Tommy (60 page)

What happened around High Wood is that the cavalry failed to exploit a window of opportunity that opened at dawn and slammed shut before dusk. Once again poor communications are largely to blame. While General Rawlinson was not necessarily wrong to put the cavalry under XIII Corps for the start of the battle, he was unlucky that the gap appeared on the front of XV Corps. It was not until around 6.00 pm that the Secunderabad Brigade was assigned to XV Corps, and this tells us more about the nature of Rawlinson's chain of command than it does about the strengths or weaknesses of the cavalry. Ironically, on 14 July 1916 the cavalry would have done better had it shown more dash rather than less. Had the cavalry brigade or divisional commanders shown more initiative they might have short-circuited this very slow chain of command and slipped in before the window of opporutunity had shut. But the real problem that day was not the cavalry
per se.
it was the perennial difficulty confronting an attacker on the Western Front. There were times when an attacker might strike such a heavy opening blow as to damage his opponent's central nervous system, which in great measure is what the Germans achieved on 5th Army's front on 21 March 1918. But it was usually easier for the defender, pushed back onto his own communications, to recognise where he was losing the battle and to take prompt action to cauterise failure than it was for the attacker, his own communications stretched tight over the hard edge of the battlefield, to reinforce his success.
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Although the tactical circumstances of Cambrai the following year were very different, the blame for failure to exploit initial success was once again laid at the cavalry's door. The forward headquarters of the Cavalry Corps was just five miles behind the front when the attack began, and its commander, Lieutenant General Sir Charles Kavanagh, was in touch by telephone with his own divisions and with III and IV Corps, whose infantry and tanks were to make the attack. Although Kavanagh is often written off as a chump, Walter Nicholson, who had attended his briefing for an earlier attack, found him ‘a fine fighting man with every intention of taking his corps to victory', and thought his divisional commanders were ‘as good as one could wish'. He had spoken slowly and clearly, and referred to his BGGS (‘Sally' Home) for confirmation when required, although Nicholson, an infantryman, thought that Kavanagh had added too much detail about horses.
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Kavanagh's orders for Cambrai stated that: ‘The order for the forward movement of the cavalry divisions from their forward concentration areas will be issued by Cavalry Corps. The order will be issued as soon as it appears that the situation is favourable and that there is the possibility of a cavalry advance.'

But early on 20 November, when the battle began, his 1st Cavalry Division was sensibly put under the command of IV Corps, through which it would move to exploit. Less sensibly there was no direct link between corps and division, so Kavanagh's headquarters had to relay messages both ways. However, despite some confusion in the transmission of orders, 1st Cavalry Division reached Ribécourt just before midday, perhaps an hour and a half after the infantry had secured it: no mean achievement. But there were further delays in orders and information as the short November afternoon slid by, and only a single squadron of the 4th Dragoon Guards managed to capitalise on German disorganisation, launching a successful charge which captured a transport column and about fifty infantrymen.

Kavanagh's other attacking formation, 5th Cavalry Division, was ordered forward by corps headquarters just before midday, and thanks to preparation by the cavalry of an approach track, it covered ten miles in an hour and a half to reach the outskirts of Marcoing. Elements of 7th Dragoon Guards crossed the canal and passed back word that the bridges there were intact, but no further action was taken that day. Further west, a tank crashed through a damaged bridge at Masnières, and it took some time to strengthen a nearby bridge to get cavalry across. Not long before 4.00 pm the Fort Garry Horse began to cross. Lieutenant Harcus Strachan, of B Squadron, recalled how:

The squadron had to negotiate a long camouflage screen running along the main road on the far side of the canal, by cutting a gap through which the men filed, to form up on the far side. Moving up the ridge east of Masnières, Strachan's men found themselves facing a battery of four 77-mm guns.

After a series of incidents behind the German lines Strachan's survivors (following ‘a conference of all ranks') stampeded its surviving horses to confuse the Germans and withdrew on foot. It reached British lines with three officers, forty-three other ranks and eighteen German prisoners. Strachan was awarded a Victoria Cross to add to the MC he already held. There is no doubt that the performance of the cavalry that day was disappointing. But its failure stemmed from precisely the same factor which had prevailed on 14 July 1916: the chain of command's slow response to a fluid situation. As long as that situation remained fluid, the cavalry was able to act very effectively indeed. The Canadian Cavalry Brigade captured 400 men and nearly 100 machine guns that day, running a well-aimed point through the myth that there could be no cavalry charge until the last machine gun was taken. Farrier Sergeant Bert Turp would certainly have agreed, for he took part in a successful charge in mid-1918: it is worth noting the emphasis on concealment until the last moment.

Actions like this confirm that cavalry charges could indeed succeed. On 25 September 1916, D Squadron 19th Lancers, acting as divisional cavalry, was told that the Somme village of Gueudecourt had been abandoned by the Germans. Captain FitzGerald, the squadron leader, was ordered ‘to seize the high ground some 600 yards east of the village and establish a strongpoint there'. He trotted round behind Flers, crossed two trenches full of British infantry, picked up a troop of South Irish Horse (part of the corps cavalry regiment), met an infantry brigadier, who could tell him little, and cracked on at speed. He was in Gueudecourt before the Germans could react, and although heavy fire prevented his getting beyond it, he held the village until the infantry came up to relieve him. He lost three men killed and seven wounded. This time the chain of command, and the time elapsed from opportunity to exploitation, were both very short.

They were short, too, at Honnechy on 9 October 1918, when British and Canadian cavalry drove in the German rearguard after a brief conference in which the commander of 3rd Cavalry Division agreed with his brigadiers that the advance would peter out unless some life was injected into it. It was certainly no push-over, as Sergeant D. Brunton observed: ‘As each squadron rode forward it was met by heavy high-explosive shell and machine-gun fire, and to make matters worse a number of enemy aeroplanes appeared and, flying low, followed the advancing cavalrymen with machine-gun bullets and bombs.'
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During the action the 3rd Dragoon Guards galloped into Honnechy in squadron columns in extended order, under fire the whole way. Confronted by a brook ‘with a bad take-off' the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Rome, an Australian, jumped it ‘in good old-fashioned style'. Not a horse refused the obstacle, and as the cavalry passed through the tired infantry, men ‘rose with a cheer and followed in support'. The capture of Honnechy enabled the Canadians to push on into nearby Reumont, and by the day's end they had captured 400 Germans, several guns and almost 100 machine guns.

The official historian, while noting that the Cavalry Corps had captured over 500 prisoners, ten guns and about 150 machine guns on 8–10 October for the loss of 604 all ranks, sourly commented that it ‘had done nothing that the infantry, with artillery support and cyclists, could not have done itself at less cost'. This was certainly not the view of Walter Nicholson, senior administrative staff officer in XIII Corps, attacking in that very sector. ‘Here in this open country, with a beaten enemy, unprotected by wire or entrenchment, we failed to make a knock out,' he wrote.

Just beforehand, near Montbrehain, Burgon Bickersteth, on the staff of a cavalry brigade, saw:

Bickersteth inspired a successful defence and was awarded the MC. ‘I feel that all the men (and especially Corporal Harding) who worked with me deserve a decoration more than I do,' he admitted.
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The episode tells us much, not least about the need for a clear controlling voice at moments of crisis with a battle teetering in the balance.

The secret, in 1918 as it had been in 1854, was tempering dash with judgement. On 8 October 1918 there were three mounted charges – the Marquess of Anglesey describes them as ‘wonderfully gallant' – by the 19th Hussars and a troop of the 20th. It was clear that Lieutenant Colonel George Franks, commanding officer of the 19th, who had been responsible for a successful
coup de main
which had forced the Germans off a bridge over the Somme in March that year, had a point to prove. ‘I am the man to drop the flag and off we go to
Death or Glory,'
he told his sergeants. ‘If this is successful it will be a bigger thing than the Palestine affair.'
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Although the 19th Hussars got as far as a German battery and killed several of its gunners with the sword, they could not hold their ground when a counterattack jabbed in. Sergeant Brunton, in France since 1914, and lucky to survive the day, wrote in his diary that ‘the true cavalry spirit still lives', but admitted that it was ‘altogether a bad day's work for the regiment'. Colonel Franks was amongst the 111 killed, and his body was buried by torchlight in the civilian cemetery at Brancourt le Grand that night. His officers erected a fine stone cross above it, and its inscription contained perhaps a hint of reproof: ‘He fell while charging some German machine guns.'
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