take up formations which interfere with the highest development of its fire, or which offer favorable targets to the hostile infantry and artillery. This is especially the case where infantry is in the act of beginning an assault, when the slightest hesitation may jeopardize success. If cavalry actually begins to charge at this moment, only the bodies immediately threatened halt at the signal "attention,"[1] and face the cavalry; the remainder continue the march.
The sudden appearance of a line of charging cavalry produces such a tremendous psychological effect on troops not immediately threatened, that they either watch the attack passively, or else too many of them take a hand in repulsing it. This moment, in which the attention of the troops is so completely riveted on the cavalry, is seldom utilized for the purpose of gaining ground to the front, or for effecting a withdrawal.[2] It needs but little imagination to picture to one's self the success which the French army could have gained at Waterloo if infantry masses had followed on the heels of Ney's cavalry squadrons. In the battle of Vionville the German infantry fired at the most incredible angles at the charging French Guard cavalry. While Bredow's Brigade was making its charge during the same battle, part of the infantry of the 6th Division stopped firing on the French skirmishers, to follow with intense interest the cavalry charge that was taking place on a totally different part of the battlefield. This conduct, as
- ↑ The German army is the only one that employs an appropriate signal for this purpose. The attack made by the 28th Infantry Brigade against the wood of Bor at Königgrätz is very instructive in this connection. Hönig, Taktik der Zukunft, p. 56. At the signal, "cavalry," the threatened portions of the brigade halted and formed square. Fortunately the Saxons had already begun to retire from the edge of the wood. A stray hostile troop (Eskadron) had caused all the trouble.
- ↑ "Every leader should carefully watch the progress of a cavalry charge, and, as soon as he observes that friendly cavalry has succeeded in penetrating the hostile line or that the enemy is shaken and directs all of his fire against the charging cavalry, he should immediately advance to the attack and be upon the enemy with the bayonet before the latter recovers his senses. Such an attack will not have been made in vain, even if the cavalry has been repulsed." General Gurko's comments on the maneuvers of 1893. Prince Frederick Charles, in his Winke für die Offiziere der unter Meinen Befehlen ins Feld rückenden Truppen (1870), also demands that the infantry should quickly follow up cavalry attacks.
