"Why Cavalry Reconnaissance Failed in August 1914" Topic

"All armies entered the war with large bodies of cavalry. In 1914, reconnaissance was exclusively the realm of the horsemen, although cavalry had additional missions related to being a mobile strike force. In the opening campaigns, all sides made extensive use of cavalry as forward reconnaissance elements and flank security and counter-reconnaissance forces. In Belgium and France, the Germans weighed the largest portion of their horse soldiers to the large German flanking maneuver in Belgium. In spite of the employment of these units, both sides entered battle with a dearth of information about the dispositions of the opposing forces. While the German cavalry was successful in counter-reconnaissance, advancing infantry forces often found themselves suddenly opposed by unexpected Belgian or French resistance. On the other hand, defeating the German cavalry consumed the French cavalry to the extent that it was ineffective in both reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance roles…"

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Armand

Any type of reconnaissance value depends on how higher command uses the data.poor analysis means poor utilization.

Sometimes (many times) reconnaissance reports don't jibe with the preconceived opinions of the Big Yuns.

Senior command in both armies insisted on keeping strict control of forward forces yet were too far from the front (and continually shifting their positions) to get timely information from the cavalry recce. Being the pompous incompetents that some of them were, they blamed the cavalry rather than their own inadequate staff work.

Thanks

Armand

Most of those cavalrymen were conscripts, with at most a year or two with the colors. Even with long service officers, the level of practical experience in a task that generally demands a fair amount of fieldcraft cannot have been high.

Thanks also… by memory there were some big problems with the use and training of the horses too… the hight ranking officers didn't take into account how much a horse can be used untill it failed due to exhaustion…

Armand

I think we're allowing our inbred (certainly amongst anyone educated in the 1960s and subsequently) hatred of the officer class to cloud our judgment and/or interpretation of the facts here. For example, the reason that "so many" high-ranking British officers were cavalrymen (actually they weren't – it was almost exactly the same ratio as the proportion of cavalry in the Army as a whole) was because, post-Boer War, cavalry officers were taught to fight two ways – as cavalry, but also as infantry. The performance of British cavalry in 1914 was impressive in the face of overwhelming numbers of German mounted troops; with one exception, every charge carried out by them was successful – the exception being an event where unmarked barbed wire fences (erected illegally by a Belgian farmer) halted the charge and trapped the horsemen in front of German MGs.

Thanks…

Armand