CHAP. XXV.] CAVALRY UNDER NAPOLEON. 



389 



and mainly relied on by them in their skirmishes. 

 Their horses were small but swift, well-bred, and capable 

 of enduring great fatigue and protracted marches on the 

 most scanty supply of food. The horses being able to 

 walk very rapidly (according to Sir Eobert Wilson as 

 much as five miles an hour) enabled them to make forced 

 marches with ^reat facility, while 'their speed, when 

 pushed to the ul ost, was equal to that of the swiftest 

 chargers in Europe. The pistols were carried in the 

 girdle, and not upon the horse. The Cossack used no spurs, 

 but carried a short whip on the wrist, and from perfect 

 confidence in his horse, in his skill in riding, and in the 

 use of his weapons, he never feared to face any foe in 

 single combat.* 



They did not at the commencement of the war attack 

 in regular squadrons, as did the other cavalry, but in 

 the usual method of the horsemen of the East, in a 

 swarm or loose charge, when each man selecting his own 

 opponent, they all swooped down together with loud 

 cries upon their foe. Afterwards, as the war went on, 

 they acquired more discipline, and learned to charge boldly 

 against the best regular cavalry in the French armies, as 

 well as against infantry formed in serried squares. 



Many important battles were fought by the Russian 

 troops under the Emperor Alexander against the armiea 

 of Napoleon, and in most of them the Russian cavalry > 

 did their duty well. At the battle of Aust'^rlitz, while 

 a desperate struggle was going on in the centre of the 

 hostile lines, between the Russian infantry reserves under 

 the Grand Duke Constantine, and a French division 

 under Vandamme, 2,000 Russian cuirassiers of the 

 Guard, led by the Grand Duke in person, fell suddenly 

 upon the flank of the French infantry. The charge 

 was made in the finest order, and with irresistible fury. 

 In an instant the French column was broken, a large 

 portion of it trampled under foot, and an eagle captured. 

 Napoleon was an eye-witness of this splendid charge, 

 and immediately launched against the hostile horsemen 

 the cavalry of his guard under Bessi^res and Rapp. 



' Alison, ii. 465 ; Wilson, 27, 28. 



