CO-OPERATION BETWEEN GUNS AND CAVALRY. 211 
There are indeed, as I have said, only two phases of this many sided 
usefulness that I propose to speak of this evening, one when cavalry 
and Horse Artillery are called upon to throw their weight suddenly 
into the scale at some crisis in a pitched battle, and the other when a 
cavalry brigade or division for the time being independent engages a 
similar hostile body in a decisive combat. 
The latter is the kind of fight that will perhaps most fascinate cavalry 
soldiers, and there is certainly more room init for the display of those 
peculiar qualities with which a leader of Horse should be endowed, but 
the opportunities afforded on the battlefield itself, come, perhaps, more 
frequently, and it is in them that cavalry and guns may show themselves 
especially useful. We will all willingly do homage to the chivalrous 
impatience which urges a fiery Hotspur against his natural foe irres- 
pective of surrounding circumstances, but we will esteem him more, if 
he intervenes only when the interests of the rest of the army call out 
his skill or courage (applause). 
So vastly important indeed does this co-operation of cavalry and guns 
on the battlefield seem to me to be that I desire to give it the first 
place in discussion this evening. 
The actual tactics to be adopted depend so greatly on the conditions 
of the moment, on the proximity or otherwise of infantry, on the state 
of the hostile troops to be assailed, that I need not dwell just now 
upon them, but will only say that the distinguishing characteristic of the 
two arms is to be utilized as far as may be, and that the flanks and 
communications of the enemy should be sought when possible. 
Of modern instances of such co-operation there are not many; the 
cavalry and artillery work in 1866 was not quite satisfactory, and 
in 1870 the French squadrons were admittedly mismanaged. There 
was a great cavalry combat certainly on the 16th of August, 1870, 
at Ville Sur Yron to the north-west of Mars-la-Tour, but before it 
took place the German Horse Artillery had been absorbed in the 
general fight, and no guns supported Barby’s charges. There is also 
a very good example of what Horse Artillery and cavalry can do in 
modern war, even on the battlefield itself, to be found in the story of 
the battle of Loigny-Poupry in December of the same year, but J 
have dealt with that in previous lectures, and I don’t want to repeat 
myself to-night. Andso, gentlemen, I will ask you to come back with 
me all the way to 1811. 
Some may despise my example as a shred of ancient history, but I 
believe it is the spirit rather than the letter which we should dwell upon 
with reference to the particular part of the subject in our immediate 
view, and that the old wars may still be studied with advantage. 
The special characteristics of cavalry and the mode of their appli- 
cation have not altered at all since the stirring times when the century 
was young, and guns must co-operate in the future and utilize their 
mobility just as they did in the past. I say further that, if you want 
to read of Horse Artillery and cavalry at their very best, you must refer 
to what those arms did in that wonderful campaign of 1814 in France, 
when Napoleon showed the world what genius may accomplish against 
