschen irgend eine Idee begrieflish zu machen."— Welt und Zeit, vol. iii. "The time that elapsed before Newton's theory met with belief, serves to show how long it takes to impress any idea on the minds of men." INSTRUCTIVE, as it always is, to trace the power and growth of human opinion, it becomes a matter of amusing, as well as profitable speculation, and one that throws no small light on the character of men, to follow those of its branches that are so constantly found deviating from the firm basis of truth, and resting their luxuriant and far-spreading boughs, long after time or circumstance had removed whatever legitimate support they might originally have possessed, on the mere imagination of one class of our species, and on that impatience of labour in the search of truth, for which by far the greater portion of the rest are so laudably distinguished. As every department of knowledge has at times been forced to struggle against the strength of antiquated opinion, that, like ivy, not only hides, but seems to hallow even the mouldering ruin round which its protecting arms are spread, it was not to be expected, that the science of war, the most complicated of all sciences, and giving, from its very nature, the greatest opening to the sway of mere belief, should have escaped its retarding influence; and entire volumes might, no doubt, be filled with the effects produced by a mistaken adherence to long-cherished errors. Even our own age has seen dynasties established and empires overthrown by the event of battles, gained in consequence of the successful resistance made against the cavalry by squares of modern infantry, after opinion had extended to those feeble formations the protection of her mystic shield, whose Gorgon power was destined to arrest, in mid career, the steeds of the brave, and to paralyse the uplifted arms of the strong. The cause of this ruling opinion must be sought for less in the results of cavalry and infantry actions, which, if duly considered, might perhaps have led to a different belief, than in the tendency of distant fighting, which has, of late, become so prevalent: a timid method of war, fostered not only by such particles of doubt, fear, and indecision, as may be found to harbour in the minds of commanders, but by every element of weakness, mixed up in the formation of the strange compound called human nature; to all of which the feebleness of modern tactics gives ample scope, without ever encouraging or calling into action any of our better and more energetic qualities. The closing scene of the last war seemed to set the seal on the universally-received opinion, that infantry, when in a state of preparation, could easily resist the onset of the cavalry, even upon level ground. In the first part of the present essay, I attacked, without reserve, this erroneous belief: but as it was impossible, within the narrow limits of one article, to discuss at length the various subjects it necessarily re U. S. JOURN. No. 40. MARCH 1832. U ferred to, the present paper shall be dedicated exclusively to the consideration of this most important point of tactics. I return to it the more willingly, as the opposite opinion has been ably advocated in this Journal by a writer who signs himself " Vindex," and who, bating a few hussar caracolles to be noticed hereafter, argues the point more closely than any of his predecessors. These, indeed, have pretty generally had it all their own way; for Bismark alone of the moderns, sides with me in this matter, but having said that cavalry can succeed, if determined, he immediately edges away from his own assertion, as if afraid of having gone too far. Let us now see, therefore, whether events, or the strength of our present infantry, bear out this opinion of modern tacticians, or whether it must rest solely on the weakness of the cavalry, occasioned, perhaps, by the unchivalrous spirit of the age, constantly striving to conceal its augmenting cowardice under the pedantic affectation of achieving by some mighty intellectual combination, what it dares not attempt by well-directed courage and energy. The military writers of antiquity, invaluable in the general study of the art of war, give us no aid in estimating the relative strength of infantry and cavalry; for the ancient infantry were strong, owing to their admirable system of tactics, training, and organization, whereas the cavalry were comparatively weak. The Greeks and Romans only skirmished on horseback, or, at the most, pursued a defeated enemy. Their bad horsemanship, together with their wide and open formations, put every thing like "the living tempest" of a charge at speed entirely out of the question. But, weak as this sort of cavalry necessarily was, it must still be recollected, and the fact is important, that they contributed, in an eminent degree, to the victories of Alexander and Hannibal, the two greatest commanders of antiquity. Cannæ and Arbela were decided by the skilful use made of the cavalry, and proved how much they could effect, even in that feeble state of infancy, when directed by genius and talent. Though cavalry formed, in general, the strength of the armies of the middle ages, yet as the genius of chivalry tended more to acts of individual prowess and exertion than to combined efforts, from which striking results could alone be expected, and as the feebleness of the ill-armed infantry allowed few, except the formidable bow-men of England, to show themselves on open ground, little or nothing is left us to glean from that dark period. The introduction of fire-arms, that by degrees brought infantry back to the field, diminished even the efficiency that the cavalry derived from the energy of knightly spirit and enterprise, for they not only took to the use of pistols and the arquebuse, instead of the sword, their only arm of strength, but gradually covered themselves with such heavy armour, that a dray-horse alone could carry the weight of a man at arms completely accoutred. Thus mounted, the cuirassier was just able to sport his clumsy and unwieldy figure, as if for show, up and down the ranks of war, to exchange a few miserable pistolet-shots, or, at most, to run a course with lance in rest over a few hundred yards of perfectly level ground. De la Noue, in his Discours Politiques et Militaires, says, that, at thirty-five years of age, a man was already completely lamed by the effect of armour: and James the First justly and wittily observed, that armour not only protected the wearer, but also prevented him from injuring any one else. From cavalry thus equipped, the infantry had, of course, nothing to dread: and as to the argoulets, or light cavalry of the period, they were, in fact, only mounted arquebusiers, intended solely for distant fighting, and consequently just as little to be feared as their weightier comrades. Gustavus Adolphus, whose lofty genius was something above being cramped by the tactical opinions of his time, was the first to raise the cavalry from the low state of degradation into which they had thus been allowed to fall. He diminished the weight of their armour, taught them to charge sword in hand, and allowed the front rank only to give a single fire with their pistols during the onset. Great as these improvements were, it is still evident, from his having lamed the action of his cavalry by intermixing them, in the manner of the ancients, with parties of infantry, that Gustavus had not perceived the full force of cavalry but though this discovery was reserved for another King of Sweden, Gustavus had evidently prepared the way, for we find in the army that he had originally organized, and in which his gallant spirit long survived his fall, the first appearance of a charge in line, " attaque en muraille," as the Théatre Européen calls it, made by the cavalry against a body of infantry in a perfect state of preparation. This was at the battle of Jankowitz, fought in 1645, where a Major-Gen. Douglas, at the head of three squadrons of Swedish cavalry, overthrew, by a sword-in-hand onset, a large body of imperial infantry, that had resisted every previous effort, and behind which the imperial cavalry had constantly found shelter. I venture, from his name, to claim the gallant leader of this charge as a countryman, and hope that in time of need, the example so bravely set will not lack imitators. The many and eventful wars of Louis the Fourteenth did nothing for the cavalry-its real action was not congenial to the men of so pompous a period; but whilst the once brilliant sun of that spoiled child of greatness was setting amidst clouds and darkness, a young and heroic king was astonishing the world by the splendour of his exploits in the north. Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, whom it is now so much the fashion to decry, for the simple reason, that we love to ridicule and undervalue the qualities we can neither equal nor appreciate, and whose only fault consisted, perhaps, in carrying virtues to extremes, was forced to defend himself against the united powers of Russia, Denmark, Saxony, and Poland, and to make up, by individual exertion, and by the skill and courage of his soldiers, for the dreadful odds so unjustly arrayed against him. What men could do was done, and when the "unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain" fell, at last, Fortune, never more despicable than by her award on this occasion, amply shared with his innumerable foes the honour of his overthrow. The discovery and application of the power of cavalry, seemed naturally reserved for a man of such character, placed in such a situation, and to Charles is due the honour of having effected it to its fullest extent. He deprived the cavalry of all defensive armour, forbade all firing, except in skirmishing, and led them, sword in hand, fearlessly and successfully against every accessible enemy. From such assailants, redoubts and entrenchments alone could protect the infantry; and at the very time when the French regiment of Alsace was effecting its celebrated retreat, after the battle of Oudenarde, when vainly pursued over ten miles of level country by the whole of the allied cavalry, the Swedish dragoons were cutting down the entire infantry of the Saxon army, formed in squares, at the battle of Frauenstadt; "D'autres" Gens, "d'autres soins." * But the career of Charles was too transient, his success too ephemeral, and ascribed more to his personal qualities than to the admirable system of war that seemed naturally to spring from such a character, to admit of its making much impression on military men, who, as Marshal Saxe observes, 66 are of all men the most tenacious of existing follies and averse to change." We consequently find, from Berenhorst, that on the accession of Frederick the Second, the Prussian cavalry, though well powdered and booted, mounted on fat sleek horses, and trained, like the infantry, to fire by divisions, subdivisions, and grand divisions, were yet totally unable to ride-a circumstance that rather told against them at the battle of Mölewitz, where they were overthrown by the Austrians, who, owing to the lessons they occasionally got from their Turkish neighbours, were somewhat more proficient in cavalry-tactics. So glaring an evil could not escape the penetration of Frederick, who had besides made the campaigns of Charles, of whose fame he even deigned to be a little jealous, his particular study. He consequently set about remodelling his horsemen immediately after the first Silesian campaign, and having excellent materials to work upon, and being above all aided by Seidlitz, the incomparable, as Berenhorst calls him, he soon succeeded in forming those admirable corps of cavalry, that actually saved the Prussian monarchy, and whose actions may yet be quoted as unsurpassed examples of cavalry excellence. It is needless to say, that in imitation of Charles the Twelfth, he prohibited all firing, except in skirmishing, and ordered the cavalry never to await an attack, but constantly to meet the enemy at full speed and sword in hand. It remained for Napoleon Buonaparte, the military genius, par excellence, of the intellectual school, who, for the benefit of artillerypractice, I suppose, continued infantry formations much deeper than those the ancients or the heroes of the middle ages had ever known, again to introduce into the cavalry those feeble modes of combat that had for more than a century been held up to scorn and derision. The 7th regiment of French dragoons, overthrown at Sahagun by the Marquis of Anglesea, at the head of the 15th hussars, awaited the onset de pied ferme, thus forfeiting all the advantages to be derived from the impetus of their horses. The squadron of chasseurs, defeated and captured by Capt. White's troop in front of Castello Branco, received the charge of the 13th pistol in hand: and shame to tell, a regiment of cuirassiers, ay, heavy armed, drew up in order to receive at the halt the charge of a party of Brunswick hussars, who, having just defeated a body of French light cavalry, rushed, without first reforming their order, right down upon these new enemies, and gave in truth no bad account of them, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the attack was made. I have before quoted instances of this sort of conduct on the part of Napoleon's cavalry, and might, were it necessary, show up even cuirassiers receiving at the halt and with carabine pre • See Observations sur Charles XII. |