LAST OF THE LANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 10

LAST OF THE LANCE

FOR CEREMONIAL ONLY It has been decided, states an Army order, to abolish the lance as a weapon of war. It will be retained by Lancer regiments for ceremonial purposes only, and training in the use of this weapon will be discontinued. Much as the new order will be anathematised by the four surviving British Lancer regiments, it has been expected for some time. During the Great War only one British soldier was wounded by a lance, and that was the present Com-mander-in-Chief at Aldershot, General Sir David Campbell. In September, 1914, as colonel in the 9th Lancers, Sir David, with less than a troop and a half of his own regiment, charged and dispersed an entire squadron of the Ist Guards Dragoners, and received the only wound inflicted by a German lance. It was the effect of the cavalry charges of the French troops at Waterloo that led to the introduction of the weapon in the British Army. After the South African War it fell into desuetude for a time, but later it was regarded as on a par with the sword in cavalry arms. Those w-ho favoured it contended that the success in the first shock ol contact was all important, and that the power of giving the first blow gave confidence to the young and untried soldier. The British bamboo lance was 9ft in length.