The Military Scat. 99 



services to put on their horses at least a third — in many 

 cases even more than that proportion — of the animal's 

 own weight. Strange to say, we must go to the man- 

 uals of the artillery and pioneers for the weight of the 

 cavalry soldier. An Austrian authority, Baron Smola, 

 calls the average weight of the horse 740 to 864 Eng- 

 lish pounds ; and it has always been laid down as a rule 

 b}' the best cavalry officers of that service that 200 Aus- 

 trian or 246 English pounds = 17 stone 8 lb., is the max- 

 imum load admissible. This would be exactly one-third 

 of the weight of the lighter horse, and about two-sevenths 

 that of the heavier one ; so that, in fact, if this rule were 

 adhered to, it would make light cavalry heavier (for 

 the horse) than heavy cavalry. But we suspect that 

 both one and the other have transgressed this limit at 

 various times. Very recently, indeed, the Austrian 

 light cavalry has thrown away sabretaches, echabraques, 

 cruppers, pistol-holsters, and no end of other useless 

 lumber, to the great ease of the horses' backs; and the 

 cuirassiers have been all converted into dragoons. Tak- 

 ing 246 lb. as the total weight, and deducting 66 kilog., 

 or 1 45 J lb., for the average man, there would remain 

 for arms, saddle, kit, etc., 100 lb., which ought to 

 suffice. 



The French "Aide Memoire " gives us 992^ English 

 pounds for the weight of the horse, and 1296^ for the 

 trooper complete ; consequently, the burden is 304^ lb., 

 or less than one-third : and deducting from this, as 

 before, 145J lb. for the man, there remains 158I lb. of 

 dead weight. It is no doubt this, and something con- 

 nected with the seat, which is very far back., the stir- 

 rups being very far forward., that we must look to for 

 an explanation of the sore-back disasters of 1859. -^^ 

 may appear absurd to accuse the French cavalry of rid- 

 ing with a " hunting seat," but in truth theirs is an 

 exaggeration of a bad one. 



