OUR CAVALRY CHARGES

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 29 June 1917, Page 1

OUR CAVALRY CHARGES

One- of the most interesting and extrairdinary features in all the lighting east >f IJapaume has been the work of our javalry squadrons in reconnaissance and ittack, says Mr Philip Gibbs in the Loniou • Chronicle.' " I confess that, after two and a-half roars of trench warfare 1 was utterly sceptical of the value of mounted troops, in. spite of the little stunt (as they willed it) south of High Wood after we took the liazentins and .Longucyal in July of last year, when the Royal Dragoons and Deccau Horse rode out and brought back prisoners. Conditions have sinco then by a great transformation scene owing to the enemy's abandonment of their old fortress positions on the bonuno under our frightful onslaught of gunfire. The country iiito whicli wu have now gone is beyond tlie great wide belt of shell craters which made the bauiehelds of the ibomme a wild quagmire ot deep pits and ponds. The roads between the ruined villages are wonderfully smooth and good , where they have not been mined, and the i fields are as Nature and French husbandry ■ left them after last year's harvest. There has been no great sensational episode, no • attack of lance against lance in. d-ense masses, no cutting up of rearguards nor \. slashing into a routed army, but there has been a; great deal of good scouting work during the past three weeks. Eight villages have been taken by our mounted , troops, and they have captured a number , of prisoners and machine guns.

SILENT PATKOLS. " They .have liked their hunting. I have seen the Indian cavalry riding across the fields with their lances high, and. it was a great sight and as strange-as an Ara- ' biauJSlights' tale in this land of Eranco to see those streams of brown, bearded , men, as handsome as fairy book princes, with the wind blowing their khaki tur- , bans. Night after night our cavalry have . gone out in patrols, the leader ahead and t alone, two men following, behind, them a

eiuuti. "jvimj ivuupiug in i,uiicu. xuey riae silently, like shadows, with no clatter cf stirrup •or chink of bit. They find the gaps m the enemy's wire, creep close to their infantry outposts, ride-very, deftly into the charred ruins of abandoned villages, and come back with their news of the enemy's whereabouts. When the cavalry charged at Equancourt a- body of British infantry, who had come on to the ground six hours earlier than they need nave done, in order (as they said)"not to miss the show, cheered them on with the. wildest enthusiasm. '"' Look at those beggars," shouted one man as the cavalry swept past. " That's the way to take aJ village. No blighted bombs for them, and hell for leather all the way !" It was a difficult operation this taking of Equancourt, and was earned out in the best cavalry style according to the old traditions. •• THE CLUMSY UHLANS."

•• One strange revelation is the comparative harmlessness of machine-gun fire against a cavalry target. By the time they have fired, their first shots the horsemen have swept on, and the machine gunners either lose their nerve or. their mark, w Den our cavalry came out of iioiscl they were under observation from kite balloons and under fire from "machine and held guns., but, riding very hard, they came through with only one or two casualties. All our cavalrymen have a poor opinion of the German Uhlans. The latter are heavy and slow and avoid encounters, appearing only on the skyline a <l:stanee away, slhiKing into ruins at nignt. and riding back at the first sight of British troops. They seem to have no confidence in the lance as a weapon, and clasp it like a red-hot poker if they come to close quarters with any of our men, using pistols before they get away. In one village our troopers'picked up' 20 lances and brought them back as trophies."