494 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[period v. 



South German troops, amounted to 369 .squadronn, (jr 

 about 56,000 men. 



The organisation was different from that in the 

 French army. The German infantry divisions had (.'adi 

 a regiment of cavalry attached, while the remaind»!r of 

 the cavalry were organised in divisions and distril)utcd 

 through the different armies. There was no corpn 

 d'armee of cavalry as in 1866, the division organisation 

 being found to be the most convenient. Each of these 

 cavalry divisions, which consisted usually of two l)rigades 

 of two regiments each, had one battery of horse artillery 

 attached. 



From the very outset of the war of 1870 the supe- 

 riority of the Germans in organisation and military 

 capacity was plainly shown. The wars of the Great 

 Napoleon, followed by the successes in the Crimea, and 

 more particularly in 1859 at Magenta and Solferino, 

 had led the French to believe that they were invincible, 

 and caused them to rest upon their laurels without 

 taking the proper care to keep up with the improve- 

 ments in the military art. The experiences of the Civil 

 War in America had taught no lesson to the French, 

 they considering, as the armies there were not originally 

 formed of professional soldiers, that the teachings of the 

 campaigns could be of no value. 



They seemed to forget that four years of continual 

 fighting in the field with varying success would produce 

 professional soldiers of the highest type, men whose 

 practical knowledge of the business of war would be 

 greater than if their whole lives had been devoted to 

 peace training. The French, therefore, had gained no 

 advantage from the example of the system of working 

 cavalry that had been in use in America ; and conse- 

 quently from the very first their outpost service proved 

 an utter failure, and their horsemen, though brave and 

 gallant soldiers, were so badly handled, and their 

 employment so little understood, that they were use- 

 lessly sacrificed at Woerth and Sedan to no purpose. 



Nothing stands out in greater relief in the account 

 of the war of 1870 than the shameful inefficiency of the 



